The Kids Are All Right

This time, they wouldn't allow it to escape their grasp.
Even if a flash fall seconds from the end of their free dance might have given and Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier a bit of a pause for concern.
No worries, as it turned out. The kids were all right and soon enough, they'll dance among the stars at the world figure skating championships in Los Angeles.
"It’s something really exciting," said Poirier after he and Crone secured the silver medals in the senior ice dance event Saturday night at the 2009 BMO Canadian figure skating championships. "We’ve really been hoping for this for a long time since we started skating. Especially this year, since we knew it was within our grasp. That’s really what motivated us this whole season and kept us going at practices. To finally get here, it’s great."
The 2007 national junior champions nearly made it happen a year ago. In their first year as seniors, they came within less than a point of making a world team that consisted of three Canadian teams. Now they've climbed two more steps in just a year.
Though the call was so close in Vancouver last year, Crone said the heartbreak didn't last long. They knew their time would come.
"Last year was our first year as seniors so going into the competition, we set a goal for top five," said Crone, 18, of Aurora, Ont. "We were just expecting to do clean skates and get ourselves known and out there. But that (result) was kind of a shock for us. We knew that we trained hard enough and we trained to get there and one day we would.
"It was just amazing we did that in our first year of senior."
A silver medal finish at HomeSense Skate Canada earlier this season signalled this was a team that didn't intend to wait long for its day. And with a comfortable 6.37-point edge over Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje heading into the free dance, their moment seemed at hand.
But when Poirier tumbled to the ice near the finish of their free skate, a collective gasp rumbled through the crowd at Saskatoon's Credit Union Centre. Had the kids let it slip away?
Not quite. Though Crone and Poirier finished fourth in the free dance, they'd done enough throughout the week to hold their spot with a 175.58-point overall total, 5.35 points better than Weaver and Poje.
"That never crossed our minds," Crone said about possibly letting their world team spot escape their grasp. "We knew what we did and we knew we’d kind of suffer for that and (the judges) had an easy place to put us lower. We were just happy with the way we skated and the exposure and experience we’ve had here has been amazing. It’s been a lot of fun and a great experience for us."
There are plenty more to come. They're thrilled to join Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, the reigning world silver medallists, in Los Angeles.
"They're huge role models for us," said Crone. "We’re definitely going to be looking up to them. We’ll be doing our own things but just to be on the world team is amazing."