As an American with Russian roots, became a rising star of figure skating in the US

The rising stars of figure skating live in Texas and train in Dallas. Among them is a Russian young man, born and living in the USA, who continues the traditions of the Russian style of skating. His story is told by the publication "Our Texas".

Photo: YouTube video screenshot

In January, 2018, in the US Figure Skating magazine dedicated to figure skating, appeared a big enthusiastic article about the victory of figure skaters Audrey Lou and Misha Mitrofanov at the US Junior Championships. “Ease, cleanliness and emotionality” - so skating young skaters characterized the magazine.

Misha Mitrofanov went out on the ice in 4 of the year. His first teacher was a friend of the family, who persuaded his parents Elena and Gennady to give him to her classes. Parents who wanted the boy to play hockey reluctantly agreed. Imagine their surprise when, in 7 years, Misha refused to switch to hockey. “I like to ride alone,” he said, and began to seriously engage in figure skating.

The family moved from Wisconsin to Nebraska, where in 2001, the boy became involved with trainer Alexey Mansurov. In Houston Mitrofanovs arrived in 2006-m. Unfortunately, having tried to train with all possible Houston coaches, Misha did not receive due satisfaction and continued to fly to train with Alexey Mansurov.

After a few years, it became clear that the grown-up young man in a single program was uncomfortable. For the performance of complex quadruple jumps need athletes of small stature. The problem of choice again arose - this time, sport or math. For Misha, who studied “excellently” in ordinary school, and not at home, it would be logical to do your favorite exact sciences, finish high school, and leave figure skating as a hobby.

However, the 17-year-old boy decided to continue his sports career and try himself in pair skating. He wanted to move to Detroit or California, in a word, to where the pairs of figure skaters train. A year passed in the struggle for my dream and in search of coaches. In 2014, the parents, this time giving in to their son’s strong-willed character, found coaches in Dallas. At first, Alexey Letov was not sure that he would accept a newcomer to his school - he would have to retrain the young athlete, practically starting from scratch. But he saw potential in Misha, a great desire to work - and took the young man to his place.

Mishin coaches Alexey Letov and Olga Ganicheva - representatives of the Moscow school of figure skating, champions of many international competitions. Alexey is a pupil of the legendary Stanislav Zhuk, Olga trained by Oleg Epstein. In the US, for four years in a row, Olga and Aleksey were nominated for the highest award at the national level - “Trainer of the Year” (“USFS / PSA Developmental Coach of the Year”), and in 2016, they became its owners.

Alexey Letov and Olga Ganicheva at the “Coach of the Year” award ceremony

Alexey Letov, Olga Ganicheva and choreographer Yevgeny Nemirovsky have been working with Misha Mitrofanov for the 4 season already. Misha's first partner, Emily Chan, with whom they became the eighth at the US 2015 Championship in the beginner category, eventually decided to go solo. With the second partner - Ashlee Raymond - Misha took 6 -th place in 2016. But the girl suddenly began to gain weight, which caused difficulties with the execution of the program. After a long search for a new partner, the coaches advised their student Audrey Lou, who was well suited for height and weight and also performed the jumps perfectly. To date, the guys ride in a pair for the third year.

The first time Misha and Audrey showed themselves at the Junior Grand Prix in the Czech city of Ostrava in 2016 year. Although they took the place of 12, but the program, as they say in figure skating, “did not stick out”, the guys, unknown to anyone then, showed their character and conscientiously performed all the elements that were supposed to.

Audrey and Misha with choreographer E. Nemirovsky and coach A. Letov

Unfortunately, in the 2017 season of the year, Misha missed 6 months. In training, having thrown a partner, he unsuccessfully caught her and dislocated his shoulder, underwent an operation and was recovering for a long time. The coaches of the young men did not insist on intense training and advised him to gradually get in shape. American skaters are focused on a long career, so health is valued above all else.

Together with the coaches, Misha and Audrey watched and analyzed video presentations of the best Soviet couples, including Irina Rodnina and Alexander Zaitsev, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergey Grinkov, who are the benchmark. The trainers say that Misha and Audrey have a wonderful proportion of height and weight, almost identical to the one that the couple had Gordeev-Grinkov.

The pair’s brightest victories came in 2018. Already in January, Misha and Audrey became the champions of the USA among juniors, winning with record points. Their results in both short and free programs surpassed silver medalists by 17,74 points, which was not the case in figure skating history in America for a long time. It was then that a journal article appeared on the rising stars of figure skating. In March, Audrey and Misha performed in Bulgaria at the World Junior Championships, where they took the 5 place.

This year, Misha turned 21 a year, and Audrey 16, they switched to the level of adult figure skaters. This means that the program has become longer, the elements are more complicated and their number is greater. New elements young figure skaters began to learn in the summer. They were fortunate enough to visit Russia in the international camp for figure skaters in Sochi, where they are sending promising couples who have just moved into the “adult” category. The guys worked for a week with various coaches from Canada and Russia, including that with famous Russian coach Nina Moser, who loved Misha and Audrey very much. She insisted on the presence of the Lou / Mitrofanov couple in another preparatory camp, already in the United States. The Federation of figure skating did not plan to send them there, but with the assistance of Nina, Moser Misha and Audrey were urgently included in the list of participants.

At the end of August in Colorado, the US team rolled out their programs before the start of the 2018-2019 season. Misha and Audrey had the time to compete in the category of adult athletes. The short program was great, which could not be said about the long. 4-minute program without interruption young athletes to sustain it was difficult. However, the judges asked Audrey and Misha to show the individual elements that were adequately performed.

In September, the couple won a silver medal at 2018 CS US International Classic in California, and the Figure Skating Federation sends the guys to Germany for the ISU CS Nebelhorn Trophy 2018 championship. The small championship in Oberddorf is the oldest in Europe and one of the most prestigious in the world. Misha and Audrey were the youngest among the speakers and competed with more experienced couples who had already participated in the Olympics. The perspective of the Lu / Mitrofanov pair is that they technically perform triple jumps, while other American couples perform all the elements perfectly, but fall after the jumps and lose points. According to their results, Misha and Audrey entered the top five at these competitions. The guys themselves admitted that for them the personal victory was that they bypassed the Canadian skaters.

The audience took a young couple perfectly. Athletes also liked the judges, who made an exception for those who took fifth place and allowed them to the demonstration performances. After the championship in Germany, Audrey and Misha received the first touching letter from a fan, which inspired them very much.

We must pay tribute to the coaches of the couple, who, in the traditions of the Russian school, never praise their pupils, but raise the bar higher, forcing them to go ahead and overcome the "star disease".

Now Misha is studying at UT Dallas Medical School and dreams of becoming a doctor in the figure skating team. The youngest pair of the American national team, Misha Mitrofanov and Audrey Lou are preparing for the 2018 Internationaux de France championship, which will be held in late November of this year. But the most important task for himself Misha and Audrey consider to get into the Olympic team and participate in the Beijing Olympics 2022 of the year. The coaches of the couple believe that the guys have excellent prospects. We wish them good luck and the realization of their dreams!

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