For the love of skating
At this year’s Ontario University Athletics Figure Skating Championship, Belvina Mao of the McMaster women’s figure skating team captured the gold medal in the Senior Silver Solo Dance event. The second-year Kinesiology student brought home one of five medals that helped the Marauders to a fourth-place finish.
First stepping on the ice when she was two years old, Mao fell in love with figure skating immediately. But as she grew older, the weight of competing while transitioning to post-secondary education became too much.
“I started training when I was six and I just fell in love with it,” said Mao. “I stopped skating in the twelfth grade just because I got so tired of it. But when I came to Mac and I saw that there was a skating team, I decided to try out and I fell back in love with the sport.”
During the season, the team typically trains for three to four days a week for two hours in preparation to compete at two different invitationals in the province, leading up to the OUA championships. Teams are awarded points based on their individual, pair and group performances, and the school with the most points overall wins the OUA Figure Skating Championship title.
This year, thanks to their 88 points, the University of Toronto Varsity Blues took home the gold. The University of Western Mustangs came in as a close second with 84 points, and the Brock University’s Badgers finished in third with 48 points.
Although the Marauders were just three points shy from a spot on the podium, OUA all-star Mao and the rest of the team were still pleased with the outcome.
“Coming in fourth place at the OUA championship is something that we were pretty proud of,” said Mao. “Overall our team is pretty strong. We have a lot of really good skaters but the other universities do as well so the competition across the province can get quite tough.”
Although there is a lot of tough competition across the province, for the Richmond, B.C. native, skating at the university level rather than the competitive level as she did back in high school is definitely worth it.
“The varsity atmosphere is very different than the high-level competitive one,” Mao said. “It’s a lot more laid back and I feel like I do it purely for fun. You’re going to go to every competition anyway, so you just skate your best every time and have fun on the team.”
Being able to have fun again is part of the reason she has been able to perform so well. Her gold medal performance not only won her conference all-star honours but also McMaster Pita Pit Athlete of the Week recognition.
“I was pretty excited when I found out I got Pita Pit Athlete of the Week for winning my solo dance event at [the] OUA [championships],” said Mao. “I was pretty confident going into it, so I was very happy with my performance and the end result.”
Being the best at her event does not come easy for Mao. If there is one thing she has realized is key to her success, it is learning to balance being a student-athlete at this level.
“As a student, we’re already super busy with a difficult academic regime, so when you add skating, you have to find the time to fit in all of the training required,” said Mao. “So my time management skills have to be there to be able to recuperate properly from it all.”
With her second year coming to a close, Mao still has a lot of time to only get better as an individual skater and as a part of the team.
“I’m hoping to get at least one triple jump back, which is something I haven't been able to do since the twelfth grade,” said Mao. “And hopefully within the next two years, McMaster will place in the OUA championships.”
Although the season may be over for Mao and the Marauders, the race to place in the OUA next season is already underway. The new season holds a lot of opportunities for the team to not only get better, but to continue to fall in love with figure skating.
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