Canada's Aleksa Rakic finishes 10th in men's competition at Skate America

Here now is the Canadian, Alexa Rakic, the only Canadian man here at Skate America. This is his fourth senior Grand Prix appearance, and his first outside of Canada, which Mackenzie told us about a little bit earlier. His best Grand Prix finish was seventh. That was at Skate Canada a couple of years ago. He had some jump issues in the short, and sat tenth heading into this program. He's a skater who really enjoys the artistry within the sport of figure skating. But as Brenda mentioned, he did struggle in the short with the jumps. This quad toe, I hope he relaxes the upper body and lets it flow up into the air with him. Better attempt. I can see a little pike in his body in the air. It was going to be his combination and now he's going to have to find a place to put that. He'll be the only one in the world doing that combination. And very nicely done. He did. Maxwell that was more successful on the second attempt. A new element for the single skaters this year, a choreo spin. The best examples I've seen so far of something that does not look like an ordinary spin, but something different, something artistic, something that totally goes with the music. Very dedicated to the task, the music. If you're going to skate good to this music, skate well. Oh yes, you do. But he did. Of course, some technical issues, but let's put that aside and enjoy the moment. Okay, we will have the marks replays for Alexa coming up and more skating from Everett, Washington. There's the Canadian, Alexa's longtime coach, beside him and Joanne McLeod. You know, thanks to Stephen Gogol as fourth place finish at the 2026 Worlds, Canada has two spots to next year's Worlds in there. This year's, no, next year's Worlds in Finland. And of course, Alexa would like to be part of that team. Canadians will be in January. I think all three of us like this program because of his commitment to the movements. I thought he's a bigger skater, covered the ice better. Yes. That's the first triple axel where we saw the shoulder drop and he just couldn't get his feet under him. Some beautiful moments. Triple loop. This was lovely. And then triple loop again. You know what you should be using to jump? Your timing and your rhythm. The flow across the ice. So that when a good jumper jumps, they don't look like they're exerting force. So I feel like... The next step to his jumps, to make them, especially the quads, more consistent, would be to allow his beautiful skating skills to stay with him a little longer and trust him. And it's so easy to sit here and say that. And so hard to do. Some skaters make it look so easy. Alexa Rokic representing Canada has earned in the Free Skate score 145 and not too far off, 7 points back. 7.14 seconds. He ends his Skate America experience, his first time internationally at a Grand Prix event on a high note. That's what you want to do.