Canada's young figure skaters with an eye on the 2018 Olympics learned on Thursday that the competition, even at the junior level, is formidable.
Liam Firus of North Vancouver skated cleanly in the men's short program at the world junior figure skating championships in Minsk, Belarus, but placed seventh.
His problem? He'll have to master more difficult content. The top three finishers after the short program – American Joshua Farris, Han Yan of China and Denis Ten of Kazakhstan – all landed triple Axels in their short programs. Less than two points separate the top three.
Firus did a double Axel, and one of the easiest triple-triple combinations, that included two triple toe loop jumps.
Canada's other entry, Nam Nguyen, of Burnaby, B.C. who is only 13 and only just eligible for this event this year, finished 18th after singling his triple Axel and under rotating the second part of a triple flip – triple toe loop combination.
Ngugyen is 24 points behind the leader while Firus, who is six years older than Nguyen, is 13 back of the American.
Keiji Tanaka, of Japan, the junior world silver medalist from last year, landed a triple Axel, but did only a double-double combination and used the wrong entry into his triple Lutz. It cost him. He's only 11th of 30 skaters.
Jason Brown, the Junior Grand Prix Final champion from the United States, does not do a triple Axel yet, and even though his earned some big bonus marks on his other elements, he finished fourth.
Other points of interest:
Zhan Bush, of Russia, who finished fifth in the short program is trained by 1994 Olympic champion Alexei Urmanov.
Artur Dmitriev, of Russia, in eighth place, is the son of two-time Olympic pair champion Artur Dmitriev and rhythmic gymnastics champion Tatiana Druchina.
He is coached by Elena Buianova, who was known as Elena Vodorezova when she won a bronze medal at the 1983 world championships, becoming the first Soviet female to win a world medal.
Buianova also coaches Adelina Sotnikova, the reigning junior world champion, who is also the current senior champion in Russia.
The mens' final free skate is on Saturday in Minsk.