This week in Halifax, a new season starts for Anastasia “Nastia” Golubeva, 18, and Hektor Giotopoulos Moore, 22, who represent Australia. It’s the couple’s fourth season competing together, and their results have been good: They placed 8th at Worlds in 2023 and 10th at last spring’s Worlds. This season, they hope for continued growth.

Golubeva and Giotopoulos Moore are a truly international team: She was born in Moscow, Russia, while he was born in Melbourne, Australia. The duo came together thanks to Giotopoulous Moore’s coaches–Galina Pachina and Andrei Pachin–who have Russian roots. They brought Giotopoulos Moore to Russia as a 16-year-old to search for a pairs partner. After brief pairings with Karina Akopova and Milania Vaananen (who now compete for Russia and Finland respectively), the Australian tried out with Golubeva in fall 2019. Something clicked. In early 2020, the duo decided to team up, despite their different nationalities and languages.

Since then, Golubeva and Giotopoulous Moore have traveled the world for training and competition. They were initially based in Moscow and Europe, then moved to Australia in 2022. Last season, they found themselves in Montreal, Canada. They now train there full-time at the same rink as reigning World pairs champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps. The Australians competed initially as juniors–winning the ISU Junior Grand Prix Final in 2022 and two silver medals at Junior Worlds in 2022 and 2023–and last year was their first full senior season. 

The duo are getting a bit of a late start to this season, due to back problems for Giotopoulos Moore. After Skate Canada, they’ll pick up the pace, with plans to compete at a second Grand Prix event (Finlandia Trophy) and two Challenger Series events (Warsaw Cup and Golden Spin of Zagreb).

In Halifax this week, the Australians spoke about how their partnership started, what they like about training with Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, and what they’re working on this season. 

The start of their partnership: Coincided with Covid-19 pandemic

Giotopoulos Moore:   I was doing pairs for a little bit before I started skating with Nastia. She’s my third partner. I was in Moscow, with my coaches, and I was with a different partner, and that didn’t work out. I had maybe another month there [left on his visa at that time]. My coaches reached out to her coach, Marina Dezhina, and asked if she had any girls who wanted to try pairs. And Nastia came. 

Just before Covid started, we were going to start training together [in Moscow]. That was mid-February 2020. About two weeks later, airports started closing all over the world. Lockdown started, and I had two options. It was either leave and go back to Australia, and not know when the next time I would be able to go back to Russia, or get Nastia to come to Australia. So I said, ‘Well, I guess our only real option is for me to stay here and just tough it out.” I spent about a year and a half, from the start of Covid, in Moscow, until our first international [competition] in Oberstdorf. 

A binational (and bilingual) team

Giotopoulos Moore:  I lived in Russia during Covid, and I didn’t have any English-speaking friends there. The only English-speaking people I knew in Moscow at that time were our coaches. So the only time I was speaking English was with them. I made some Russian friends, and I had no option but to learn Russian.

Golubeva: My English was not so good. So we all speak only Russian. He speaks Russian very well.

Giotopoulos Moore: Our practices are pretty much fully Russian. I loved training in Moscow. I had so much fun there. I met a lot of really, really nice skaters, and I have lifetime friendships with lots of people in Moscow. There definitely was a culture shock [at first]. My first week in Moscow, they had some parades and fireworks. In Australia, fireworks for the public are not legal. You can’t buy fireworks. I heard fireworks going off [in Moscow], and I thought they were gunshots [at first]. 

Moving away from family for training

Giotopoulos Moore: Throughout the 2021-22 season, we decided to stay in Europe, because all of our competitions were throughout Europe. After 2022 Junior Worlds, Nastia came to Sydney, and we were training there.

Golubeva:   I was so scared to move to Australia alone, with no family there. I was scared. It was the first time I was leaving my family, and I was going to a country that had a completely different culture and a different language. At first, it was quite difficult. What helped was, of course, figure skating: focusing on my routine and making sure I was mentally healthy. I didn’t know many people. The only people I knew were Hektor and our coaches. 

Every day, I spoke with my friends [from home]. My best friend from Moscow, she was helping me. And my mom, of course. I could talk with my mom for two hours. [Laughs] FaceTime helped. I lived with Hektor’s family, so it was super-nice. Hektor’s mom is like my second mom.

Relationship with coaches

Giotopoulos Moore: I’ve been with Galina and Andrei since I started skating. So we’re family. Galina is our main coach. She travels with us everywhere, to all of our competitions. She’s here with us in Canada. 

Golubeva: She taught me all the elements.  Andrei is her husband. All together, we’re like a team. 

Giotopoulos Moore: We’re like family. 

Training in Canada: Part-time at first, now full-time

Giotopoulos Moore: The first time we came to Canada was in 2023 before Junior Worlds. We trained for about two weeks in Ste.-Julie [suburb of Montreal] with Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps and their coach, Josee Picard. We really enjoyed it there. Afterward, we started training [again] in Sydney. Then, when we got assigned to last year’s Skate Canada, we decided, “Let’s go to Canada. We can train there for a little while, get ready for our first senior Grand Prix, and train with some really good, strong pairs.” And 2024 Worlds were in Montreal, so we thought it’s smarter to stay in Montreal than train in Sydney and come with a huge time difference and jet lag. 

I bought a car here last year. So we’ve got a car, and we’ve got a place where we like staying. It’s good. We really enjoy it here. It’s a lot better-quality [training environment] for us [than Sydney]. There are really no other [elite-level] pairs in Australia. We have a really good setup in Ste.-Julie. 

Golubeva: Skating with Deanna and Maxime is so good for us. I really enjoy training with them. We are friends.

Giotopoulos Moore: It’s really nice. It’s somebody to look up to. You have that camaraderie when you’re training with others who are doing the same thing every day. We also have friends from I.AM [Ice Academy of Montreal], which is really, really fun. It’s a great atmosphere.

Elements: Throw jumps and triple twist

Golubeva: At first, our throws were not super-good, and I was nervous. But our coach said: “Wait. Wait for him.” 

Giotopoulos Moore:  I had two previous partners. And my first partner was very, very good at throws, and told me exactly what she wanted. Through training with other partners, you really understand the little movements, the little feelings, of a throw. And, as a [pairs] boy, what you need to do for your partner, to make it comfortable for her. I think I have a pretty good understanding of throws, and we’re pretty confident with them now.

Golubeva:   We need to work on the triple twist more.

Giotopoulos Moore: Yes. Our twist lift [triple twist] really isn’t our best element. We’re working really hard to improve it and make it as good as we can. It’s a long process, especially for an element like twist lifts. It’s not an easy one to get. We’ve been doing a lot of off-ice work, and our twist lift has improved off the ice, which is important. Now, it’s just really getting it down pat on the ice and transferring that off-ice feeling to on the ice.

Injuries cropping up

Giotopoulos Moore:  As all athletes do, you have those ongoing little injuries that come and go every now and again. Not really with Nastia … although she hurt her toe [at one point].I have a recurring knee issue, and sometimes my back. My back injury has been on and off. We thought we’d give ourselves a bit of a later start [this season], and give us time to properly recover and get ready. It’s much better now. It still flares up here and there–like two weeks ago, it flared up again. But I have a great physiotherapist in Montreal. 

Yesterday morning, I twisted my ankle really badly. I twisted it on a back outside death spiral. I kind of dug my toe in, and then my front foot slipped out and all of the weight went backward. So now we have that to deal with as well. Which is not fun, but it is what it is. 

New short program

Giotopoulos Moore:  Our new short program is set to Exogenesis: Symphony by Muse. It’s very uplifting, emotional music in the first half. Then the second half is a little bit more rocky, aggressive, and very in your face. It’s very different for us, and we’re really excited to show it off. Igor Tchinaiev choreographed it. We work with him on components. [Tchinaiev, who competed in ice dance for Russia, is now a coach in Montreal.]

Goals for this season

Golubeva: It’s about the connection between us and not doing the elements like robots. 

Giotopoulos Moore: We’re trying to mature our skating abilities and our connection on the ice; the amount of emotion we put into our movements. In juniors, it’s very important to nail your elements and technically be very, very powerful. 

Golubeva: In seniors, it’s skating skills.

Giotopoulos Moore: The components score is a lot more important.

Their personalities

Golubeva: Hektor is a very fun person. In training, he tries to lift the mood and have a fun atmosphere.

Giotopoulos Moore: Nastia is very focused, very to the point. I’m trying to bring up the mood in training. Sometimes you get a little bit too much into the zone. I do the same thing, and she pulls me out of it all the time. And I pull her out of it. It’s a back and forth.

Team tidbits

• Golubeva graduated from Russian high school this past spring. Before that, she spent much of her off-ice time studying.”She finished with very high marks,” Giotopoulos Moore said proudly of his partner. Golubeva will probably wait to start university until after the 2026 Olympics: “I am thinking about which university, and what I want. It’s a hard question.”
• Giotopoulos Moore’s family is currently living in the United States. His parents are in Seattle, while his brother attends school in San Diego. His mother is of Greek descent; his father is half-Austrian/half-Australian.
• Golubeva usually visits her family in Moscow in the summer.
• Giotopoulous Moore’s favorite role models are reigning Olympic champions Sui/Han and Olympic silver medalists Tarasova/Morozov. For Golubeva, it’s the 2018 Olympic champions, Savchenko/Massot.
• Golubeva likes to skate first after the warm-up in competitions, while Giotopoulos Moore does not like to skate first. “We compromise on second,” he said.
• They try to take time off after competing. “After competition, it’s such a huge high. You have a lot of adrenaline, a lot of nerves,” said Giotopoulos Moore. “So the next couple of days, we’ll take off and relax.”
• Sometimes after training, they do cold plunge recovery with Max Deschamps. “Max sits for, like, 8 to 10 minutes in the cold plunge,” Giotopoulos Moore marveled. “Four minutes is my record so far!”  “My max is 30 seconds,” Golubeva said with a laugh.