Alysa Liu is just cut from a different cloth. She astounded the world when she did off-the-wall things like land a triple Axel, then a triple Axel-triple toe loop when she was a 13-year-old junior. At a Junior Grand Prix in Lake Placid in August of 2019 – when she was only 14 – she […]
Skate America
Jason Brown: Art Lights the Way
Jason Brown grew up feeling the magic of the Miracle on Ice, that unforgettable march of the US hockey team to win gold at the 1980 Olympics. in Lake Placid, N.Y. Never mind that the event pre-dated his birth by 14 years. It’s just something that lives forever in the heart of an athlete in […]
Pereira and Michaud: Golden Retrievers
It seems hard to believe but in 2018, Lia Pereira finished 16th at the Canadian novice singles championships. Now 19, she has the world by its bootstraps as an international pair partner with 27-year-old veteran Trennt Michaud. Together only since last year, Pereira and Michaud won a silver medal at Skate America – their first […]
Lajoie and Lagha: Coming up Roses
Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha could have been devastated by missing out on competing at the world championships last season. They were Canada’s No. 3 team and Canada had only two spots for dancers at the event. Was it difficult to face that music and watch others do what you wanted so much to do? […]
Skate America: an Oasis of Skating
For a moment, just before Keegan Messing was about to begin his “November Rain” long program at Skate America on Saturday, he thought about others. “This is for you guys in Canada, to everybody who has to stay at home,” thought the Canadian skater, the only competitor from the land of the maple leaf to […]
Skate America Happens!
Keegan Messing turned his back to the camera and pointed with both hands to the CANADA emblazoned across the back of his team jacket: the only Canadian figure skater to compete at any of the Grand Prix events this season. He has become the beacon of the Canadian side, through unfortunate circumstance as the […]
Vincent Zhou: Tough Summer, Bright Future
In the spring, after sessions with a new choreographer – Lori Nichol – a light flickered inside Vincent Zhou. The incredible young quadmeister, who attempted a total of seven quads at last year’s U.S. championships, finally had an epiphany about music and movement and rhythm and the imagery possible in skating. “Working with Lori really […]
Daleman, the perfect Carmen.
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. Gabby Daleman blew into the mixed zone after the women’s short program like a red tornado. “Ola!” she said. And it went up from there. Daleman is a bundle of positivity and high energy. Hard to believe, since she ‘s been suffering from a chest infection for the past week and a […]
The cast of characters in Skate America's men's short program
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. Nathan Chen has a beautific head of hair. Charcoal black curls sproinging out of his scalp like the crazy curves you encounter on a Lake Placid road. And what a ride he takes those curls on: up death-defying quads here, around some new fascinating body movement there. Heavens, even pair skater Eric […]
Liam Firus: spinning straw into gold
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. You gotta love him. Trips and stumbles, disappointments and dark valleys, nothing, in the end, stops Liam Firus. He’s here. At Skate America. And he found out about this grand assignment two days ago. After a trip to the Warsaw Cup in Poland, he got the nod, jumped in his one-horse sleigh […]