2025-26 Retirements, Splits and New Partnerships | Page 5 | Golden Skate

2025-26 Retirements, Splits and New Partnerships

Elizabeth Tkachenko and Alexei Kiliakov (Ice Dance, Israel) announced their retirement.


Shocked. 8 years ago they were the up and coming novice team in the US. When they lost that footing it seems their connection with Israel was the path to world acclaim. Lots we don't know but I guess it was not to be.
 
JGP Riga entries have confirmed Ashlie Slatter and Louis Gregory as a new junior ice dance team for GBR. This had been rumoured previously, but not confirmed.
Does anyone know anything about Louis Gregory? Is he at Ashlie's level?
 
A new British ice dance team - Layla Karnes and Freddie Leggott (debuting at the September British championship qualifiers). Layla has competed in solo dance and for GB in ice dance (with Liam Carr). Freddie has competed in singles for GB.
And they have their first international event a couple of days later at the Bolero Cup, alongside another new (GBR) couple Dana Sabatini-Speciale and Daniel Kaye plus newish (GBR) couple Sophia Bushell and Antonio Pena.
 
Spotted on the Skate Detroit start list this week for Junior Dance
Sofiia Beznosikova, Royal Belgian Figure Skating Federation
Max Leleu, Royal Belgian Figure Skating Federation
 
With all the return announcements thus far this season I feel that a "Returnee" or "Out of Retirement" option should have been added to keep track of. This is starting to feel a little like the lead up to the 1994 Olympics when pros could return to competition.
 
Max and Sofia have been skating together for years. They've been at Junior Worlds since 2022/23 https://www.isuresults.com/bios/isufs00111923.htm

They train in Novi MI so it is a quick drive to DSC for Skate Detroit, and I think many of Igor's kids are competing at Skate Detroit
I think I may have confused them with some other team.
I think I am working too much and too hard to keep up with skating these days.
 
Cayla is apparenly skating with someone (per Fort Wayne ISC Facebook page from this year's and last year's ice show). I'm hoping they'll pop up at a NQS event (maybe Skate Detroit?) this season.
Baylen and Nikolai are skating with Chris and Alexa Knierim and Timothy Leduc in Chicago suburbs. Things are going really well for them and as noted they are added to the ISP for junior pairs even before competing. They have had critiques with judges formally and have done a couple of demonstration progrms. They will be competing for the first time in an NQS competition called Greater Chicagoland Open Sept 4-7. Before finding Nikolai, Baylen was learning new pair elements and mastering skills with Chris while keeping up her singles skating. This season she is competing both singles and pairs. Last season in 2024 to 2025 she made the national development camp in intermediate women. She is competing as a novice woman this year and then will be also doing junior pairs. I’ve seen them skate together and they’re really good match. It looks like they’ll be planning to start with content including a double twist (they can do triple off ice), throw doubles, a stag lift and another lift also an upgrade from Baylens previous experience, SBS axel sequence, building a solid successful Junior repertoire.
 
Last edited:
Amy Ritchie and Mitchell Dunn are a new Pairs team for Canada.

They're listed on the entry list for BC/YT Autumn Leaves separately as competing in Junior Pairs, with the only other entries for Junior Pairs being Jaslynn Wong/Nico Conforti. They also appeared together in an Instagram reel from Connaught, along with Wong/Conforti and Ava Cheung/Stephen Lee.

This also means that Monique Menard/Mitchell Dunn (Pairs, Canada) have split. They last competed together at BC/YT Super Series High Performance in June 2025 and were entered for Championnats quebecois d'ete.
 
Last edited:
This is official now:

Carpenter/Maravilla have split.

 
This is official now:

Carpenter/Maravilla have split.

I realise they were a US team, but as I don't know them (sorry), pair or ID?
 
@saine is always a click or two ahead of us :)

When teams retire or split after the first competition of the season (hello Marly) I often think it's either one of two things
1) Commitment level of one of the partners not matching the other
2) Realizing that they don't want to compete/train at the highest level anymore and it's better to end things before the real season starts and too much work has been done to back out.

I find that it also often happens years around the Olympic year... for obvious reasons. Teams of that level are not going to make a statement at the Olympics (or even qualify) and if that was a goal for them, they would be in for another 5 years.
I wonder if their affiliation with Israel and the mandatory military requirements for young Israeli adults-male and female, had anything to do with it. I'm not sure how dual citizenship works in this case, but it seems strange that they would pull out after preparing for the new season and likely making the minimum to skate for Israel at the Olympics. I've always enjoyed their skating and wish them all the best. Life does go on.
 
Back
Top