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April 17, 2004

COLONIAL OPEN COMPETITION (in Boxborough)

by EMac0914

I wanted to tell everyone about my experience of seeing Katia, Daria and Liza at Daria's competition:

My daughter skated at the Colonial Open competition in Boxborough, Massachusetts today. After we registered, she went to put her skates on in one of the locker rooms and I went to check on her skating times. When I went into the corridor, almost walked right into Katia. She was there with Daria, who was skating in the Pre-Juvenile Girls, Group 2 freeskate. Liza with her along with Galina Z., another couple with a young boy about 8-9 years old and an older woman who may have been her mother. Ilia was not with them but I'm not sure if he's even here--is he skating somewhere currently?

Needless to say, I did a huge double-take to think I almost walked into her. She really is very petite like everyone says. She was wearing a long black sweater coat, black top and jeans, carrying a burgundy hobo-bag style pocketbook. I love her current hair cut, which is kind of a layered cut in lengths between her ears and shoulder. Liza was very cute, she's very tiny and looks so much like Ilia, especially across the eyes. She was dressed in a cute ivory sweater, Fair Isle type pattern with pinks and greens, pink pants and sneakers that kept lighting up when she walked. Daria is as natural and pretty as she looks in her pictures, with a great smile, very pretty blonde hair. She was wearing grey knit track pants with white stripes down the side over her skating dress and a black knit jacket that had "Skater" in a flowy script in stones on the back. She was pretty reserved but did talk to one other skater who she seemed to know. Galina is a very handsome woman, very dignified. The whole group was speaking in Russian so it was easier to see who belonged to their group.

I saw them quite a bit during a 3 hour period because they arrived not very long after we did. My daughter was just coming off practice ice when we saw Daria. She wanted me to go up and talk to them but I told her that we needed to respect her privacy, that she was just another skating parent with her daughter and family. My daughter did want to go up to Daria and wish her luck, which I let her do--it's a little easier to have fellow skaters talk. She walked up and when Daria finished talking to the skater she seemed to know, my daughter wished her good luck and Daria smiled at her and said thank you. My daughter was nervous so she came right back to me after that but she thought the whole thing was pretty cool. She had wanted me to get Katia to sign her autograph on a program but I really did want to respect her privacy.

We didn't get to see them for about 45 minutes because my daughter skated in 2 events but after she was through, we went to the area where the scores were being posted and we got to watch them quite a bit. I had hoped to see Daria skate on some practice ice, which she may have done while my daughter was competing.

I didn't get to see Daria compete because we had to leave to be somewhere else but I did get to see her warm up. She has very impressive double jumps. I watched her to a double toe, double loop, and double lutz and they were very high in the air and tightly rotated. Not doubt of Ilia's influence on her skating. Her spins were nice, too but she still needs more speed and control but she's only Pre-Juvenile/Juvenile level. She definitely has GREAT presence on the ice and really knows how to sell her skating. The artistry is definitely there. I so wished that I could have seen her program but was just happy to have seen them and her warmup.

Daria was wearing a medium blue knit dress with beige lace trim with sequins on it. I didn't get to see the entire dress because she didn't take her jacket off during the warmup. Her hair was very cute--French braided and the loose ends were looped up into the braids to they weren't loose.

The whole scene during the warmup was so typically skating competition that it made me feel good that Katia and her family were being left alone. Many people may not have realized it was her, though. She very much kept to herself, which made me glad that I didn't bother her. During Daria's warmup, Galina stood by the door and Daria kept skating over to her in between things that Galina must have been telling her. In the meantime, Katia was standing at the far end of the bleachers from me, away from most people, trying to videotape Daria, while Liza kept climbing up and down the stands. Katia must have been concerned about her climbing because she finally gave up and went to sit at the top where she wouldn't stand out with Liza. I can still see Liza's sneakers lighting up as she kept climbing in the stands. They just seemed like another family with a small child with them.

For anyone interested in seeing Daria's results, the link to these results will be on http://www.neicc.org. They have a couple of places to be checked. Within the next week or so, they'll post the results for the Colonial Open so there will be a direct link from the main NEICC webpage (NEICC is the New England Interclub Council--an organization the semi-governs many of the clubs in New England, most clubs are members). You can also check the link Club Webpages on this website and look for Colonial Figure Skating Club. Daria was listed as Daria Grinkova, TriValley FSC so they haven't changed her home club yet. I thought it was interesting that they haven't switched to a Connecticut club, like Charter Oak--I don't think there's a club at the rink at Newington, but I may be wrong here. If the link comes up over the next couple of days, I'll let everyone know how she did.

Needless to say, I was thrilled to have seen all of them. I wondered whether we'd see them at a competition sometime but I didn't think I'd be so lucky. There's another big competition at the beginning of June that my daughter's going to be at so we'll see if we see Daria compete there. It's bigger than this one today and not too much farther away from Connecticut. There's many competitions from now until Regionals in October, including North Shore Open in June, Darien Open at the end of April, Smithfield Open in July, Charter Oak Open in end of July, Cranberry Open in August, Providence Open and Boston Open in September, so I'm sure there will be other times that Daria will skate if she's interested in competing. I'll keep everyone posted.