Whistler figure skater Nina Laferriere looks back on a successful year

Nina Laferriere had quite a season in 2024.

The Pembertonian collected eight medals at various regional figure skating competitions last year. Four of them were gold, including a breakthrough at Surrey's Jingle Blades contest from Nov. 21 to 24. One silver and three bronzes round out Laferriere's haul. 

She's fairly pleased with those results, but not content. 

"Sometimes I'm not the happiest with some of my performances, but I would still get good scores," remarked the 14-year-old. "I think I still could do better, but it's pretty good." 

As a member of the Whistler Skating Club (WSC), Nina began skating at five years of age. Her current routine places her on ice five days a week (twice at 6 a.m. before school), which means she rises around 5 a.m. on those days to make the drive from Pemberton to Whistler's Meadow Park Sports Centre. In addition to that, she goes through 25 minutes of stretching each and every day. 

According to her mom, Mika, Nina has missed three days of training in the last two years because of illness. That's it. 

She's driven, to say the least. 

"I love everything [about figure skating] but I especially love the feeling of doing all the jumps and spins," Nina said. "I just love the sport so much that I never want to quit, and I like to have a busy schedule." 

Comments Mika: "I never knew my daughter was going to continue skating this long. If she started saying 'I want to quit' or 'I want to do other sports,' [that would be fine] anytime—but she has never said any complaints. For the last three years, we're getting to a more competitive stage and she's trying to be better." 

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

Nina's athletic gifts appear to run in the family. Her older brother Leo is a scrappy amateur boxer who has won two fights in a row: the Bronze Gloves Championship Junior C title in Chilliwack and more recently, a late November bout at Griffins Boxing in North Vancouver.

The siblings are very different people with different strengths and personality traits, but they look out for one another. 

"They are encouraging each other because Nina is more of a feet-on-the-ground person," Mika explained. "She writes down her goals every single day before going to skating lessons, and after skating she reviews her goals. I don't know what she's writing in that notebook, but for five years she's been writing something and making small efforts each day to challenge herself. Nina's advising Leo about [setting goals] the way she's doing it. 

"But Leo is three years older and he's a boy, so he has a more physical advantage. He is giving Nina advice on what type of exercises she should do to jump higher, do bigger tricks and stuff like that. They have a very good relationship and I'm very happy about where they are." 

WSC leaders were blindsided in October when they learned virtually their entire wardrobe of figure skating costumes had disappeared. A series of communication breakdowns between the club and a third-party storage facility was found to have taken place, causing the latter to stop housing the costumes and allow members of the public to grab them. 

After a determined effort by the community, some outfits were tracked down and others made on short notice as donations rolled in. The club's beloved annual Starry Night show was able to run as planned on Dec. 6, highlighting the talent and creativity of its members. 

"It was still really fun and we still had a lot of great performances," said Nina. "We just had to improvise by bringing our own costumes and wearing our own dresses." 

Mika, who serves as a board member for the WSC, wishes to thank everybody who pitched in to support the club in its time of need. She also lauded head coach Morgan Wentworth and senior coach Dianne Diamond for what they've done to invest in local skating programs. 

Learn more about the WSC at whistlerskatingclub.ca.