Brooke McIntosh
Brooke McIntosh (born January 5, 2005) is a Canadian pair skater. With her skating partner, Benjamin Mimar, she is the 2022 World Junior bronze medalist and 2022 Canadian national junior champion. With her former skating partner, Brandon Toste, she represented Canada at the 2019 World Junior Championships, finishing in the top ten, and the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics, finishing fourth. McIntosh/Toste were national novice champions and national junior silver medalists. Personal life. McIntosh was born on January 5, 2005 in Toronto, Ontario. She is the daughter of Greg McIntosh and Jill Horstead, a former competitive swimmer who  competed for Canada at the 1984 Summer Olympics. McIntosh's younger sister, Summer, is also a competitive swimmer and was part of the Canadian team for the 2020 Summer Olympics. Career. 2017–2018 season. In January 2018, McIntosh/Toste won gold in the novice division at the Canadian Championships, setting a new Canadian record (120.24). 2018–2019 season. In the 2018–2019 season McIntosh/Toste debuted in the ISU Junior Grand Prix series. They opened the season in August at the JGP Slovakia, where they finished fifth. In September, they competed at the JGP Czech Republic, finishing tenth. In January 2019, they won  silver in the junior division at the Canadian Championships. Both also competed in the singles events (in the novice division) – McIntosh finished eighth and Toste ninth. In March 2019, they represented Canada at the World Junior Championships, finishing tenth. 2019–2020 season. Competing on the Junior Grand Prix for their second season, McIntosh/Toste placed fifth at the 2019 JGP United States in Lake Placid and sixth at the 2019 JGP Russia in Chelyabinsk. These results qualified a place for a Canadian junior pair team at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics in Lausanne, and they were subsequently selected to take that  spot; as a result of which, they did not attend the 2020 Canadian Junior Championships, which overlapped with the Youth Olympics. They placed fourth at the Youth Olympics in the pairs event, and also placed fourth in the team competition. Following the Youth Olympics, coach Andrew Evans announced that Toste would be retiring to focus on attending university, while McIntosh would search for a new partner. A month later, Evans announced that McIntosh had formed a new partnership with Benjamin Mimar. 2020–2021 season. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down training centers in Ontario for several months, after which McIntosh and Mimar  were added a list of competitive skaters cleared to keep training through subsequent lockdowns. There being no international season to speak of for Canadian skaters, McIntosh/Mimar competed as seniors on the domestic level, debuting at the Ontario Sectionals to win the gold medal. At the 2021 Skate Canada Challenge, which was held virtually across several hub locations to minimize gatherings, they placed fourth, qualifying to the national championships. 2021–2022 season. McIntosh/Mimar did not compete internationally on the Junior Grand Prix, debuting at and winning the 2022 Skate Canada Challenge to qualify for the 2022 Canadian Junior Championships. They  won gold there as well, setting a new Canadian junior pairs record for total score. Following the junior championships, McIntosh/Mimar were sent to make their international debut at the Bavarian Open, which they won by a margin of almost twenty points, in the process acquiring the minimum technical scores necessary to attending ISU championship events. They went on to finish the season at the 2022 World Junior Championships, which had originally been scheduled to be held in Sofia in the traditional early March period. However, due to the pandemic they were moved to mid-April in Tallinn. Due to  Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the ISU banned all Russian athletes from competing, which had a significant impact on a pairs field dominated by Russia in recent years. McIntosh/Mimar placed fourth in the short program with a clean skate, 2.38 points behind third-place Americans Smirnova/Siianytsia. They were third in the free skate, despite McIntosh falling on her triple Salchow attempt and a shaky jump combination from Mimar, and won the bronze medal overall. She said "our program was not perfect, but we're happy that we got the medal." Competitive highlights. "JGP: Junior Grand Prix" Brooke