Rachel Pettitt is still flying high after her gold-medal winning performance.

The 11-year-old won the juvenile ladies event at the BMO BC/YT Sectional Championships in Kelowna last Wednesday.

Pettitt finished first out of 21 skaters in her division with a score of 32.74 – topping her nearest competitor by a mere 0.44 points – and was also awarded the Anderson Memorial Artistic Award.

"I had a really good performance, and high jumps and good spins,” the Arctic Edge Skating Club member said. "I just felt really calm, I thought that helped a lot on the performance and jumps.”

How were you able to be so calm at such a big competition?

"Probably good rest, just good focus,” she said.

Probably just good focus.

Rachel and her mother/coach Trish Pettitt flew from Whitehorse down to Vancouver last Monday to practice before driving nearly 500 kilometres to Salmon Arm, B.C., on Tuesday during her day off.

Then it was off to Kelowna for a 7 a.m. session on Wednesday before competing in the afternoon as the second skater in the event.

"Obviously I was tired,” Rachel said.

Trish put in, "We do that all the time.”

"Yeah, I'm kind of used to that,” Rachel added with a laugh.

Rachel was one of four Arctic Edge skaters who competed at the BC/YT sectionals.

Kevin Caron competed in the senior men's event, finishing sixth with a combined score of 105.54, while sister Teneil competed in the novice ladies event and finished in 24th place with an overall score of 62.17.

In the senior ladies event, Arctic Edge skater and coach Michelle Gorczyca also placed sixth with a combined score of 94.82.

Rachel's winning program included three double-double jumps: a double Lutz-double toe, double flip-double toe and double Salchow-double loop.

"I'm kind of getting used to it now,” she said of her three double-doubles.

During competitions it's best to focus on one jump at a time, Rachel said, adding that she can tell before each jump how it might go.

"I think it's right before you jump almost, you have to get the feel and once you get the feel of the edge going in you can tell when you're going to do it,” she said. "You can't really think too far ahead, if you're going to land it or not, because it kind of throws you off when you do that, when you think about a jump four jumps away.”

Heading into the competition, Rachel's goals consisted mostly of her performance rather than where she would place: good performance, good speed, fluency from one jump to the next.

But in the end the score is up to the judges.

Even with a solid skate, she admitted, she was surprised to take top spot.

"I wasn't quite sure. I knew I would get pretty good performance marks. I got high jumps, so I was sure I would be around the top. I didn't know I would get first, but around the top five-ish,” Rachel said, adding, "I had a lot of compliments after from most of the different coaches.”

Rachel, who because of her age qualifies for juvenile (under-12), also passed her test recently to compete in pre-novice, and now has her sights set on competing at the 2011 Canada Winter Games in Halifax, N.S., in February.

Two weeks ago she competed in her first pre-novice event at the BC Coast Regional Championships in Mission, B.C., where she placed 11th in the short program and 14th in the free skate.

Rachel is now working on consistently landing her double axle, a jump she started fully rotating before heading to sectionals.

In the lead up to the Games, she'll work on her program during training: twice Mondays and Wednesdays and each day of the week except Tuesday, her day off.

"It helps doing the two sessions because even though you're kind of tired, I'm always tired at the second session, it helps you push through, so it's good for the competitions,” Rachel said.

For the juvenile ladies division, the BC/YT sectionals are the end of the line. If Rachel competed in pre-novice in the event, for instance, she would qualify for other competitions.

"This is the peak of the competitive year for her level,” Trish said. "Now she's focusing on Canada Games.”