SOFIA FRANK has a busy 2023 calendar to guarantee that she levels up following her gold medal-winning performance at the Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy held last week at the Oasis Centre Arena in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Only 17 and the first Filipino to win gold at the Asian Open, the 17-year-old figure skater said her latest victory boosted her morale to do better in the coming years.
But she needs to polish her craft some more.
“I still need to improve on the level of spins and execution of my jumps so I can get a better grade,” said Frank, who’s in town with her mom Preciosa and younger sister Natasha for a brief vacation. “If I work on those and everything matches really well, everything will be really good after that.”
Frank garnered 143.97 points in ruling the senior women figure skating event that lured eight athletes. Hong Kong’s Joanna So tallied 138.14 points for the silver medal and Chinese-Taipei’s Tzu-Han Ting 136.40 points for the bronze medal.
She won the gold after topping the short course program with 50.19 against Ting’s 48.48 and Hong Kong’s Cheuk Cheung got 46.87 and the free skate program with 93.78, pushing So to second with 91.56 and Ting to third with 87.92.
“It’s really big that I accomplished something and it’s really cool that I am the first Filipina who accomplished that,” she said.
Frank said that she’s gearing up for the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships from February 7 to 12 in her hometown Colorado Springs and the Junior World Championships from February 27 to March 5 in Calgary, Canada.
To add to her skills, Frank said she needs to focus on how to compete against herself and not against other skaters.
“Just like learning how to manage myself during the competition, just learn how to compete against myself and not against other people,” she said. “I have to handle my nerves a lot better and if I do that everything will be fine.”
While in town, Frank tried out the local rinks inside a mall in Pasay City and Mandaluyong City. She wasn’t at home in both.
“It’s a lot different skating in the US, I’m not used to skating in a big mall,” she said. “It’s a lot more humid here and it’s really foggy, but that’s not bad and it’s a pretty good ice.”
The Franks, who’re hosted by actress Sylvia Sanchez-Atayde and her husband Art, are making sure they spend the most out of the short vacation by including a trip to Panglao in Bohol before heading back to Colorado Springs on December 27.