In her inaugural season of junior ladies competition, Coquitlam's Larkyn Austman has set the bar high.

A month ago, the 14-year-old won the Skate Canada Challenge with a comeback win that garnered her much attention.

This week, Austman outdid her previous performances by a large margin - winning the Canadian Tire National Figure Skating junior ladies crown in Mississauga, Ont.

The Dr. Charles Best Grade 9 student - who turns 15 next month - posted personal bests in both the short and free programs and proceeded to lock up the title with 149.75 points. It was nearly 26 points better than her nearest competition.

"It was great - I just wanted to skate cleanly and do what I had been doing in practice," Austman said from Ontario. "I was nervous but I'm nervous before every competition."

In Monday's short program, the Connaught Skating Club member began the 2: 50 routine with a triple salchow-double toe jump. Its success often helps set the tone for the rest of her skate.

"It's first and it was clean," she said. "It felt really good because I had struggled a little with it in the warmup but we fixed it and it went smoothly."

Her score of 48.78 gave her a four-point advantage heading into the free program on Tuesday.

In the long program she nailed another triple salchow-double toe and then unveiled a new jump that she had rehearsed hard since the Challenge - a double axel-triple jump that her and her coaches had waivered on when to debut it.

Now proved to be the perfect time. "She just started getting it the last four weeks and we were wondering if we should put it in for this event," said her mom Heather, one of the teen's coaches. "She nailed it to the point where she got bonus points for it."

Austman said landing it perfectly was a huge boost for the rest of her routine - where she finished with 100.97 points and a tremendous margin over her rivals.

"We just put it in and as soon as I hit it I knew - it just felt good," she said. "It was the best I could do, and I knew I had done it."

As a first-year junior, Austman was competing against skaters up to 19 years of age. Runnerup Marika Steward, 15, lives and trains in Japan but was representing North Bay, Ont.

The victory effectively ends Austman's junior skating career in Canada - as a junior national championship vaults her into the senior level for next season.

Her mom feels that the challenges will be big, but not surmountable.

"Her goal entering this year was to ultimately be on the podium, and she did that," said Heather. "She knew after winning the Challenge that this kind of performance was possible but in any sport it doesn't take much to have an off-day.

"The scores she put up this week were right up there with the senior skaters."

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