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Area Figure Skating Students Demonstrate Talent, Ambition on Ice
Three Hazelwood School District student figure skaters spent some time on the ice in the fall showcasing their figure skating talents.
Kristina Nguyen, 13, an eighth grader at Hazelwood West Middle School, placed fifth out of more than 100 skaters, scoring 81.58 points in the Upper Great Lakes Regional skating competition in October. She advanced to the Junior Nationals this month in Cleveland, Ohio.
Kristina Nguyen poses during a figure skating practice. Nguyen, an eighth grader, advanced to the Junior Nationals figure skating competition in Cleveland, Ohio.
“That’s the best I have placed all season,” she said of her score. “I placed really well out of the whole region.”
In her long program, she uses moves such as the double-axel, which is a jump with two-and-a-half rotations, triple toe loops, another type of jump, as well as a triple salchow, which is a jump that starts from the back inside edge of one skate and ends on the back outside edge of the other skate.
“You get to meet new people,” Nguyen said as she described a benefit of skating, something she has done since she was four years old.
Eighth grader Morgan Reichert, who attends Hazelwood North Middle School and teammate Gabbie Linehan, a seventh grader who goes to Hazelwood Southeast Middle School, skate on a synchronized skating team. They are members of the Metro Edge Figure Skating Club and their team competed at 2009 U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships in Portland, Maine earlier this year. It marked the first time a skating team from Missouri competed at that level.
Morgan Reichert, an eighth grader at Hazelwood Northwest Middle School, skates for the Metro Edge Skating Club that competed at the 2009 U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships.
Katina Truman, president of the Metro Edge Club, explained that individual ice skaters compete first in regional competitions, winners move on to sectionals and winners at that level go on to compete at nationals. For team skaters, there are no regional competitions, she said. Team skaters begin with sectionals and those winners advance to the nationals. Truman added that synchronized skating is the fastest-growing part of U.S. Figure Skating.
“Team skating is just like synchronized swimming, only on the ice,” Reichert, 13, said. She and her teammates perform different movements on the ice, such as circles. They also execute different turns, changes and holds. Reichert explained that holds are when team members touch other members’ shoulders, arms or elbows.
Her favorite move is the pinwheel. “You can make it with two spokes or with four,” she said. “I’m really good at them. I’m always at the center of our pinwheels.
“I concentrate when I skate. I know some skaters who can let their minds wander, but I can’t do that.” She said the team’s competitive skating schedule begins in September and ends in March, though her team practices during the summer, too.
“I enjoy the places we get to go and the people we get to go with,” Reichert said. She described a recent trip to Portland, Maine. “We went to different places; we saw the ocean and the mountains. It was so different than St. Louis,” she said.
Reichert has definite future plans that may or may not include figure skating. “I plan to skate through high school. After that, I don’t plan on going to college for skating, but I could. I want to go to Harvard; I want to be a doctor.”
Linehan admits she skates for more than simple enjoyment.
Gabrielle Linehan, a seventh grader at Hazelwood Southeast Middle School, skates during a synchronized skating competition.
“I like being challenged and having things to work toward, learning new things and practicing them,” she said. “Figure skating does all that for me.” Linehan, 12, said she practices for about an hour a day, or five hours per week. (story courtesy of Hazelwood Communications Dept.)
