Competitive ice dance is all about female and male partners creating beautiful shapes and stories together on the ice. Behind the scenes, however, the sport has struggled with issues of gendered power imbalances, and Olympic champion Gabriella Papadakis recently wrote about how female partners are often undervalued. Fortunately, this is not the case for rising …
Continue reading Fabbri/Ayer: “We plan to turn everyone’s heads”
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 …
Continue reading Golubeva/Giotopoulos Moore: “We’re trying to mature our skating”
In recent decades, Finland has taken an ever-greater role in ice skating, hosting major events and fielding successful skaters. Kiira Korpi and Laura Lepisto won medals in women’s singles, Juulia Turkkila/Matthias Versluis are top ice dancers, and of course, Finnish synchronized skating teams have won nine World championships. But pairs skating has not been part …
Continue reading Vaananen/Clerici: “We know we can win and compete at higher levels”
All photos courtesy of Janet Liu For top U.S. skaters, this season started and will hopefully end in Boston, MA. The past few weeks saw several skating events in the Boston area: Cranberry Cup, the season’s first ISU Challenger Series competition; Champs Camp, the U.S. federation’s high-performance training camp; and Summer Sizzler, a show held …
Continue reading Summer Sizzler: Season Preview for U.S. Skaters
In figure skating, there are great performances that win medals. And then there are performances that transcend medals to enter the lore and iconic history of the sport. Adam Siao Him Fa had both last month at the 2024 ISU World Championships in Montreal: He won his first career World medal--but it’s how he did …
Continue reading Adam Siao Him Fa: “I want to skate in a way that no one did before”
Chelsea Liu and Balazs Nagy will make their Grand Prix debut as a team this weekend at Skate America in Texas. Earlier this fall, they finished just off the podium at Autumn Classic International in Montreal, Quebec. Without question, it’s been a good start for their new partnership. Yet, arguably, Liu and Nagy shouldn’t be …
Continue reading “We’re Back”: The Surprising Return of Chelsea Liu & Balazs Nagy
Marie-France Dubreuil, co-head coach and co-founder of the Ice Academy of Montreal (I.AM), coaches many of the top ice dance teams in the world, including reigning World champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates. Dubreuil is also a highly esteemed choreographer–and not only for ice dancers, but other disciplines as well. Dubreuil had to tackle some …
Last season’s ISU Junior Grand Prix (JGP) series was notable for the emergence of several standout new talents in ice dance. Among the new stars were Hannah Lim and Ye Quan of South Korea. They captured fans’ attention starting with their first JGP event last year, where they skated with unexpected fire and aplomb. Lim …
Ben Agosto is a man who needs little introduction for figure skating fans. During his 12 years competing with partner Tanith Belbin [now Tanith White] (1998-2010), Agosto amassed a pile of medals and played a pivotal role in bringing the United States into the top echelon of the ice dance world. In 2002, Belbin and …
Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha have had a breakout season in 2022-23. But when the rhythm dance starts next week at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships, they will unfortunately be missing from the roster. It’s their misfortune that Canada has only two ice dance spots at Worlds this year–and three high-ranked ice dance teams. …
Continue reading Lajoie/Lagha: “Worlds is the piece that is missing to have had the perfect season”
