When Pooja Kalyan competed last month at 2020 Guaranteed Rate Skate America, it was the biggest step yet in her comeback from an injury that kept her off the ice for much of 2019. The past two seasons have been challenging for 17-year-old Kalyan, but she has stayed focused on her recovery and her long-term goal of going to the Olympic Winter Games.
Kalyan's skating journey began when she was six, in an unlikely place: Fayetteville, Arkansas. Not exactly a skating hotspot, Arkansas has only two full-time ice rinks in the entire state. Fortunately, Kalyan grew up 15 minutes from one of those rinks, at The Jones Center in Springdale. One day, her mother took her to visit. Kalyan was immediately captivated.
"I just fell in love with it," she recalled. "I saw all these skaters practicing spins and trying to jump. I knew I wanted to try doing that as well."
Kalyan was drawn to both the artistic and athletic sides of skating. "But when I was younger, my favorite aspect was jumping and spinning," she said. "I always liked to try new things, and always liked a challenge."
A year after she started, Kalyan began traveling outside Arkansas for additional coaching and ice time. She skated in nearby Tulsa, Oklahoma, and spent summers training with renowned coach Frank Carroll in Los Angeles, and later with Alex Ouriashev in Chicago. Kalyan also made shorter trips to visit Carroll and Ouriashev during the school year.
But her main day-to-day training base was Fayetteville. Kalyan attended school full-time and trained at The Jones Center in the afternoons with local coaches Robin Aprea and Jennifer Kelly. Kalyan's parents, who are both physicians, supported her budding career. Her mother worked part-time and usually accompanied Kalyan on her travels.
One issue Kalyan faced in Arkansas was a lack of ice time. "After school, I would usually just have an hour and a half," she noted.
Nonetheless, her skating career flourished. Kalyan competed at her first U.S. Figure Skating Championships at age 10 and progressed steadily up through the divisions.
It wasn't always easy. "As I got to above 12 years old, I was actually practicing less than my competitors," Kalyan said. "Not because I didn't want to, but just because I didn't have the opportunity or ice time. I knew that I probably needed a little bit more [training] time. But my commitment to school was so great that I didn't want to immediately switch to online school."
Kalyan continued to juggle in-person school and skating until 2018, when she won the U.S. junior ladies silver medal at the 2018 U.S. Figure Skating Championships with a sparkling free skate.
"That free skate event was the highlight of my skating career up until then," Kalyan said. "I remember getting a partial standing ovation. I'd never gotten that before."
Kalyan's success led to international assignments in fall 2018, including her Junior Grand Prix debut. However, by then she was struggling with back pain. An MRI showed edema (swelling due to fluid) in her spinal area. To manage the pain, Kalyan reduced her spin and jump difficulty, taped the area, and wore a back brace.
In December 2018, the pain worsened. A second MRI revealed two stress fractures in Kalyan's L2 and L3 vertebrae.
"I had to take time off. And this was before the 2019 [U.S. Figure Skating Championship], a time when I should have been training hard so I could perform at my absolute best," Kalyan said ruefully.
She was cleared to compete at the U.S. Championships, but had to withdraw after the short program due to back pain.
Kalyan then took six months off to allow the stress fractures to heal. It was nearly June 2019 before she returned to the ice. The long break gave her time to weigh her future. Should she move to Chicago to train full-time with Ouriashev? Continue going back and forth? Focus on school and put skating on the back burner?
Her heart kept coming back to skating. "I knew that I had more to achieve in the sport," said Kalyan.
Returning from her injury was a gradual process. Kalyan participated in Midwestern Sectionals that fall, but failed to qualify for the 2020 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. "It was only my second time not making it to Nationals over a seven-year span," she said. "So that was disappointing."
In fall 2019, Kalyan transferred to Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies (Stanford Online High School) for her final two years of high school and decided to move to Colorado Springs, Colorado, for training. She approached coach Tom Zakrajsek about working together. "We had a trial week, and I switched to him as my full-time coach in January 2020," she said.
Kalyan had specific goals in coming to Zakrajsek. "I wanted to put out stronger triple-triples and three-jump combinations, and he helped me achieve that," she noted. She has added two new triple-triple combinations to her programs this season. She also worked to improve her jump height and her speed into jumps.
Kalyan now hopes to master the triple Axel and quadruple toe loop. First up is the triple Axel. "We're working on it off of the pole harness," Kalyan shared. "It's like a barrier that I had set for myself--breaking beyond those limits into the triple Axel range. I had always dreamed of doing it, but I never put myself to trying it consistently before."
Training in Colorado Springs helps increase her motivation. "It's a lot more competitive," she said. "There are so many Team USA athletes, Olympians, and U.S. champions here. Whenever I see one person landing a great jump or doing a great program, it makes me want to do a program that's just as good, or even better."
Kalyan's return to form earned her an invitation to Skate America®, her first senior Grand Prix event. "I received the assignment letter after the first International Selection Pool (ISP) Points Challenge," she said. "And I was just so excited." Her performance in the ISP Points Challenge also earned her a bye to the 2021 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
Although Kalyan wasn't fully satisfied with her performances in Las Vegas, she learned a lot from the experience.
"Coming from that, I know there are some aspects of my programs that need to be improved," Kalyan commented. "I really need to hone into my spins, maintaining level 4s, as well as my step sequence, increasing my GOE. And ensuring that my transitions are smooth, my skating skills are improving, and my interpretation of the music is better."
Kalyan sets high standards for herself because she has big goals. "Being U.S. champion is one of the things I want to achieve in the future," she said. "Making the Olympic team is my ultimate goal." Kalyan knows that she'll need the complete package in her skating to reach that goal.
She also has ambitious plans off-ice and is currently applying to colleges. When she starts college, Kalyan plans to take the pre-med track, majoring in biology or neuroscience. Her long-term goal is to become a neurosurgeon.
Kalyan stands out in another way: She is one of the few figure skaters of South Asian or Indian descent to compete at the elite international level.
"It is something I didn't think about until recently," Kalyan said. "I'm not only from a small town in Arkansas, which is already unusual in figure skating, but I am of Indian origin, which is also unusual. It's nice to know that I am someone who's helping push that diversity in the sport, and that there are other people who could be looking up to me. Just because I'm of Indian origin doesn't mean the boundaries are limited for me. There aren't any boundaries."
