Zagreb Europeans 2013

4:15 am my alarm went off this morning, it is hard to think at that time let alone move and everything just goes to autopilot. This wasn't even for training but because we're heading back to Florida to finish our season strong, just 4weeks until the World Championships and effectively the end of the skating year. This Worlds is in London Canada and is our Olympic Qualifying event for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games. A big ask and a good time to step up our game, 4 years ago we stood up in Los Angeles. It was there we took our lucrative Olympic spot and became the first British Pair team to do so in 16 years.

Just after I posted my last blog we had another nasty moment where Stacey split her chin open on the ice. We were a little fatigued from a busy week and at the end of our free programme, Stacey landed the throw but then slipped off her edge landing straight on her chin. We went to a walk in clinic thinking they could patch it up but the wound was too deep and ended up in the Emergency room getting 12 stitches. Remember this was a week before the European Championships where we had to get the score to go to Worlds as we had missed every other event this season through injury. So like a trooper Stacey is back on the ice later that day. 

Europeans went surprisingly well, I mean we were still getting back to full fitness but Stacey nailed all the throws and the only major mistake was the side by side triple toes in the free. We got a lot of good feedback, judges and spectators alike seemed to enjoy our programmes. Zagreb itself was very chilly, it was the week a load of airports in Europe shut down from snow and there were a few logistical issues with the skaters. All in all a good event for us though and finished 10th in Europe! Had a quick break after and now time to dig deep for Worlds.

Best wishes

A New Year

My New Years resolution is to keep up with my blogging, I realise that I lead a rather unusual lifestyle and one day would like to look back and remember how it was. If you enjoy reading it too then even better! Europeans is now 2 weeks away, and we are coming back from 2 major injuries; I had a grade 2 right ankle sprain 6 weeks ago and Stacey tore her PCL in her left knee back in October. Only this last week have we been able to properly train so not expecting any miracles in Zagreb, Croatia where the Championships will be held. But we do have a firm goal set, we had to pull out of all our international competitions this year and haven't got the qualifying score required for the World Championships. This World Championships is our Olympic qualifying event so our goal of getting the required score is a very important stepping stone to our Olympic story. This season at our National Championships even with heavy injuries we managed to take our 10th British title. It's a privilege to skate for a living but it is an honour to train as British Champions.

I know its my resolution to write more blogs and have struggled in the past for free time living in Florida but will do my best to keep up. Our schedule and the intensity we train at here kind of eats up my time and in the evenings I have 2 huskies to look after. These days we start on the ice at 8:30 then finish in the gym 4pm with only 40 minute break for lunch. Its a tough schedule and the amount of concentration that goes in to training is intense but the coaching staff and athletes we train alongside really help motivate us to push through every day. When we had a bit of time in off season after Nice Worlds we crammed in some fun though and as much family and friends time as we could. Stacey's mother flew back with us and treated us to a trip to Discovery Cove, which I would recommend for anyone travelling

to Florida and is basically an all inclusive day at a beach resort where you swim with dolphins. And we visited Disney and met up with fellow team mate British ladies Champion Jenna, and her husband Kevin who is a Belgian skating legend. But then it was short lived and straight back into next seasons programmes. When the current season started it brought for us a change of coach who planned for us to start early preparations and get ahead of the field for this season. We competed in May in Fort Myers USA, where we would usually start competitions in September. For the first time ever this year we did 3 (also Liberty and Ellenton Classic) events before we'd even usually do one, its good because it took us out of our usual season routine and shook things up a bit. Hopefully that preparation and hard work will pay off in the upcoming weeks.

To round up then 2012 was an Impressive year for us, we had highs like skating at a European Championships in front of a home crowd in Sheffield, we won our 10th British title, watched some amazing live events at the London Olympics, and had family and friends come visit us in Florida. But also a few lows with our injuries, missing a big chunk of the season plus competitions and not qualifying for the free program at the World Championships last season in Nice. We can plan and work as hard as possible but sometimes things are out of our control, you just have to do the best with what you get dealt and I

think this year we had a good hand.
Thank you,

Nice International

It’s the eve of our first 2010/11 season assignment and we’re feeling the buzz of competing once again. We have to hit the ground running as we’ve started late this season, well it was a busy year you know! We’re ready though as ever, all we ask from ourselves is what we do in training every day and a little luck wouldn’t go a miss.

With our coaches Mariusz and Dorota Siudek

Cost of us skating is a bigger problem at the moment though as this week (and the whole of the country is getting similar news) have been hit with big cuts. It’s £28k to be precise, which puts very big doubts over our future dreams for a Sochi 2014 Olympic Medal. It’s unfortunate and more annoyingly it’s distracting but we’re trying our best just to finish this season then make bigger decisions when we can look at the full picture.
Now writing this from the plane and wondering if the 5am start was just a dream or reality. We’ve ventured on all transport today bar a boat but with all the strikes in France who knows where our journey may go next?
2pm now with a 5am start and we’re not even in France yet, well you know what they say about Polish trains. I remember once going up to a Polish training camp in the mountains and the train was literally walking pace.
The flight luckily enough is direct to Nice and we’re flying over some beautiful mountain ranges that I guess are the Alps. I’ve never been to Nice before and have heard many good things about the place, mostly about the great weather, let’s hope that it lives up to the reports.
The competition itself is a prestigious event in the International Skating Union calendar as it’s one of very few events you can achieve world ranking points. For those who don’t know much about skating, when competing skaters have to skate two programs to music with the points from each skate adding up to a total amount of points.
First skate is called the short program which is 2min 50seconds long and is classed as a technical program because you have set elements to skate. Next is the free program that’s 4min 40seconds and is often called the long.
Every element is awarded points. The harder the element the more points you get, simple. Now you know the basics come competition time you’ll understand what I say when I talk about both the programs.
Right, I’ll leave it there but got some more Coupe de Nice content coming soon!
Best wishes

Polish training

Sorry it’s taken a while to get my new blog up, we’ve had visitors the last three weeks and with training it’s been a busy time.
The weather is still holding firm with autumn leaves falling and the sun keeping winter away for a little longer. When winter hits here, it hits hard and as we train in a giant fridge anyway good warm clothes are worth their weight in gold.

Taking a stroll by the river after a long days training.

I mean driving through a foot of snow to go to a place that’s even colder at 6am is hard to get your head around. But like I said at the moment there is still sun and the last two weekends I’ve spent sunbathing on the Baltic coast.
Family or sponsors as the sporting community calls them have been out and we’ve been swapping one for the next on short turn-arounds.
Skating is steadily improving with the programmes flowing better and with movement and speed picking up this last week.
Nice in France is our first event in two weeks time (13th-17th October) and we could really do with taking a medal going in to our Grand Prix events later in the month and early November. There are some tough contenders in it and you can never tell what judges will think of your programmes first time out.
But hard work and determination always pays off and you can feel in yourself what level you are at. After Nice we travel across the pond to Kingston, Canada to compete in their Grand Prix then to Portland, USA for their Grand Prix.
After that we finally hit the UK for our Nationals late November, you’re all welcome to come and watch in the fantastic Ice Sheffield arena.
All the very best and speak soon

End of funding

Getting back to full fitness after the holiday is a giant uphill struggle. Most people probably can’t comprehend the kind of pain and exhaustion an athlete feels when they reach this point in the season.
We are just starting to attempt full programme run-throughs, which mean five minutes at 100% full throttle, no holds barred. What’s amazing is that once a week seems tough but in just a couple of weeks we’ll be up to five full programmes a week on top of our normal training schedule.
However at this point in training mental strength is just as important as physical strength, the ability to set aside the distractions of pain, lack of energy and keep full commitment, not to let up, just keep on trucking. Come that first competition, we’ll be glad we did!
We’ve completed all our choreography for both programmes now, working off-ice with Artur a hip-hop instructor who won Poland’s ‘You Think You Can Dance’ competition a few years back. It’s been a complete change from the classical and Latin American we did in the past and just refreshing to challenge a new aspect of dance.
On ice the short and long programmes get smoother the more we do them. Some of the elements are a bit scrappy at the moment but that’s normal, we can’t be perfect all the time, as much as we try! That’s the fun part anyway, taking someone else’s choreography and turning it into your programme – complete with your tricks.
So it’s pretty repetitive stuff at the moment at home in Torun, Poland. It’s the ‘practice makes perfect’ rule and we keep going over and over our programmes to gain almost an auto-pilot mode so we can get past the choreography and start pushing the speed.

This week we are filming a review of our training to send to our federation. We used to come home for screenings but expense is a major problem for us this season and we have to cut down on all cost if we’re going to reach Sochi Olympics in 2014.
Our money has dwindled since we moved out to train in the best Pairs School in Europe and British Olympic funds have sadly ended. But you can always replace money; what you can’t replace is your time and place in such a competitive sport.
Well sorry there isn’t anything more exciting to report this time but we have competitions coming up real soon and this is where the fun begins!

Shauns Stag do

We had a great month in Krynica pinpointing our weaknesses from last season and really getting some great work done. It drew to a close as fast as it started and we ended our Polish squad camp in the mountains very pleased with ourselves. A busy schedule lay ahead, straight after a long days training we set off for home around 5pm only to arrive in Torun at 3am.
Needless to say I was very tired the next day, but it had to be done because our flight left Gdansk (which is another two hour drive) at 6am. All because our flight was cancelled a month before we flew, cheers!
We booked a hotel near the airport so we could get a few hours sleep. As we entered into Gdansk we were stopped in traffic, I put my hand break on, checked my mirror and oh no. I saw a white van speed round the corner and I could tell by his speed he was going to hit me. His brakes let out a loud screech, then tried to swerve but clipped my left side and just heard a mighty crash.

I pulled up to a lay-by and got out to check the damage. Not too bad. I had to pull the bumper out of my back left tyre and a few dents but overall it was ok. The other guy’s was mashed up a lot worse than mine but he cooperated fine. I thought ‘you idiot’ as he had his wife in the front and two children in the back in car-seats, you would think he would take it a little easier. Although annoying, luckily no one was hurt and my car at least was drivable, we exchanged our details and although a little dazed headed to our destination.
The hotel ended up being quite a trek away as we had to drive for about five minutes on a dirt track to find the place. It had a very lonely look to it and was quite under the weather with nobody around for miles. After seeing too many horror movies start this way we were a little on edge but made our way up to reception as we were both falling asleep already.
When we reached the front desk we were surprised to see smiling pleasant owners who upgraded our room for free and were very friendly. I felt very bad for expecting only bad things of their pride and joy but it just goes to show you can never judge a book by its cover.
A bit stressful and sleep deprived, but at least we returned safely just needing a bit more beauty sleep. Yet there was no time for catching up as I got back to Stacey’s just in time to be picked up by Shaun (Stacey’s brother) to go for my suit fitting. Before I knew it I was on a bus to Newcastle for Shaun’s stag do, but as juicy as it was you know I can’t say anything about the trip. The first law of the stag – sorry. What I can tell you is I had a great time and survived with only a few minor paintball bruises to the side, back, chest and legs.
On the Thursday of that week we managed to fit in a full days filming for a promotional advert at Ice Sheffield. A great day out and we really look forward to seeing the results from Rogue Frame Productions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6CBEpgWcjY&feature=youtube_gdata
Then to top it all off we had a fantastic weekend at Shaun’s wedding. Congratulations to them and I wish them many years of good fortune. It was a fantastic day and great to see all the families together. It pushed me and Stacey to get a few ideas together and think about the mammoth task of organising a wedding.
Anyway we are back in Poland now and had a week’s training back at base, just to see more great results. Let’s just hope the rest of our season can continue this way.
All the very best and speak soon.

Krynica training

We’re happy to be writing to you from the very south of Poland in a mountain town called Krynica. It’s a very picturesque place with its own natural spring water, quite famous and sold throughout Poland. If you were wondering yes we did bring our little cat Amber.


Stacey with our cat Amber in Prague.

We had a few days to get here so drove from our home town Torùn, up to Prague then on to Vienna, and finished up in Zakopane. Amazing drive and stopped over in three beautiful cities, if anything I just wish we’d had a bit more time and money to see more of the places.
The weather has been stunning with it not dropping below 30 degrees but maintaining a nice breeze, which is perfect when you are running for hours. We are here training under our Polish coaches and attending their annual Polish squad camp, which includes many various activities and is set out in a very organised manor so we can just get on and work!

After a long days training.

We’ve been running up mountains, plenty of core fitness sessions, gym workouts, aqua athletics, sports specific stuff and of course lots of ice time. It really is all the little things we appreciate though, just great to get back from training and food is prepared for you and the maids have tidied your room so you can just collapse in bed.
This is week two of the camp and the third season we’ve started on ice training in this way. We start very basic and easy, then by the end of the four week camp we build to our harder elements and full programs.
It’s always hard at the start of a season as just a few weeks out can really hit fitness and stamina hard. Our sport requires a lot of explosive power and this time of the year can put major strains on most your big muscle groups so you spend ten minutes getting down a flight of stairs for breakfast every morning.
But all is well and we are very happy with our progress so far, we are very keen to achieve major leaps in our game and can only get through hard work.
Anyway, have to get warmed up for the ice but will speak to you all soon.

Thriller show

Welcome back to the latest installment of my skating blog and I’m in the lovely Welsh city of Cardiff. We’ve just finished show number one of two, for our Chiller spectacular and are really enjoying the whole experience. A little tired now but its first show down after a full week rehearsals and it went great! Shows are very different from the competitive aspect of our training it’s all a lot more crowd pleasing with elements to it we are not allowed to attempt in competitions.
Pre-season has been pretty steady, lots of running, gym work, dance sessions and absolutely no ice. Weather has been fantastic for it though! I was training with the football reserve team here too, mainly doing drills and agility but it was great fun and a shame the season here has finished. So now I’ll probably start my rock climbing again, just to keep me active. The rest of our time is taken up by the World cup, watching the beautiful game and relishing in all the excitement that comes with it.

Skating wise, we’re back on the ice at the start of July which we are really looking forward too! We have a just been selected for skate America Grand Prix which gives us an early goal and with a bit of luck could be awarded our maximum allowance with a second Grand Prix later on.
Depending on our funding throughout the season we will try and get out to some ISU internationals as well! All squad skaters have been asked to compete at Sheffield at the end of August, which is extremely early for us but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
All the very best and keep your chin up!

Season start 2010

Welcome to the very start of my 2010/11 season and after having such a blast last season I‘m really looking forward to it. The Olympics quite literally was a dream come true but now it is time to get on with next season!
It’s always an exciting year after Olympics to see who has used all their energy in the previous season or who has decided to retire? We are ready to work for the next games, which will take a lot of work to make that jump up to top five in four years but we are confident we can get there. It seems a long way off but you really do need that time to prepare and work towards being the best.
We touched down back in our training base in Poland just last Thursday and hit the ground running. Today our tame running coach arrives; some say his voice can only be heard by cats; and if you tune in to 88.4fm you can hear his thoughts; all we know for sure is that he’s called Jacek.
This guy is just a machine and gets me to do distances and times I would have laughed at when we were training in the UK. It’s great to have good voices around you that you can trust are truly pushing you for satisfaction instead of money. This week is all about fitness tests, so we can figure out boundaries and where we would like to be at the start of early season. Basically, reach your limit everyday… and that’s it. Sound like fun?
Anyway, all I’m saying is our holidays are over now which always seems a shame but it’s good to get back to the grind. This year we didn’t actually manage to get away for our holiday. Last year we had a fantastic week in a Villa in Spain with a load of friends but with Olympics this last season we are completely spent up.

Instead we visited family and friends, having BBQ’s and trips out to York, Blackpool and climbing stunning mountains in the Lake District. Not a complete failure then and we actually got some decent weather by British standards.
We have some Chiller shows in two weeks, 12th of June in Cardiff and 13th in Altringham so we’re looking forward to those and I will keep you posted on how they go. Shows are a little more on the glamorous side of skating but should raise some much needed funds for our training.
Have a great day and remember always believe!

Uphill

Getting back to full fitness after the holiday is a giant uphill struggle. Most people probably can't comprehend the kind of pain and exhaustion an athlete feels when they reach this point in the season. We are just starting to attempt full programme run throughs, which means 5 minutes at 100% full throttle, no holds barred. What’s amazing is that once a week seems tough but in just a couple of weeks we'll be up to five full programmes a week on top of our normal training schedule. However at this point in training mental strength is just as important as physical strength, the ability to set aside the distractions of pain, lack of energy and keep full commitment, not to let up, just keep on truckin'. Come that first competition, we'll be glad we did!

We've completed all our Choreography for both programmes now, working off ice with Artur a hip-hop instructor who won Poland's 'You Think You Can Dance' competition a few years back. It’s been a complete change from the classical and Latin American we did in the past and just refreshing to challenge a new aspect of dance. On ice the short and long programmes get smoother the more we do them. Some of the elements are a bit scrappy at the moment but that's normal, we can't be perfect all the time, as much as we try! That's the fun part anyway, taking someone else's choreography and turning it into your programme - complete with your tricks.

So it’s pretty repetitive stuff at the moment at home in Torun, Poland. It's the ‘practice makes perfect’ rule and we keep going over and over our programmes to gain almost an auto-pilot mode so we can get past the choreography and start pushing the speed. This week we are filming a review of our training to send to our federation. We used to come home for screenings but expense is a major problem for us this season and we have to cut down on all cost if were going to reach Sochi Olympics in 2014. Our money has dwindled since we moved out to train in the best Pairs School in Europe and British Olympic funds have sadly ended. But you can always replace money; what you can’t replace is your time and place in such a competitive sport.

Well sorry there isn’t anything more exciting to report this time but we have competitions coming up real soon and this is where the fun begins!

All the best people and work hard.

Life Skills

We had a great month in Krynica pinpointing our weaknesses from last season and really getting some great work done. It drew to a close as fast as it started and we ended our Polish squad camp in the mountains very pleased with ourselves. A busy schedule lay ahead, straight after a long days training we set off for home around 5pm only to arrive in Torun at 3am.

Needless to say I was very tired the next day, but it had to be done because our flight left Gdansk (which is another two hour drive) at 6am. All because our flight was cancelled a month before we flew, cheers!

We booked a hotel near the airport so we could get a few hours sleep. As we entered into Gdansk we were stopped in traffic, I put my hand break on, checked my mirror and oh no. I saw a white van speed round the corner and I could tell by his speed he was going to hit me. His brakes let out a loud screech, then tried to swerve but clipped my left side and just heard a mighty crash.

I pulled up to a lay-by and got out to check the damage. Not too bad. I had to pull the bumper out of my back left tyre and a few dents but overall it was ok. The other guy’s was mashed up a lot worse than mine but he cooperated fine. I thought ‘you idiot’ as he had his wife in the front and two children in the back in car-seats, you would think he would take it a little easier. Although annoying, luckily no one was hurt and my car at least was drivable, we exchanged our details and although a little dazed headed to our destination.

The hotel ended up being quite a trek away as we had to drive for about five minutes on a dirt track to find the place. It had a very lonely look to it and was quite under the weather with nobody around for miles. After seeing too many horror movies start this way we were a little on edge but made our way up to reception as we were both falling asleep already.

When we reached the front desk we were surprised to see smiling pleasant owners who upgraded our room for free and were very friendly. I felt very bad for expecting only bad things of their pride and joy but it just goes to show you can never judge a book by its cover.

A bit stressful and sleep deprived, but at least we returned safely just needing a bit more beauty sleep. Yet there was no time for catching up as I got back to Stacey’s just in time to be picked up by Shaun (Stacey’s brother) to go for my suit fitting. Before I knew it I was on a bus to Newcastle for Shaun’s stag do, but as juicy as it was you know I can’t say anything about the trip. The first law of the stag – sorry. What I can tell you is I had a great time and survived with only a few minor paintball bruises to the side, back, chest and legs.

On the Thursday of that week we managed to fit in a full days filming for a promotional advert at Ice Sheffield. A great day out and we really look forward to seeing the results from Rogue Frame Productions. Then to top it all off we had a fantastic weekend at Shaun’s wedding. Congratulations to them and I wish them many years of good fortune. It was a fantastic day and great to see all the families together. It pushed me and Stacey to get a few ideas together and think about the mammoth task of organising a wedding.

Anyway we are back in Poland now and had a week’s training back at base, just to see more great results. Let’s just hope the rest of our season can continue this way.

All the very best and speak soon.

Krynica Camp

Hello and welcome to the latest Kemp and King blog. Were happy to be writing to you from the very south of Poland in a mountain town called Krynica. It's a very picturesque place with it's own natural spring water, quite famous and sold throughout Poland. If you were wondering yes we did bring our little cat 'Amber', we had a few days to get here so drove from our home town Torùn, up to Prague then on to Vienna, and finished up in Zakopane. Amazing drive and stopped over in 3 beautiful cities, if anything i just wish we'd had a bit more time and money to see more of the places.

The weather has been stunning with it not dropping below 30degrees but maintaining a nice breeze, which is perfect when you are running for hours. We are here training under our Polish coaches and attending their annual Polish squad camp, which includes many various activities and is set out in a very organised manor so we can just get on and work! We've been running up mountains, plenty of core fitness sessions, gym workouts, aqua athletics, sports specific stuff and of course lots of ice time. It really is all the little things we appreciate though, just great to get back from training and food is prepared for you and the maids have tidied your room so you can just collapse in bed.

This is week 2 of the camp and the 3rd season we've started our on ice training in this way. We start very basic and easy, then by the end of the 4 week camp we build to our harder elements and full programmes. Always hard at the start of a season as just a few weeks out can really hit fitness and stamina hard. Our sport requires a lot of explosive power and this time of the year can put major strains on most your big muscle groups so you spend 10minutes getting down a flight of stairs for breakfast every morning. But all is well and we are very happy with our progress so far, we are very keen to achieve major leaps in our game and can only get through hard work.

Anyway, have to get warmed up for the ice but will speak to you all soon.
Best wishes,
Stacey and David

Olympic Village

Well, after the jet lag and busy training schedule has calmed down i finally have a bit of time to talk to you guys! Also there are rules to follow on an Olympic blog which i had to brush up on before i published this. Well i suppose you want to know what it is like here in the Olympic Village? Well in a word; Amazing! If you want a sentence; it is just absolutely fantastic with a cherry on top! We have the best apartment in the village over looking the harbour of false creek and all of down town, seeing BC stadium and the science museum. It is just perfect, with the weather great so far too.

Training is good, first few days with jet lag were hard but its tarting to ease off now. We start our official practices today and have a tough group so today is going to be interesting. Also a big problem is the food hall, with a massive selection of great food all prepared and ready for you 24 hours a day it will be very easy to spend most my days just eating. I will try my best not to let this happen. On that note, were off too breakfast, speak soon

Last minute checks!

Olympics, that’s what we work for and every 4 years it splendours our lives for a short while. We have prepared the best we can and now is our time to enjoy the moment. We had quite a successful last few competitions, with clean skates a the British giving us a 5th senior title and winning the joint Polish Nationals. Europeans was hard after missing the spin in the short but we put up a brave long and finished in 11th. Maybe if it had gone to plan we could of been 7th or 8th but that’s sport and nobody remembers the if, buts and maybes, were all just on a knife edge with competition extremely tight. This season has also shown great excitement in the old masters coming back to the sport just for Olympic glory and showing great form. One thing is for certain, we are all in for a really good show!

Tomorrow we fly and so we check and double check the packing, look at the travel plans again and make sure everything is organized. There has been so much snow here in Poland that we need to get the train to catch our flight as the road to Warsaw is dangerous at the best of times. When we arrive I will try my best to keep up to date most days with the blog, if i get in to a routine it shouldn't be so hard now should it.

Until tomorrow people!

Two very different competitions!

I know this was Graz's first attempt of hosting an international event and i know they will learn from their mistakes, but most of the competition was hard to swallow. For a start spectators were expected to pay 20 euros a day per ticket so only competitors managed to actually watch the skating. We arrived to find out the hotel we were staying at was a Marriott hotel, for skaters who can hardly afford to fly here let alone stay for the week in a very expensive hotel.



20euro each way for the bus to the hotel from the airport so with 5 of us travelling to the event it was cheaper to hire a car for the 5 days, good job because they decided to charge for the bus to the main rink and a separate charge for the bus to the practice rink. On top of that we had to pay 40 euros for the entry to the competition and 30euros a day for meal tickets…. For those of you that are good at math, that’s a lot of cash, especially with the euro so strong. Britain had a huge team there too, for a lot of our younger British skaters this was their first international and may now believe this is how all competitions are run.



Practice was at some different rink each time never on the main competition rink (I know its only ice but it does make a difference!) and one of the practice rinks was outdoor with a roof but no walls. Then on the day of the long our practice was cancelled due to a hockey practice taking place at the same time… We got a free meal ticket though. 2 clean programmes and we finished 5th... so we took it on the chin as ever, and it was a learning curve!



Time to get back to work, building on improvements already made so the next competitions can be positive experiences. The Skate America Grand Prix was here faster than we knew it! We had 6 working days to maintain our fitness and touch up our programmes. No time for new elements, we know you want us doing harder stuff but we are working on them out the programme, they are coming and we will show them when they are ready. Skate America Grand Prix was all about showing our new form and proving we British do have class.



It took us 31 hours of travelling to get to the Infamous Lake Placid home of the 1930+81 Winter Olympics. On arrival after our bus driver got lost and needed directions to our accommodation via a US team member phoning a friend, we checked in around midnight. But its not that easy is it, you all must know better by now. 3 times every hour from this moment until 3am the man on the front desk moved us from our rooms. Trust me my smile for just a little moment started to fade, only very slightly and the brighter side was setting very fast! But next morning we had a great practice and all was forgotten. Ice was great, the only problem was that huge Cancer.net signs were plastered everywhere because they sponsored the event and as you may know Stacey's Father Dave Kemp died just over 6 years ago of Bowl Cancer and this kind of threw our cool slightly. Hopefully the crowds watching didn't notice but we were always skating with a slight lump in our throats.


We stayed at the USA Olympic Centre halls of residence for athletes and it was just how an event should be run. The food was great and being in such an inspiring place brought the best from all the athletes. Competition time was tense as usual and we were skating 4th in the short which is now worked out by World Ranking points instead of the traditional draw. We skated a great short with a good twist fantastic throw triple loop and nice spins with a fast impressive press to star combination in the lift, then going in to the death spiral with the whole programme done clean and well, disaster!


Not to sure what happened all i know for sure is it didn't happen, so we lost 3.5 marks plus the deductions from the judges for an ugly end to the programme, Ooops! In the free programme we had no pressure, we weren't going to catch any of the US teams 6points down on home soil, so we skated for us and the hard work we've put into training this season. We did our best to a massive North American crowd, with only slight mistakes on the throws and last lift but an admiral performance overall. We left feeling a little more upbeat and know with nationals just next week we can show a home crowd just how far we've come.


Catch you next time

Sorry we haven't blogged for a while but due to unforeseen circumstances (our camera broke!) we couldn't finish this post until pictures were obtained (most people probably don’t read the input just look at the gloss). Anyway if you've been paying attention to the website you'll already know we've competed at two international competitions. We won at Warsaw Open and finished 8th at an interesting Oberstdorf Olympic Qualifying competition in Germany. Next week we compete in Graz Austria with a huge British squad filling most discipline's in the Novice, Junior and Seniors events.

Oberstdorf didn't fail to provide all the excitement we've come to expect from the event and a lot of great new programmes were put on show. We achieved a personal best score in Oberstdorf, with only 1 mistake in the short programme on the side by side double axel and a strong clean performance in the long. It was a tough competition because for most the teams there it was the most important of the year as it was their Olympic Qualifying event and they aimed to peak here. The teams that had already qualified were using the event to show new programmes and warm up before the Grand Prix's where they would wish to skate their clinical best. We were really pleased with our performance's though and enjoyed the whole event as last season we couldn't attend due to Stacey's illness.

This years programmes have really fell into place, and still lots of room for improvements before the Olympics in February. No real big changes in general training, more ice time and a growing skating school is helping our improvements and building on the work we put in last season. August saw the start of our competitive season in Warsaw our first event, it feels like it was last year now but we had great fun and Mariusz Siudek our coach had 3 senior teams in the event all of which made it on the podium. Training has been going great and are just looking forward to a busy month of competing this November. Next week were in Graz, then a week back in Torun, then we have Skate America in Lake Placid, then a week back home, then we have British Nationals in Sheffield and then November is over!

So i hope you keep a close eye on us and if you can make the trip to see us compete it would be great if you could come down and support us in our Olympic Season. All our very best wishes,
Stacey and David

Summer

Welcome back folks! Hope you've all been well and enjoying your summer. I thought it would make sense to post our first blog of the Olympic season before it all starts to kick off. Junior Grand Prixs are already under way and we've competed in our first competition of the season at the Warsaw open which we won. In a few weeks we will compete at Oberstdorf Olympic Qualifier and watch first hand the teams still fighting for Olympic spaces. Exciting times in the World of figure skating, an Olympic season is as good as it gets! Next week is the junior grand prix in Torun so we wish our British skaters all the very best there and will be along to support them.


Guess your wondering what we've been up to since Worlds? No, ok well i'll tell you anyway. A few new changes, the second ice pad in Torun, new long programme and of coarse a new arrival of Mariusz and Dorotas little Richard. Stacey had her 21st Birthday which we celebrated in style. We have new training partners the Estonian team Masha and Ilja with our junior Polish champions team coming on leaps and bounds over the summer. Also we have a new ice dance coach Sylvie who is fantastic with great presence on the ice and really compliments Mariusz and Dorota's school.


Thats the recent stuff but after LA we managed to fit in a holiday in Spain, 3 summer camps and a trip home to see family. We flew back from LA landing around 8pm then stopped the night at Stacey's mum's and 6:30am the next day we were on a plane to Barcelona with a load of our friends! We had a week at a friends Villa just outside of Tarragona (near Barcelona) and just relaxed, spending some quality time with the people closest to us. We were 5 minutes from the beach and the weather was great until the last day when the heavens opened and flooded the whole area! So i burst the hire car tire and was stuck changing it in this monsoon. Funny now but i wasn't laughing at the time.




After leaving Amber (our kitten) for so long we decided we had to get back to Poland and visit some of the sites around by us that we haven't had time to see when we were in season. A bit of us time! Coincidently when we got back to Torun it was the World Ice Hockey Championships and the Great Britain Supporters Club gave us celebrity status amongst them and treated us to tickets to all the British games (and yes GB beat Poland in the last game to gain a Bronze medal). It was very exciting stuff and we were very proud of them!




A few weeks back we had a winter Olympic conference in Glasgow, we met up with Jenna, our team leader Sue and team Dr Elanor for the weekend. I think we all had a great time and heard from some incredibly intelligent individuals who gave up their time to talk to us about their experiences and thoughts on how to progress in winter sports. The British Olympic Association are really trying to push the efforts of the British team to its limits. Along with some fantastic team bonding (and sublime cheating!) events and motivational speakers it was a very successful and productive 2 days.




We were in lite training until early may then we travelled home for my birthday... For 2 days! While i was back i was invited to my old high school Nelson Thom in Wigton to present their first ever awards for sporting achievement, i felt very proud and they made me feel very special. My birthday we went to my home town Carlisle with friends, and the next day we flew back to Poland. From there the next weekend we went to Dorota's home town Krakow and spent a few days with Mariusz and Dorota seeing the sites in a very beautiful town. From there we got our season rolling by travelling to Milan, choreographing our new long programme.




Now was time to start work again and our athletics coach came to town, his name Pan Jacek (Mr Yatsek). We went to the Polish Olympic centre on the coast called Cietniewo which was all off ice work then we went tto the opposite end of the country to the mountains to train both on and off ice. Unfortunately Stacey had to go England at the end of the Olympic off ice camp to sort out a knee problem she picked up. The weather though has been great, adding to the pleasure of the start to our season.




Its has been great reminiscing on our holidays and the start of our season in which seems to of been the fastest year on record. Its just flown by!

Well i think now your up to date, and i will talk to you again soon! Take care now

Review of Worlds

So, I had a few emails saying we didn't describe very well what went on while we were at Worlds. Well, everything kind of fell into place so there wasn't too much to report on (for a change!). On the first practice, which was on the practice rink we walked into the LA convention centre and there was a small temporary ice rink slap in the corner of this truly enormous building. Simple as we are everyone found it comical and strange at the same, an idea for Tate Modern maybe? It was in fact a nice rink, and when we were drawn to skate with Mariusz's old coaches' two Canadian teams it had a good atmosphere.


We skated quite late on for us, first out to perform Short in our group and skated clean with the only mistake being Stacey getting a little excited over landing a sweet throw triple loop. I wasn't so pleased with our component marks because for us it was loads better than we skated at NHK in Tokyo yet our components were almost 4 points lower, that's a whole element! It cost us a group for the long the next day and probably a whole place overall! So not concentrating on whether the cameras were still filming I got up to leave kiss and cry but was very promptly told to stay, Ooops big fine if you leave early, but it wasn't to make a point it was just me not thinking. We didn't wait around for the draw tha evening as it was going to be gone midnight with an early start. Anne our team leader drew for us… yet another first to skate for the long.
Sometimes when you step on to the ice, you just have a good feeling about things and this was one of those moments. Just in a world of our own, and for that programme in that moment of time we skated it the best we could. When a years hard work is judged in 4 minutes and 50 seconds and you achieve to do your absolute best, it has a feeling of complete joy. In just under 5 minutes we completed six level four elements (with 2 other elements classed as level 2 and 3) and 2 clean throw triples, with intricate choreography throughout linking the programme together the whole time thinking you must go faster. With hard work this all fell in to place and we reaped the rewards a place at the Winter Olympics.


Our only goal for the entire season was reached only by performing 2 clean programmes on 2 wonderful evenings at the Staples centre in LA. As the week progressed we managed to start seeing some of the Town, unfortunately not so many of the stars. Mariusz spotted Bruce Willis on the first night, and we saw Jordan with Peter Andre were having a Californian Pizza but unfortunately that was our lot. I would like to think that some stars would have watched us in the arena? I know Haig took his cousin Eric Idle to see the mens free and i saw Stephane Lambiel and Johnny Weir too. On the Saturday we hired a ford Mustang to drive around in for the day, and it was great! I like my cars and have always wanted to drive one of the new Mustangs, so we spent the day beach hopping. Starting at Huntington beach where a surf competition was on and going up to Long beach, Venice beach and finally Santa Monica before heading back for Jenna's free skate. It was a great day and we finished it off by driving up to Rodeo drive and Stacey bought me a cool juicy couture jacket saying 'Great Freakin' Britain'. I imagine David Beckham has the same one!



We spent our final 2 days at Universal studios even the day we flew we spent the morning there. There was a lot more we wanted to see and do but i think we'd done as much as we could in the few days we had, LA is so spread out. Now its back to the drawing board and plan out what to do in our 2009-10 Olympic season. Speak soon!

We Qualified for the Olympic Games...

... And that's all that matters! Ha ha, after Stacey's illness this was the only goal left on our once long list and we achieved it. We just had to skate 2 clean programmes at the final competition of the year, no pressure then. Winning Golden Spin and getting 4th at the NHK trophy this year were both just icing on the cake for this season, i would of traded both of those results to be going to the pinnacle competition of sporting excellence. First of all I'd like to thank all the British fans who made the long trip to come support us and the British team, and also to all our fans who watched on the TV or Internet. We have heard so many wide tales about how followers got to watch us in the end, we just feel honoured by the support! Thank you all.

It isn't just David and Stacey who has got us here, we have such a strong team working in the background to help us achieve what we can and this success is felt by each individual member of Kemp and King. First most the NISA World Class Performance Team who have supported us admirally from the start of our careers, our financial support from parents, Jewellery by Michael King, skate force trust, NLTG, R N Electronics, and Sue Naylor. But our most great full thanks go to the tireless workers of the British Olympic Association for the Olympic Solidarity Trust, TASS (Talented Athlete Support Scheme 2012) and Sports AID without who we could never of had the financial support to achieve the commitments that we have made! We are so very thank full you put your faith in us, thank you.

I never thought back in Dumfries that this moment would come true, tottering around the ice never being the best skater at the club and not a huge amount of talent. This just made me more determined, I'd always make achievable goals every year, and slowly making small steps to our eventual goal. Stacey actually started her skating because of Oksana Baiul back in the 1994 Olympics and this was the last time a British pair team competed at the games. It is very strange how things work out and nobody can predict what will happen, yet some things are just meant to be. After our final position in the long, i knew we'd done enough. I looked up to see the bright lights of the Staples Centre beam down and thought, David Kemp (1960-2004) and George King (1919-2008) were there smiling down as they'd know it too. There isn't much to success if it can't be celebrated with lots of supporters, friends, family even with all the commitments and sacrifices made our home still accepts us with open and praising arms along with our new overseas community.

So i hope i didn't ramble on too long, now were sitting back at home in Poland planning our next season and reflecting on the last. LA was amazing, how a World Championships should be held, and with the great weather it all just felt surreal for an ice skating event. This week the Great Britain ice hockey team are playing in Torun at the Division 2 World Champs, so we have tickets to go support them and we also start the process of booking up our season and finalising our plan.