Figure skaters who progressed fast

[Jumping_Bean]

Per ISU bio, Kim Yujae started skating in 2018 and won her first JGP medal in 2022. Her twin Yuseong Kim won two JGP medals in 2023, she has 2019 listed as "started skating" (though I doubt they started skating in different time).

I do think it's possible Yuseong started skating seriously later, though they probably were indeed placed in skating lessons at the same time.

I think there was an interview once where it was said that their mother signed them up for skating at 8 years old (so late 2017/early 2018) for health reasons and the family then moved to a different city with more ice rinks in 2019 to allow them to train more.

It's not that easy to track their progress in all honesty, because by the time they show up at big national competitions and international competitions (in 2021/22 and 2022/23 respectively), both already had all triples up to the 3Lz and were doing 3Lz+3T combinations. With Chaeyeon, it was quite easy to see how her jumps progressed over the years,but not so much with the twins.

 

[bartlebooth]

Chafik Besseghier started skating at age 12. Five years later he participated to French Nationals (17). He went on to win two national titles, to place top 10 at Euros and Worlds (he never went to Junior Worlds) and to take part in the Olympics.

 

[Mathman]

Tara Lipinski started ice skating at nine (swtching from roller skating) as was wold champion at 14.

 

[Seven Sisters]

Johnny Weir only started figure skating at age 12.

Also the first person I thought of!

Johnny went from a total beginner to Junior World Champion in about five years, which is remarkable; an awesome natural talent.

 

[spencerlane]

Did some looking into Spencer Lane since what you mentioned about him made me interested.

He started his recordings at around 13 by the looks of it, that was about 2-3 years ago, so hes about 15-16 now. But I find it extremely likely he had at least basic prior skating experience before that, unless he started doing full rotations from day one on the ice.

He competed recently and scored 91 overall. Intermediate mens is his category:

2024 North Shore Open

Event Results for 2024 North Shore Open

ijs.usfigureskating.org

Considering he almost definitely has at least 4 years of skating under his belt, I think this kind of progress is not unheard of, but I may be wrong.

Hello, This is Spencer a

Hi

I would like to start a topic on figure skaters who has progressed really fast, and seems to be natural talents. I remember from time to time there are figure skaters in the international stages who only has been skating for a few years, and I almost couldn´t believe it when the commentators mentioned for how long they skated.

First things comes to mind is a Turkish skater, who hadn´t been skating for many years, but was already training/doing a triple axel. He competed at JGP last season, please help me fill in the name and his story.

For a while I have been following a skater named Spencer Lane on TikTok, who seems to be training in Boston, he has 14 000 followers now. He only started skating in January 2022, and his progress is mind-blowing. I´m not sure I ever have heard about a skater who went from doing barely a singel axel to triples in 2 years time. When I discovered him he was just doing his first triple toeloop, and hadn´t even been skating for 2 years. All the way he has been posting his progress.

In the recent couple of months he has progressed to doing 3T-3T, 3Lo, 3T-eu-3S, 3Lz with ease. I´m not sure what his age is, but he just recently did a small competition called Colonial Open. If he continues like this and wants a competitive career, i´m sure we will see his name in the future in some international competitions.

Here is a recent video from practice with 3Lo and 3T-3T.

Link




His first attempts of 3Lz looks amazing:

Link




What other skaters progressed really fast? This thread is not supposed to be a competition about who progressed the fastest, but more a celebration of natural talents that people may not be aware of. Also, people may not be aware of top skaters skaters who started pretty late.

Hi, This is Spencer lane, very interesting that I have managed to get the attention of people not just on tiktok but on a uh forum, my friend notified me about this and it’s quite surprising. I am gonna try to reply to some of the messages here to like clear up some questions or stuff like that

 

[spencerlane]

Did some looking into Spencer Lane since what you mentioned about him made me interested.

He started his recordings at around 13 by the looks of it, that was about 2-3 years ago, so hes about 15-16 now. But I find it extremely likely he had at least basic prior skating experience before that, unless he started doing full rotations from day one on the ice.

He competed recently and scored 91 overall. Intermediate mens is his category:

2024 North Shore Open

Event Results for 2024 North Shore Open

ijs.usfigureskating.org

Considering he almost definitely has at least 4 years of skating under his belt, I think this kind of progress is not unheard of, but I may be wrong.

Hi, this is Spencer, I’m not quite sure how I progressed pretty quick from the beginning, but like I enrolled in learn to skate out of Pawtucket and Providence right before the start of the 2022 Beijing Olympics after seeing my now close friend performing outside at a rink. I did learn to skate in January 2022, and switched to a private coach out of a local rink in the summer of 2022. I stayed there for around a year, during that time I got my singles and my first two doubles. In the early summer of 2023, around June I moved up to Boston and started working with Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, Maxim Naumov’s parents. And I’ve progressed pretty quickly since then. but I have not had any on ice time prior to learn to skate other than when I was like, 3 and went to some place in New York City lol.

If anyone has any questions they can dm me on spencerskates26 on instagram too

 

[Mathematician]

Hi, this is Spencer, I’m not quite sure how I progressed pretty quick from the beginning, but like I enrolled in learn to skate out of Pawtucket and Providence right before the start of the 2022 Beijing Olympics after seeing my now close friend performing outside at a rink. I did learn to skate in January 2022, and switched to a private coach out of a local rink in the summer of 2022. I stayed there for around a year, during that time I got my singles and my first two doubles. In the early summer of 2023, around June I moved up to Boston and started working with Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, Maxim Naumov’s parents. And I’ve progressed pretty quickly since then. but I have not had any on ice time prior to learn to skate other than when I was like, 3 and went to some place in New York City lol.

If anyone has any questions they can dm me on spencerskates26 on instagram too

Interesting. I do believe your story I was just confused about the context of certain videos.

Sounds like you're quite talented. I wonder if your peak potential will be as impressive as your raw speed of learning. Only time will tell. Good luck.

 

[Mathematician]

@spencerlane do you have a background in any other sports? Or dance or something? Anything kinaesthetic that might have contributed to your natural balance and awareness?

 

[spencerlane]

@spencerlane do you have a background in any other sports? Or dance or something? Anything kinaesthetic that might have contributed to your natural balance and awareness?

Not really a sport, I did do like Aerial Silk for a bit, which could give me air awareness, but other than that, no, I mean I did rock climbing but that was like when I was 6

 

[Mathematician]

Not really a sport, I did do like Aerial Silk for a bit, which could give me air awareness, but other than that, no, I mean I did rock climbing but that was like when I was 6

Aerial silk wow thats very unique. I can definitely imagine how that would help a bit with jumps.

 

[spencerlane]

Aerial silk wow thats very unique. I can definitely imagine how that would help a bit with jumps.

Yes it was certainly interesting, but I ended up stopping when I decided I liked skating more, and I decided that when I was still in learn to skate, for some reason I found trying to do 3 turns fun

 

[Mathematician]

Yes it was certainly interesting, but I ended up stopping when I decided I liked skating more, and I decided that when I was still in learn to skate, for some reason I found trying to do 3 turns fun

I'm curious how you even got into aerial silk because I have never personally talked to anyone who does it

 

[norwegianfairytale]

Hi, this is Spencer, I’m not quite sure how I progressed pretty quick from the beginning, but like I enrolled in learn to skate out of Pawtucket and Providence right before the start of the 2022 Beijing Olympics after seeing my now close friend performing outside at a rink. I did learn to skate in January 2022, and switched to a private coach out of a local rink in the summer of 2022. I stayed there for around a year, during that time I got my singles and my first two doubles. In the early summer of 2023, around June I moved up to Boston and started working with Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, Maxim Naumov’s parents. And I’ve progressed pretty quickly since then. but I have not had any on ice time prior to learn to skate other than when I was like, 3 and went to some place in New York City lol.

If anyone has any questions they can dm me on spencerskates26 on instagram too

Wow, so fun that you found the thread and thank you so much for giving more insights! It´s nice to know that you have gotten some good coaching, and it´s no doubt that you are very talented. Can´t wait to see you post more content!

Good luck at Lake Placid this week!

Will you continue to compete in Intermediate men in the upcoming season, or do you have a plan to advance up in categories quickly?

Sorry if that is a stupid question, I do not know the requirements to move up or if that is something you aim for, but from my perspective jumping wise you seem to be able to move up pretty quickly to higher categories.

 

[Weathergal]

Hello, This is Spencer a

Hi, This is Spencer lane, very interesting that I have managed to get the attention of people not just on tiktok but on a uh forum, my friend notified me about this and it’s quite surprising. I am gonna try to reply to some of the messages here to like clear up some questions or stuff like that

Hi, this is Spencer, I’m not quite sure how I progressed pretty quick from the beginning, but like I enrolled in learn to skate out of Pawtucket and Providence right before the start of the 2022 Beijing Olympics after seeing my now close friend performing outside at a rink. I did learn to skate in January 2022, and switched to a private coach out of a local rink in the summer of 2022. I stayed there for around a year, during that time I got my singles and my first two doubles. In the early summer of 2023, around June I moved up to Boston and started working with Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, Maxim Naumov’s parents. And I’ve progressed pretty quickly since then. but I have not had any on ice time prior to learn to skate other than when I was like, 3 and went to some place in New York City lol.

If anyone has any questions they can dm me on spencerskates26 on instagram too

Hi Spencer and welcome to Golden Skate! As we say here, post long and post often!

It is very interesting to hear things from the point of view of a skater, and thank you for giving us some details on your skating journey so far. Please share some updates if you have time and wish to -- we'd love to hear them! Best of luck!

 

[spencerlane]

Wow, so fun that you found the thread and thank you so much for giving more insights! It´s nice to know that you have gotten some good coaching, and it´s no doubt that you are very talented. Can´t wait to see you post more content!

Good luck at Lake Placid this week!

Will you continue to compete in Intermediate men in the upcoming season, or do you have a plan to advance up in categories quickly?

Sorry if that is a stupid question, I do not know the requirements to move up or if that is something you aim for, but from my perspective jumping wise you seem to be able to move up pretty quickly to higher categories.

Thank you for showing interest! I am planning on competing intermediate men’s for the remainder of this season, given my elements it would make sense to do novice, but also due to my competition experience, or lack of I think it would be better to start in intermediate, lake placid is going to be my seventh(?) competition ever, so I definitely am not experienced yet!

Spencer

 

[spencerlane]

Hi Spencer and welcome to Golden Skate! As we say here, post long and post often!

It is very interesting to hear things from the point of view of a skater, and thank you for giving us some details on your skating journey so far. Please share some updates if you have time and wish to -- we'd love to hear them! Best of luck!

Thank you for the welcome, I will do my best to try and check In periodically, definitely within the middle of conclusion of my first NQS season! I’ll try to stay in touch.

 

[spencerlane]

Hi Spencer and welcome to Golden Skate! As we say here, post long and post often!

It is very interesting to hear things from the point of view of a skater, and thank you for giving us some details on your skating journey so far. Please share some updates if you have time and wish to -- we'd love to hear them! Best of luck!

Hi, I kind of forgot this existed but quite a bit has happened since the last time I responded to this forum, I've landed my triple flip, gotten my triple toe-triple toe more consistent and won both NQS that I have competed at, I still have one more though. I am currently ranked first in the country through the intermediate level! I was also given the amazing opportunity to attend Champs Camp this year as an invited guest of the emerging athlete program which was such an amazing experience and I am so thankful to have been give that opportunity

Anyways, if anyone has any questions or anything I'll try to check back here periodically!

 

[Weathergal]

Hi, I kind of forgot this existed but quite a bit has happened since the last time I responded to this forum, I've landed my triple flip, gotten my triple toe-triple toe more consistent and won both NQS that I have competed at, I still have one more though. I am currently ranked first in the country through the intermediate level! I was also given the amazing opportunity to attend Champs Camp this year as an invited guest of the emerging athlete program which was such an amazing experience and I am so thankful to have been give that opportunity

Anyways, if anyone has any questions or anything I'll try to check back here periodically!

Thanks for the update and congratulations on your 3F, 3T-3T, wins at NQS, being ranked 1st in the country in intermediate, and the invitation to Champs Camp! I think we can all understand why you've been too busy to post. It really sounds like you're having a great season.

If you ever do have time to post, I'd love to hear your impressions of Champs Camp.

 

[ladyjane]

Gabriëlle and Guillaume (ID) come to mind...13th at Worlds 2014, World Champions in 2015, but, admittedly, they were good in Juniors also though less spectacular.