Ice queen top of the crop

OUR Lady of Fatima School’s ice skating queen, 14-year-old Simonn Erwee, has been selected to represent South Africa at the 2013 International Skating Union Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating, The Baltic Cup, in Gdansk, Poland in September.

More than 30 countries will participate in this competition.

Only one man and one woman skater from South Africa have been invited to participate. For Simonn, and the school, this is a huge accomplishment, as Simonn skates in the U19 and under section.

Simonn was also selected for the same competition last year in Austria. She was the only skater from South African who got invited. She came 29th out of 32 skaters, as all the skaters had Olympic scores.

She has been training to do better this year, because the Russians, Americans, Canadians and Japanese are exceptionally good in this competition.

Simonn has also been selected for the 2013 North Rhine-Westphalia Trophy in Dortmund, Germany in December and recently won a gold medal in the Junior Ladies (U19) section for the KZN Figure Skating Championships.

Starting her skating career at the age of seven, after watching skating on TV, Simonn has put a lot of time and hard work into becoming the best of the skating crop.

“I’ve always liked dancing, this is just another element to it. For me it’s a very elegant sport. It’s a lot of hard work, but at the same time it’s very rewarding,” Simonn said.

Practising six days a week, and also doing ballet once a week, Simonn hopes to become just as great as her favourite skater, Yun Kin, currently ranked best in the world.

Under the wing of her coaches, Heather Ashley and Dean Fox, she hopes to one day skate in the Olympics.

And just how does this sparkling ice skater gear up ahead of a winning performance you may ask?

“I set my mind to the task at hand. I concentrate on my routine and think only of positive things,” she said.