|
Post by Admin on Dec 25, 2015 1:30:37 GMT
Gracie Gold lets the snow fall all over her in her new pics from Instagram. The 20-year-old Olympic figure skater snapped some shots outside in the snow during her winter holiday in Aspen, Colorado. “Baby it’s cold outside”, “Winter Wonderland”, and “Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow,” she captioned the three images. Later on, Gracie shared another shot along with Jeremy Abbott, where her hair was super curly and gorgeous! “Congratulations to Morgan ?, who won a pair of @johnwilsonblades at the Stars on Aspen Ice show! It was such a pleasure to present them to Morgan on behalf on John Wilson! ?All proceeds from the show’s silent auction go to the Michael J Fox foundation for Parkinson’s research. Go to michaeljfox.org and donate to team “Jeremy Abbott”. Every donation is one step closer to a cure,” she wrote.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jan 1, 2016 3:39:00 GMT
Two blocks from the ocean in Redondo Beach, Calif., a pair of 20-year-old twin sisters shares a bedroom each night. One has made it her mission to capture gold at the 2018 Olympics after finishing a disappointing fourth in Sochi nearly two years ago. The other? She’s making her debut at the U.S. figure skating championships next month. Long Gracie Gold’s biggest fan, twin sister Carly will put blade to ice on the national stage for the first time in January in St. Paul, Minn., at nationals, stepping out from the shadows as a spectating sister and becoming a fellow competitor. “Nationals has always been my goal since I was 10 years old,” Carly Gold tells USA TODAY Sports in a phone interview. “I would always have mixed feelings there: I’m here to support Gracie, but then I also had a little sadness; just sitting in the stands watching, that was pretty tough for me.” It was in the fall of 2013 that the Golds — Carly, Gracie and their mother Denise — moved from suburban Chicago to the Los Angeles area for Gracie to work with legendary coach Frank Carroll. Carroll agreed to take on Carly as well, a respectable and fluid skater who that fall ended up just one spot shy of qualifying for nationals. The road to the U.S. championships is long and difficult for skaters outside of the upper echelon of the sport, needing to advance through qualifying events to secure a place in January. At one point last year, Carly considered quitting the sport altogether.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jan 16, 2016 22:31:54 GMT
After Gracie Gold won her first national title in 2014 and captured the bronze medal in the team event at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, she faced her first major injury last season. She recovered in time for the 2015 World Championships and finished in fourth place. Gold gained momentum this season by capturing the silver at Skate America and the gold at Trophée Bombard but struggled at the Grand Prix Final, finishing off the podium in fifth place. “Going into the [Grand Prix] Final I was completely physically prepared and I had done some mental training work, but when I got to the competition I just choked,” Gracie said on a media teleconference on Jan. 14. “No one really beat me I just beat myself.” Gold went on to explain that she began focusing on her competitors and allowed her competitive fight to dissipate. After having that experience at the Grand Prix Final Gracie believes that she has recaptured that fire and will not allow herself to shrink back. “No more doubles, I think I’ve really played that card too many times,” Gold confessed. “I really just want to do everything and go after it. No one’s going to take me down without a fight.” Gracie Gold has not always come off as a fighter as she has been called “ice princess” in the past which is a term that she has learned to despise. “When I first heard people not so fondly call me ‘ice princess’ I didn’t know that that was a bad thing at first…. I was skating to Sleeping Beauty and I was an ice skater and everybody wants to be perfect—what could be wrong with being an ice princess?” Gold said. “Then I realized that it’s because they thought I was cold and frozen which really caught me off guard because I didn’t think of myself like that at all.” Since then Gracie has worked to be more transparent and deflect that kind of image. Gold has a lot to worry about, besides her image, like her competitors which she has begun to size up. Russian Evgenia Medvedeva who stormed onto the senior stage this season has caused quite a stir, winning gold at Skate America, the silver at the Rostelecom Cup and culminating with capturing the gold at the Grand Prix Final. When asked during the teleconference what impressed Gracie the most about Evgenia, Gold replied: “She’s a great skater, she’s very um…actually I take that back, I think she’s a really good skater… I think that she’s beatable, but you know the other skaters we have to skate two clean programs when it matters…her consistency is very admirable.” Though the “little Russians” as Gracie calls them, concern her at times she knows that will not always be the case. Gold made it clear that there is a strong possibility that she will not continue in her career past the 2018 season. “I will be 22 for the 2018 Olympics and hopefully, assuming that the rest of this season and next season and the 2018 season, assuming that all goes well and I reach my goals and expectations and I collect some medals and titles and I get an Olympic medal [at the Olympic Games] in 2018 as a team and singles I would probably retire… I would really like to start a different journey in my life,” Gracie said. “I think after 22, I would still like to do shows and I’d always like to be involved in skating whenever I can, but there are other things out there for me as well.” With the Olympic Games still two years away, Gold now sets her sights on her next stepping stone, the U.S. Figure Skating Championships that begin next week. Gracie will not be the only member from the Gold family competing this year as her twin sister Carly will be making her Nationals debut. Gracie plans to watch her sister compete and is excited to go on this journey with her. Last year Gold went into Nationals with only eighteen days to train after coming back from her foot injury, so this year Gracie is going in prepared, trained and ready to come in and fight for her spot on the top of the podium. “I want to put out two really strong performances and really set myself a part as the national champion with the best in the U.S.,” Gold said. “And of course I feel even more strongly about worlds this year because it’s in Boston, in the U.S. and so every point counts.”
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 7, 2016 1:19:57 GMT
Gracie Gold learned after her less-than-perfect short program earlier this week that life isn’t always a fairytale. She noted at the time that “just because you go big and work hard,” you won’t always skate perfectly and come out on top. For Gold, her free skate Saturday night proved to be the fairytale ending she needed. Gold came out on top in a stacked women’s field at the 2016 U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, scoring 147.96 in her free skate for a total of 210.46. Her free skate was 1.02 points off from the highest women’s free skate score ever awarded at the U.S. championships. Her total was the third-highest total score in U.S. championships history. Not far behind Gold on the podium was silver medalist Polina Edmunds, who totaled 207.51 after a free skate score of 137.32. Reigning national champion Ashley Wagner was third with a total of 197.88, thanks to her free skate score of 135.47. “I am just over the moon,” Gold said after winning her second national title. “I was so happy with how I skated tonight. Obviously, to win another U.S. title means so much to me, especially after last year; however, being second after the short program wasn't what I wanted. I knew that I had trained so hard for this competition and couldn't let anything go. I needed to be the best Firebird I could be. I am really so happy, so thankful and feel so blessed."
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Mar 25, 2016 5:14:58 GMT
Gracie Gold has nothing but fond memories of competing in Boston at TD Garden. She won her first national title there in 2014 and qualified for the Olympic Team. That experience became the best thing to ever happen to her in the city of Boston. Gracie will return to TD Garden for the 2016 World Figure Skating Championships at the end of March where she hopes to have yet another remarkable moment. “I love the fact that we’re going back to Boston, I have great memories obviously both personal and for skating.” Gold said during a media call on March 17. “I feel so ready I wish it was this weekend actually.” At this point Gracie is more excited than nervous and even though she wishes the event was sooner she is also grateful for another week of training. Gracie Gold was ecstatic about winning her second national title in January as it was her primary goal for the season, but admits that she has struggled putting two clean programs back-to-back. Gracie realizes that this season specifically, she has had difficultly performing a clean short program. Gold was in ninth at the Four Continents Championships only a few weeks ago following her short, but was able to pull up to finish in fifth place at an event she was expected to win. “I came back from Four Continents and never been really more upset at myself,” Gold said. “As soon as I came back I was so for a medal at Worlds. I’m so motivated. I’ve been in the rink every day since we’ve been back from Taipei and we still have another week of training and it’s really paid off. I feel like I’m skating the best I have all season and I really want to have the best skates that I’ve had all season at Worlds.” Gracie doesn’t feel that her performance at Four Continents shook her confidence at all though she admitted that she had a lot of mixed opinions about competing at the event so soon after Nationals and right before Worlds. “Every year that I don’t skate well at it [Four Continents] it makes me want to go the next year and so right now I feel like going next year just to try and re-do it even though it hasn’t been in history, my best competition.”
|
|