By Xiangxuan Kong
Photo by Robin Ritoss
Beijing – It has been fifteen years since Allison Reed, now representing Lithuania, competed at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Soon she will be able to continue her Olympic journey with Saulius Ambrulevicius after securing a quota at Skate to Milano on September 21. Sofia Val and Asaf Kazimov of Spain, Holly Harris and Jason Chan of Australia, and Shiyue Wang and Xinyu Liu of China grabbed the other three quotas in ice dance.
Reed and Ambrulevicius were in a strong lead after both the rhythm dance and the free dance, scoring an overall 198.73 to win the gold medals in Beijing. “I’m incredibly glad and proud of ourselves because we had a tough summer and we had to put our heads down and do lots of work to get here,” said Ambrulevicius.
The Lithuanians’ Olympic dream can finally come true after they secured a quota and Reed was granted Lithuanian citizenship in 2024. “I feel like it takes a family – a family of your training mates, of your federation, of your coaches, of your peers – to achieve your wildest dreams and to get to this point. I know how hard our federation worked to help me get the citizenship and now we have finally achieved what we needed to do,” said Reed.
Reed was fifteen years old when she first competed at the Olympics. “Being that young, as grateful as I was, I think I didn’t exactly understand the enormity of that experience,” said Reed. “This time I’m definitely going to approach it differently. We’re there to perform. We’re there to place, and our goals are way, way higher and, just really looking forward to representing Lithuania. Like I said, this time around, it means so much more because I get to do it with my best friend.”
Holly Harris and Jason Chan of Australia narrowly missed qualifying at the 2025 Worlds in Boston. This weekend, Harris and Chan brought out two solid programs, placing second with an overall score of 183.50 and securing a quota for Australia. “I’m so relieved. I’ve been waiting this for my entire career and I’m in disbelief a little bit. I’m just so happy.”
Representing Australia, a federation not so big in figure skating at the Olympics, holds an extra layer of meaning for Harris and Chan. “It’s very special for me. My goal is to grow figure skating and inspire young generation of skaters and hopefully we can do that,” Harris said.
The Australian team was unable to qualify for the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. Looking back, Harris reflected that “we were not ready for that four years ago. We had to really grow as a team and find ourselves, put in the work to show we’re ready and we wanted to go to the Games.”
“We’re completely different people and different team from four years ago,” added Chan.
Harris and Chan are very different in character, with Harris being the type-A personality while Chan is more laid back. The pair used this to their advantage. “We balanced each other out nicely, like Yin and Yang. We figured out what works for us and over the past four years and we started to understand each other even more on a deeper level.”
Spanish ice dancers Sofia Val and Asaf Kazimov placed fifth after the rhythm dance, only one place away from securing a quota at Milano Cortina. After their free dance Exogenesis, Val and Kazimov were in first place with four more teams yet to take the ice. Waiting nervously in the mixed zone, Val and Kazimov jumped to hug each other and burst into tears with their coaches when their total score of 170.32 put them in the top four.
“We worked so so hard. We’ve been working over hours this summer. Being in the last group brought lots of tensions and nerves and we’re just so happy and in disbelief,” said Kazimov emotionally.
Val and Kazimov fought through their free dance to secure the quota. “We were just fighting until the end. There was a mistake on the lift, so of course it adds more nerves afterwards. We were just giving our all into it.”
Skate to Milano was the first international competition in 23 months for two-time Olympians Shiyue Wang and Xinyu Liu of China. The road coming back was more challenging than Wang and Liu expected. Up until the end of 2024, Wang and Liu were still unsure if they could return to competitions due to injuries and Liu’s asthma.
“We had lots of setbacks and one of the major challenges were the injuries. We were planning to train in Canada this spring but it wasn’t until late June that we received the visa, so we remained in China and choreographed half of the rhythm dance ourselves.”
The qualifier was the motivation for Wang and Liu’s return. “The chance to secure a quota for China motivated us and gave us a lot of confidence to come back to international competitions. We were not afraid to start all over again (in competitions).”
Wang and Liu sat in sixth place after the rhythm dance and rose to fourth with an overall score of 168.83, grabbing the last quota for host China. “It felt like a dream competing at this venue. We couldn’t have achieved it without the support from our team and the federation,” said Wang.
Milla Reitan and Nikolaj Majorov of Sweden finished third in the rhythm dance but dropped to fifth place after the free dance with a total score of 168.60, only 0.23 behind Wang and Liu. Following in sixth place were Hungarians Mariia Ignateva and Danijil Szemko, with a total score of 167.73.
