A number of British Ice Skating Honorary Life Membership Awards are announced each year to recognise and thank individuals who have gone above and beyond in their contributions to the ice skating community in the UK.
Jon Collins was announced as a recipient at the 2024 BIS Annual General Meeting; Jon became a short track Starter over ten years ago and has quickly risen through the ranks for ISU Officiating and is now on the ISU Championships list as an Assistant Starter, while consistently and generously contributing his time and expertise to the success of domestic competitions. We caught up with him to find out a bit more about his experiences in his own words:
"I am delighted to have been awarded Honorary Life Membership of British Ice Skating, it came as a complete surprise. Hopefully I have at least as many years still ahead of me helping out as a starter than I have behind me!"
What is your earliest ice skating memory?
Unlike most people getting awards I came to skating late when my sons learnt to skate, so my earliest memories are of seeing them as tiny children on the ice for the first time.
How did you first get into short track officiating?
We have three sons who learnt to figure skate from an early age. One of them, Theo, saw some short track skating when he was 6 and immediately wanted to have a go and was completely hooked. Short track is a relatively small sport in the UK so most parents "muck in" to help out. As I didn't actually skate myself I decided I would be more useful helping off the ice than on it, so volunteered to train as a starter. Due to the retirement of other starters I soon found myself going to most of the UK competitions to act as a starter.
What have been some standout highlights of your involvement in short track skating?
From an officiating perspective, although I am happy to start at any competition where I am needed, I actually get the most enjoyment out of being a starter at the smaller domestic competitions. At these competitions you tend to have a lot of inexperienced skaters. The process of going to the line and taking a stable well balanced starting position can be quite difficult for some of them, leading to inevitable false starts. It's often little things that need adjusting that make a big difference, so when you spot something and give feedback to the skater and you then see a marked improvement next time it's quite satisfying. In the international competitions the skaters are experienced and know exactly what they are doing, so although it makes the starters job much easier you don't get the same sense of satisfaction of being able to help the younger skaters.
One future highlight I am looking forward is later on in the season is when I am scheduled to be Chief Starter and my eldest son, Alex, is scheduled to be Chief Referee at the same competition.
From a non-officiating perspective the standout moment is being at the European Championship at Gdansk last season and seeing our son, Theo, reached the 1000m final and his team mate, Niall Treacy, won a silver medal after they both skated a great tactical race in the final.
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