World junior champs Ava Kemp, Yohnatan Elizarov start road to 2030 Olympics at Skate Canada

Ava Kemp and Yohnatan Elizarov's road to becoming world junior figure skating champions started with a trip across the provincial border.

The Winnipeg skaters were competing in singles when COVID-19 shut down rinks in their hometown. Elizarov was prepared to leave the sport to study computer science at the University of Manitoba when coach Kevin Dawe, who saw a pairs skater in his strong build, suggested he try the discipline with Kemp.

The duo travelled to Regina for a two-week tryout in 2021, taking advantage of Saskatchewan's looser lockdown rules. By the end of the first week, they had built a short program.

"We were like, 'What is happening? We don't know anything about pairs,'" Kemp recalled. "That's kind of how it started."

They didn't know it then, but the newbies were on the path to becoming a winning pair.

Five years later, the 18-year-old Kemp and 22-year-old Elizarov are making their senior Grand Prix debut on Friday at Skate Canada International in Kelowna, B.C., and treating it as their first step toward the 2030 Olympics.

"In previous years we would take it year by year and see how we progressed because we were very new to pairs. We started in 2021, so we didn't have any big goals or long-term goals," said Elizarov, who still studied at the University of Manitoba for 18 months before giving school a break.

Winnipeg pair wins gold at junior figure skating worlds

"I feel like after we won junior worlds, we sat down and said we want to work for the next four years and work toward 2030."

The Winter Games in the French Alps have been their stated goal since March, when they topped the podium in Estonia to become Canada's first world junior pairs champions in 48 years. It's a feat that seemed improbable