By Gina Capellazzi, Team FSO website administrator
Photos by Robin Ritoss and Gina Capellazzi
When you are the son or daughter of an Olympian, it is not surprising that you are often following in their footsteps, hoping to carry on their legacy. That may seem to be the case for the U.S.’s Skylar Lautowa-Peguero, the daughter of Julia Lautowa, a 1998 Olympian from Austria. However, this 13-year-old from Edgewater, New Jersey, has begun to carve out her own path in figure skating, and this week that path takes her to the Junior Grand Prix (JGP) in Riga, Latvia.
A love for the ice all her own
Skylar first stepped on the ice at the age of 3.
“I think I always wanted to skate,” Skylar said of her start in skating. “My mom has always told me that I was always having fun on the ice. So I just feel like from the moment I was on the ice, I really like enjoyed it for myself.”
Her early memories out on the ice included learning her backspin and all the basic positions, and trying to learn her single Axel, which she landed for the first time at age 7.
Lautowa recalls Skylar loving to spin.
“She progressed really fast,” she said. “I remember being scared for her safety a lot because she would just run into the middle of the rink and just twirl around. She just wanted to be dizzy.”
Skylar first started competing in 2020 as a pre-juvenile skater. Three years later, at just 10-years-old, she was competing on the novice level. The following year, she moved up to the junior level. That season, she won the Middle Atlantic Championships and the Boston Open, both National Qualifying Series (NQS) events. She advanced to the Eastern Sectionals Final, where she finished in third place to qualify for her first U.S. Championships. Less than two months before competing at Nationals, U.S. Figure Skating sent Skylar to her first international, Santa Claus Cup. She came home from Budapest, Hungary with a gold medal in the advanced novice level.
At the 2025 U.S. Championships in Wichita, Kansas, Skylar won the short program, but finished second overall to claim the silver medal.
“I was extremely nervous and felt a lot of pressure and eyes on me because I’ve never skated in front of a big crowd like that, so I was definitely very nervous. But I was also really trying to enjoy it and connect with the crowd, ” she recalled.
Since Skylar was only 12-years-old at the time, she was not able to be sent to the World Junior Championships so her season came to an end following the U.S. Championships.
Turning a setback into success
Her 2025-2026 season started with finishing fourth in the junior women’s event at the Philadelphia Summer Classic (a NQS event) and then she won a silver medal days later at the Cranberry Cup International at the advanced novice level. Skylar won two more NQS events — Middle Atlantics and Boston Open — to qualify for the Eastern Sectionals Finals. Unfortunately, the momentum from those two events did not carry over to Sectionals as Skylar finished seventh in the short program, and fifth overall. She was unable to qualify for the 2026 U.S. Championships. Skylar admitted that before the event she was very nervous.
“I was telling myself a lot of bad things,” she said.
“It (Missing out on Nationals) taught me a lot. I definitely started working a lot harder after Sectionals,” she added. “I don’t really feel like I worked my hardest before that competition, but it taught me to work harder and try harder in practices.”
Lautowa, who also is Skylar’s coach, noted that it was the only competition that season that didn’t do as planned for Skylar.
“She took it (not making Nationals) quite well, and she said, ‘Okay, that didn’t work out for me, but I’m going to be learning from this and be stronger from this,'” Lautowa shared.
Following Sectionals, Skylar started training more with mom in Hackensack, New Jersey, instead of splitting her time between Hackensack and Newburgh, where she worked with Larissa Selezneva, Oleg Makarov and Patch David.
“We worked through it (the disappointment) together,” Lautowa said.
Skylar’s season, however, did not conclude with Sectionals. U.S. Figure Skating sent Skylar to Bavarian Open in Oberstdorf, Germany at the end of January where she won the advanced novice women’s event. In March, she went to the Coupe Du Printempts in Kockelscheuer, Luxembourg, which was an event she also won.
“I was very happy because I worked extremely hard before those two competitions, and it made me feel like my work really paid off. I was proud of myself,” Skylar replied.
The wait is over
Skylar kicked off her 2026-27 season in June with the Garden State Games and the Lake Placid Figure Skating Championships before she headed to the U.S. Junior Team Cup. The U.S. Junior Team Cup is an invite only competition, which is used to determine Junior Grand Prix assignments for the U.S. junior single skaters. Since Skylar turned 13 in December, she was now age-eligible to compete internationally on the junior level.
“lt is very amazing,” Skylar said about finally being old enough to compete on the junior level internationally. “I’m happy and excited to take a step up in my competitions and now go to more important competitions like the JGP.”
At the U.S. Junior Team Cup, Skylar finished third overall. U.S. Figure Skating told Lautowa not long after Skylar finished competing that they would be sending her to a Junior Grand Prix. Lautowa shared the news with her daughter a few hours later.
“My mom just told me, like, ‘Hey, you got a JGP?'” Skylar shared of learning the news.
Skylar is looking forward to competing in Riga, while also making new friends.
“I definitely want to skate as clean as I possibly can,” Skylar mentioned of her goals. “I also want to have fun and to not feel so nervous. I hope it can just feel like another international competition.”
Learning from Mom
Lautowa will be alongside Skylar at her first JGP. With having a mom and coach who is an Olympian, Skylar says she doesn’t feel the pressure to measure up to her mom’s successes.
“I love working with my mom. It’s very fun, and she knows me best,” Skylar explained of working with her mom. “I just feel like we work best together.”
For mom, she tries to balance the role of being Skylar’s mom and also her coach.
“I gotta get stuff done, and I gotta say when it’s good, but I gotta say when it’s not good, but then you know she’s looking at me as her mom first, and then her coach,” Lautowa replied. “But at the end of the day, we are working it out somehow.”
Lautowa explained that at the end of last year, Skylar told her she wanted to have her more as her main coach. While she is not going up to Newburgh to work with Larissa, Oleg and Patch, they still remain a part of her coaching team. Oleg is going to accompany Skylar to Riga as well .
“We really love all these all these coaches, and you know never really stopped working with them. Just kind of this season, it’s been more more easier for her to stay local,” Lautowa explained, noting that she also works with Nina Petrenko, who is also based in Hackensack.
New programs and new choreographers
This season, Skylar worked with Olympic ice dancer Kaitlyn Weaver on her short program. Skylar said she chose the music for this program and played it for Kaitlyn.
“At first, I was a little hesitant because it’s not really a style that I do. It’s a fun samba program and I’ve never really done a program like that before so at first, I was a little scared to do it, but I’ve grown to love it,” Skylar explained of her short program, which is to “1-2-3 (Single Version)” by Gloria Estefan.
Skylar went up to Chelsea Piers for a week to work with Weaver on her short program.
“She’s definitely a very fun coach. I really love her,” Skylar said of working with Weaver.
Benoit Richaud choreographed Skylar’s free skate this year which is to “Pilgrims on a Long Journey” by Coeur de Pirate and “Migrating Birds” by Brice Davoli. This was the first time Skylar had a full program choreographed by Richaud. Last year, he worked with her on just some elements of her advanced novice short program.
Working on the triple Axel
In terms of goals for this season, Skylar is hoping to make a return to Nationals and skate as cleanly as she can in competitions. Beyond that, she is also hoping to improve her triple Axel.
“It’s still being worked on and it’s kind of been going up and down, but I’m trying to work on it,” Skylar said, while mom noted that they hope to introduce it into her programs next season.
A typical teenager
When she’s not on the ice, Skylar is doing schoolwork. The eighth-grader does school online. She also loves to paint and to draw. She also loves to swim in the pool in her building where she lives.
“I love to swim. I try to go every day,” she said.
Being inspired by others
And while she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration with her mom as an Olympian, Skylar also looks up to follow competitors, such as four-time World Junior Champion Mao Shimada and Olympic Champion Alysa Liu.
“I love Mao Shimada. I like her spins, jumps and her overall skating skills. I really want to skate like her,” Skylar said. “She skates really fast and is just very confident, and I love the consistency of her jumps. I also love Alysa Liu. I love her mindset. She goes into everything like it’s just no big deal for her, and I really want to try to have a mindset like that to just approach everything like it’s easy.”
