Alexa Scimeca and Chris Knierim enjoy many outdoor activities together, including going fi shing at a pond near their home. With Pikes Peak as a backdrop, there’s never a shortage of places to explore and things to do.
by AMY ROSEWATER
Alexa Scimeca was riding on the shuttle during the 2012 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose, Calif., when another skater boarded. “I noticed him,” Scimeca said with a smile. “Defi -
nitely. I always thought he was the cute pairs guy.” Scimeca had no idea at the time that they would be skating as a pairs team just a couple of months later. T ey had competed against each other and knew of one another, but as far as actually having a long conversa- tion or really knowing each other, not so much. Following those U.S. Championships, however, Chris Knierim — that “cute pairs guy” — and An- drea Poapst, his partner at the time, split. Scimeca, who had been skating in Connecticut for two years, had already planned to come to Knierim’s training town of Colorado Springs. She didn’t have a partner lined up, but coach Dalilah Sappenfi eld wanted her to move out West to fi nd one. T e timing worked out just right. “One week before I was supposed to fl y
here she told me I had to get there that day,” Sci- meca said. “Dalilah said she had a partner for me.” Scimeca dropped everything and headed
to Colorado Springs. Knierim said he knew pret- ty much from the moment he picked her up at the airport that he liked her. “She was the fi rst one I wanted for
Chris,” Sappenfi eld said. “I thought their styles of skating were perfect for each other, and in their fi rst tryout, it was just instant.”
Just a couple of weeks after they began skating
together, Sappenfi eld said they were sitting “awfully close” to one another on a bench at the rink. Sappen- fi eld snapped a photo of the moment, and the two have been at each other’s side since. T is season marks their third campaign together and their fi rst as an engaged couple. Knierim proposed in April, and Scimeca, of course, said yes.
Scimeca, 23, and Knierim, who turns 27 on Nov.
5, do not have a wedding date set yet, as they do have a few events already penciled into their busy schedule, namely a full season of skating competitions. T e two began their international competitions with a victory in Salt Lake City at the U.S. International Classic in September and plan to keep on competing until the 2015 World Championships in Shanghai in March. T ey competed at Hilton HHonors Skate Amer-
ica, Oct. 24–26, in Hoff man Estates, Ill., not far from Scimeca’s hometown. She grew up skating in Addison, a western suburb of Chicago about 25 minutes from the heart of downtown and about a half hour’s drive from Hoff man Estates. T e fact that the two are romantically linked off the ice is not something Sappenfi eld was hoping for, but it has helped the couple get through the diffi cult times. In 23 years of coaching pairs skaters, only one of Sappenfi eld’s teams has gone on to get married (Amber Wehrle and Nicholas Kole tied the knot in 2009). “I don’t recommend it,” said Sappenfi eld, shrug- ging her shoulders, “but it’s their journey, and I can’t
SKATING 23
Scimeca and Knierim hang out with their cat Scarlet, who played a role in Knierim’s marriage proposal.
PHOTOS BY HANS ROSEMOND
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