FLYING HIGH
Castelli and Shnapir recommitted to each
other, achieving goals by SARAH S. BRANNEN
Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir share
an Aug. 20 birthday, and they both grew up in New England. In all other respects, they are op- posites: Shnapir is a gentle giant, 6 feet 4 inches tall with a deep bass voice and laid-back demean- or, and Castelli is 5 feet with a lively personality. Together at Te Skating Club of Boston, the
team creates high-energy pairs skating with some of the hardest throw jumps in the world as well as an arsenal of breathtaking lifts. When U.S. champions Caydee Denney and
John Coughlin withdrew from the 2013 Pru- dential U.S. Figure Skating Championships last fall, Castelli and Shnapir found themselves in a new position; that of the favorites to win the title in Omaha, Neb. Suddenly the media wanted to talk to them, and they had to find time for photo shoots and teleconferences. “It’s a little more stressful, but we’re just go- ing to do our job,” Castelli said. “Every day we’re going to take it one step at a time; nothing has to change.” “One thing that we’ve really committed to this season is approaching every competition like it’s just another competition,” Shnapir added. “Some competitions are obviously going to be bigger than others, but we just do what we do every day in practice, train hard and then we go out and showcase what we have.” Beginnings Shnapir was born in Moscow in 1987. Seek- ing better opportunities than they could find in Russia, his parents, Inna and Boris, moved to the U.S. when Simon was a baby. Tey have lived in Massachusetts ever since, mostly in the Boston suburb of Sudbury. Simon started skating at age 6 after seeing Scott Hamilton on television. “Figure skating was popular in Russia,” Inna
said. “Pretty much everybody watched it. We just had three TV channels so there weren’t a lot of choices. I wanted him to learn to skate because I
Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir demonstrate one of their big throws for ESPN The Magazine.
skated; pretty much everybody skated in Russia.” Shnapir spent four years skating at Nashoba
Valley Olympia near his home. He started work- ing with coach Bobby Martin in 2001. Castelli, 22, was born and raised in Rhode
Island and made the long commute to Te Skating Club of Boston until recently when she moved to an apartment closer to the rink. Castel- li’s mother, Lori, is a skating coach. “When I was little she used to take me on the ice and spin me around,” Castelli said. “She was my first teacher.” “Marissa thought she was the biggest skater
out there, she would just march around,” Lori said. “My husband took her to public skating while I was teaching. She was about 5 when she started group lessons in Basic Skills. She couldn’t get enough of it.”
Both Castelli and Shnapir started doing pairs at the age of 14. Shnapir’s previous partners were Tanya Aziz and Courtney Gill, and Castelli skated with Brad Vigorito for a year and a half. “Brad and I competed once in juvenile pairs
— we competed at junior nationals one time against Simon and Courtney,” Castelli recalled. Castelli then stopped doing pairs to concen- trate on singles skating. In the spring of 2006, coach Carrie Wall suggested that she and Shnapir try skating together, but Castelli was initially re- luctant.
“I think she was afraid of me. Weren’t you
afraid of me?” Shnapir said. “Well,” Castelli said with a laugh, “it was
more that I wanted to see if I could make it in singles.”
“I had been working with Simon,” Martin said. “I had seen Marissa around the rink — she was a little diamond in the rough. It seemed like a natural progression.” Once they decided to team up, the new pair
steadily improved. Tey won the novice bronze medal at the 2008 U.S. Championships and made the Junior Grand Prix Final that fall. Tey were the 2009 U.S. junior bronze medalists and they won another bronze at the World Junior Championships that year.
2010 brought a serious challenge, as Shna-
pir started having trouble with his back before the team was supposed to compete at Skate Can- ada.
“We weren’t sure we were going to go,” Cas-
telli said. “He had to get a cortisone shot, and we weren’t really practicing because of that. Ten we showed up at Skate Canada and skated a really good short program. We were really happy with it.”
“I had a bulging disc and I had several rounds
of injections over the past couple of years,” Shna- pir clarified. “Now I have acupuncture once a week, and that has been the difference. I’m work- ing on my flexibility and stretching. I have very little back problems, very little pain. I’m feeling good and I hope that continues.” Castelli is enrolled at the Community Col-
lege of Rhode Island, with a goal of becoming a physical therapist or a physical trainer. Shnapir is taking a break from school to focus on skating. He is enrolled at Emerson College, studying mar- keting. A low point and renewed commitment After a fifth-place finish at the 2011 U.S. Championships, Castelli and Shnapir hoped to move onto the podium in 2012. A disappointing competition left them in fifth place again, ques- tioning their future. “We had a lot of difficulties at the beginning
of the year,” Castelli said. “We weren’t sure if we were both committed to each other, or commit- ted to the sport, so we really had to sit and figure out what we wanted from the sport and what we wanted to do. I think we came to terms with it, but it was a long month.” “It was definitely a low point for both of
us,” Shnapir agreed. “We both had to reconsider our commitment to each other, to skating, to the team, to everything.” “It was hard, but we got through it and we’re
happy we did it,” Castelli said. “I think we’re stronger than ever.” A trip north
Castelli and Shnapir have reached new heights in the season so far. Tey finished fifth
SKATING 15
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