Searching for a Purpose

By: Katie Stout

Often after a competitive skater’s career ends, they are left feeling lost and unfulfilled with life. Competitive skating gives skaters a purpose in life that they cannot find after they are finished competing.

Competing is “the only way we know how to live with this extreme intensity- these amazing highs and shattering lows- and we are not used to just living and being okay,” says two time Olympian, Sasha Cohen, of her competitive skating career.

Dedicating her young life to skating, Cohen “woke up every day and trained.” The goal for her was simple, to skate and to become the best. It is what she got used to living for because it made her life incredibly simple. Now 31, and attending Columbia University, Cohen says while she was competing she definitely knew her purpose in life. Thanks to skating she knew who she was and what she was “meant to do.”

Former competitive figure skaters often struggle with what happens after dedicating most of their life to something. Many skaters are not used to being an average citizen, after having such an abnormal life. Patricia O’Donald began skating at the age of five, and she says, “it is hard to move on to other things in life, after you have put forth so much effort into anything.”

O’Donald, now 38, is a skating coach based out of Baltimore, MD. The native Canadian competitively skated for most of her early life, for about two decades, and the sacrifices she made while “trying to make it big in skating gave [her] an abnormal childhood.”

O’Donald says that when skaters are young, “anything is possible, or really for any young person. For me, like many ice skaters or any athlete, my dream was the Olympics. Normal kids were going to school at 8 a.m., my first two hour practice session was over by then.”

“Ask yourself, what is a normal childhood? Spending most of your life before 20 in school? As a young person what are you looking to achieve,” O’Donald asks. “Skating every day, and the Olympic dream, gave me a sense of where I was going, a sense of purpose. I knew what I wanted out of life and I was determined to work as hard as I could to get there. ”

“After I had exhausted every possible bone in my body to get to where I wanted to go, and to still not get there, left me empty. I went into a deep depression after I stopped competing, I couldn’t find the same fulfillment in anything else,” O’Donald says.

After doing some soul searching, O’Donald says she “eventually came to terms” with herself. “Nothing can ever compare to competing, and the chance to be the very best. But I have realized that the life I lived was almost robotic and I didn’t take the chance to look beyond the skating rink.”

Marat Akbarov, former pair skater for the Soviet Union says, “Often skaters rarely think of what life is going to be like after they have gone as far as they can. Once one has reached [their] goal, [their] biggest dream, such as the Olympics or Worlds, what comes next sometimes may seem a bit lackluster. If [the] skater chooses to continue to be involved [in the sport], they do one of two things. They will usually tour around for [a] few years, or become [a] coach.”

Akbarov, who competed against legendary Gordeeva and Grinkov, won the 1981 Soviet National title with Veronica Pershina. He now coaches with his wife at the Wheaton Ice Arena, and also former pair skater for the Soviet Union, Marina Akbarov (formerly Marina Pestova).

It was “truly an adjustment after my skating career,” says Marina Akbarov. “Moving to [the] U.S., that was huge for me. I married Marat, and had a daughter. But both of us knew we could never give up skating. We [will] continue to pass on our knowledge for as long as we can.”

Akbarov came in fourth in the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, and she says that was the highlight of her skating career, but “not the highlight of my life. When I had my [daughter] Angela, my life changed for the better.”

Former competitive pairs and singles skater, Jacques Gilson, says “skating is a children’s sport, in ladies skating they usually hit their peak between 17 and 20.” Gilson, now 33, says “it is a very narrow window of opportunity to succeed in skating. I believe that you can continue with skating, or even start skating at any age.”

In 2014, the average age for a U.S. figure skating athlete on the Olympic team was 22.27 years old, according to ABC news. The youngest on the Olympic team in 2014 was 15 year old Polina Edmunds, and the oldest was 28 year old Jeremy Abbott. There are age restrictions, skaters must be 15 by July 1 of the previous year to compete. Compared to other winter Olympic sports, it is a young skaters sport. Gilson says, “competition wise you probably won’t succeed after 20 or so.”

Gilson, now a coach and choreographer at The Gardens Ice House, competed for most of his young life in both pairs and singles skating. “I started skating when I was 3, by 10 I was skating at the novice level. I worked very hard everyday towards my goal, I competed at the national and international level, but at 18 I stopped competing and attended Colorado College. Skating is everything to me, but I realized that there is a life outside of competitions.”

However, he says that leaving competitive skating, after not quite reaching his goal, was difficult. “As you grow older, you need to change your outlook on life. Your goals change. I was no longer the childhood prodigy I once was, and I had to face the hard reality of never quite finishing what I started out for.”

Gilson’s life after competing didn’t end, and he continues to cultivate his love for skating by coaching. His passion for skating is evident in the amount of time and effort he puts into his work. Gilson “coaches and choreographs for over 20 students everyday of the week, including Saturdays.”

Skating has always “given me a purpose and a goal to work for. Each skater I teach has room for improvement, and through them I have a goal and a purpose in what I do,” Gilson says. “Each skater is not necessarily going to Nationals, but there is always something to work towards.”

“Figure skaters are perfectionists, the nature of the sport promotes it,” says O’Donald. “However you can never be perfect in skating. Often never satisfied, because there is always this enormous goal they strive for. Many of my skaters feel that they can never really be good enough, unless they reach that impossible Olympic goal. However, the best of the best don’t even make it most of the time,” O’Donald continues, “remember when Sasha Cohen tried to comeback for a third Olympics?”

Cohen had won silver in the 2006 Winter Olympics, but still hungry for gold she tried to make the team in 2010 and failed. After Cohen is currently attending Columbia University, and she says, “After your athletic career is over, you try to find it again. Moving to New York City and going to school at Columbia and meeting new people, it’s like learning how to live all over again.”

She doesn’t regret how her life has played out. However, after a lifetime of competing, Cohen says, “you miss the purpose and reason…you miss the agony and elation of competition.”

“I know nothing is going to compare to the feeling of competing, of the possibility of reaching that impossible goal,” Gilson says. “But there is a life outside of competing, however hard stepping outside the bubble of skating may be. Be proud of your accomplishments and move on with your life.”

For more writing by Katie Stout, visit her blog: theskatingloop.wordpress.com