Green and Parsons Beginning to Reach Their Potential with First Grand Prix Medal

Ice dancers Caroline Green and Michael Parsons won their first Grand Prix medal as a team, a bronze, at NHK Trophy earlier in November.
 
But there's so much more to the story than just that moment of triumph.
 
In reality, you could trace their journey to the podium in Sapporo back to the 2022 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January. Green and Parsons held third place after the rhythm dance, but ultimately placed fourth overall, just missing a berth on their first Olympic team.
 
"We really thought of the Olympics as a long shot," Parsons said. "So the fact that we got so close almost makes it worse, because then we started to believe that we really did have a shot. And I think that we did have a shot, for sure, but at the end of the day, the goal of that season and the goal of all of our seasons so far is just to improve as a team, because I think we have a lot of potential that we still haven't really tapped into."
 
Green and Parsons did, however, qualify for the 2022 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships team, so they headed to Tallinn, Estonia, and won. It was their first major international medal.
 
"Four Continents was a way to turn kind of that moment of slight disappointment into something so positive, and I think something that really built our confidence as a team and really gave us that belief in ourselves that we have what it takes to compete with the best," Green said. "So I think we set ourselves up pretty nicely to head into this season."
 
It was also time for them to take stock of where they were as a team, what they wanted to achieve in the next quad and what would help them get there. They ultimately decided to part ways with the only coaches they'd ever known and move to Canton, Michigan, to train with Tanith and Charlie White and Greg Zuerlein at the Michigan Ice Dance Academy.
 
They made the move in mid-July and admit that it's been far more of an adjustment than either of them thought it would be.
 
"Learning how to work with a new group of people was a huge challenge and not something I had expected to be so challenging," Parsons said. "But I think it's a perfect example of a step back in terms of preparation for this season to give us the opportunity to take more steps forward in the future."
 
"I think we're really lucky that our new team's coaching philosophy really prioritizes both the physical and emotional wellbeing of their athletes," Green added. "So I think to have that support system and have a team that really makes sure that we're connected with resources for that support in this new territory for us and this really big transition has been pretty crucial in order to keep pushing and keep developing."
 
Green and Parsons now train alongside several other top U.S. ice dance teams in Emily Bratti and Ian Somerville, Katarina Wolfkostin and Jeffrey Chen, and Molly Cesanek and Yehor Yehorov. While the environment is competitive, they say it's also been incredibly motivating.
 
"The most effective training I've ever had is always when there's other teams pushing me to be better, and we definitely have that opportunity in Canton," Parsons said. "They definitely do things better than us, and we see those things, and we try to add those to our skating because we have such good examples. And I think Charlie, Tanith and Greg also do a really good job of showcasing those things. So it's a really fun training environment to be in."
 
It did, however, take some time to settle into. The move and subsequent adjustment period gave Green and Parsons a much later start to the season than they're accustomed to. Rather than being fully prepared and ready with their programs during the summer, they've had to undergo trial by fire at competitions.
 
They began their season with a fifth-place finish at the Finlandia Trophy before beginning their Grand Prix season at Skate Canada International, where they finished fourth.
 
"Finlandia Trophy was pretty disappointing for us, and just kind of feeling not necessarily like we took a bit of a step back, but feeling like we weren't exactly where we wanted to be," Green said. "And I think that really pushed us to work super hard in the two weeks that we had [before Skate Canada] and just focus on what we could control. To have a little bit more success in Canada was something that built our confidence a bit more, and just really shifted our thinking to making incremental progress versus being at our peak right in this point of the fall."
 
Winning bronze at NHK Trophy, therefore, was both cause for celebration and permission to finally exhale a little bit.
 
"NHK was definitely solid progress for us this season," Parsons said. "It was two clean, strong skates, and both skates felt like they built upon the previous competition for us. And I think that's kind of the goal for us this year, is to just increase the ability that we have in our programs, and at each competition get a little bit better. Because we had such a late start that it's hard to just immediately be at the level that you want to be. It's not hard, it's impossible. You have to build up to it. And NHK was definitely the best complete competition we've had so far, so I'm really happy with our progress."
 
Now, finally feeling more at home in their new training environment and with a Grand Prix medal under their belts, Green and Parsons are excited to have a few months to simply run through their programs and get more comfortable with the material. Now in their fourth season together and with successes starting to build, they're looking forward to the 2023 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships – and beyond.
 
"I don't think we're anywhere near any of the goals either of us have for us as a team, but the success is so important in terms of building a competitive resume for us and for just building experience that we can draw on at later dates, at later competitions, at later moments in our careers," Parsons said. "Those little pieces of experience are so important, and we're learning that, especially from Charlie and Tanith and Greg, because of all the things they went through on their journeys. So I do hesitate to call us a new team because we do have a lot of experience together already, but compared to where we want to be, we have a lot more potential to fulfill."