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| La Belle Lejeanne |
| Published on October 05, 2008 |  
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Lejeanne Marais
October 5, 2008
Article by J. Barry Mittan
 South Africa's Lejeanne Marais made her first senior season a memorable one by competing at both the Four Continents Championships in Goyang, Korea and the World Figure Skating Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2008. She placed 20th at Four Continents and 51st at Worlds. Those were the first ISU championships in which the 2008 South African senior ladies champion competed.
This season Marais opened the season by finishing 20th at the ISU Junior Grand Prix in Mexico City. She'll next compete in the ISU JGP Skate Safari in South Africa.
Her mother, Susan Marais, coaches the 18-year-old, who trains in Pretoria. "I've been on the ice since I could walk," Marais said. "I was always around the rink while my mom was coaching and around seven or eight I started to get into it. I've tried some other things, but nothing that consumed my life like skating."
That includes ballroom dancing, which she tried for two years but never competed. At school, Marais competed in the 100 meters, high jump and long jump against other schools. "I'm always in the top three," she noted. "I also did tumbling for a year and a half when I was 13. My dad was a gymnast and tumbler." Her mother was the South African senior ladies silver medallist in skating in 1985.
Daniela Solinas choreographed Marais' 2007-08 short program, while her mother choreographed the long. She included music from the soundtrack of "Chicago" by John Kander and Fred Ebb for the short and from the soundtrack of "Casanova" for the long. Both programs were the same as she used in 2006-07.
"I saw 'Chicago' in South Africa," Marais said. "I was getting bored with doing classical music and I don't do themed stuff so I thought I'd try to do something out of character. For 'Casanova', I just liked the music. I wasn't portraying the theme or telling the story."
"Normally I find my music by watching movies or hearing it on the radio," she said. "I can sit for hours in a music store listening to CDs. This season, I have a faster short program." Marais is using the "Sex and the City" soundtrack, "Candle Will Rock" by David Robbins and "You Can't Stop the Beat" by Marc Shaiman from the "Hairspray" soundtrack for her short. She is using music from the soundtrack of "Dreamer" by John Debney for the long. Susan Marais choreographed both programs.
Marais plans a double axel, triple salchow and double lutz-double toe loop combination in her short program. Her long program includes a triple salchow, a double axel-double axel sequence, double lutz-double toe-double toe, and double lutz-double toe combinations plus a second double axel, double loop and double flip.
"I landed my first triple salchow last year and my triple loop is close," Marais said. "I was working this summer on the triple salchow-double toe and double axel-double axel as well as the triple loop."
"It's hard to find time to train because I started university this year," she continued. "I'm studying architecture, which is a six-year program. My dad's an architect so I've grown up looking at buildings. I'm up all weekend making hand drawings and building projects. I'm full-time at school from 8 to 5 so I have to get up at 3, leave by 4 and drive 80 kilometers to the rink, skate from 5:00 until 7:30 and then get to classes." She skates five days a week.
In the past, Marais has also trained overseas. That included short training periods in Oberstdorf, Germany with Michael Huth between 1999 and 2003 and one of Huth's camps in Finland in 2005. She also worked with Gilberto and Michaela Verdana in Lake Placid in 2007 and as late as January 2008. "It's very motivating to see other skaters at a high level," she stated. "You have to be able to visualize and see that things are not impossible."
Off ice, Marais enjoys listening to easygoing music, playing squash, jogging with friends, connecting with friends via Facebook, and reading novels, mysteries and love stories.
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