When Moira North presented
Gracie Gold with Ice Theatre of New York's Will Sears Award at Chelsea Piers New York early this month, Gold's two U.S. titles and Olympic team bronze medal were the last things on her mind.
Sears, a U.S. novice pairs champion (with Katie Boxwell), died suddenly and inexplicably in 2002 at age 20. A poet, painter and film student, his motto –
Dare Greatly – lives on with the award, given annually to a skater who demonstrates exceptional courage in the pursuit of his or her dreams.
"Gracie had obviously been struggling, falling off that pinnacle, getting back to competition," North, ITNY's founder, said. "She gave interviews, went on TV, spoke about her struggles."
Gold sat out the 2017-18 season and competed just one routine – a shaky short program at Russia's Rostelecom Cup – during 2018-19. After withdrawing from the 2019 GEICO U.S. Figure Skating Championships, she talked openly about her depression, anxiety and unhealthy relationship with food with major media outlets.
"I don't think people tell their stories knowing they are going to inspire people," Gold, 23, said. "I just started sharing it as an explanation of where I had been. I essentially dropped off the face of the earth for quite a while and then just suddenly popped back up."
In April, the skater traveled to the IOC International Athlete's Forum in Lausanne, Switzerland, participating in panel discussions about mental health and the challenges of being an elite athlete in the social media age.
"I wasn't the first one to share, but (my story) definitely (got) picked up a lot more than I thought it would," she explained.
Gold, who moved to the Philadelphia area about a year ago, also teamed with Uzbek skater and choreographer Misha Ge for an ITNY hosted seminar in Hackensack, New Jersey. During a lunch break, she sat down with the skaters, talked about herself and answered questions.
"She says things in a very honest way – authentic, straightforward," North said. "The kids loved her and so did the parents."
Gold was candid about her troubles, and about how the fog of depression began to lift. How each morning, she'd tell herself:
"Maybe I won't do an hour of yoga. Maybe I'll just do five minutes. That's better than nothing."
"It was so important for the kids to hear that from Gracie, someone who had reached the pinnacle of the sport," North said. "No one can be perfect, but when you're on top, there's a perception you are perfect."
For Gold, that battle with perfection hasn't ended. As she trains at Aston, Pennsylvania's IceWorks Skating Complex with coaches Vincent Restencourt and Pavel "Pasha" Filchenkov for her return to competition, she grapples with the idea of starting slow, putting out programs with simpler technical content.
"I have very high expectations," Gold said. "What I want isn't always based in reality to what's feasible. It's not just false confidence – like, 'Oh, I can totally do this' – it's 'Oh, I expect to do this.' I either don't do anything or I do everything."
Gold now admits that unrealistic expectations contributed to her entry into Rostelecom Cup last November, which used up her single opportunity to compete on the ISU Grand Prix as a returning skater. After falling on a triple flip and popping her other jumps, she withdrew prior to the free skate.
"Some people really encouraged me to do that Grand Prix," she said. "My own team – it wasn't that they weren't on board, but they were a little, 'You're crazy. This is July and you're here and you think you're going to show up at a Grand Prix in November. That doesn't make any sense.'"
Encouraged by Restencourt, a former French competitor and three-time Junior World medalist, Gold is working towards regaining her fitness with off-ice conditioning.
"After (Rostelecom) we were very much like, 'We're going to compete when we're ready. We're going to get the body back, we're going to get the athleticism back, then the jumps back, the spins back,'" Gold said. "If you are in shape and athletic and motivated, you can build almost anything you want."
Some of Gold's efforts, including strenuous jumping exercises and fitness classes, are paying off, she said; recently, she has begun landing triple jumps. She is starting to feel more like herself, circa 2016.
"Because of how severe my eating disorder and body dysmorphia was, one of the more important things to me is to feel like an athlete again, because that is so core to who I am as a person," she said. "So when I look in the mirror and I don't see an athlete, it's very disconnected. I don't like not feeling like an athlete and I don't like not looking like an athlete. Athlete is the base, and then we have to go to figure skating shape."
Gold eyes the Philadelphia Summer Championships, held at IceWorks July 30-Aug. 3, as her possible return to competition. After that, she would have to compete at South Atlantic Regionals, also at IceWorks, in early October, to begin the quest to qualify for the 2020 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Asked whether these lower-profile events might be a bit easier to handle than media-filled internationals, Gold just laughed.
"For me, they're all the same," she said. "It could be an ice show or regionals or Worlds or the Olympics, they are all the same intensity. I've never really been relaxed a day in my life. They're all the same level of freak out."
When Gold makes her return, she may stick with programs she choreographed with Jeremy Abbott last season: a short to "I Put a Spell on You" and free skate to "She Used to Be Mine," from the Broadway musical
Waitress. Abbott visited Aston several times last spring, summer and fall, working not only with Gold, but with other competitors in Restencourt and Filchenkov's group.
"When he came, they were overwhelmed with his ability as a choreographer," Gold said. "They said, 'He needs to come here.'"
Abbott's own competitive career was marked by brilliant highs – including four U.S. titles – and disappointments, including a few subpar programs at two Olympic Winter Games.
"Jeremy and I are both equally hit or miss," Gold, his 2014 Olympic teammate, said. "We talk a lot about the weird things we do and how we relate to stress, how we approach skating and training. We have a lot to talk about, in that sense."
Like North, Abbott gives Gold full props for courage.
"I told her from the beginning: Listen, no matter what happens – if you are never on the World team again, if you are never national champion again, I have so much respect and admiration for you to step back on the ice," he said, adding, "Everything she went through emotionally, physically. To know how judgmental our sport is, even our fandom – people are not gentle."
Training isn't taking up all of Gold's time. She's also teaching at IceWorks, everything from Learn to Skate classes, to jumps and spins. The work takes her back to early skating days, when she hit the ice in Chicago and Springfield, Illinois, alongside her twin sister Carly. She's learning a lot about herself along the way.
ITNY founder North, who has worked with many celebrated skaters, choreographers and coaches, was impressed with Gold's efforts at the Hackensack seminar.
"My hope is she will find the joy of skating," North said. "She seemed to really enjoy her teaching. She was happy to be there, happy to share, and had a real synergy with the kids. We would welcome her back, to do edge classes and seminars."
That may be the future. Gold isn't ready to say goodbye to competition, not yet.
"Anything could be there, if I wanted to do it," she said. "I decided to come back because I didn't really end on my own terms. I didn't say, 'This is my final season, this is my final competition and now we're going into shows.' There was no transition out of it.
"I can always go back to coaching, I can always go back to school. I could do nothing in the real world for 10 years and still be young. But in skating, this is my last window to try, and that's what I'm doing."
