The Gart family of Avon had a special November when Rachel Gart, a sophomore at Miss Porter’s School, and her ice dance partner, Lance Stanley of Merritt Island, Florida, became silver medalists at the 2014 Midwest Sectional Figure Skating Championships. The competition, held in East Lansing, Michigan, featured skating levels of juvenile through senior in ice dance, pairs, and freestyle.
While winning silver in Michigan, Rachel’s brother Maxwell, also brought home the second place silver medal at the 2014 Eastern Sectional Championships. Max competed in Ashburn, Virginia with ice partner Molly Cesanek. The Renbrook School sixth grader described his experience, “Molly and I have trained together for a year, but our time on the ice as a team is limited. This is because we live in different states, her in Virginia and I in Connecticut. We were so excited to win the silver at Sectionals, and now we are focusing on Nationals in Boston.”
With both teams’ second place finish, they have qualified to compete at the 2014 U.S. National Figure Skating Championships in Boston January 7th through the 12th. During the competition, each team competes against the top twelve ice dance teams in the country. The two ice dance teams are lead by a team of coaches including Sara Bailey, Genia Shishkova, Dmytro Palamarchuk, and Katrina Shalin, with the main coaches being World and International coach Mathew Gates and Svetlana Kulikova. They train six days a week at both the International Skating Center of Connecticut in Simsbury and Champions Ice Arena in Cromwell.
Having competed at the previous two U.S. National competitions, Rachel shares, “I am extremely excited to compete at Nationals in Boston. This year is very significant in figure skating, because it is the 100th year anniversary of the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships as well as an Olympic year.”
