So, apart from ‘that fall’ we had a great European championship in Bern Switzerland, the city itself was beautiful but expensive and very quiet. For those of you who didn’t see our performances we made a great start by skating a clean short program and were lying in seventh place.

We started the free program strong with a huge triple twist (the first British team ever to do this element) and throw triple toe, with all our spins receiving good levels which means lots of points. Unfortunately as we couldn’t train flat out over Christmas we struggled with our conditioning in the second half of the program. Stacey just couldn’t hold the edge on the second throw then after falling played safe on the jump straight after, losing lots of our well earned points.

To top off a pretty tentative second half our last element is a lift that scores big points for us. We whipped round the corner knowing we had this one element left, set it up and as I made my first turn in the lift I caught my right edge and we went down with a crash. Poor Stacey fell from above my head on to the ice, luckily nothing was badly hurt other than our pride.

We peeled ourselves off the ice and finished the program to that applause that you hate. You know the one where it’s “bless them” for trying. We only dropped seventh to eighth and just three points behind our season’s best score. Shows how our season has been going!

We arrived home with mixed emotions about the whole thing, lots of positives and negatives from the week’s skating. The judges were very flattering about our skating and the improvements we’ve made. We flew back the Friday night and decided that Sunday we should have a family get together around a pub roast.

My parents were heading down under for two months to stay with family and attend my cousin’s wedding, so it gave me a good chance to see them off. The next morning Stacey’s granddad got rushed into hospital, we went to see him in the afternoon visiting hours, he was a little distressed but well. I decided to cook tea that evening with Stacey’s brother while Stacey, her mum and gran went back for the evening visiting.

We got the call that you never want to hear, Tom, a fit and healthy 84 year-old, had taken his last two breaths just as they walked in the door. Stacey was very close to her granddad who was a tremendously gentle hearted man, a real pillar in our lives that has been pulled from underneath us.

The World championships are six weeks off, so we need to get on with our skating which will hopefully take our minds off things for a while. A hard few weeks but what can you do but roll with the punches and get back to what we know and what we do best.

Well until next time and our very best wishes to you all.

Happy New Year! Well with our festive period passed our European Championships is firmly upon us. Over Christmas we spent our most time in England for three years and we got to spend quality time with friends and family.

We decided to drive to England from Poland through six countries on an epic 36 hour journey! Because of severe weather we were stopped at the Polish border for seven hours, which meant we only had two hours sleep at our hotel before we had to leave again.

Our cat Amber found this very amusing but I must say by the end of the trip I was sore and my patience for traffic was wearing thin, but we were home. Unfortunately in the weeks over Christmas Amber’s condition deteriorated and she passed away the first week of January. She was a big part in our life and we would do anything to have her back. We loved her so dearly and we miss her so much.

We were back for roughly four weeks and based ourselves on weekdays in Coventry at Yuri Burieko’s International School of Skating. Then at weekends drove home to good cooking and familiar faces, which I’m sure most people will think of Christmas but our last few years have been intense.

Last year we didn’t manage three days at home split between two households. We even had to take our turkey sandwiches on the plane to eat on our own. Training has been going a little slow as it was Christmas and Stacey had some pain in her wrist and ankle.

The Europeans were too close to take much time off so we took it easy and iced it, luckily ice is a commodity we have close to hand in our line of work. After this week we have time to get some hard work done as the Worlds are at the end of March so we can push ourselves to the next level.

Great talking to you all anyway and most importantly Europeans is here, this Wednesday 26th January at 8pm and Thursday 27th January at 6pm on Eurosport we skate against the best Europe has to offer. Enjoy!

We got back from London only to find out that Stacey’s pride and joy, our two year old black and white cat has leukemia. Apparently it’s common in cats but Stacey took it quite hard and made the week before nationals quite tough.

We had to leave her in the very capable hands of our close friends in Poland and headed once again back to England. Unfortunately our Polish coaches each had internationals to attend so we had to ask our good friends UK based Russian coaches, Marina and Yuri Bueriko to watch over us.

This was our eighth British Championship so we really just needed moral support; all the hard work has already been done. We just had to go out and skate like we do every day.

It’s a great event for us as it’s the one time our friends and family can watch our performances. A car full of my friends made the arduous journey from Carlisle to Sheffield and battled the snow to get there. It meant a lot to me as they are typical lads, Sunday league footballers not avid skating fans but they were there to support me.

It was a good Championship with both programs going well, no elbows to the head this time just a slight mistake on our side by side combination jump in the free program. The judges were impressed and we had great feedback, saying how our speed and lines had really improved.

It’s fantastic news for us as this counts for our second mark which needs to be raised if we want to move up the rankings. We had a clear lead over second place and retained our sixth British Senior Pairs title. We had a surprise when we were awarded with acceptance into NISA our federations Hall of Fame.

Just this week we got our long awaited news about lottery funding for the next four years, and the news was very bad. UK Sport withdrew all funding of ice skating which leaves us wondering where do we go from here.

We’ve not received funding of any kind since we got off the ice from our free program back in February for the Vancouver Olympics. We had the best Olympic result for ice skating in over a decade, now we’re rewarded the least funding in over a decade and the Sports minister just says it’s because were “Not top athletes.”

It’s insulting, as there’s a few less successful sports getting millions to improve and move forward, and we’re literally left with nothing. I mean would you not like to see another Torvill and Dean in your life?

One of the most watched sporting events ever was their 1994 Olympic skate where 29 million people of the British public tuned in. Ice skating is by far our most successful Winter Olympic sport and now without investment it will rapidly decline to become unrecognizable to us and to skating fans.

Can’t worry about that now though, we’re mid season and need to get our heads down until Europeans at the end of January. Plus Christmas is soon anyway and there’s nothing like friends and family to cheer us up!

Merry Christmas all!

On the way out to America we flew via Vancouver and reminisced over our fantastic Olympic games. Skate America itself was an interesting event. I messed up an easy element in the short program which left us again at the bottom of the pile.

Feeling a little upset with ourselves we skated quite a poor free program and received a similar score to what we achieved in Nice. Disappointing yes but it was a good lesson. We have to be able to turn things around if it’s not going our way. We always have been able to in the past but it’s a great reminder to put us back into gear.

Another problem we encountered was at the start of the free program we do an element where I throw Stacey in the air, she turns three times then I catch her and put her down. It may sound easy but this time Stacey caught me with her elbow on the final rotation, just above my right temple.

I have no idea how I stayed on my feet but from there on out I was a little shaken to say the least. The program itself just had too many little things wrong with it and this added up to a very low score. It’s annoying because all the hard work we put in and a bad five minutes can ruin it all, until the next event at least.

We received word in America that organisers of the London Eye Christmas rink wanted us for their 21 November opening. This was great as we should return home for our National Championships that week anyway and finally with some good skating news we were ready to head home.

What a beautiful scene they have for their rink, situated on the Thames right in front of the London Eye. We had a lot of fun, got some great shots for our portfolio and made a few headlines.

But fun and games are over as this week is our British National Championships, can we make it six in a row..? Well if you can’t make this Friday and Saturday at the Sheffield Arena I’ll just have to let you know how it goes.

Thanks guys and here’s to a good Championships!

Sorry but I’m writing yet another flight blog, I just get so bored flying and have a lot of time just to think. Anyway, I’m looking back at last weeks event in Nice and it was a very disappointing competition. Our coaches say not to worry as it was our first of the season and we had a break after last season but I’ve never been one for excuses and I’m not starting now.

I mean we competed at World’s this time last season when Stacey had a kidney infection. I woke her up before each program and she went back to bed straight after. I didn’t complain, but here we were fit, aiming for a medal and we ended 5th with a clear deficit!

It’s tough to take, in this sport you put your heart and soul into the programs then put them up to be judged. It’s a very personal process, if they don’t get a good score that program is a part of you and that’s an attack on your pride.

I’m not saying I’m scared to fail but more that I hate to lose and in Nice we lost big. Luckily we are moving on, with a few minor adjustments I’m sure the judges will be on our side and the next stop is Kingston Canada for the Skate Canada Grand Prix. We’re flying out a week early to get used to the time change and settle into the North American Hockey rinks, they are slightly smaller and a lot faster.

Canada came and went very fast and as for the judges being with us, well they were and they weren’t. We didn’t have a British judge, which is never a good thing but we got a huge 10 points higher than in Nice. We took out some of the difficulty from the programs and made the look smoother and faster.

This progress can only continue and I would be very happy if we can add 10 points at each event. It didn’t hurt that the week prior to the event we were skating in Montreal at our coach’s old rink with some of the best teams in the world.

No special venue, and no high tech gadgets just good old fashioned hard work and good coaching. I don’t know if it’s the English in me but that’s the way I like to do things, blood, sweat and tears.

Anyway, off to Oregon now for our final international of 2010 and let’s hope it’s another grower! Speak soon people.

It’s the eve of our first 2010/11 season assignment and we’re feeling the buzz of competing once again. We have to hit the ground running as we’ve started late this season, well it was a busy year you know! We’re ready though as ever, all we ask from ourselves is what we do in training every day and a little luck wouldn’t go a miss.

Cost of us skating is a bigger problem at the moment though as this week (and the whole of the country is getting similar news) have been hit with big cuts. It’s £28k to be precise, which puts very big doubts over our future dreams for a Sochi 2014 Olympic Medal. It’s unfortunate and more annoyingly it’s distracting but we’re trying our best just to finish this season then make bigger decisions when we can look at the full picture.

Now writing this from the plane and wondering if the 5am start was just a dream or reality. We’ve ventured on all transport today bar a boat but with all the strikes in France who knows where our journey may go next?

2pm now with a 5am start and we’re not even in France yet, well you know what they say about Polish trains. I remember once going up to a Polish training camp in the mountains and the train was literally walking pace.

The flight luckily enough is direct to Nice and we’re flying over some beautiful mountain ranges that I guess are the Alps. I’ve never been to Nice before and have heard many good things about the place, mostly about the great weather, let’s hope that it lives up to the reports.

The competition itself is a prestigious event in the International Skating Union calendar as it’s one of very few events you can achieve world ranking points. For those who don’t know much about skating, when competing skaters have to skate two programs to music with the points from each skate adding up to a total amount of points.

First skate is called the short program which is 2min 50seconds long and is classed as a technical program because you have set elements to skate. Next is the free program that’s 4min 40seconds and is often called the long.

Every element is awarded points. The harder the element the more points you get, simple. Now you know the basics come competition time you’ll understand what I say when I talk about both the programs.

Right, I’ll leave it there but got some more Coupe de Nice content coming soon!

Best wishes

Sorry it’s taken a while to get my new blog up, we’ve had visitors the last three weeks and with training it’s been a busy time.

The weather is still holding firm with autumn leaves falling and the sun keeping winter away for a little longer. When winter hits here, it hits hard and as we train in a giant fridge anyway good warm clothes are worth their weight in gold.

I mean driving through a foot of snow to go to a place that’s even colder at 6am is hard to get your head around. But like I said at the moment there is still sun and the last two weekends I’ve spent sunbathing on the Baltic coast.

Family or sponsors as the sporting community calls them have been out and we’ve been swapping one for the next on short turn-arounds.

Skating is steadily improving with the programmes flowing better and with movement and speed picking up this last week.

Nice in France is our first event in two weeks time (13th-17th October) and we could really do with taking a medal going in to our Grand Prix events later in the month and early November. There are some tough contenders in it and you can never tell what judges will think of your programmes first time out.

But hard work and determination always pays off and you can feel in yourself what level you are at. After Nice we travel across the pond to Kingston, Canada to compete in their Grand Prix then to Portland, USA for their Grand Prix.

After that we finally hit the UK for our Nationals late November, you’re all welcome to come and watch in the fantastic Ice Sheffield arena.

All the very best and speak soon

Getting back to full fitness after the holiday is a giant uphill struggle. Most people probably can’t comprehend the kind of pain and exhaustion an athlete feels when they reach this point in the season.

We are just starting to attempt full programme run-throughs, which mean five minutes at 100% full throttle, no holds barred. What’s amazing is that once a week seems tough but in just a couple of weeks we’ll be up to five full programmes a week on top of our normal training schedule.

However at this point in training mental strength is just as important as physical strength, the ability to set aside the distractions of pain, lack of energy and keep full commitment, not to let up, just keep on trucking. Come that first competition, we’ll be glad we did!

We’ve completed all our choreography for both programmes now, working off-ice with Artur a hip-hop instructor who won Poland’s ‘You Think You Can Dance’ competition a few years back. It’s been a complete change from the classical and Latin American we did in the past and just refreshing to challenge a new aspect of dance.

On ice the short and long programmes get smoother the more we do them. Some of the elements are a bit scrappy at the moment but that’s normal, we can’t be perfect all the time, as much as we try! That’s the fun part anyway, taking someone else’s choreography and turning it into your programme – complete with your tricks.

So it’s pretty repetitive stuff at the moment at home in Torun, Poland. It’s the ‘practice makes perfect’ rule and we keep going over and over our programmes to gain almost an auto-pilot mode so we can get past the choreography and start pushing the speed.

This week we are filming a review of our training to send to our federation. We used to come home for screenings but expense is a major problem for us this season and we have to cut down on all cost if we’re going to reach Sochi Olympics in 2014.

Our money has dwindled since we moved out to train in the best Pairs School in Europe and British Olympic funds have sadly ended. But you can always replace money; what you can’t replace is your time and place in such a competitive sport.

Well sorry there isn’t anything more exciting to report this time but we have competitions coming up real soon and this is where the fun begins!

We had a great month in Krynica pinpointing our weaknesses from last season and really getting some great work done. It drew to a close as fast as it started and we ended our Polish squad camp in the mountains very pleased with ourselves. A busy schedule lay ahead, straight after a long days training we set off for home around 5pm only to arrive in Torun at 3am.

Needless to say I was very tired the next day, but it had to be done because our flight left Gdansk (which is another two hour drive) at 6am. All because our flight was cancelled a month before we flew, cheers!

We booked a hotel near the airport so we could get a few hours sleep. As we entered into Gdansk we were stopped in traffic, I put my hand break on, checked my mirror and oh no. I saw a white van speed round the corner and I could tell by his speed he was going to hit me. His brakes let out a loud screech, then tried to swerve but clipped my left side and just heard a mighty crash.

I pulled up to a lay-by and got out to check the damage. Not too bad. I had to pull the bumper out of my back left tyre and a few dents but overall it was ok. The other guy’s was mashed up a lot worse than mine but he cooperated fine. I thought ‘you idiot’ as he had his wife in the front and two children in the back in car-seats, you would think he would take it a little easier. Although annoying, luckily no one was hurt and my car at least was drivable, we exchanged our details and although a little dazed headed to our destination.

The hotel ended up being quite a trek away as we had to drive for about five minutes on a dirt track to find the place. It had a very lonely look to it and was quite under the weather with nobody around for miles. After seeing too many horror movies start this way we were a little on edge but made our way up to reception as we were both falling asleep already.

When we reached the front desk we were surprised to see smiling pleasant owners who upgraded our room for free and were very friendly. I felt very bad for expecting only bad things of their pride and joy but it just goes to show you can never judge a book by its cover.

A bit stressful and sleep deprived, but at least we returned safely just needing a bit more beauty sleep. Yet there was no time for catching up as I got back to Stacey’s just in time to be picked up by Shaun (Stacey’s brother) to go for my suit fitting. Before I knew it I was on a bus to Newcastle for Shaun’s stag do, but as juicy as it was you know I can’t say anything about the trip. The first law of the stag – sorry. What I can tell you is I had a great time and survived with only a few minor paintball bruises to the side, back, chest and legs.

On the Thursday of that week we managed to fit in a full days filming for a promotional advert at Ice Sheffield. A great day out and we really look forward to seeing the results from Rogue Frame Productions. Then to top it all off we had a fantastic weekend at Shaun’s wedding. Congratulations to them and I wish them many years of good fortune. It was a fantastic day and great to see all the families together. It pushed me and Stacey to get a few ideas together and think about the mammoth task of organising a wedding.

Anyway we are back in Poland now and had a week’s training back at base, just to see more great results. Let’s just hope the rest of our season can continue this way.

All the very best and speak soon.