This August, when the best elite figure skaters in the U.S. start packing their bags to head to the annual high-performance gathering known as Champs Camp, they might want to throw sandals and a swimsuit into their suitcases.
That's because Champs Camp is headed to Southern California.
Great Park Ice, to be exact, in Irvine, which opened this past January and features a sprawling, 21st-century facility with four sheets of ice spread over 280,000 square feet, a world-class gym and modern, top-notch amenities.
It's a new rink that caught the eye of U.S. Figure Skating for the move, but the athletes' voices on another issue is what sealed the deal: "Take us to a Champs Camp away from high altitude." So, they're headed to sea level.
"It takes another two to three weeks of training to get ready for altitude," explained Mitch Moyer, senior director of athlete high performance at U.S. Figure Skating. "It's that mix of trying to be as ready as possible for Champs Camp but then focusing on the rest of the year, too. Altitude creates some issues."Â
So — for at least a one-year tryout — it's off to California, where Great Park Ice will already be home to Olympic coach Rafael Arutunian and his host of skaters, the famed guru who has recently helped
Nathan Chen to a World title and
Ashley Wagner to a World silver medal. He's set to move there in early April. The rink was also used this month as the practice facility for the Four Continents Championships.
Not only will Arutunian bring the likes of Chen,
Mariah Bell, Michal Brezina, Marin Honda and his other charges to Irvine, he'll work to build up a first-of-its kind skating program, with as many as four to five hours of ice set aside for elite skaters each day. With that, skaters — and their coaches — from around the country will be invited to work with Arutunian and his team to see how they operate on the ice.
"We are trying to create a new base of high-performance skating," Arutunian said. "All the facilities that coaches use in the U.S. are mixed up with the public. This place has four rinks. I will try to separate things out. I want to keep the high-level skaters in separate sessions from the lower-level skaters. This allows for those middle-level skaters to see how the top skaters train and what they are doing."
It's an interesting concept. As ice time has become harder to come by over the years, rinks have grown more crowded and packed with skaters of varying levels. Arutunian doesn't hesitate when making an analogy that he says he and his skaters face on a daily basis.
"It's like putting a golf cart next to a Formula 1 car … it can ruin everything!" he said of beginner skaters sharing the ice with athletes like Chen. "F1 would be destroyed if you had golf carts on the same track."
With Great Park Ice, the elite skaters have their own sheet for half a day and, with it — Arutunian and Moyer hope — the ability to bring in others to see what progress they can make alongside team Raf.
Get the full story in the February issue of SKATING magazine.
