If the success of a country's athletes is partially dependent upon how popular the sport is (thus attracting new potential talent) how in the heck has the US become an ice dancing powerhouse when it's generally considered to be the least popular discipline?
Not really arguing anything here, but it really just blows my mind that the US has so much depth of talent in ice dance in spite of the fact that it receives very little attention. Especially when considering ice dance is similar to pairs in that it takes 2 people. American pairs all split up all the time, but ice dancers stay together?
It's been almost entirely accidental IMO. Certainly not something USFS planned or put all that much effort into. US champs have been coached by Shpilband or Zoueva to most, if not all, of the national titles since 1992. The top four teams all have foreign, or foreign-born coaches who learned their craft elsewhere. Shpilband is a US citizen now. but he ended up here under less than ideal circumstances. He certainly wasn't recruited to come over to build an ice dance empire.
After he set the trend, other Russian coaches, set up shot here as well. Tarasova, Dubova and Linchuk who never really invested in grass roots training of Americans in their early years here, so I don't count them in the conversation. Now, you have Russian led schools in not just Michigan with Zoueva and Krylova, but here in DC as well where the top two junior dance teams in the US and the world are trained. Plus there's the Montreal school which has roots with Zazoui in France.