Ana Cecilia Cantú Felix (born September 14, 1985) is a Mexican former competitive figure skater. She is a four-time national champion (2002–2003, 2006–2007, 2007–2008, 2008–2009) and competed at 9 ISU Championships (1 Junior, 4 Senior and 4 Senior Synchro). She is still to-date, the first and only Mexican female skater to qualify to the final segment at the World Figure Skating Championships, in 2009.
Personal life
Cantú Félix was born on September 14, 1985, in Monterrey, Mexico. She is the granddaughter of Benjamín Félix, the youngest brother of María Félix, which makes Ana Cecilia the grandniece of "La Doña."[1] She has a younger sister, who also competed internationally in figure skating.[2] Currently Cantú Félix is a World Coach and trains her students in Nuevo León; Additionally, she is a radio host and also works as a voice actress.
Career
Cantú began skating in 1992.[1] In 1998 she was Novice and competed for the first time outside her country at the North American Challenge Skate that took place in Dallas, Texas. In 1999 she finished 6th at the North American Challenge Skate that took place in Toronto, Canada. In 2001, she debuted on the ISU Junior Grand Prix series.
She qualified to the Free skate in Beijing and finished 20th. During the event, Cantú's bag with her skates vanished after the short program but her teammate, Ingrid Roth, who had not advanced to the next segment, lent her own skates to Cantu Felix.[3] Cantú had to compete the Free Program with skates 1 size bigger than hers and a different boot and blade brand that she was used to wear. Nevertheless, she placed better than all her teammates, making her the Mexican eligible by her Federation to represent her country at the 2003 Worlds.
At the 2009 World Championships in Los Angeles, Cantú qualified to the final segment by placing 24th in the short program. She became the first Mexican skater to reach the Free skate in the event's history. She is still currently the only woman to have achieved the final round at a World Championship.
Her programs were choreographed by David Wilson, Mark Hird, Shawn Sawyer and herself. During her last International season as a single skater, she was coached by Vladimir Petrenko[1] and trained at the International Skating Center of Connecticut, in Simsbury.
Her last competitions as a single skater was at the 2012 Mexican National Championships where she performed 2 clean programs.
While on her last season as a single skater she founded, participated in and coached the first synchronized skating team, which represented Mexico in the 2013 World Synchronized Figure Skating Championships.
The team continued to compete in the 2014, 2015 and 2016 World Synchronized Figure Skating Championships.
Cantú is the creator of the sit spin variation called AC-Sit. During many Competitions judges challenged the difficulty of this sit spin variation because they've never seen it before. After it was concluded that it was considered "difficult," a picture of this variation was included in the ISU Technical Panel Handbook for Singles.
