2024 EduSport Trophy in Romania: the dance edition. Zoom in on a historic debut

EduSport Trophy in Otopeni, Romania, has always been about single skating, with all its categories – the six previous editions are all here to prove it. And while the seventh edition was about single skating as well, it was first and foremost about ice dancing.

by Florentina Tone

Hosted by Allianz-Tiriac Arena in Otopeni this last December, the 7th edition of EduSport Trophy will be remembered as the competition where the first senior ice dance team representing Romania made their international debut.

Coached by Elena Novak and Alexei Kiliakov at ION Dance Academy by WISA in Leesburg, Virginia, Romania’s Emilia Monika Ziobrowska and Shiloh Douglas Judd came to Otopeni to skate in their first international event, to get to know the country and the skating community they’re representing – but also look for TES-minimums allowing them to already compete at 2025 Europeans.

A bold move indeed, and ambitious planning from the dancers and their team: this is Emilia and Shiloh’s first competitive season together and only their second year of partnership.

The two teamed up in October 2023, competed in just two events prior (Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships in July 2024, US Challenge Cup in September 2024) – and entered their first international competition under Romanian flag, 2024 EduSport Trophy, literally a day after their official release.

Emilia and Shiloh took the ice for their rhythm dance on December 14th, 2024, and skated their free dance a day later.

How it all turned out, you ask?

They skated big, as they intended, and finished their first international competition on the 4th place.

But, more than that, they got the technical scores needed, becoming the first ice dance team representing Romania to qualify for an edition of the Europeans.

History was made for the competition itself, for ice dance in Romania, for the Romanian skating as a whole – and we can’t wait to see what future brings for all.

We’ve been given hints that this only the beginning: bigger plans were put together for developing ice dancing in Romania and we can’t wait for the next chapters of this story.

ICE DANCE IN ALLIANZ-TIRIAC ARENA, WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?

But there was so much more happening at EduSport Trophy when it comes to ice dancing, apart from Emilia and Shiloh’s international debut.

Only the second time when ice dance category was a part of an ISU-sanctioned event organized in Romania (the first one being 2012 Crystal Skate, when Ilinykh / Katsalapov won), 2024 EduSport Trophy embraced this historic opportunity and started big: from the 22 teams listed, 19 made the journey to Otopeni for the competition.

19 teams, their coaching staffs and their (noisy, chatty, supportive) parents, of course.

TEAM LYON IN OTOPENI

There were 7 teams in seniors, 7 in juniors and 5 in advanced novice – and the best represented school at competition was the famous Club des Sports de Glace de Lyon (CSGL), France.

The school that gave the world teams like Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder, Nathalie Péchalat and Fabian Bourzat, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, to name some of the most prominent ones.

You know it, we know it: for years, for decades even, Lyon was almost the center of the world when it comes to ice dancing.

The school of Muriel Zazoui that nurtured that very special talent the French have in ice dancing, the school that kept attracting athletes from all around the world (take Italy’s Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte, for example, take Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon, who dreamed of establishing a similar ice dance school in Canada at the end of their competitive career, which they did), the school where Roman Haguenauer used to coach before leaving to Montreal and also the school that marked the beginning of Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron’s career before spreading their wings and leaving for Canada.

At 2024 EduSport Trophy, coach Marien De La Asuncion – former ice dancer representing Japan, with Emi Hirai – brought five French teams from Club des Sports de Glace de Lyon to compete in Romania: 3 teams in advanced novice and 2 junior teams.

And those teams won the big medals of the competition in both categories.

In the advanced novice ice dance event, Romy Reverchon and Victor di Muzio took first place, Angelina Cucherat and Leopold Hernandez-Dacquin finished second, while the very elegant Margot Richmond and Jimmy Fernette placed 4th, after showing their skills and hitting their key points within the Westminster Waltz and the Tango on the first day of competition, and then skate their free dances the following day in Allianz-Tiriac Arena.

In the junior ice dance category, it was the Lyon-teams that once again took first and second place: Alisa Ovsiankina and Maximilien Rahier (gold) and Léa Hienne and Louis Varescon (silver).

The winning team in Otopeni has already made its debut on the Junior Grand Prix circuit: Alisa Ovsiankina (born in Ekaterinburg, now skating for France) and Maximilien Rahier (born in Lyon) finished 5th at the JGP Czech Skate in Ostrava this season and 6th place at JGP Ankara – this particular team made quite an impression in Otopeni with both their performances, and especially with their Vivaldi’s Four Seasons free dance. They plan to already make the move to seniors next season, their coach shared.

Silver medalists Léa Hienne and Louis Varescon teamed up in the spring of 2024 and EduSport Trophy in Romania was only their second international event, after Ice Challenge in Graz, where they finished 4th.

And coach Marien De La Asuncion will speak highly of all of his teams (in an interview soon to be published on Inside Skating), will watch all of them closely in Otopeni, give advice and supportive words before the start, in French, in English, depending on the circumstances (Marien supervised two other teams at EduSport Trophy, asked by their respective coaches), check his coloured Excel with the schedule on the tablet while always keeping an eye on the dancers warming up nearby.

Among those skaters, a young team that caught our attention and ran away with it: 13-year old Margot Richmond, with her long, white dress for the Westminster Waltz, curly hair and shy smile, and 14-year old Jimmy Fernette.

FORMER ICE DANCERS TURNED INTO COACHES: WHAT A REUNION

You also need to know that 2024 EduSport Trophy in Romania was such a nice meeting place for a lot of young but already established coaches, who used to skate competitively not that long ago: apart from Marien De La Asuncion from CSGL, one could greet (and even bring red roses to) Kirill Khaliavin, who made such an impressive team with Sara Hurtado just a couple seasons ago.

Sara and Kirill now have their own ice dancing school in Madrid, SK International Ice Dance School, and Kirill travelled with two teams in Romania: Lithuania’s Paulina Ramanauskaite and Deividas Kizala, who won the senior ice dancing event at EduSport Trophy, and Great Britain’s Sophia Bushell and Antonio Pena, finishing 7th.

And Kirill would also be there, at the boards, in the Kiss and Cry, with Ireland’s Carolane Soucisse and Shane Firus, who came without their coaches in Romania for the event.

In Allianz-Arena in Otopeni, one could also spot the Italian coach Francesco Fioretti, accompanying Italy’s Vittoria Pettrachi and Daniel Basile in the junior ice dance event, and, look, there was also John Kerr, two-time European bronze medalist with his sister Sinead (2009, 2011).

John travelled to Romania with his Azerbaijani senior ice dance team Maxine Weatherby and Oleksandr Kolosovskyi, who won the silver medal in Otopeni.

Also in Otopeni for 2024 EduSport Trophy was Ukraine’s Maxim Nikitin, coaching the senior ice dance team from Netherlands, Chelsea Verhaegh and Sherim Van Geffen, who finished 5th.

You could say it was a separate competition here, of the former ice dancers now turned into coaches – in fact, there was no competition, but a wonderful encounter, with them talking, laughing, sharing their expertise and being excited in their new roles.

And, above all, happy they get to pursue their passion, pass the torch, do what they do best.

“We were a good generation, this proves it”, Marien De La Asuncion summarizes it with a smile.

ELENA NOVAK: “OUR JOB IS TO HELP”

And there’s more: coming from ION Dance Academy by WISA in Leesburg, Virginia, acclaimed coach and choreographer Elena Novak travelled to Otopeni with two ice dance teams: Romania’s Emilia Monika Ziobrowska and Shiloh Douglas Judd (4th place), but also Mexico’s Harlow Lynella Stanley and Seiji Urano (6th place).

And Elena Novak’s attributes, accomplishments are really impressive: since co-founding WISA Skating Academy in 2003 with her husband Alexei Kiliakov, they have led numerous ice dancers to national and international podiums.

If names like Rachel Parsons and Michael Parsons (2017 World Junior champions), Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter (2016 World Junior champions), Caroline Green and Michael Parsons (2022 Four Continents champions) or Elizabeth Tkachenko and Alexei Kiliakov (2024 World Junior silver medalists) sound familiar to you, know that Elena Novak, Alexei Kiliakov and their team of professionals have been essential to their success.

Now located in Leesburg, Virginia, at ION International Training Center founded by Romania-born and raised Luiz Taifas, Elena and Alexei’s dance academy aims even further: develop ice dance, make it more accessible, especially in countries with no tradition, such as Romania, for example.

That’s where their ideas and Luiz Taifas’ ideas really found a common, fertile ground.

“We’ve been friends with Luiz for many years and I can understand that, as a former skater representing Romania, it was important for him to develop figure skating, and to develop all disciplines for Romania. And we like that too”, Elena Novak shared in Otopeni.

“Big countries like USA, Canada, France, England, they have a lot of access to the sport of ice dance: they have judges, technical specialists, technical committee members – so it’s very easy for them to access the knowledge, the information for coaches.

But for the countries that don’t have many teams, or are just starting, it’s really hard. And our job is to help. As an ISU moderator, when I’m teaching the [dance] camps in Oberstdorf, the idea is for the countries that don’t have much access to this knowledge is for them to have this information, to help them develop the sport”.

And when Luiz Taifas came with the idea of having an ice dance team Romania, “for us it was an interesting project” for all the reasons above, coach Novak continued.

And this is just the beginning.

“This was my first time in Romania and I absolutely loved it, we felt so much support from everyone here, there are people that are really working for the development of the sport.

Everybody that we met, the coaches, the organizers, everybody is working so hard, they’re so interested, and it’s very important. So we felt really, really good about it, and, as a coach, I would like to do more.

Ideally, we would like to form a junior team, and maybe more than one team, I think that would be the goal”.

***

What else is there to say?

It was incredible to dive into the atmosphere of this ice dance event organized in Romania – apart from the competition itself, it was room for suggestions, discussions even: what if ice dance brings an additional set of chances for our Romanian single skaters wishing to pursue their passion?

We know, it’s not the single skater’s dream to switch to ice dance, but, look, so many other did it, with great success.

The first that comes to mind is Daisuke Takahashi, World champion and Olympic bronze medalist as a single skater, learning to ice dance, with Kana Muramoto – and that started an euphoria in Japan, among the audience and, most importantly, among the skaters: Japanese athletes saw it as a possibility, whereas before, they didn’t even take it into consideration.

And if the Romanian ice dance team gathers support, enthusiasm around it, this might spark a spark among our skaters and they might want to explore this opportunity.

And what a great path this would be.

One that has never been tried locally, for different reasons – there was no tradition when it comes to ice dance, no school, no ice dance coaches –, but this is always subject to change.

We all need to start from somewhere, and Emilia and Shiloh’s journey might be a great start of the story.

[Story by Florentina Tone
Photos by Bogdan Buda / EduSport Trophy, Florentina Tone]

TO FOLLOW

Get to know Emilia & Shiloh, first Romanian ice dance team to go to Europeans