David Shteyngart: A Figure Skating Champion

The John McCrae community is very proud to say that a fellow grade 10 student, David Shteyngart is a national figure skating champion, and won gold in the Canadian Tire Figure Skating Championships in the Novice Men’s category, ranking at the top with a stunning point total of 131.84 points. David says he felt “contented and overjoyed, with a tinge of sentiment towards how hard he worked to be able to get to this goal.”

David began figure skating at the age of seven years old, and has been working hard nearly his entire life to accomplish his figure skating goals. When asked about future plans in his skating career, David says “As this season ends the next begins, there is still a lot more to go for the future of my skating career. more elements to learn and acquire, more competitions to win, and more experience to learn.”

One of his biggest inspirations in figure skating is Patrick Chan, the way he performed and skated inspired him, and he found this feeling of inspiration during the beginning of his skating career.

One thing David wishes that people knew more about figure skating is that “it is just as difficult as other sports, most people understand this while some tend to underestimate the amount of work put into this sport. It is also known as the most insane sport since you can do an element thousands of times on practice ice but mess it up once and can cost you.”