Canadian Armenian Ice Dancer Tina Garabedian to Represent Armenia in 2018 Olympics

LAVAL, CANADA — 18-year-old Canadian Armenia Tina Garabedian, who has been skating with the Laval Figure Skating Club since she was four, will be wearing the colors of Armenia in the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, The Suburban reports.

Garabedian, holding dual citizenship, realized she had a small chance of representing Canada’s national team in 2018 given the strength of the Canadian team in the figure skating world. She put all the odds in her favor and will represent Armenia.

Her debut ice dance was with her long-standing partner Alexandre Laliberté in 2012. Garabedian changed partners six months ago and will ice dance with Simon Proulx-Senecal, former dance partner to Laval’s Mélissande Dumas.

The duo recently took home a bronze medal in the short program, senior dance at the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships in New York.

The team also impressed the judges with a short program at the George-Ethier Memorial Competition held in Beauport this September taking home second place. During this competition, they also qualified for the European Championships to be held from Jan. 25 to 31, 2016, in Bratislava, Slovakia.

They will also compete in Austria and Croatia before Christmas and hope to earn 29 points (short) and 49 points (long) for technique in both competitions, in order to qualify for the World Championships. They need to finish 24th to qualify for the Olympics in 2018.

The duo trains 20 hours a week at Pierrefonds’ Sportplexe 4 Glaces under the coaching skills of Elise Hamel, Shawn Winter and choreographer Shae Zukiwsky.