SASKATOON - Cynthia Phaneuf knows there are more than a few figure skating fans that had written her off. There were plenty of times over the past five years she felt like doing the same.
But the athlete from Contrecoeur, Que., who for a while disappeared from the skating landscape, was back on top Friday, upsetting four-time champion Joannie Rochette to lead after the women's short program at the Canadian figure skating championships.
"I'm just feeling so good for my birthday and everything," said Phaneuf, who turned 21 on Friday. "This is the best gift I can give myself."
Phaneuf fell on a planned triple Lutz-double toe loop combination, but scored 55.16 points to edge Rochette, who will take a score of 53.58 into Saturday's long program. Amelie Lacoste of Delson, Que., was third with 53.55.
In men's singles, Patrick Chan of Toronto skated the performance of the night to take a huge lead after the short program.
"I'm not going to complain, seriously that is the best program I've ever done," Chan said. "I just have to do the exact same thing and I'll be a medal contender at the worlds (in March), I would say."
Earlier in the day, defending ice dance champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won the original dance program to widen their lead.
In pairs, Meagan Duhamel and Craig Buntin won the short program, edging world championship bronze medallists Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison.
Phaneuf was a delicate five foot three and barely 16 when a meteoric rise took her to the top of the podium at the Canadian championships in 2004 in Edmonton, where she upset six-time champion Jennifer Robinson. She went on to win Skate Canada and finish second at Skate America, but her career went into a tailspin not long after.
She suffered a knee injury and stress fractures to her ankle and hip, and was off skates for nearly a year. During that time, a sudden growth spurt saw her shoot up a good three or four inches, and she returned to skating with an entirely different body and her centre of gravity thrown off-kilter.
"I had to learn how to skate all over again," she said. "It was going very bad, and I had to learn how to jump all over again, so for sure there were some days I wanted to quit."
Her confidence has been slow to return, but she's been working hard with a sports psychologist.
"When I was going on the ice I wasn't feeling well, I was all stressed out and I wasn't able to use the stress well, I was using my stress in a bad way," she said. "Now I'm just trying to use it in the right way. I worked with my new psychologist and he helped me a lot to be here and be proud of myself after the competition."
Phaneuf knows she won on a day Rochette wasn't at her best, and holding off the four-time Canadian champion in Saturday's long program will be difficult.
"I know my goal is not to have the gold medal, it's just to be on the world (championship) team, so I don't have a lot of pressure for (Saturday), I just have to have fun on the ice, just like I did today," she said.
Skate Canada will name the team for Four Continents in Vancouver following this weekend, and its full team for the world championships after Four Continents.
Despite her Canadian victory in 2004, Phaneuf was left off the world team that year because of her age.
"You know what, I cannot change it anymore, but for sure I know if I went I would have a lot more experience than I do today," she said. "But it was like that and I had to accept it."
Rochette, who opened this season with a pair of Grand Prix titles, struggled Friday, falling on a triple Lutz, singling a planned double Axel, and slightly under-rotating a triple flip-triple toe combination.
Rochette has been having trouble with her short program this season and the 22-year-old said she and her coaches are considering altering it slightly - perhaps taking out the triple-triple combination.
"It was very disappointing for me and I think if we analyze my short programs all this year, I think we need to react and make a change," Rochette said. "We need to make a wise decision and have a clear mind going into the world championships. I love the program, it's a great program. . . but I want to skate a clean short at worlds, so we need to figure out what needs to go, what needs to stay."
Rochette was the clear favourite this weekend, with four titles already under her belt, plus a fifth-place finish at last year's world championships in Sweden.
"I really want to keep the title, and I think with the long programs I've done this year, it's very competitive amongst the top three in the world, so I'm confident for (Saturday), but still mad at myself for today," Rochette said. "But maybe it took that to make a decision and really wake up and make a change right now."
Chan, the defending Canadian champion, scored a personal best 88.89 points in a virtually flawless short program, easily beating Vaughn Chipeur of Calgary, who was second with 71.89. Kevin Reynolds of Coquitlam, B.C., was third with 70.00.
"I was super excited to see that number, 88 is just great," Chan said.
The 18-year-old opened his program by landing his triple Axel, a jump he'd been struggling with the past few weeks.
"The Axel, it was kind of like, 'phew. . . now triple flip, triple toe, now I have to get back to it,"' Chan said. "But I think everyone, even the crowd, was relieved because they knew what I was going through."
In ice dancing, Virtue and Moir, who are making their season debut, scored 63.76 with their Charleston routine, giving them an overall score of 103.09 heading into Saturday's free dance. Virtue, from London, Ont., and Moir, from Ilderton, Ont., who won silver at the world championships last spring in the last time they competed, were the class of the dance field, dazzling the crowd at the Credit Union Centre with an array of difficult lifts.
"Today before we skated we decided we were just going to skate for us and we weren't going to worry too much about levels necessarily," said Virtue. "We just really wanted to created the whole package of the performance, so I guess when we get back we'll look at the tape and really narrow in on those elements."
Vanessa Crone of Aurora, Ont., and Paul Poirier of Unionville, Ont., scored 55.56 on their original dance to hold onto second overall with 91.18.
Kaitlyn Weaver of Toronto and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., scored 52.93 with their performance Friday to move up from fifth to third overall with 84.81 points.
Virtue only returned to skating six weeks ago after she underwent surgery in October for compartment syndrome, a condition that caused pain in her shins. The 19-year-old still isn't 100 per cent, and isn't yet able to log the long hours of training she normally would at this time of the season. But Friday's performance showed she's well on her way back.
"I'm feeling so much stronger and it's hard to believe three months ago, everyone laughed when I tried to walk," Virtue said. "When I think of it that way, I'm really proud of the progress I've made and we're on our way and I think heading into worlds we'll be training full steam ahead and there will be no issues."
In pairs, Duhamel, from Lively, Ont., and Buntin, from Kelowna, B.C., scored 65.74 points to take the lead. Dube, from Drummondville, Que., and Davison, from Cambridge, Ont., scored 62.22, their one error coming when Dube fell in her triple Salchow.
Mylene Brodeur of Stanbridge Station, Que., and John Mattatall of Saint-Leonard, Que., scored 55.63 to put them third.
Duhamel and Buntin have only been together since the summer of 2007, and the two have their sites set on the world championship and Olympic podium.
"We've been together a year and a half, and this for us is where we want to be right now, a little over a year from the Olympics and those marks are finally starting to look like solid international marks," Buntin said. "We're right on track for where we want to be."
