What happens when you’re an elite pairs skater, you’ve just achieved your biggest success at an ISU championship … and your partnership ends right afterward? 

It’s a scenario that Alisa Efimova, 24, and Misha Mitrofanov, 26, both faced over the past two years. In 2022, Mitrofanov won the ISU Four Continents Championships with Audrey Lu. But then Lu announced she was stepping away from competitive skating to focus on college at UCLA. 

Efimova, meanwhile, qualified for her first World Championships in 2023 with Ruben Blommaert, skating for Germany. Efimova and Blommaert placed top 10 at Worlds (and were also 4th at 2023 Europeans). Then Blommaert announced his retirement a few days later.

Both Efimova and Mitrofanov were left wondering where their pairs skating journeys would lead next. It turned out it was to each other.

Mitrofanov: “It was difficult sitting on the sidelines”

For Mitrofanov, the road to a new partnership took much longer than expected; he wound up missing the entire 2022-23 season. Finding a partner on a similar level as Lu, and with whom he felt a good connection, proved elusive.

“The higher you climb, the smaller the circle gets,” Mitrofanov said of the pool of available partners.  “Audrey and I skated for six seasons together. So it was a long time, and we grew really close. My goal was to find somebody whom I could skate reliably with. I had a lot of tryouts.” Two of the tryouts turned into brief partnerships, but neither worked out. 

Mitrofanov credits his family and longtime coaches, Olga Ganicheva and Aleksey Letov, with helping him stay motivated. 

“It was very difficult sitting on the sidelines. Olga and Aleksey helped push me constantly and helped me continue training,” Mitrofanov said. “They were constantly asking everybody to see if we could find a partnership.”

“Of course, he was struggling,” Ganicheva said of her student. “But he never stopped training. He always believed he would find a partner; he never gave up hope. To find a girl was really, really hard.”

Mitrofanov had to get inventive to stay in shape for pairs. He trained lifts alone by holding kettlebells aloft instead of a partner. He also lifted weights off ice to maintain his strength for pairs elements. Still, as more time passed without a partner, his spirits ebbed. The spring of 2023 seemed a turning point.

“I said, ‘Okay, I’m going to wait until after [2023] Worlds. Maybe something will happen.’ That was like my last chance,” Mitrofanov said.

His training mates Emily Chan and Spencer Howe, who were competing with Efimova at 2023 Worlds, heard about her split with Blommaert and shared the news with Mitrofanov.

“I messaged Alisa immediately on Instagram,” Mitrofanov recalled. “I said, ‘I’m sorry for your partnership ending. But I was wondering if you are interested in trying out pairs with me?’” 

Efimova: “I want more” 

For Efimova, there was no question if she would continue after her split with Blommaert. Their top 10 finish at Worlds had only increased her motivation.

“Right after Worlds, I figured out that 10th place is not what I want. I want more. This was my inner feeling,” Efimova explained. “I got this opportunity to be at Worlds for the first time, and I’m really happy we made the top ten with Ruben; that was amazing. But still, I knew I wanted more. So I left Japan hungry. My mindset was that if someone wanted to do a tryout, I was willing to try everything.”

Efimova had some other tryouts after Worlds. Then she considered Mitrofanov’s invitation. Before coming to Boston, Efimova reached out to Ganicheva and Letov.

“I called the coaches, because I didn’t know them before, just to hear what they thought, if they wanted me to be there,” Efimova shared. “Olga said: ‘Of course, come! If you don’t come, you will never know.’ It was so simple.”

Efimova flew to Boston in early June.

“It went pretty smoothly,” Mitrofanov said of their tryout. “There were some elements where we had different timing. But on other elements, it clicked almost right away, and it felt very nice. It just felt like [being] at home.”

“We were excited the moment we saw Alisa and how they skated together, and how they matched,” Ganicheva added. “It’s everything–the lines, the look, the body shape. And of course, Alisa is very beautiful and graceful. She can skate any style.”

Ganicheva and Letov were also impressed by Efimova’s work ethic. 

“She’s an elite athlete. You don’t have to push her,” said Ganicheva. “She knows what she’s doing, and why she’s doing it. You just need to make a plan, and she will stick to that. Misha is a hard worker, too. It’s a joy for any coach to have athletes like that. We were like: ‘That’s what he needs.’”

The team started creating a short program on the second day Efimova was in Boston. On the third day, they were already training elements.

The race was on to make it to the 2024 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, in Columbus, Ohio, which would be their first major event as a team.

“A plus and a minus”: Complementing each other

Efimova and Mitrofanov had only about six months to gel, learn all their elements, and get programs. They knew it wouldn’t be easy. 

Both came to the partnership with a lot of experience. In addition to their Four Continents title, Lu and Mitrofanov were 2018 U.S. junior champions and 2022 U.S. senior bronze medalists. Efimova, originally from Finland, skated pairs with Alexander Korovin for Russia from 2014 to 2020, and had success, winning a Grand Prix medal and Challenger Series medals. Then she teamed up with Blommaert to skate for Germany. Both Efimova and Mitrofanov were skilled pairs skaters; the question was how quickly they could come together. 

One key similarity helped. Although Efimova was born in Finland and Mitrofanov was born in the United States, both their families are originally from Russia. So they shared a common language and culture, along with coaches Ganicheva and Letov. 

“My whole family, the culture is Russian,” Mitrofanov said. His parents emigrated to the U.S. in the 1990s. “Alisa’s parents live in Finland, but they also have a Russian background. And Olga and Alexey are from Russia. I think it really helped that we all had a common language. The last six months, I’m not going to say it was easy; it’s been a learning curve. But we come from a very similar culture, so we understand each other. It’s been nice. We both have the same goal–and we’re similarly mind-oriented, I would say–so it’s nice for us to have that common ground. And everything builds upon it.”

Ganicheva said that Efimova and Mitrofanov balance each other well in their character and approach to skating. 

“They have totally different personalities. It’s like a minus and a plus,” Ganicheva noted. “Alisa is very intense. She is an extremely hard worker. Misha is very confident and laid-back. He is not stressed at competitions; he is not worried. He’s calm, he’s smiling, he knows he’s going to do his job. And Alisa is the opposite. So, Alisa makes them train very hard, but Misha makes her feel very safe and secure in the competitions. You want [the partner] to grab that hand and say, ‘Everything’s going to be just okay. We will do it.’” 

The building blocks: Elements

With such a short timeframe to Nationals, Efimova and Mitrofanov had to get to work quickly mastering the pairs elements. For their lifts, the duo combined aspects of lifts they used with previous partners.

“We did a big mesh,” Mitrofanov said. “For our lasso lift, Alisa had the takeoff with the spread eagle with Ruben. And I had the transition with Audrey. For the reverse lift, it’s like the lift [she did] with her former partner, but the forward takeoff is our thing. And, for the star lift, we both have done that lift a lot. Our goal was to put all the elements together and make a program out of it.”

Their triple twist–one of the most difficult elements in pairs skating–came together without too much trouble.

“We picked up our timing fairly quickly. Since I didn’t skate with a partner for a while, I lost the feeling of the timing I had with Audrey,” Mitrofanov said. “When Alisa came, she was like, ‘This is the timing that would help.’” 

“The twist is a really tricky element for new partners. I think it takes time to really feel it,” Efimova added. “And we will still work on it. But what we found so far is working.”

Like many brand-new pairs, Efimova and Mitrofanov are still working to get their throw jumps consistent.

“When you don’t have so much experience together, it’s difficult to expect what the timing can be [on throws],” Efimova mused. “The longer you skate with a partner, the more you know what to expect, and how to get out of [i.e., land] different kinds of throws. It’ll be like: ‘Okay, now I feel his legs are maybe a little bit stiffer. So I’ve got to do this, to compensate.’ Those things come with experience. In the beginning, it’s difficult to land a throw that is not perfect. Then the range of ‘okay’ throws grows bigger, and you’re able to make them work in different situations.”

The couple perform a forward outside death spiral–the most difficult death spiral–in their free skate. It’s a trick Efimova learned with Blommaert.

“As soon as Aleksey saw that, he’s like, ‘We’re putting that in the program,’” Mitrofanov said. “For me, it’s a completely new element, so I’ve had to adjust to her timing. But Alisa holds her edge so well. So it’s more on me to figure out how I can get three revolutions on it.”

Pairs skaters sometimes struggle with side-by-side jumps. Mitrofanov said that he worked a lot on his jumps during his long break from competition.

“I drilled my jumps back and forth. I would just do constant sets of them, to get them to the point where it’s like second nature,” Mitrofanov said.

Efimova noted that the mental aspect of jumping can be challenging.

“When it’s bad and something is not working out, you’re lost. You’re only expecting to do it. So as soon as something doesn’t work, it’s a big question, and a lot of emotions,” Efimova said. “It’s really difficult to fight this inner feeling of, ‘I can’t do this, what’s going on?’”

Efimova said that Ganicheva and Letov encourage their students to train jumps in a systematic way, with an eye toward making them more automatic. 

“They have pushed me to do jumps in any condition,” said Efimova. “I had the opportunity to combine my feeling [of jumping] with their view and their corrections. I’ve learned that I can do the jumps in different situations. If I’m a little bit tired, I can still do it. If I’m really excited, I can still do it. So I’ve become more prepared.”

“We changed her technique a little bit,” Ganicheva said of Efimova’s jumps. “She strongly believed in her technique [at first]. We convinced her to trust us. We are successful singles coaches, too, so we can help with technique.”

“I’m really proud of Alisa and the amount of work and effort that she’s put into honing her jumps,” Mitrofanov said. “She takes extra time in the morning and after practice to do jumps. Olga and Aleksey were like, ‘This is the hardest-working student we’ve ever had.’”

The coaches’ role

Ganicheva and Letov are the first, and only, pairs coaches that Mitrofanov has ever trained with. 

“They really are a complete package of a coaching team. I love working with them,” Mitrofanov said. “Until my career ends, I’ll be with Olga and Aleksey. I told my parents that years ago; that I don’t plan on leaving. Olga and Alexey are like our second parents. They care so much about their athletes–not just on the ice, but also off the ice.”

Efimova, by contrast, has worked with many different pairs coaches in her career. She reflected on what she has learned from each of them.

“I started when I was 14 in Moscow with Natalia Pavlova [a coach of Russian junior pairs]. With her, I learned everything from zero,” Efimova said. “She had a really strong emphasis on the base, starting from basic body strength. The training regime was really hard. I was young, and we were kids in the group. So we could take it, quite a lot. From there, I learned that, for me, I can get results only if I put in 100% effort. That’s the only way. If I want to skate and succeed, that’s the way I have to train.”

In 2017, Efimova and Alexander Korovin moved to St. Petersburg to train with Olympic champion Oleg Vasiliev in Tamara Moskvina’s pairs group. 

“There, we got our first Grand Prix medal. So I got my first feeling of the hard work really paying off,” Efimova said. “We had amazing programs. Great training conditions also helped us to get our first serious victories.”

In Berlin, she and Blommaert trained with coach Florian Just.

“When I was working in Germany with Florian Just, I learned a lot about how to keep a partnership together–how much flexibility is possible to give,” Efimova said. “I learned how I can keep my boundary and adjust the work.”

Now Efimova enjoys training with Ganicheva and Letov and learning from the new coaching team.

“It’s the first time I’m in a team where it’s two head coaches. It’s really interesting, because they are so different. Olga is like the creative, emotional part. And Aleksey is technical and less emotional,” Efimova said. “During practice, depending on what you feel, you can just look at one of them, and get the energy you need at that moment. The working process is really flexible, because Olga can say something about our program, and Alexey will say something technical.”

Nationals and beyond

Coming into U.S. Nationals, Efimova and Mitrofanov’s goal was simple: To show their planned content and the results of their hard work. When they walked away with the silver medal in Columbus–and first place in the free skate–it was an unexpected icing on the cake, as well as a validation of their decision to team up. 

The duo looked forward to taking a bit of a break after Nationals. Mitrofanov had plans to visit his parents in Texas and sister in Florida. 

“We just need to take a couple of deep breaths now. We were in a tunnel toward this competition; we did a lot of work to be here. And we were keeping this tunnel [view] until the very end of the free program, and even after,” Efimova said. “So, that’s the first thing: Just let it go for a moment. We want to be human people–Alisa and Misha.”

Mitrofanov is a car enthusiast–a hobby he shares with his father–and he has a special  off-season project planned. He’s going to fix up an old Mazda Miata that he recently bought.

“I want to completely restore the Miata, bring it down to Texas, and give it to my dad,” Mitrofanov shared. “When I moved from Texas to Boston, I had to sell the Miata [we owned then], and my dad was really, really sad. The opportunity came to get another one, and it’ll be fun to restore it. This one, we’re going to keep.”

Off the ice, Efimova loves theater, ballet, and exploring the Boston area, as their schedule permits. One of her goals is to see a Broadway show in New York City.

“Sometimes I read a lot. Sometimes I knit. Sometimes I draw. I love to take walks,” she said. “Recently, I’ve been really into listening to podcasts. It helps to unwind the mind.”

Efimova enjoys podcasts about biology, psychology, neurobiology, and neurophysiology, particularly as those disciplines relate to sports.

“I love understanding why everything is like it is. When I feel some way, and I find that maybe it’s just a neurophysiological process–I’m like, ‘Aha, so this is how it works.’ Then I can find ways to adjust it. That’s helpful in my career,” Efimova said. “In the future, I wish I could be a professional who could help in the field of sports–whether it’s medicine or psychology or research.”

Mitrofanov also has an interest in health care and sport. During his time away from competition, he graduated college with a degree in healthcare studies. 

“There’s some really cool research happening at the Skating Club of Boston that I want to be a part of,” Mitrofanov said. “They’re monitoring different aspects of the human body, in terms of dance–how a person fatigues, how their rhythm changes, how their timing goes off. I’ll see what I can learn from this research, and what I can do with my diploma.”

Still, Mitrofanov anticipates always being involved in skating. 

“Whether it’s with coaching, or other things, I will always be attached to this sport, because it’s been a big part of my life,” he said. “It’s like we’re born and raised at the rink. I feel like I would lose a part of myself if I stepped away from it.”

For now, Efimova and Mitrofanov’s main focus is their new partnership. Efimova has started paperwork to get U.S. citizenship. And although the duo have not made any firm plans yet, Ganicheva said they have discussed the possibility of continuing as far as the 2030 Olympics. 

“They love this sport. Their goal and dream is to go to the top,” Ganicheva said. “It’s always that. If you ask any pair in the top 10 in the world, that’s what they want. And what the future will bring, we will see.”