Interviews by Anne Calder, Ice-Dance.com
Article by Gina Capellazzi, Team FSO website administrator
MARYLAND HEIGHTS, MO — While Figure Skaters Online‘s Gina Capellazzi and Maura Sullivan Hill were traveling to St. Louis for Nationals, Ice-Dance.com Anne Calder caught up with the junior and novice skaters following their free skates at the Centene Community Ice Center in Maryland Heights, Mo. Here are what the four novice pairs’ teams thoughts about their skates at Nationals as well as competing in their first National Championships.
Olivia Jung and Laz Lune, U.S. Champions
Ages: 12/22
Coaches: Jenni Meno-Sand, Brandon Frazier and Christine Binder
Training Town: Irvine, Calif.
About: Olivia and Laz have been skating together since 2025; won the U.S. Pairs Final. Laz did compete at the 2019 U.S. Championships as a juvenile pairs skater.
On how their partnership come together
Laz: “We both were training in the Irvine/Great Park area. I just decided to start taking pairs again this year. We got paired up by our coaches, Brandon (Frazier) and Jenni (Meno-Sand) and it just kind of went from there.”
On their free skate
Olivia: “I thought it was a really good and we got a personal best.”
Laz: “We had a great skate out there. It was just like training. We trained really well leading up to this. I’m glad we were able to show it out there.
On their first Nationals
Olivia: “I felt very nervous at first, but I just kept saying to myself that I got this and I changed my mood to excited.”
Laz: “I had a great time. It was awesome to be on such a big stage again.” (Laz was at the U.S. Championships in 2019)
Amelia Chen and Tristan Yacktman, U.S. silver medalists
Ages: 13/18
Coach: Keauna McLaughlin
Training Town: Austin, Texas
About: Amelia and Tristan have been competing together since 2023; won the bronze medal at U.S. Pairs Final.
On competing at their first Nationals
Tristan: “It’s exciting. We are with all the people that we know, all the lights and the cameras.”
Amelia: “It’s really fun. It’s a big arena.”
What they have been working on since the Pairs Final and Nationals
Amelia and Tristan: “Double Axel”
Amelia: “And consistency.”
Tristan: For me, the death spiral. It’s the thing at night that I hear about before I go to bed. ‘Hold it, hold it, hold it.”
Tiffany Kim and Ian Spencer, U.S. bronze medalists
Age: 16/18
Coach: Tammy Janoschak
Training Town: Houston, Texas
About: Tiffany and Ian have been competing together since 2025; they were second at the U.S. Pairs Final
On their free skate
Ian: ” I thought it was pretty good. I’m happy with how I recovered after the fall on the Lutz. So overall, I’m really happy with it.”
Tiffany: “We’ve been struggling with some of the elements, like, particularly me, I kept falling on my throw double loop. I was really worried about it going into the program, but it went really well. So I was really happy about that.”
On competing pairs over singles (both Tiffany and Ian have skated singles)
Tiffany: “It actually hasn’t been that bad. I think I like pairs a lot better than singles. It’s a lot more fun skating with like my friends.”
On competing at their first Nationals
Tiffany: “It’s thrilling, but you never know what’s going to happen.”
Ian: “It’s very exciting. We are doing stuff we never thought we’d be able to do.”
Lauren Li and Luciano Chen, U.S. pewter medalists
Age:15/17
Coach: Tamara Grose
Training Town: Irmo, South Carolina
About: Lauren and Luciano are brother and sister; they have been skating together since 2021. They were fifth at the U.S. Pairs Final
On their free skate
Lauren: “I enjoyed it, even though it wasn’t our best skate. I thought we did pretty nicely in presenting it to the judges.”
Luciano: “I feel like we gave it our best effort. We skated our hearts out but there were some minor mistakes, but in total, I think it was decent skate.”
On finding out they were competing at Nationals (they were replacing Elizabeth Hansen and Hudson Lewis, who withdrew days before the event)
Luciano: “It quite a funny story. At (U.S.) Pairs Final, we ended up in fifth so we weren’t actually supposed to be coming here (to Nationals). So we got an email from U.S. Figure Skating actually last week saying that a team has dropped out and we were subbing in for them at U.S. Nationals. At that time, we were already on winter break so we were enjoying our break time. So just this week we tried to put ourselves together. We were on the ice every single day and ran our programs through. So I feel we did perform our best today with the efforts we put in and the time we had to practice.”
“Usually skating season ends round this time for us and we originally didn’t think we were coming to Championships so we had already started our vacation and stuff like that. So we had to cancel some plans but in total it was pretty exciting for us to know that we were coming and we would have the chance to skate at the U.S. Championships.”
On their first Nationals experience
Lauren: “I loved the rink and I loved watching all the talented skaters skate here. It really was a lesson to come here and watch everyone.
Lauren and Luciano were also participating in the U.S. Development Camp, however, they went home to North Carolina after the novice event and then returned to Maryland Heights for camp. They didn’t want to miss too much school.
