A Richmond skater is representing Canada at the World Figure Skating Championship next month.
The Montreal competition from March 18 to 24 will be Wesley Chiu's first world championship as a senior skater.
Chiu recently represented Canada and placed in the top 10 at the 2024 ISU Four Continents Championship in early February.
Last month, the 18-year-old also claimed the champion title and gold medal in the men's category at the Canadian National Skating Championships in Calgary.
"I think I've built a lot of momentum for myself with the past two competitions and I'm hoping to ride that energy going into Worlds," said Chiu.
"It will be a home crowd and that will be exciting."
Chiu told the Richmond News his main goal is to enjoy his experience competing at the World Championship as a senior skater in addition to performing well in his programs.
He added he wants to skate well to gain two spots for Canada at next year's World Championship, which will be the Olympic qualifiers.
"If I can put out two clean programs, I set myself in the position to get those spots," said Chiu.
While the Connaught Skating Club athlete said it's been a few busy months travelling and competing, his training has been going smoothly.
Chiu said he has been pacing himself in training and starting slowly with the current long skating season, and he is beginning to ramp up and train hard with the competition around the corner.
He also highlighted several skaters he looks forward to seeing. They include Japanese Olympic medallists Shoma Uno and Yuma Kagiyama, as well as American skater Iillya Malinin, who was the first figure skater to execute a fully-rotated quadruple axel — regarded as the hardest jump in figure skating, explained Chiu.
"There's definitely a lot of inspiration there and I'm looking forward to competing against them."
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