Green siblings set new standard with second novice crown
By Lynn Rutherford Another season, another U.S. title for Caro-
line Green and Gordon Green. Maryland-based siblings fi rst took to the ice at ages 5 and 7. Gordon, who wanted to play hockey, entered the U.S. Figure Skating Basic Skills Program at a local rink. When he made it to the Basic 3 class, Caroline was enrolled in the class below him. Elena Novak and Dmytri Ilin, coaches at the Wheaton Ice Skating Academy (WISA), taught those classes and approached Mary Green about having her children join WISA. T ree months later, the siblings were an ice dance team. T e rest is a bit of skating history. After
placing third in their fi rst-ever competition at the 2010 Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships, the siblings (Washington FSC) have hardly lost since, winning consecutive U.S. titles at the juvenile (2013), intermediate (2014) and novice levels (2015 and 2016). T eir second novice title in Saint Paul was their most satisfying victory yet. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier,” Gor-
don said. “T is was the best moment. It sums up our novice career great.”
After building a 12-point lead with pristine
outings of the Westminster Waltz and Kilian pat- tern dances, Gordon and Caroline performed an eff ervescent free dance to the overture of Rossini’s T e Barber of Seville, gaining Level 4 for four el- ements and earning 62.30 points. T eir winning total, 144.37 points, is some 33 points more than they earned in 2015. It sets a new standard for U.S. novice ice dance, crushing the previous re- cord by nearly 16 points. “I feel like our fi rst year at novice we were a
little bit nervous,” Caroline said. “Now that we’ve had all of this experience, we just really try to push it up every sin- gle competition.” Despite their devotion to ice dance, school comes fi rst for the sib- lings, who both attend Julius West Middle School in Rockville. “Sometimes if we have a competition com-
ing up we stay a little later (at the rink) in the morning, and we get out of school earlier,” Gor- don said. “Other than that, we try not to miss any school. We make it a priority.” WISA qualifi ed 11 teams to compete at the 2016 U.S. Championships, including top juniors Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter, and Rachel Parsons and Mi- chael Parsons. “Caroline and Gordon
Sophia Elder and Christopher Elder Sophia Elder and Christopher Elder Sophia Elder and Christopher Elder (Lou-
isville Skating Academy) were disappointed with a mistake on twizzles in their Big Bad Voodoo Daddy free dance, but impressed judges with two eye-catching Level 4 lifts. T eir 99.21 points earned them the bronze medal.
“I am happy with the medal, not so much with the performance we put out there today,” Christopher said. “T e way I look at the big picture of our skating career, this is just a lit- tle piece. T e puzzle piece by itself doesn’t look so good but when you put it all together, you create some- thing cool.” “T ey had their mishaps,
but they kept fi ghting through the whole thing,” Kelley Morris-Adair, the team’s coach, said.
After skating together for just seven months, Gianna Buck- ley (Seattle SC) and J.T. Michel (Louisville Skat-
ing Academy) won the pewter medal with 90.26 points.
Caroline Green and Gordon Green
watch older friends and teammates, and see what they need to reach,” Alexei Kiliakov, who founded WISA in 2003, said. “I say to them, ‘Right now, it’s a little less stressful for you at the novice level. You develop performance, get confi dent, create your own style. Before you step up to juniors, you will already have everything, you won’t need to build it year to year.’” Another WISA team, Emma Gunter and
Caleb Wein (Washington FSC), improved on last season’s bronze medal to win silver with a graceful performance to Romanian composer Ion Ivanovi- ci’s “Anniversary Song.” T e team executed their step sequence with unison and fl air, and closed with a strong rotational lift. T ey fi nished with 122.10 points. “We’ve really been working on connecting to each other during our free dance, and I think we’re really excited to show that,” Gunter said. “(T e free dance) is
fl amenco music, some- thing I personally enjoy performing to,” Wein said. “We took some fl amenco les- sons.”
Emma Gunter and Caleb Wein
48 MARCH 2016
PHOTOS BY JAY ADEFF/U.S. FIGURE SKATING
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