SOFIA FRANK and Edrian Paul Celestino missed the cut for next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing after crashing out of the maximum quota on Saturday in the Nebelhorn Trophy 2021 in Oberstdorf, Germany.
Filipinio-American Frank, only 15, placed 24th overall among 37 participants in the women’s event of figure skating. She garnered 128.78 points—47.65 score in the short program and 81.13 in the free skate, not enough to land her in the top six which was the quote for the Beijing Games.
Celestino landed 18th overall on 176.10 points in the men’s program that gathered 30 skaters from all over the world. He had 64.32 points in the short program and 111.78 points in the free skate, also falling short of making the top seven spots that offered tickets to the February 4 to 20 Beijing Games.
That leaves Julian Macaraeg as the country’s last hope for Beijing in men’s short track of speed skating. But the 18-year-old needs to make it to the top 32 in four Olympic qualifying World Cup tournaments in China, Japan, Hungary and The Netherlands from October 1 to November 4 to make it to the Games.
The Philippines isn’t new to the Winter Olympics having fielded two alpine skiers—cousins Juan Cipriano and Ben Nanasca—in Sapporo 1972, luge athlete Raymond Ocampo in Calgary 1988, alpine skier Michael Teruel in Albertville 1992 and figure skater Michael Martinez in Sochi 2014 and again Martinez and alpine skier Asa Miller in Pyeongchang 2018.
Despite their failure to advance to Beijing, Philippine Skating Union President Nikki Cheng said they would support Celestino and Frank’s campaign for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.
“Overall, we’re proud of how our Philippine representatives performed in such a high level competition,” Cheng told BusinessMirror before flying back to the Philippines from Germany on Sunday. We’re hopeful to have the Philippines appear once again by the next Winter Olympic cycle.”
American Alysia Liu (207.40), Poland’s Ekaterina Kurakova (193.58) and Belarus’s Viktoriia Safonova (190.29) finished 1-2-3 in the women’s division to tag along Switzerland’s Alexia Paganini (180.4), Ukraine’s Anastasiia Shabotova (177.70) and Australia’s Kailani Craine (165.35) to Beijing.
Another American, Vincent Zhou, ruled the men’s class with 284.23 points, followed by France’s Adam Siao Him Fa (243.78), Russia’s Mark Kondratiuk (241.06), South Korea’s Lee Si-hyeong (229.14), Azerbaijan’s Vladimir Litvintsev (228.65), Australia’s Brendan Kerry (218.95) and Canada’s Roman Sadovsky (207.62).
The Colorado-Springs-based Frank and Celestino, who lives in Montreal, Canada, were, however, given slots for January’s International Skating Union 4 Continents Championships at a still undetermined venue.
“Edrian [Celestino] and Sofia [Frank] were noticed by veteran figure skating analysts … and they will continue to make a mark on the world stage,” Cheng said. “It was a great learning experience for both of them.”