Santer leads the Australians in Four Continents
Olympic Winter Institute of Australia & Oz Skater Magazine
16th February 2005

Santer leads the Australians in Four Continents Despite a very heavy fall on his hardest element in the Short Program, national champion Brad Santer leads the Australian men at the Four Continents Championship in Gangneung, Republic of Korea.

In a strong field of 25 of the world’s top skaters from USA, Canada, Japan and China, Santer finished the first leg in 13th place after the short program, the fall costing him at least one, if not two, places.

Australian silver medallist Sean Carlow is in 15th place in his second Four Continents event, with Stuart Beckingham in 17th place.

The Four Continents is just the second championship event to be officially run under the new ISU judging system, developed and put in place after the Salt Lake 2002 judging scandal.

Chinese skater Chengjiang Li leads the 24-man competition on 72.10 points from Ben Ferreira of Canada on 68.86 points. Santer sits on 41.44 points with Carlow on 39.05 and Beckingham on 36.14.

Santer is confident he can move up in the free skating on Friday night, to achieve a best ever result at this event, after finishing in 13th place in 2004.

”I had an awful fall on the opening jump - the flip combination. I missed my toe on the take off and fell out of the jump in mid-air, not the most enjoyable - or elegant, for that matter - way to fall.”

“Apart from that, I skated a clean program - but it was a little scratchy because I felt a bit shaken from that initial fall. I'm extremely mad at myself for missing my favourite and most consistent element.”

After the compulsory dance section of the Ice Dancing competition, Natalie Buck and Trent Nelson-Bond are in 14th place on 23.52 points, three ahead of Australian team-mates Danika Bourne and Alexander Pavlov on 20.63 points. Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto of the United States lead the competition on 44 points.

The ladies event gets underway on Thursday 17th, with Miriam Manzano, Joanne Carter and Sarah-Yvonne Prytula representing Australia.