My niece Michelle loves ice skating and the sport of figure skating, and 1999 was Michelle's first season to figure skate competitively. Since she had skated only 1 1/2 years at the time and was competing against girls with much more experience, Michelle's parents just hoped that she would have fun. But beyond all their expectations, Michelle won first place in 8 out of 10 competitions and placed second in the other two!
In July, Michelle won the prestigious Ritter award (pictured above). After placing second in an extemporaneous competition earlier in the day, the judges invited Michelle (and surprisingly not the first place winner) to a "reskate" later that night in the Ritter competition. Michelle's parents, nor anyone else in our family, knew what a reskate was. We quickly learned that in the reskate Michelle was going to compete against other invited skaters not just from her level, but from ALL the levels that skated that day! Like the first extemporaneous competition, the skaters were given the music, and then they had only about 30 minutes to come up with a routine. Since Michelle was competing against skaters from much higher levels, her coach just thought it was an honor to be invited and didn't expect her to win anything. But Michelle skated amazingly well, and her interpretation of the music (a song from Anastasia) was beautiful. And to everyone's surprise, Michelle won first place!!! Way to go, Michelle!!!
