Entries

April 6, 2008

Hey there, everybody,

Well, we know it’s been a while since we had our last journal update—Danny swears he wrote one while in Bulgaria but that it mysteriously vanished off of his computer and never got posted…hmmm...very strange.

Anyway, we had a great time at Junior Worlds! Sofia was not the most beautiful city we’ve visited, but it was a real eye-opening experience to see what a former Soviet country looks like now (which all I can say is a whole lot different than Scottsdale). Nevertheless, the people were friendly, and the Dunkin Donuts and KFC down the street from the hotel gave us a little reminder of home!

While this was our first time at an ISU Championships event, we were by no means intimidated by the competition, as we had already competed against almost every other pair team in the event either at U.S. Nationals or at our Junior Grand Prix events. As for the skating, we had a strong week of practice, and we did our best short program of the year! We earned an ISU season's best score for the segment and placed 6th out of 20 teams. Unfortunately, we made a few small mistakes in the long program and dropped to 10th overall, but we still scored a season's best and are thrilled to be ranked in the top 10 in the world for juniors.

The rest of the time we spent in Sofia was so much fun. Because we were the first event to finish, we were able to watch as many of our teammates as possible, and highlights of the trip include sitting with the U.S. team and waving our American flags while we brought home three golds and swept the ladies event! What an honor it was to be included in such a talented team!

After a VERY long year it's finally the off-season (or at least what we skaters consider the off-season, even though we still skate multiple times every day) and time to heal up our tired bodies and come up with new elements for next year. We are planning on moving up to Senior next year, so we have a lot of work ahead of us to improve our lifts, throws, and speed, but we are up for the challenge. We are also excited to leave for the 2nd Annual U.S. Figure Skating Pair Camp in Colorado Springs, CO, next week, and we’re looking forward to seeing some old friends and learning a lot.

Once again, we’d like to give a big thanks to our coaches Doug and Lara Ladret, our families, and our friends, as well as all of the people behind the scenes (doctors, physical therapists, chiropractors, sports psychologists, personal trainers, and on and on) for helping us achieve our goals for the year—none of this would have been at all possible without all of your constant support and hard work. We truly appreciate it!

Until next time,

Chelsi and Danny

February 10, 2008

Hey everyone,

Boy did we ever have fun in Saint Paul! The 2008 U.S. Championships was an awesome trip for us—we came into the event well-rested and trained up, and with our experience at our Junior Grand Prix events and Coasts this year, we never felt more confident going into a competition. 

We had a great week of practices and when it came time for the short program, we were ready to rock and roll. We knew that there were a lot of good skates ahead of us, so we just wanted to go out and have a strong program, both technically and artistically. To tell you the truth, the program was a bit of a blur because of the adrenaline and excitement, but by the time the music stopped we knew we had done our best short of the season, and when first-place marks came up we couldn’t have been more excited!

Well positioned after the short, we knew we needed to have a solid showing in our long program, and though we had a fall on the throw triple Salchow and a couple of small mistakes, we were really proud of how we did. Our goal coming into the year was to medal at Nationals, and to come out with the bronze was awesome! We want to give a special thanks to all of the volunteers who put in hundreds of hours of work and put on a great event.

We would have been thrilled to leave Saint Paul with our medals, but we were to soon find out we had another surprise waiting for us: Saturday night we found out we were named to the Junior World Team for the 2008 World Junior Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria! Going to Junior Worlds wasn’t even a goal of ours during the year; however, as the season moved on we realized we were in the hunt for one of the three spots, and when we found out we made the team we were so excited!

So now, after two days off of skating (spent mostly just catching back up in school :-/) we are back training hard and getting ready for Bulgaria. We want to give a big THANK YOU! to all of our friends and family for supporting us throughout the year, it really means the world to us!

Sincerely,

Chelsi and Danny

November 20, 2007

Hey everyone,

Well, we just wrapped up a whirlwind couple of months of two Junior Grand Prix events and Pacific Coast Sectionals, and we feel great about how our Fall has been. We had a great time in San Diego (hooray for only an hour plane ride!) at Coasts, and we were really pleased with the two programs we put out, setting a new personal best (it was also fun for Chelsi to get to compete singles at Coasts, though it made for a couple of very long days).

Right now we're enjoying a few days off the ice to relax and enjoy Thanksgiving with our families before we get back at it for Nationals training. We are really excited to go to St. Paul, and we can't wait to go compete for the top spot and a trip to Sofia, Bulgaria, for Junior Worlds!

Thanks again for stopping by. We'll be sure to keep updating the site (with the help of the wonderful Jamie).

Happy Holidays to everyone,

Chelsi and Danny

October 28, 2007

Greetings, everybody!

We're back in the States now after a whirlwind 6 weeks. We had a great time at both of our internationals, and we feel great going into Sectionals and beyond.

It was an awesome experience to compete against the best junior teams in the world, and we are ready to take the next step into that top tier of skating. It was a brand new experience for both of us to compete internationally, and we definitely learned a lot while in Europe (while still having fun, of course).

We were thrilled after Estonia to learn that we were being sent to England, and we had a great time in England, especially because it let us get to know some of our competitors from around the world and gain more international experience.

Now it's back to work to get ready for a solid showing at Coasts, and we're looking to have our best performances of the year so far.

We'll be sure to update our site soon, and thanks again for visiting!

— Chelsi and Danny

September 15, 2007

Hi everyone,

Welcome to our new official Web site!

We're excited to be included in Team USA in this our second year together, and right now we are working hard to get ready for our upcoming Junior Grand Prix in Tallinn, Estonia!

After having spent all of last summer testing up to be able to skate junior at the U.S. Championships in Spokane, it was a great relief to be able to focus on training our competitive programs this summer. We have two brand new programs this year: "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber for our short, and the soundtrack of "The Legend of Zorro" by James Horner for our long.

We've done a bit more traveling this summer than we did last, as we spent a week training in Barrie, ON, at the Mariposa Skating School, and once again competed at the Indy Challenge, which was in Fishers, IN, this year. We had two pretty good skates, and ended up an unofficial 4th place out of 14.

We can't even begin to describe how excited we are to leave for Estonia on Monday. This will be a whole new experience for both of us, and we really want to just go out and skate well in our first international competition. Also, we'll definitely be sure to have fun and soak in the whole experience.

Thanks again for visiting our new site.

We look forward to writing again when we get back!

Sincerely,

Chelsi and Danny