SIMA AND AMIR GANABA by LOIS ELFMAN W


hen each of them was watching the Olympic Winter Games on televi- sion earlier this year, 1999 U.S. junior pairs champions Sima and Amir Ganaba were both struck


with faces from their skating past. Tere was their former coach, Irina Rodnina, lighting the Olym- pic cauldron, and Sima’s good friend Jeremy Ab- bott, competing in the team and men’s events. But it was the sight of Chinese pairs skater Hao Zhang, who they’d competed against on the Ju- nior Grand Prix circuit, that made them smile. “Big Hao, I competed against him multiple


times,” Amir said. “For how serious he looks, he was the funniest character in the world.” “He used to do a split triple twist with Ryan


Bradley,” Sima said. “[Competing international- ly] you got to see things like that. It was pretty amazing.”


While both siblings still have friends in the


sport as well as emotional ties, these days Sima and Amir have built successful careers away from the ice. Sima, 28, is a chef and Amir, 32, a busi- ness consultant.


As kids, Amir was the first to skate, start-


ing around age 3 after seeing it on TV. When he asked for lessons, his parents figured this South- ern California kid who hated the cold would be done after one trip to the rink. Tey were wrong. He was hooked. Before Sima was even 2, she was ob- sessed with following in her brother’s tracings.


“I would unstrap myself


from the stroller while my mom was talking to the other skating moms,” she said. “I would crawl onto the ice and they would see me halfway across the ice in my shoes. One time, I think I slipped and hit my head. Te skating school direc- tor told my mother, ‘It might be saf-


er if we just put skates on her.’ Tat was it.”


While Amir was serious-


ly pursuing singles, Sima seemed more interested in dancing to the music. One day at a rink in Tor- rance, Calif., when she was 6 and her brother 10, coach Peter Oppegard grabbed their hands and told them to skate together. “Tat was the day we started


skating pairs,” she said. Te following year, they moved “up the mountain” to the Ice Castle Interna- tional Training Center in Lake Arrow- head, Calif., to train. “All that really was up there was skating,” Sima said. “You lived and breathed skating. Tat mountain is such a tiny little community. At the time, it was at its peak. A


couple


of streets away was where Michelle and


Karen Kwan lived. It was the who’s who of the U.S. figure skating team. It was pretty amazing. “I loved summers there because that was


the time where literally people from all over the world came.” For several years Rodnina was their coach,


and then they returned to work with Oppegard, who created the free skate that earned them the U.S. junior title in an upset over older teams. “Tat long program was one you never for-


get,” Amir said. “It was one of those you got on the ice and you knew everything was going to work. Everything felt right. Tere was an energy in the air. I loved the program. It was ‘Legend of Zorro,’ choreographed by Peter Oppegard. Be- ginning to end it felt almost surreal. You imagine something so many times. As I started, I knew it was going to happen.” Over the next couple of years, they had


several opportunities to compete international- ly, winning Triglav Trophy, a Junior Grand Prix event in Ostrava, Czech Republic and qualifying for the Junior Grand Prix Final. “To this day, competing internationally is still one of the best feelings in the world,” Sima said. “Being able to travel to these countries that no other child, let alone an adult, sometimes gets to go to, was amazing. Slovenia was one of my favorite countries. Standing out there among the Triglav mountains was so beautiful.” It gave Amir a perspective on life that he still


carries. He competed in men’s singles at a North American Challenge event when he was 13. “Tat was the first time I heard my name announced not from the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club, but representing the United States of America,” he recalled. “Te first time it hits that this is more than just about me. … I’m actu- ally representing my country. Tat realization is something I’ve taken as I’ve moved through life. You always realize you’re part of something a little bit bigger than just yourself.” Tey moved up to seniors in the U.S., plac-


ing seventh in 2001. After the 2002 U.S. Cham- pionships, due to nagging injuries and some general fatigue from the intensity of training, Sima knew she was ready to move on. Amir still wanted to compete, so he found a new partner. He said he had to relearn how to communicate, because he and his sister had so much unspoken ease of communication. Several years later, he too was done.


Each took a while to find their next path.


Sima started college, but felt extremely unmoti- vated. She coached skating and did choreography and tried to figure what was next. Eventually, a childhood fascination became her future. When she was a kid, on Saturday mornings she had no interest in cartoons, preferring to watch cooking shows on TV. She enrolled at the Art Institute of California-Orange County and earned a bach- elor’s degree in culinary management. She also traveled to London, Barcelona, Paris, Vienna and Amsterdam, studying and cooking. Today, she’s one of the lead cooking super-


visors at the Resort at Pelican Bay in Newport Coast, where her responsibilities include in-room dining. Previously, she helped launch a restau-


A childhood fascination with cooking shows has trans- formed into Sima Ganaba’s career as a chef.


rant, the ‘Surfin’ Cowboy’ in San Clemente, Ca- lif., where she helped build the menu, design the kitchen and put the cooking operation together. “I was classically French trained,” Sima said.


“I enjoy using Mediterranean, Italian and Span- ish flavor, especially from my travels. I definitely use a lot of bold and spice in my food. “Te entire reason why I got into cooking was to see people’s faces after they take a bite or they have a meal,” she added. “Tere’s no better feeling in the world than bringing friends or fam- ily together over dinner.”


Amir also taught skating for a while after re-


tiring from competition, but eventually his fam- ily’s ties to the University of Southern California and a passion for business drew him to college. He studied mathematical finance and accounting and graduated from USC with dual degrees in 2012. While in school, he opened a small hospi- tality consulting business, helping clubs in Hol- lywood to optimize operations. Today, he is an associate at Boston Con-


sulting Group, a strategy management consult- ing firm that helps companies solve challenges. Although based in Los Angeles, he’s constantly traveling. Te pace of life has kept him away from skating, but he hopes to train soon to be a techni- cal specialist. “Skating taught me how to singularly focus on a goal and then work backward to figure out what the pieces are I need to improve,” he said.“I work with the senior executives of any given company that is our client to help them think through their problems.”


SKATING 9


Amir Ganaba now works as a business consultant.


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