A decade after she burst onto the international figure skating scene as a big-jumping 17-year-old, the 2014 Olympic team bronze medallist from the U.S. is embarking on yet another chapter in her already storied career – and she’s as determined as ever.
“This season I really want to transition from the ‘good for her for being out there’ mentality... to, ‘Oh, she’s really, really good. And she’s really competitive,’” Gold told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview ahead of Skate America 2022.
“I’ve been training with that in mind,” she added. “I’m really trying to push myself to be not just good but great. And to be better – in all the ways that I can – than I was prior. And remind people that age is just a number. Because people love reminding me about my age.”
Gold, in fact, is 27. She’s a rare late-20-something skater in women’s singles, a discipline that has been ruled by teenagers for much of the last two decades.
Earlier this year she became the oldest woman to complete a triple Lutz-triple toe-loop jumping combination in competition, and names the now-retired Italian skater Carolina Kostner, who finished in fourth place at the World Championships in 2018 at age 31, as a personal hero.
“I don’t feel 27,” Gold said. “Carolina won the short program at [2018] Worlds at 31. I think that in some ways skaters don’t stick around long enough to see what they would feel like at 27. Skating can be a burnout sport. I’m excited to show off everything that I’ve been working on.”
Raising her voice in advocacy
Burnt out is perhaps a good way to describe how Gold felt after the 2016 World Championships, when – at 21 – she (like Kostner two years later) led after the short program in front of a boisterous home crowd at TD Garden in Boston.
But she would falter in her opening jumping pass in the free skate and finish fourth at an event many expected her to win. What happened thereafter was clearly a young person looking to find their way: After a season of struggles in 2016-17, Gold admitted to suffering from anxiety while wrestling with both an eating disorder and body dysmorphia.
She checked herself into treatment and spent the better part of 18 months focused on her physical and mental health, bouncing from one location to the next.
While the mental health journey is ongoing, Gold emerged as an athlete advocate and leading voice for Olympians and other elite athletes around the mental health topic, an issue that has become spoken about more openly over the last few years.
“It doesn't really feel like work to me,” Gold shared about her openness and activism on the subject. She recently received an award for her work in mental health and is set to be honoured by an eating disorder organisation, as well.
“There's a lot of eating disorders in the skating community, but we don't always know of them because it's a lean body sport,” Gold explained. “Old fashioned ways of thinking, old fashioned diets, the toxic diet culture... it’s an area of mental health that is important to me. Unlike other addictions – you can cut out drugs or alcohol – but you can't cut out food. Managing that addiction and the struggles for both men and women... to be honored for my work in that mental health community, that really means a lot to me.”
Gracie 3.0
But while Gold began to raise her voice off the ice, finding her footing on it proved more difficult. She used local qualifying events to make her way back to the U.S. Championships in January 2020, receiving a standing ovation upon her return, but finished in 12th place.
In the two years since, she’s been 13th (2021) and 10th (2022) at nationals, at times showing flashes of the skater who qualified for the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014 at 18 years old. She would finish in fourth place in singles there after helping Team USA to a bronze in the inaugural team figure skating event.
While the flashes are encouraging, the consistency remains elusive. Elite skating can demand perfection – and Gold has often described herself as a perfectionist.
After finishing the 2021-22 season and watching Beijing 2022 from home, Gold took part in a spring tour in the U.S. and taught learn-to-skate classes. It wasn’t until choreographer Michael Solonoski suggested they piece together a free skate during tour that she gave thought to continuing to compete.
“I was not going to do another season,” she said plainly. “[On tour] I kind of fell in love with skating again. It was like, ‘I still feel good'. I even felt better in some ways than I did last year and was in the gym a lot and on the ice in a very fun capacity. I was like, ‘Oh, what if I did [come back]?’ Michael said, ‘What if we just create
? What if we just felt it out?’”
“Two and a half weeks after we choreographed it, I was competing at PSI,” Gold revealed.
PSI is Philadelphia Summer Invitational, a small-level event where Gold skated in early August and performed five triple jumps in her free skate, including the aforementioned triple Lutz-triple toe combo.
She earned an invitation to U.S. Figure Skating’s elite training camp later that month and – via a skate off there – claimed a coveted spot at Skate America, the first Grand Prix of the 2022-23 season.
It’s set to be the first fully international Grand Prix in Gold’s career since 2016. (Gold competed at Skate America in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic when the International Skating Union limited travel for its events. She also withdrew midway through the 2018 Russian Grand Prix.)