by Anne Calder
The Lake Placid International Ice Dance Competition (LPIDI) is held July 30-31 at the 1980 Olympic Arena Ice Rink (Herb Brooks Arena) in conjunction with the LPIDC youth and adult competition venues. The top three in the international junior and senior categories will receive medals (gold, silver, and bronze) respectively.
The LPIDI youth roster includes 11 teams from 4 countries. The senior roster includes 22 teams from 10 countries.
youth international competition
The LPIDI competition kicked off on July 30 with rhythm dance.
This season’s rhythm dance draws inspiration from decades of energetic and entertaining dance styles. These dance styles originated as couples dances and due to their infectious, upbeat rhythms, they became crowd favorites as an invitation to join others in social situations and mass gatherings (Taken from ISU Newsletter 2630).
Junior LPIDI medal winners were: Hana Marie Aboian and Daniil Vesulukhin (gold), Katarina Wolfkostin and Dimitry Tsarevski (silver), Caroline Mullen and Brendan Mullen (bronze). These three teams represent Team USA.
Hana Marie Aboyian and Daniel Vesurukhin (155.28) This is Vesulukhin’s first year working together after moving from Colorado Springs. I trained with my husband Denis Petukov and they designed the show. Alex is at sports music network arrange their music, Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A major/Mozart Symphony No. 40 in G minor/Piano.
Katarina Wolfkostin & Dimitri Tsarevsky (149.74) I thought my first skating went well. Tsarevsky noted that they didn’t skate as well as expected in the rhythm dance, but performed better in the free dance.
Teams will split the season between youth and senior levels. The International Skating Union recently added an age change to bring Wolf Kostin back to the junior level, so the plan is to compete at senior nationals and maybe a few others. The team has been assigned to compete in the Czech Junior Skating Grand Prix in early September. It will take four projects, but they say they’re up for the challenge.
“The original plan was to go senior again, then I broke my leg and was on the ice for almost three months,” explained Wolfkostin. “We’re trying to figure out the season where the rules change, so it’s a great opportunity for us to get more international events, more competition.”
Their free dance was set to Moulin Rouge Soundtrack – “One Day I’ll Fly Away” and “The Show Must Go On”.
Caroline Mullen and Brendan Mullen (147.41) thought they skated better than they did two weeks ago in Dallas. They’ve since changed some things – some elements – and improved – and are still tweaking some items. Their free dance is “Viewing the Earth from the Sky”.
“Last year and the year before we did more intense projects. This soft style made us feel very comfortable,” said Caroline.
“We wanted something different from last year,” Brendan added.
The siblings have been assigned to compete in the first Junior Grand Prix, which will be held in Riga, Latvia, from August 28th to 31st.
Elliana Peal and Ethan Peal (145.27) reveal that Montreal costume designer Mathieu Caron came up with many of the ideas for their “Attack” show Pearl Harbor At Madison Chalk and Evan Bates’ wedding in Hawaii.
brothers and sisters shared their thoughts on the free dance project.
“I think it has a lot of potential. We’re talking to the judges and they agree that we want to continue to improve our speed and process and make it faster,” Ethan said. “All the elements were there, the program was really good, it was just a little slow today. I still think the whole program went pretty smoothly, so I’m happy that we skated relatively clean. It’s just that we wanted to do a lot of drills and make it It’s going very fast.
“We’re just trying to get home, run the program, build up our stamina,” Eliana added. “These programs are fairly new and we haven’t had the time to train them like we did at Jr. Worlds. I think just getting back to training and the program, we’ll make a few changes here and there, but mostly just getting back to work. .
“It’s better if it happens during the season rather than later. It gives us a lot of goals. It’s still a while before the next event. We made some changes in Dallas and before this event, so we didn’t have time to train us program. We would go home, make changes, and run everything from there.
Sofia Beznosikova and Max Leleu (Belgium) (142.50) finished fifth. Beznosikova is from Moscow, Russia; Leleu was born and raised in Belgium. After the show, Sofia needed treatment for her scraped knee, which occurred during the slide – the final element of Fergie’s free dance to “Be Italian” in the musical Nine.
“We moved to Novi, Miss., a year ago. We came for a while and then we stayed,” Lehrer said. “We’re happy to be with great coaches. They help us every day.
The team has been assigned to compete in the Junior Grand Prix in Ostrava, Czech Republic, from September 4th to 7th.
Olivia Ilin and Dylan Cain (137.86) thought the project was going well, but not their best. The team feels it has a lot of room to grow, and while this is a good start to the season, They will continue to get stronger. Dylan said he was Very proud of what they put out there. They skated to “Carry You” by Ruelle.
Olivia explained the theme. “We tried to tell a story about two people who had this painful feeling, and it was about getting each other out of their pain and coming together. The evolution of the project was I will help you and they come together in the end.
Ilym and Kane also reflected on competing in the 2024 Winter Youth Olympics in Gangneung, South Korea.
“It was such an unreal experience,” Illing said. “It’s very different to any domestic competition – it’s just a different environment, living in a dormitory and surrounded by the Olympic rings. It’s a huge honor to represent our country and take home a silver medal.
“It was an incredible two weeks,” Kane added. “Going back and forth between the village and the stadium hosting the 2018 Olympics is the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”
Sophia Gover and Billy Wilson-French (Canada) (125.37), in their second year together, skate to music from the movie Burlesque. Gover has been ice dancing since she was eight, while her partner started ice dancing when she was eleven. Wilson-French assesses their tournament performance.
“We just finished playing in Canada three days ago. We were a little disappointed with that skate. We didn’t do our best and we knew it. Today we made up for that with skates, which scored higher and were more stable and consistent. Even in practice, it wasn’t our strongest skating, but it was better than the last game. After competing in such an environment, we can better control our nerves, which makes us more stable next time.
The two trained together with Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier under the watchful eyes of Carol Lane and Juris Razguliaevs.
“Being on the ice with them is It’s great,” Gover said. “That’s exactly what you want to be when you grow up.”
Wilson-French added: “Piper and Paul are always at the rink. If we need anything they give great advice and advice. Paul has the ice dancing rule book in his head. He knows so much. He has the answers to everything with just a snap of his fingers. Watching them skate and having them with us helps with our training.
“They are people you want to look up to – role models,” Gover concluded.
Olivia Corneil and Alexandre Emery (CAN) (115.69) train with Madison Hubbell and Adrian Diaz at I.AM in London, Ontario, Canada. This is their second season under these coaches. Cornier thought their free show (Cody Frey’s “Flight”) went well the first time around. Their next game will be in Canada on August 16th.
Alexander commented on the collaboration. “I was really happy when we got together because we got along really well. We have a great coaching staff that we love. We’re happy.
Julia Epps and Blake Gilman (110.14) had unfortunate falls on their spins, but otherwise everything went well. Their free dances included “Truman Sleeps” and “Something I Could Never Be” Truman Show.
Gilman believes that although the score was lower than Dallas, it was much better than expected. The Epps and Gilman teams recently conducted training at I.AM in Montreal, Quebec, and London, Ontario, Canada. Their next game is the Challenge Cup in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, which is close to their training center in Aston, Pennsylvania.
Black will live on campus while attending Penn State in the fall. Julia will be attending high school “in person” as a freshman. Both will continue to train at their respective home stadiums.
Madison Tong and Michael Boutsan (Canada) (106.41) skate to the following options fame Filming soundtracks and trains with Carol Lane and Juris Razguliaevs at Scarboro FSC, Ontario, Canada. This cooperation lasted only two months. They think it’s a very strong program based on what they’ve done recently.
“The final show wasn’t as good as we wanted, but hopefully we were able to show the judges how good we can be,” Busan said. “Just because you didn’t get good grades last time, Look at us now. We will do better than last time. Busan said.
“That’s 10 points better for us than last time in Ottawa,” Tong added. “Next is Kitchener, and then the challenge. Our level should be much better than last time.
The two talked about the experience of training with Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier. “They’re an inspirational guy, someone we can look up to. We train with them every day,” Busan said.
Lauren Batkova and Jacob Yang (Czech) (105.23) skate for the Czech Republic, but both were born in Canada. The team trained at MIDA with Charlie White, Tanith Belbin and Greg Zuerlein, and in Toronto with Lauren’s father Mark Bakerka from the Czech Republic. The team travels to and from the border for training. Their free dance number was “Fix You” by Cody Foley.
Young has been skating since she was five years old. He started ice dancing five years ago. Batkova also started at age five, but she only started ice dancing two years ago, around the time they became a team.
Both enjoyed the performance part of ice dancing. “You can act the whole time, which makes things more interesting,” Batkova said. “I also skate solo, but I find it’s less stressful when I have someone on the ice with me.”
“Their ice dance journey has just begun,” coach Charlie White noted. “They still have a long way to go but they have the right attitude which is so important in this sport.”
