ISU

 #FigureSkating #SynchroSkating

Jennifer Freedman and Oleg Voyko (UKR) pictured during the ISU International Adult Competition @ISU

The Dream Dancers

Not only Single Skater, but also Ice Dancers and Pair Skaters take part in the ISU Adult. Oleg Voyko was a National Ice Dance Champion in Ukraine and competed at the 2002 and 2006 Olympic Winter Games before turning to coaching in the USA. Jennifer Freedman skated a little bit as a kid.

“I always wanted to get back to the ice but didn't have the opportunity for family and work and then when I went back I tried ice dance and I love it,” she shared.

This was ten years ago.

“He's really brought me along well,” Jennifer said about her coach and dance partner.

“It (the competition) is kind of is the cherry on top of our training where we work all year long to produce something and it's our opportunity to show it,” the American dancer explained.

Jennifer Freedman and Oleg Voyko (UKR) pictured during the ISU International Adult Competition @ISU

“I really love the process of preparing. The competition part is a little stressful, but it's just nice and it’s really nice - the adult community and the friends that we've made from all around the world and the support that we get from everybody.”

The Adult athletes just love what they are doing.

“(I enjoy) the freedom of being on the ice, I love the creative process, the artistic (part), trying to match with the music and kind of create a story out there. It's a sport, it keeps me in shape, it keeps me feeling young,” Freedman said.

For Voyko it is also a nice opportunity to keep actively skating and it helps him in his work with other skaters.

German Ice Dancers Evgeniya Frerichs and Thomas Klingenberg are both Adult Skaters and have been skating together in their third season. Klingenberg started with his daughter – she was three or four years old, he was over 30.

Evgeniya Frerichs and Thomas Klingenberg (GER) pictured during the ISU International Adult Competition @ISU

“She wanted to be on the ice and I wanted to get to know more than the public sessions,” he shared. “I was too old for jumping and so Ice Dance offered the technical challenge.”

Frerichs had practiced ballroom dance before and started to train in the skating club in Berlin in 2017. While she still does Singles and competed in the category Women Bronze I Free Skating, she wanted to explore more and started Ice Dance. When possible, the dancers train up to four times a week and invest a lot of time and effort. They even organized an Adult competition in Berlin.

“The results are for us always a bit on the backburner but we want to skate as well as we can, we want to improve and we want to see that we can do in competition what we can to in practice and we want to see what points we get.”

Evgeniya explained. Nevertheless, the team from Berlin was very excited to win in their category, Silver Pattern Dance, beating the experienced Japanese couple Katsura and Hideshi Ogushi that had placed first a year ago.