Ice cool Catherine beats the best to take skating crown

Wearside’s skating starlet Catherine Howe certainly knows how to freeze out her opponents.

For 14-year-old Catherine, whose home rink is in the Crowtree Leisure Centre in Sunderland, has just won the Junior Ladies’ Open Free Skating championships at Aviemore, Scotland.

Catherine, of Belford Terrace, Sunderland, has been skating for about five years, and gets up at 6.30 every morning to train at the leisure centre.

But her hard work paid off when she defeated more than 20 girls to take her first national open title with a three-minute free skating programme.

“I didn’t expect to win but I was delighted to take the title and now I am going to go all out for my Silver test,” said Catherine, who is a pupil at St Anthony’s School, Sunderland.

Catherine, pictured, will be keeping up her tough training programme of two sessions a day.

She is on the ice before and after school, and before a competition she trains during her lunch time as well.

Although her next goal is a competition in Sheffield on September 10 and September 11, Catherine eventually hopes to skate her way into world competition.

She has certainly got her father in a spin and he knows a bit about the ice himself.

That’s because he is the manager of the rink of the leisure centre.