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2024 Skate America - Sadie Fisher

Writer's picture: CCA Pulse MagazineCCA Pulse Magazine

As October Arrives, Halloween is the first thing on people's minds. However, in the figure skating world, October represents a new beginning: the start of the 2024-2025 ISU Grand Prix Series. The Senior Gran Prix Series includes six international figure skating competitions. Each Senior (highest level) skater can compete in two of the competitions and for their placement, they win points. Each category's six highest point gathers go to the Grand Prix Final. There are four categories in the Gran Prix: Women, Men, Pairs, and Ice Dance. The first competition, Skate America in Allen, Texas, is October 18-20. Here is a deep dive into this year’s American competitors as the competition comes closer.

Coming from the U.S.A., reigning world champion Ilia Malinin is set to compete in the Men’s portion. Malinin is the first figure skater to land a Quadruple Axel (Quad Axel) in a competition. A Quad Axel is a jump that starts taking off forwards, and in the air the skater rotates four and a half times before landing backward. Malinin is currently the only skater in ISU, International Skating Union, able to complete the quad axel, leading to him having the record for the highest free skate score ever recorded. His family are all figure skaters, with his little sister, Liza Malinina, competing, and his parents, Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov, former Olympic skaters from Uzbekistan. His parents, along with Rafael Arutyunyan, are his coaches. Overall, Malinin is the one to watch for the men’s portion of the Skate America competition.

Some more American World Champions taking to the ice in Skate America are Madison Chock and Evan Bates. Chock and Bates have an impressive record already, being the only U.S. team to win back-to-back gold medals and having gone undefeated all of last season. The pair have been skating together for the past 13 years; Chock started skating at age 5 and Bates started at age 4. While being an Ice Dance couple doesn’t necessarily mean the couple is together in real life, the pair got married this past summer, and have two toy poodles. Chock and Bates are most known for their out-of-the-box artistic programs and their unique lifts. It is an absolute experience to watch them perform and as a viewer, I am excited for them to debut their new programs at the international level in the Skate America competition.

While Isabeau Levito might not be the reigning champion of any current competition, she is certainly not far off. After having placed second both in last year’s Skate America and in World’s last season, she is ready to take on the competition this year. Levito is 17 years old and has been skating for 14 years. She won Junior Championships in the 2021-2022 season which was the first time a U.S. woman won since 2008. Levito has been training with her coach Kuznetsova since the beginning, and they have been working on increasing her confidence on the ice. Her ability to live up to pressure, a key aspect of confidence, is something that has proven to be a struggle during competitions. However, if Levito can harness her inner strength and overcome her nerves, we might have a new Skate America Champion on our hands.

While pairs might not be the United States’ strongest discipline currently, it is still an exciting competition to watch. For those who don’t know the difference between Ice Dance (the category in which the U.S. has Chock and Bates) and Pairs, the biggest difference is that for Ice Dance there is very little jumping involved and the couples must keep close together for the entire program. In Pairs however, the movements allowed can be a lot more high-intensity. For example, a common element in Pairs is Twist Lifts in which the male athlete lifts his partner over his head and then tosses her in the air (both terrifying and incredible to witness). The Pairs teams going to Skate America from the USA this year are Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea (2024 U.S. Champions), Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov (who placed 2nd in U.S. Championships last year), and Katie McBeath and Daniil Parkman (who placed 5th in U.S. Championships last year).

While figure skating might not be the biggest sport in the world right now, the Skate America competition is going to be one for the ages, and I for one can’t wait to see the results.

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