Joan Cristobal takes a break during one of her three-hour practice sessions to laugh with her sister, Heather. Chronicle photo by Lacy Atkins

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Teen Ice Queen
Joan Cristobal, 16, has conquered the nation's best young figure skaters -- Now, she'll take on the rest of the world
Jordan Robertson, Special to The Chronicle Friday, March 9, 2001
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She exudes confidence, mixed with a touch of wide-eyed excitement, as she glides across the rink toward her jump.

The double axel she is attempting is a complicated move that can be difficult even for veteran skaters. But as she extends her right arm to the side, balancing herself with her left arm extended in front, she has already envisioned exactly what's going to happen.

She plants her right skate and leaps into the air. She completes two tight, quick spins and touches down with an elegant, palms-up landing. Then she turns with a graceful glide, and poses a little for the crowd.

Well, there's no crowd at the moment. There are 15 other skaters practicing at the Ice Centre of San Jose, a city-owned arena just south of downtown that also serves as the practice rink for the city's National Hockey League team, the Sharks.

The skaters all take notice of Joan's jump, as do some of the parents watching from outside the rink. It was flawless, as were the ones she landed before it.

Such is life for the newest National Junior Ladies figure skating champion.

Joan, a 16-year-old sophomore at Notre Dame High School in downtown San Jose, won the title in January at the Fleet Center in Boston. She beat 13 other girls to win the under-18 competition by winning the short program and finishing second in the long program. Her scores ranged from a 4.7 to a 5.5 -- the highest score in junior-level competition.

Although she's been skating since she was 7 years old -- and has been winning nearly every competition she's entered since -- Joan says her recent victory in Boston is by far her biggest skating milestone.

And on March 28, she will try to take it one step further. Along with three other top American skaters, she will travel to Turin, Italy, for the World Championships.

Joan says the success hasn't really sunk in.

"It's been overwhelming," she said. "I still have a long ways to go, but it's a pretty big thing that's happening in my life right now, the skating. "It's a pretty big accomplishment for me . . . because I worked so hard to get to nationals, and winning nationals was unbelievable."

She's made believers of her competitors, however. They aren't at all surprised that this humble, quiet girl from south San Jose has become a champion.

Marlowe Perry, 16, has been competing against Joan for five years. "She just makes it look so easy," said Perry, who lost to Joan this year in the regional competition. "If you had to classify her in one word, it's 'Wow.' "

Perry says Joan's landings set her apart. They're almost always spot-on.

"She's like ooze-out-of-a-toothpaste thing -- she just comes out of it so easy," she said.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

It all started for Joan when her family stumbled across an ice rink inside the Eastridge Shopping Center on a hot summer day in 1992. Joan's parents, Merly and Lito, work for high-tech firms in the South Bay. To beat the heat that day, they decided to take the kids to the ice rink. As they sat and watched the skaters, Joan says, she was immediately struck by the speed and bravado of one in particular.

"There was this little boy going around really fast, and I saw that and told my mom, 'I want to do that,' " Joan said. "So she signed me up for lessons."

A few weeks later, Joan was hooked. She says the basic moves, such as stroking and crossovers, came easily. She enjoyed sailing around the rink, and, most importantly, she was having a lot of fun.

"I guess it was pretty easy for me to get used to the ice," she recalled. "Usually, they use little chairs for balance, but they told me I never used one. So I guess I was pretty good when I started. I wasn't going around the rink really fast, but I could keep my balance."

Merly, Joan's mom, says she didn't mind driving her daughter to her practices, but often had to plead with Joan to leave.

"We would go in the morning, and in the afternoon, after school, sometimes once or twice a week," Merly said. "And she didn't want to get off the ice."

Merly and Joan agree on one thing: They know the value of letting a child progress at his or her own pace. Merly says she never forced her daughter to keep skating, and Joan says that freedom has helped her develop a better appreciation for her activity. These days, she spends 12 to 13 hours a week on the ice.

"They don't push me to be in this sport -- it's because I want to be in this sport," Joan said. "I love it so much, and I wouldn't give it up for anything."

After about a year of taking lessons, Joan won the first skating competition she entered. It was a beginners event held at the Eastridge rink.

"It was my first competition, and I was only 8 years old, so it wasn't really like a big, big deal," Joan said. "I didn't really see myself in competitive mode. After a few competitions, though, I started to see myself that way."

Her second conquest was a Christmas competition at the mall when she was 9. "That's when I probably started saying, 'I'm getting into this competition thing. Maybe I should do it more,' " she said.

She began traveling around the Bay Area to skate in youth competitions, sometimes trekking to Dublin and Stockton in search of tougher competitions.

"I like the feeling of competition, even though it can be nerve-racking," she said. "All the excitement that goes into it feels awesome."

That enthusiasm clearly became beneficial to Joan's skating career, but it also had a drawback. Joan says she was miserable, and that it was no one's fault but her own -- she worried, to the point of obsession.

MENTAL ROADBLOCK

Before every competition, she worried about her performance and rankings. She worried about whether her parents and her little sister, Heather, would like her routine. She worried about whether her coach, Kevin Peeks, would applaud her style. She worried about her clothes, her hair, her makeup.

Joan's fears about letting down her family and coaches were causing her to falter.

Peeks said when he started coaching her five years ago, Joan was winning, but was "timid" and "very weak" emotionally.

"She would cry a lot," he said. "(She was) confused, a little scared, not sure if she was capable of doing what I wanted her to. But that was before."

Joan signed up with a sports psychologist, Katie Pellvrelle of San Jose, a former skater and a specialized trainer who coaches Joan on mental strength before all big competitions. Peeks said he noticed a difference in Joan soon after she started working with the psychologist and that his star student became more competitive than ever.

"I think that's her biggest improvement -- she's no longer timid," he said. "Now she's more aggressive mentally, and that makes her more aggressive with the competition."

Joan says it was a turning point in her career.

"I feel like I have more confidence now," she said. "Before, I used to worry a lot about how I would look in front of people, how I would skate to win, win, win. But now, I don't have to worry about how I'll look . . . I'm skating more for myself.

"It makes me more relaxed when I'm skating. It makes me think less about what I have to do to please other people. I've learned that I don't have to please other people with my skating. They'll love me for whatever I'm doing."

Heather, Joan's 12-year-old sister, has also taken up the sport and placed 11th this year at Nationals in the juvenile division. She says her sister's success is almost like a dream come true.

"It's so cool, because we used to pretend that people in big stadiums used to announce her name, and now it's actually true," Heather said.

Joan says the sudden fame and traveling has taken her by surprise. The only time she ever left the country for skating was a trip last year to Canada for the North American Challenge, held in Ketchner, Ontario. (She has traveled before, however, going with her family twice to the Philippines to visit relatives.)

She has crisscrossed the United States for competitions -- in Alaska, Arizona, Ohio, Washington and Massachusetts. But none rival her trip to Italy this month.

"It's exciting because, for skating, I get to compete somewhere beside the U.S.," she said. "I get to see more of the world, I get to see something outside of this country, and I get to meet a lot of new people."

Peeks, who along with Merly will accompany Joan to Italy, thinks his student will wow the crowds overseas in the same way that she does in the United States. They leave March 25; the competition runs from March 28 to 31.

"I think the power combined with elegance makes Joan stand out from the competition," Peeks said after a recent practice at the Ice Centre. "It's unusual that they have both. She makes it look powerful, but feminine."

But Peeks is quick to point out that Joan is, after all, still a teenager. He gestures at her feet as she passes by. She's wearing two different shoes -- a hiking boot on one, a tennis shoe on the other. Later, she has on a knee- high black leather Guess boot on her left foot and a gold-and-gray Sketchers sneaker on her right.

"It's surprising how kooky and funny she can be," Peeks says. "And that's when she's at her best -- when she's laughing." Joan says she does have a lighter side. An example is her taste in music: She sheepishly admitted she likes 'N Sync. No, she clarifies, she loves 'N Sync. But, she insists, she's not a crazed fan or anything. Actually, she says, the guys in the band remind her of herself in a way.
"They are just normal people that are doing what they love to do," she says.

That is a lot like Joan, who is now gaining recognition across the country. She's certainly already a star at the Ice Centre. And aside from all the headaches that come with being a young, successful athlete -- not having time for friends, having to request time off from school to compete, constantly being on the road -- Joan says skating will stay her top priority.

ALL MAPPED OUT

She says she has her goals all planned: Next season, she will be promoted to the senior level, and she hopes to make it again to nationals. She hopes to get sponsors, which would mean that her family wouldn't have to pay to travel to competitions, shell out $1,200 for a new pair of top-of-the-line Harlick skates or pay coaching fees, which run between $35 and $45 per half-hour.

Joan says her ultimate goal is to make it to the Olympics, possibly for the 2006 Games in Turin.

"I really want to make it. I think it's definitely a possibility," she says.

"Everybody has a chance to go there. Everybody. So if everybody has a chance to go there, then I do, too."

Olympics or not, Joan says she'll be skating, even if no one is watching.

"There's excitement and there's also comfort when I'm skating," she says. "If I'm having a bad day, I can go on the ice and feel really good. It just gives me that feeling. I feel so comfortable on the ice."