Chitwood and Hanretty look for Olympic recognition

CHRISSY Chitwood and Mark Hanretty were both inspired to take up ice dancing having watched Torvill and Dean scoop gold in Sarajevo and now they've got their own Olympic dream.

DANCING ON ICE: Hanretty and Chitwood look to highlight their growing potential in Nottingham (www.chitwood-hanretty.ice-dance.com)

January is a big month with the British Ice Figure Championships in Nottingham getting under way on January 12th.

The European Championships also begin in Helsinki on the 25^th of this month and with American-born Chitwood, 18, and 23-year-old Hanretty taking to the ice in both, there has been no let up in preparations over the Christmas period.

"We were extremely busy throughout December for a whole host of reasons and that, added to the two big tournaments we have this month, means we've been flat out," said Hanretty.

"We had a jam-packed Christmas at the Movies tour where we skated to Titanic to close many of the shows and our first piece was collaboration with one of the country's top ballroom dance teams to "Tango Roxanne" from Moulin Rouge.     

"But the rest of the time was spent preparing for the British and European Championships in January.

"We know there's going to be a great deal of competition in Britain let alone Europe so we really need to be at the top of our games."

The duo are used to overcoming difficulties to excel however with Chitwood based in Colorado for the first six months of their partnership.

But once she moved to the UK the Sheffield-based duo have flourished, coming third in the ice dancing at the British Championships behind five-time champions Sinead and John Kerr and Londoners Phillipa Towler-Green and Phillip Poole.

But Chitwood and Hanretty have made significant progress since then - demonstrated by their selection for the European Championships as the second-choice pairing behind only the Kerrs.

And while Hanretty is full of admiration for the Scots, who came tenth in Turin in 2006, he is convinced he and Chitwood can stake their claim for Vancouver, starting at the national championships in Nottingham.    

"We won a NISA event in September in Sheffield and I think that was when it really hit home that we were in with a chance of going to Vancouver," he added.

"We need to be in the top two in the country to be in with a chance but I believe that is within our reach.

"At the moment on the ice we are Finnstepping (one of the compulsory dances this season) as much as possible - the music rings in our head for most of the day!

"We like the dance and we are glad that it suits our style and hopefully it will bring us success."