By Matteo Morelli Awards photos by Robin Ritoss
Noemi and Noah, it’s great to have the opportunity to speak with you both. This is your first Grand Prix Final and you win a gold medal in the mission. What do you think about this?
Noah LaFornara (NL): We feel good and very positive about it, but we also try to stay focused and the goal is to be in the right frame of mind when we play and not let anything distract us when we Skating, focusing on every step we make. We’ve done a lot of work and we feel very confident.
Noemi Maria Talley (NT): We’ve had our fair share of injuries over the last few months but thankfully we’ve been able to bounce back in the last two weeks before coming here , and we’ve trained well, so we feel ready.
NL: We’ve had a very tough two months coming in here, but I actually think it almost gives us more confidence. We’ve done two races and the best results were in the race, which is usually not ideal. We know we go into these games and we get sick or injured, but we’re able to get through it and put in a good performance that we’re proud of. I think it adds to our confidence coming here.
Did you feel some pressure when you arrived in Grenoble because you were the top qualifier of the Junior Grand Prix season and the favorite to win?
NT: For me, there must be a little bit. But I didn’t feel as much pressure as I did at the beginning of the season because I felt a lot of pressure in the first race of the year at the Riga Junior Grand Prix. But then, as we said, we try to stay focused and not let ourselves be distracted by what’s going on outside. So, personally, I feel like I’m handling the pressure better than I was last year or the first few games. Although it’s still a little bit, it’s still controllable.
You are still a fresh partnership!
NL: We’ve been together for about a year and a half, but it’s been a really good match from the beginning. We all have similar ideas about what we want to do skating and what kind of team we want to be. We had many meetings with the whole team in Italy and the United States, with our parents and other participants: we understood what we wanted to achieve, we knew we were going to have to make sacrifices and put in a lot of effort to get there. I feel like it really showed up in our results.
NT: We knew from the beginning that this was going to be a serious partnership and we had to give it our all and try to reach our potential.
How did you find each other?
NT: It was through our coaches, they had worked together before, and they both had a skater who didn’t have a partner, so they called each other and offered to try out.
Where are your current training locations?
NL: We train half of the year in Milan, Italy, and then the other half in Connecticut, USA.
NT: We have two homes and we both like to practice in both places.
NL: The values of both places are the same but very different. I think we really appreciate the ability to bring this stuff together because we’re getting almost twice as many recommendations. There are things that our coaches in Milan don’t see that our coaches in the United States will see, and that will completely change something, and then we can go back to Milan and they will see something that they didn’t see before. We always find both places super useful. I think it’s an advantage, we actually have four (Walter Rizzo, Brunhilde Bianchi, Denis Petukhov, Melissa Gregory) skating at different angles, four A mixture of different ideas shapes us.
NT: We’re going to try to improve some things on the show during the rest of the season, but our focus isn’t on the end of the season. This season is important for next season as a way for us to improve ourselves and learn different technical elements such as hold, position and lifts. What we will learn in the next few months will be more important for next year than this year. We hope to be successful throughout the season, but if it’s not, it’s no big deal because even though it may not be completely successful, we’re already practicing our skills at the same time.
NL: We are very focused on continuing to be the best we can be and we are really looking forward to continuing to gain experience as we play because every time we play we are becoming more confident and we are learning how to think, how to focus and how to even if things are going well Even if everything goes wrong, we must unite and unite. We are also using this season to prepare for next season. We know we have to get promoted to senior level next year, so we’ve put a lot of effort into not just improving ourselves this season, but for next year.
This is going to be a very important senior season.
NT: Yes, we know that and there are plenty of opportunities. We do ourselves a disservice if we think we are not doing our best to seize those opportunities that may come our way. We have nothing to lose, so we have to give everything.
Is there a skater you look up to for inspiration?
NT: Irina Moiseva and Andrei Minenkov. They sometimes do simpler things because they skated so long ago, but the way they make every move and the way they present themselves is almost ahead of their time.
NL: I don’t think I’ve ever seen another team be able to complete as many projects as they did, which is a big inspiration for us. We love watching their shows and seeing how they present themselves.
Do you do anything else besides skating?
NT: I studied economics at university. They have in-person classes and also video classes, so I can follow along when I can, and when I’m too busy or tired to attend in person, I can take lessons from the video class the next day. I had been doing high school in person my whole life and I wanted to do something flexible so I could take advantage of all the skating opportunities we had.
What are you passionate about?
NT: I love dancing, which is closely related to skating. I like to hang out and go clubbing!
NL: I guess my hobby is fish. I have been interested in water and marine life my entire life and I wanted to learn about this. When I’m done skating, I want to study marine biology and maybe coral reef restoration, or something like that. Aside from skating, it’s been a lifelong dream of mine.
Thank you for sharing so much information about you and your partners. Is there anything else you would like to add?
NL: We’re grateful for all the support we’ve received and even the opportunity to compete in all these different places. I often think about all the places I’m going to in the world: for example, we had a Junior Grand Prix in Bangkok, Thailand. We are extremely grateful for every opportunity we have been given and we hope to continue to enjoy all the experiences and everything we can gain from this sport, including all life experiences.
