David Pelletier

David Pelletier
Salé and Pelletier for " Love Story " at the Grand Prix Final 2002 in Kitchener
Full name	David Jacques Pelletier
nation	Canada
birthday	2nd September 1974
place of birth	Sayabec, Quebec
size	178 cm
Weight	80 kg
Career
discipline	Pair skating
Partner	Jamie Salé, Caroline Roy, Julie Laporte, Allison Gaylor
society	CAP Pierrefonds
Trainer	Jan Ullmark, Richard Gauthier
choreographer	Lori Nichol
status	resigned
End of career	2002
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 1 × 0 × 0 × VKM medals 2 × 0 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold Salt Lake City 2002 Couples  World figure skating championships gold Vancouver 2001 Couples Four continents championships gold Osaka 2000 Couples gold Salt Lake City 2001 Couples
Placements in the figure skating Grand Prix
Podium placements 1. 2. 3.  Grand Prix Final 2 0 0  Grand Prix competitions 5 2 2

David Jacques Pelletier (born September 2, 1974 in Sayabec , Québec ) is a former Canadian figure skater who started in pair skating .

Early career

Pelletier was successful as a pair runner with his partner at the time, Julie Laporte , from an early age . They won the beginners' and junior titles in the Canadian championship and 7th place in the 1992 World Junior Championships.

Despite these successes, Pelletier felt his career needed a boost, so he split from Laporte and partnered with Allison Gaylor . They trained together with Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler and celebrated their greatest success in 1995 when they won the silver medal at the Canadian Championships and were thus allowed to participate in the World Championships in Birmingham for Canada . There they took 15th place.

In the same year Pelletier / Gaylor surprisingly took second place in the short program at the Canadian Championships. In the freestyle they fell back to fourth place overall after a stump.

After Pelletier and Gaylor failed to make it onto a podium in the following two years, they separated and Pelletier found a new partner in the young runner Caroline Roy . Shortly before the 1998 Canadian Championships, Pelletier's former colleague Julie Laporte died in a car accident. Pelletier and Roy made a strong performance, but only ended up in sixth place and separated again shortly after the competition.

Working with Salé

Pelletier asked his trainer Richard Gauthier for help in finding a new partner and Gaulthier recommended Jamie Salé . They traveled to Edmonton in February 1998 for a trial with Salé . " It was great the first time we shook hands, " said Pelletier, and a month later Salé moved to Montreal to go ice skating with him.

The Canadian Figure Skating Association invited the two to take part in Skate Canada 1999, where they achieved second place in the short program - ahead of the reigning Canadian champions Kristy Sargeant and Kris Wirtz - and a third place in the freestyle and the associated win of the Bronze medal immediately attracted attention. Because of this success, they were invited to the NHK Trophy in Japan , where they again won bronze.

Their recent successes made them favorites for the Canadian title, but they made technical mistakes and finished the competition in second place. This silver medal earned them starting positions at the four continents championships and the world championships, but Pelletier had to cancel both events due to back pain. They both then took a two-month break.

"Love Story"

In the summer of 1999 Gaulthier hired Lori Nichol , a very successful Canadian choreographer who was best known for her work with the US runner Michelle Kwan . She created a playful tango for the short program and - following a recommendation by trainer Marijane Stong - a freestyle to the music for the film Love Story , composed by Francis Lai .

The program was an instant success. At Skate America in 1999 they sensationally won the short program as well as the freestyle in front of the reigning two-time world champions and winners of the Olympic silver medal Jelena Bereschnaja and Anton Sicharulidze . In their second Grand Prix appearance, the Nations Cup , they came second behind the Russians Marija Petrowa and Alexei Tichonow . With this solid result they qualified for the final of the Grand Prix. However, some mistakes in both programs only earned them a disappointing fifth place in the end, even though their jumps and lifts were major highlights.

In 2000 they took part in the Canadian Championships in Salé's hometown of Calgary , where they received the dream grade of 6.0 five times for a very strong and almost flawless short program - the first time a couple had achieved this in the Canadian championships. They got a further 6.0 and thus the gold medal at the four continents championships in Osaka, Japan .

The 2000 World Cup followed in Nice . Salé made a big mistake in a pirouette in the short program , but they still came third. In the freestyle, however, she stumbled again, this time in the jumps, and she ended up in the thankless fourth place in the overall classification.

The victory in Vancouver

Salé and Pelletier worked again with Lori Nochol for their 2000/2001 program . She devised a jazz choreography for the title “ Come Rain or Come Shine ” and a dramatic one for Wagner's Tristan und Isolde . In autumn they competed again at Skate Canada and Skate America , where they won each time in front of the pairs Shen Xue / Zhao Hongbo and Jelena Bereschnaja / Anton Sicharulidze . Shortly afterwards they were defeated by Berezhnaya / Sicharulidze in the Trophée Lalique .

The couple celebrated another great success at the 2001 Canadian Championships in Winnipeg , but could not repeat the five-fold "6.0" that " Love Story " earned them last year. They again won the Four Continents in Salt Lake City , although Salé was unable to properly demonstrate their triple toe loops in all three phases of the competition.

The World Figure Skating Championship was held in Vancouver , Canada in 2001 . Salé and Pelletier were high favorites to win the title. After problems in the short program, they initially ended up in third place, but an almost perfect freestyle brought them overall victory in the end. They were the first Canadian couple since Brasseur / Eisler were able to become world champions in pair skating in 1993 and the first Canadian couple since Barbara Underhill / Paul Martini in 1984 to do so in their own country.

Olympic hopes

In the 2001/2002 season, Salé and Pelletier again won the Skate America and Skate Canada competitions with technical consistency in both competitions with their new program for “Adiago Sostenuno” by Rachmaninoff .

The Grand Prix final, held in Kitchener, Ontario, was particularly important for the two of them as it was their first and only chance to test their program against tough competition before the Salt Lake City Olympics began. Despite a mixed first freestyle with " Orchidee " they managed to win the competition in the second run with an almost flawless run to " Love Story ". So they went into the finals of the Canadian championship in 2002 in Hamilton with great self-confidence, which resulted from the triumph against their greatest rivals, Berezhnaya / Sicharulidze. They won the title despite a less than optimal freestyle, which led to rumors that they would switch back to " Love Story " for the winter games .

The pressure before the games was high. Canada had won some silver and bronze medals at the Winter Olympics, but only two gold medals (1948 and 1960). Everyone expected Salé and Pelletier to end the dry spell and 40-year Russian dominance. The short program went smoothly except for a small slap in the final pose. Since the small mistake did not take place in an element of the dance, it was not punished with a point deduction. But it damaged the program so much that it was only enough for second place behind Berezhnaya / Sicharulidze after the short program. Now it came down to the freestyle.

Running after the Russians, Salé and Pelletier were able to delight the commentators as well as the audience with an expressive freestyle to “ Love Story ” . A small mistake in the jump from Sicharulidze and a clean performance by the Canadians had convinced most of them: Canada would win gold.

But it wasn't that far, because when the judges announced their points, Salé and Pelletier were only on the second freestyle rank. Five judges had seen Bereschnaja / Sicharulidze, four Salé / Pelletier in front. This result sparked an outcry in the North American media and large parts of the audience, but the two athletes accepted the silver medal . The next day, the French judge Marie-Reine LeGougne admitted that she had been put under massive pressure. Your vote for the Russians should be followed by a vote for the French ice dance couple Marina Anissina / Gwendal Peizerat . This scandal resulted in the suspension of some judges and officials and the cancellation of LeGougne's points. This created a stalemate and Salé / Pelletier was also awarded a gold medal a few days later.

This controversy led to numerous changes in the scoring system after the Games. First, the vote was anonymized in order to reduce external pressure on the judges. You could no longer assign the points by name. After two years with this system, a new points system was introduced for the 2004/2005 season .

To Salt Lake City

After the 2002 Games, Salé and Pelletier switched to professional life and toured North America for several years with Stars on Ice , a popular ice dance show . They married on December 30, 2005.

In early 2006, she commented on the USA Network in the Winter Games in Turin some skating competitions. Pelletier is an athlete ambassador for the development aid organization Right To Play .

Results

Pair skating

(with Jamie Salé )

Competition / year	1999	2000	2001	2002
winter Olympics				1.
World championships		4th	1.
Four continents championships		1.	1.
Canadian Championships	2.	1.	1.	1.

(with Caroline Roy )

Competition / year	1998
Canadian Championships	6th

(with Allison Gaylor )

Competition / year	1994	1995	1996	1997
World championships		15th
Canadian Championships	8th.	2.	5.	6th

(with Julie Laporte )

Competition / year	1992	1993
Junior Championships	5.	7th

Web links

Commons : David Pelletier  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Salé and Pelletier in the database of the International Skating Union (English)
• David Pelletier in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Website by Jamie Salé and David Pelletier