After an eventful Olympic season–which saw him swing from a 29th-place finish in Beijing all the way up to 12th place at Worlds–Roman Sadovsky is back and ready to start a new four-year cycle of competition. This past weekend at Skate America in Norwood, MA, he finished fifth in a strong men’s field. American phenom Ilia Malinin grabbed headlines–and the Skate America title–when he landed a quad Axel in the free skate. But Sadovsky also impressed the crowd and judges in Norwood, landing some quad Salchows and debuting a new long program. His next Grand Prix event is the MK John Wilson Trophy in Sheffield, England.
The day after the men’s competition, I spoke with Sadovsky to get an update on how his off-season went, the process of creating his new programs, and his progress with quad jumps.
Jim Peterson is a familiar face to U.S. pairs skating fans. He’s been a leading coach in the discipline for many years now. At his former base in Ellenton, Florida, Peterson worked with a number of top U.S. pairs over the last decade and successfully guided three of them to the Olympic Games: Caydee Denney/Jeremy Barrett, Amanda Evora/Mark Ladwig, and Felicia Zhang/Nate Bartholomay. Peterson also coached 2016 U.S. champions Tarah Kayne/Danny O’Shea.
During the last few years, Peterson’s coaching career has changed a bit. First, his former student Amanda Evora has joined him as co-head coach of their students. And, after over a decade in Florida, Peterson and Evora decided to move their school north to the Arctic Edge Ice Arena in Canton, Michigan. They now work in the same rink as the Michigan Ice Dance Academy (MIDA), recently launched by Charlie White, Tanith White, and Greg Zuerlein.
Last month, Peterson accompanied his and Evora’s students Valentina Plazas and Maximiliano Fernandez to the U.S. International Figure Skating Classic, where the team won bronze. After the event, Peterson gave me an update about his new skating school, his partnership with Evora, their work with Plazas/Fernandez, and his thoughts on recent happenings in the pairs discipline.
On a press call today, Ilia Malinin said that he is happy, but also nervous, to compete in front of a sold-out audience at Skate America later this week.
“It will be pretty packed. It gets me really excited, but is also kind of nerve-wracking, to see that I’ll be performing in front of a lot of people,” Malinin said. But the 17-year-old looks at it as good practice for major competitions.
Last month, Malinin drew international notice when he landed the first quad Axel in competition at U.S. International Figure Skating Classic in Lake Placid, NY.
When Alex Johnson stepped away from competitive skating in spring 2019, his goal was to pursue a career in business, while staying involved with figure skating. Two years later, Johnson is thriving professionally, having recently started a new job as a financial analyst with Amazon. He’s also taking on a new, high-profile role as head coach for Camden Pulkinen, who finished fifth last season at both U.S. Nationals and Worlds. Pulkinen is a student at Columbia University in New York City. Johnson recently accompanied Pulkinen to Lake Placid for the U.S. International Figure Skating Classic, where I had a chance to chat with him.
A couple weeks ago, I had a chance to go to Lake Placid, NY, to cover the 2022 U.S. International Figure Skating Classic. The competition turned out to be pretty exciting, with Ilia Malinin making skating history by landing the first quad Axel.
It was my first time visiting Lake Placid–a small town that has played an outsized role in the history of U.S. winter sports. Lake Placid hosted both the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics, and will host the 2023 Winter Universiade event next year. It is also a center for events and training in other winter sports. I didn’t really know what to expect from the town, but I had a feeling it would be pretty cool, one way or the other. And it was.
Lake Placid lies in the Adirondack mountains, at 1800 feet above sea level. Although it’s not, of course, as high up as the Rocky Mountains out west, I did feel the altitude a bit while walking around town. You can see hills all around in the distance, and the village sits directly on the shoreline of small but lovely Mirror Lake. The whole area is super-scenic and a really nice place to visit for a skating competition.
It’s pretty cool being near a lot of sports history, too. Directly on the other side of the street from the arena is the speed skating oval where Eric Heiden won five gold medals in the 1980 Winter Olympics. And U.S. Classic itself took place in the same rink where the “Miracle on Ice” happened and the U.S. hockey team won Olympic gold in 1980. Not too many skating arenas can boast that kind of history!
The Miracle on Ice rink at Lake Placid
The skating itself was pretty great. U.S. Classic is an early-season event, so you know going in that skaters aren’t going to be in the same kind of top condition as at Nationals or Worlds. However, the upside of the early-season timeframe is that you get to see a lot of new-program debuts and, sometimes, witness skaters trying out new things that they’d be hesitant to go for in a larger competition. I’ve attended this event three times now, and it always winds up being quite fun.
Here’s some news & notes from the unofficial mixed zone about each discipline.
This past week brought a new milestone in men’s figure skating. U.S. skater Ilia Malinin, 17, became the first man to ever land a quadruple Axel jump in competition, a feat he accomplished at the U.S. International Figure Skating Classic in Lake Placid, NY.
Malinin’s groundbreaking moment caught the mainstream press by surprise. Those who follow figure skating closely, though, were primed for the moment. This spring, Malinin had shared videos of himself doing quad Axels in practice, so skating fans knew it was a possibility he’d land the jump at this competition.
Still, the actual sight of the first quad Axel was stunning. This is in part because the triple Axel jump–the quad’s predecessor– remains itself such a relatively significant element in men’s skating.
For 22-year-old Roman Sadovsky of Canada, the Olympic season was one of peaks and valleys. The peaks included qualifying a second men’s Olympic spot at Nebelhorn Trophy in September and placing fourth at Rostelecom Cup in November. Unfortunately, the low point came at the Olympic Games in Beijing, where Sadovsky struggled and placed 29th in the individual men’s event, failing to make the long program. How satisfying, then, for Sadovsky to rebound at the 2022 ISU World Championships in Montpellier, France, where he recorded his highest placement so far at a major ISU championship (12th).
I talked with Sadovsky and his longtime coach, Tracy Wainman, in the mixed zone at Worlds to get their reactions to his performances in Montpellier. The duo also spoke about the war in Ukraine and how it’s affected Sadovsky, whose parents both emigrated to Canada from Ukraine.
Last week, Keegan Messing competed in his fourth ISU World Championships in Montpellier, France. Messing’s 14th-place finish in Montpellier was well off his career-best 6th place at 2021 Worlds in Stockholm last year. However, the Canadian skater was unfazed.
“It’s always a pleasure to represent [Canada],” Messing said after the free skate. “And it’s always a pleasure to come out at Worlds and just be here.”
The Grand Prix season always seems to bring its share of new stars and surprises. Roman Sadovsky was a bit of both in November, when he unexpectedly won bronze at NHK Trophy.
Not many picked the 20-year-old Canadian skater to medal at NHK, which featured an impressive field of men’s competitors, including two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu. But Sadovsky seized the moment in Sapporo, impressing judges and fans with his sweeping quad Salchow jumps and elegant programs. His medal was a bit of a surprise; yet, it was something he’d been building toward for several years.
Alexander Johnson is starting a new chapter in his life this spring. After a 9-year career at the senior international level, which featured two top 6 finishes at U.S. Nationals and a Challenger Series medal, Johnson is shifting focus from competitive skating to his first full-time professional job in finance and a budding side career in figure skating choreography and coaching. Johnson hasn’t closed the door on a possible return to competitive skating; but for now, his priority is exploring these new opportunities.
I recently had a chance to chat with Johnson before his appearance in Ice Crystals, the annual club show for the Colonial Figure Skating Club in Acton/Boxborough, MA. Johnson spent several weeks at Colonial this spring, teaching and choreographing for Colonial skaters and working with different coaches, including 1980 Olympian Sheryl Franks and 1992 Olympian Konstantin Kostin. During our chat, Johnson shared some thoughts on his work at Colonial, his approach to choreography, and his programs for Ice Crystals.
A Divine Sport 