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| Birth Name(s) : Jamie Sale |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Full Jamie Sale Biography
Jamie Rae Salé (born April 21, 1977, in Calgary, Alberta) is a Canadian figure skater currently partnered with David Pelletier. She and Pelletier are 2002 Olympic champions in pair skating.
Salé competed first as a singles skater, winning the novice bronze medal and placing and 8th in junior ladies at the Canadian Championships. In 1994, Salé won the short program and finished with the bronze medal in the junior event at the Canadian Championships. That same year, she achieved her biggest success to date by winning the senior bronze medal with her pairs partner, Jason Turner. They were named to the 1994 Canadian Olympic team and placed 12th at the Lillehammer Olympics. They placed 16th at the 1994 World Championships in Chiba, Japan, but ended their partnership that August.
Salé returned to singles skating. She placed 5th at the 1995 Canadian Championships, but struggled with injuries which caused her to withdraw from the 1997 Championships. Salé returned in 1998 and skated a strong short program, but was only able to land one of five planned triples in her long program and placed 6th.
Salé had a tryout with David Pelletier in the summer of 1996, but it did not lead to a partnership. After her moderate success in singles, she decided to give pairs one last shot. Coach Richard Gaulthier, who was helping Pelletier find a partner, suggested Salé. He and Pelletier went to Edmonton in February 1998 to try out with Salé again. "The first time we grabbed hands, it was just great," said Pelletier, and by the next month Salé had moved to Montréal to skate with Pelletier.
Their fall successes made them favorites for the Canadian title, but they struggled technically and finished second. The silver medal earned them a spot on the Four Continents and World team, but Pelletier's back pain forced the pair to withdraw from both competitions. They spent two months off the ice recuperating.
In the summer of 1999, Gaulthier enlisted the help of Lori Nichol, a successful Canadian choreographer who was known for her work with Michelle Kwan. She created a playful tango piece for their short program, and, after a suggestion from coach Marijane Stong, set their long program to music from the movie Love Story.
They won several competitions with this program. At the 1999 Skate America competition, they defeated the reigning and two-time world champions and Olympic silver medalists Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze by winning both the short and long programs. At their second Grand Prix event, Nations Cup, they finished second to Russians Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov. With these solid results they went into the Grand Prix Final with high hopes and even higher expectations. However, several errors in both programs landed them in fifth place.
They competed at the 2000 Canadian Championships in Salé's hometown of Calgary. They skated a strong short program but exceeded even their own expectations by skating a nearly flawless long program, earning five 6.0 marks in presentation - the first for a pair at the championships. They also captured another 6.0 and the gold medal at the Four Continents Championships in Osaka, Japan.
Expectations mounted before the 2000 World Championships in Nice, France. There, Salé had a major error on a spin in the short program, and they were placed third. During the long program, she again struggled, this time with her jumps, and they placed fourth overall.
The pair was again successful at the 2001 Canadian Championships in Winnipeg, but did not earn the string of 6.0s that "Love Story" had brought them the previous year. They went on to win again at Four Continents in Salt Lake City, the site for the 2002 Olympics, and revived "Love Story" to win the Grand Prix Final - despite Salé missing the side by side triple toe loop in all three phases of the competition.
Salé and Pelletier again had early success in the 2001-02 season, winning both Skate America and Skate Canada with their new long program to "Adagio Sostenuto" by Rachmaninov, nicknamed "Orchid" for its flower theme. Perhaps more importantly, they demonstrated technical consistency in both competitions.
The pressure for the Olympics was intense. Despite several silvers and bronzes, Canada had only won two gold medals in figure skating, in 1948 and 1960. All eyes were on Salé and Pelletier to break the streak and win, overcoming the Russian pairs dominance that had lasted for 40 years. They skated a clean short program, only to trip and fall on their closing pose. Because the fall was not on an element, it did not receive a deduction, but it marred the program enough to land the pair in second place behind Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze.
Since the Olympics, the pair has turned professional and are now touring North America with Stars on Ice, a figure skating show.
Salé and Pelletier were engaged on Christmas Day of 2004 at their Edmonton, Alberta home and married on December 30, 2005 at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel in Alberta. In 2006, they served as commentators on Olympic Ice which aired on USA Network during the XX Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy. They welcomed their first child, a boy named Jesse Joe Pelletier, on September 30, 2007 at the Sturgeon Community Hospital and Health Centre in St. Albert, Alberta. Jesse weighed in at 7 lbs and measuring 19 inches.
1995:
- World Junior Figure Skating Championships: 12th place
- Canadian Figure Skating Championships: 5th place |
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