Cain-Gribble and LeDuc, Knierim and Frazier Ready to Tell Their Story on the World's Biggest Stage

Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc have experienced the Olympic Winter Games countless times -- in their minds.
 
Now they're taking the trip in real life.
 
Cain-Gribble and LeDuc, who go into the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 as the reigning U.S. pairs champions, began practicing visualization after Cain-Gribble suffered a concussion in late 2018.
 
"It really was the only thing that I could do," she said. "I couldn't get on the ice and train. So we just did visualization together and that was our whole training for the day."
 
Despite Cain-Gribble's post-concussion issues, they went on to win their first national title in 2019. However, they dropped to fourth in 2020 and third in 2021.
 
This season the pair, who are coached by Cain-Gribble's parents, Peter and Darlene Cain, and Nina Mozer, honed in on those visualization techniques to boost their mental game. First, Cain-Gribble and LeDuc stand on the ice by the boards in their introductory pose. Then they say the names and scores of the competitor them.  
 
They do their run-through – either on the ice or just talking it through mentally – and then take their bows and skate off like they're going to the kiss and cry. They even make up scores for their performance. "Let's say we're in second place," LeDuc said. "That's going to make us hungry to do better tomorrow."
 
They knew there would be no tomorrow – at least for this Olympic cycle -- if they didn't perform well at the 2022 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Nashville, Tennessee. 
 
"Ashley and I both reached our success having to go through a lot of barriers and obstacles and sort of fighting to be true to who we are," said LeDuc, who will be the first out non-binary U.S. athlete to compete at a Olympic Winter Games. "For me as an openly queer skater, and for Ashley as a taller pair girl, both of us have been told at different times – well, many times in the sport – that we don't belong. So we both have had to fight against that narrative and make space for ourselves and insist that yes, we do belong.
 
"Because all of the times that we have been told 'no,' we're hopeful that when people see us skate and hear our story that maybe they, too, feel like what makes them unique and different and special is something that should be celebrated. And that they can embrace and still find their success."

Cain-Gribble and LeDuc set a U.S. Figure Skating Championships record in the pairs short program with 79.39 points. Skating to music from The White Crow, they surpassed the previous record of 77.46 points, set by Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier in 2021, and beat their own personal best U.S. score by nearly nine points.
 
Cain-Gribble, 26, and LeDuc, 31, also dominated the free skate, performing to music from the W.E. soundtrack in their "pillars of strength" program that they brought back from their 2018-19 season.
 
"We've just been really resilient through everything," Cain-Gribble said. "I'm proud of us of the way that we've handled everything in our career and really proud of the team around us because they've helped us and picked us back up after challenging competitions. They're a huge part of why we're here."
 
Last August, Cain-Gribble had COVID-19, which brought on asthma and requires her to use an inhaler. But Cain-Gribble said that hasn't hindered her.
 
"We're living our dream right now, so it's pretty surreal," she said. "It won't officially feel real until we step on the ice in Beijing, but we knew going into this championships that really the one thing we could control was our skating."
 
After all, it was almost déjà vu given the amount of visualization they'd done.
 
"What helped us the most at nationals (U.S. Championships) is that nothing was surprising," Cain-Gribble said. "We'd heard these scores before; we'd heard these names before."
 
The only names they didn't hear were those of Knierim and Frazier, the 2021 U.S. champs who were forced to withdraw when Frazier tested positive for COVID-19. After the competition, they successfully petitioned for a spot on the Olympic team based on their body of work. 
 
Now Team USA will be represented by the two most recent U.S. pairs champions. Last year Knierim and Frazier were seventh at Worlds with Cain-Gribble and LeDuc placing ninth to earn the United States two berths at the Olympics. In 2018, there was only one duo – Knierim and her husband, Chris.
 
After the Knierims won three U.S. titles and the 2018 bronze medal in the Olympic Team Event, Chris retired and Alexa began looking for a new partner. She found Frazier, who had won a World Junior title and 2017 U.S. crown with Haven Denney.
 
Success came quickly as they captured their first U.S. title in their inaugural season together. It's sometimes hard to believe their partnership is not yet two years old.
 
"We went all in, so by doing that I feel like we've discovered a lot about each other in a short period of time that has enabled us to really have a strong foundation," Knierim said. "So, it doesn't feel like it's as short and new as the calendar shows, but it definitely still feels as exciting and inspiring as it did in the very beginning."
 
Knierim, 30, and Frazier, 29, credit their longtime friendship for the ease with which they settled into their new roles.
 
"We're very similar athletes with our mindset," Frazier said. "We've had plenty of challenges since we started our partnership, but we both have done an amazing job of conquering them together and working quickly and efficiently no matter how hard and big the obstacle is."
 
They had to get accustomed to new timing in their elements with new partners, a process of unlearning and relearning. 
 
Frazier also had to get adjusted to a new place to live, moving to Irvine, California to train with Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, Mozer, Christine Binder, Rafael Arutunian and Chris Knierim, who is now a coach.
 
"I had to move coast to coast in the middle of a shutdown pandemic," Frazier said. "At times you want to sit there and you can get overwhelmed so easily, but Alexa and I did a great job of just constantly taking the best out of each day. We were at a school parking lot with Chris doing lifts and twists before the rink reopened."
 
While the Knierims were the first American pair to do a quadruple twist in competition, Frazier brought a lift to the partnership that Alexa was at first scared to learn.
 
"We had a lot of fails before we succeeded and there was a point in time where I didn't think I would actually get it," she said. "Basically he's just balancing me on one hand from my leg, and I'm not using my arms or any other body parts to help stay balanced."
 
Frazier said he's seen other teams try the reverse lift and give up.
 
"That's an example of one of those obstacles where we worked through it and it became one of our secret weapons," he said.
 
However, another obstacle blocked their path in Nashville when Frazier contracted COVID-19.
 
"It's tough because when you see someone you care about down, you want to give him a hug," said Knierim. "But we FaceTimed a lot, and just being able to connect with him virtually helped me stay positive."
 
They haven't competed since the 2021 Golden Spin of Zagreb in December. In the coldest rink they'd ever encountered, they were second after skating their short program to "House of the Rising Sun," but fell to fifth overall after their free skate performance to "Fix You."
 
"We're still building," Frazier said. "We've really improved our material since we've been back from our last event. We haven't put out those two clean programs yet together where we maximize everything possible. That's what we want to do at the Olympic Games. We know, Alexa and I, when we do our jobs, we're a very, very strong and competitive team."
 
Knierim said her biggest challenge will be adjusting to not seeing Chris for about four weeks.
 
Cain-Gribble will be one of the few athletes with a family member at the Games. Her father will go as the coach for her and LeDuc, although her mother will have to stay home because of the limit on delegation members.
 
Peter Cain competed in the 1980 Olympics for Australia in pairs, ran in the torch relay for the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was an ISU technical specialist in 2014 for the pairs event. 
 
Team USA has not won an Olympic medal in pairs since 1988 when Jill Watson and Peter Oppegard won the bronze. The United States has not had a top-five finish since Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman were fifth in 2002.
 
"We're athletes and we work really hard and we want medals," LeDuc said. "And I think it's a real possibility that we could be on the podium in Beijing because it's just one competition. Anything could happen. Even more than that though, for me personally I want to skate the programs in Beijing and just feel like I've finally become the skater I always knew that I could be."