Figure Skating Coaches Face Challenges Training Harder Jumps

HANNAH WEAVER, HOST:

The world figure skating championships are here, and female US skaters are competing for Gold. It’s been 19 years since the women won gold in the senior level at Worlds and they’ve lagged behind their international peers in the sport’s more complicated jumps. Now, US skaters are trying to catch-up with their peers. As Hannah Lorenzo reports, this isn’t just challenging for the skaters. It’s challenging coaches as well.    

HANNAH LORENZO, BYLINE: The ice rink is packed at Chelsea Piers. It’s a Sunday afternoon. Adult skaters maneuver around kids wearing colorful helmets. To the left of the rink entrance, Dakota Rogers-Myers is sitting in a cluttered office. 

DAKOTA ROGERS-MYERS: I was born and raised in New York. I was actually a figure skater here at Chelsea Piers, so I started figure skating when I was four.

LORENZO: Rogers-Myers skated for over 20 years and competed at the regional level. Now she’s a coach here. To make the podium at international competitions, American female skaters are learning to do the triple axel and the quad. The jumps they hope will get them higher scores.

ROGERS-MYERS: The U.S. hasn’t had a good female skater in a while. Where, you had, you know, back in the day, we had Michelle Kwan, Sasha Cohen, people like that. I’m almost glad that we’re going more difficult, and we’re pushing a little bit harder and we’re pushing the boundaries a little bit because it’s putting skating back on the map a little bit again.

LORENZO: But Rogers-Myers also says this puts pressure on young skaters. And makes skating harder for coaches like her to teach. Her students may have watched Amber Glenn: a 25-year-old who won U.S. nationals last month. 

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LORENZO: Her triple axel sets her apart from many of her competitors.  

ROGERS-MYERS: I take somebody like Amber Glenn and go you know, look at her. Look what she’s capable of. You could be that. But I think it’s a delicate balance because you need to find the line where it’s like, I want you to inspire to be that versus, "Oh I’m never going to be her."

LORENZO: Skaters used to have to rotate once in the air. Now they’re expected to rotate two to three times…while moving on thin blades on a slippery surface. Rogers-Myers says that can be hard to teach to young students. 

ROGERS-MYERS: I have a eight-year-old who just landed her axel. You know, my brain is telling me okay, by age nine, she needs double sal, double toe, double loop. You know, we need to get on this. We need to start training them already.

LORENZO: A few subway stops uptown at Central Park, Georgina Blackwell coaches young students at Wollman Rink. She’s concerned about the higher level jumps.

GEORGINA BLACKWELL: I think it’s great to have as you know an extra trick, but for it to be expected, I think is really, really dangerous. 

LORENZO: Blackwell looks back on young Russian skaters who became famous for nailing the triple axel and quad jumps at international competitions. But they also received career-limiting injuries.

BLACKWELL: The people doing those jumps are the youngest. The girls, they’re maybe fifteen, and I just don’t think it’s sustainable physically.

LORENZO: Both coaches will be watching next week as American skaters compete at the Four Continents. An annual international competition where skaters prepare for Worlds and hopefully, the Olympics. That is, if they can land those jumps. Hannah Lorenzo, Columbia Radio News.