LILLEHAMMER – The Skills Challenge at these Youth Olympics end today with the men’s Grand Final that can be watched live here.

One athlete who did a great leap forward during the last few months is Eduard Casaneanu from Romania.

After winning the national contest in his hometown of Miercurea Ciuc, Casaneanu was 15th out of 36 male athletes at the qualification event, the Global Skills Challenge Summit in Vierumaki, Finland, barely qualifying for Lillehammer 2016 with seven players tied between 14th and 20th place.

Seven months later the 16-year-old is in second place after the two-day qualification here in Lillehammer. He won the fastest shot competition with his best shot hitting at 143.1 km/h. He was second and third in shooting accuracy and fastest lap respectively while still making the top-8 in the other three tests.

“I practised more and played attention on improving my weaknesses especially on agility skating because I don’t have quick feet. I just worked hard,” the Romanian forward said when discussing his personal progression in the Skills Challenge.

Casaneanu started to play when he was six years old. He comes from the city that is known as Miercurea Ciuc in Romanian and Csikszereda in Hungarian. The city is known as the hockey hotbed of the country. 81 per cent of the population speaks Hungarian while Casaneanu comes from the ethic Romanian community.

In hockey everybody comes together in Miercurea Ciuc no matter of the background. The choice of sports is easy for many kids in the town and Casaneanu immediately fell in love with the sport when his parents took him to the rink.

He plays with the U16 team of SC Miercurea Ciuc (also known as HSC Csikszereda in the Hungarian language), which competes both in the Hungarian and Romanian championship. In the next years he hopes to make the senior team that plays in the Hungarian-Romanian professional league MOL Liga before reaching higher goals.

“I would like to go to the KHL,” he says. “Spartak Moscow is my favourite team.” And Sidney Crosby his favourite hockey player.

In his daily life he starts with school, goes to practice and then home to do his homework. If he has time for more his focus I also on sports such as floorball (a type of floor hockey played indoor), football or go running.

For now his goal is a medal here in Lillehammer.

“I feel good here. It’s a very nice place with good people,” he says. “I think I can improve and have the chance to win but it will be very difficult.”

The grand final starts at 20:00. Among the favourites are also Sebastian Cederle from Skalica, Slovakia, who had most points in the qualification in Lillehammer earlier this week and German forward Erik Betzold, who plays for the juniors of Kolner Haie and was third in the qualification in Lillehammer but won the Global Skills Challenge Summit last summer.

The live broadcast will start at 19:55 CET and can be watched here.

MARTIN MERK