COVID disruptions didn’t keep this Columbus girl, 13, from highest figure skating level
Out of the approximately 40,000 tests completed in a typical year, an average of only 3% are at the highest level in U.S. Figure Skating. Now, the first Columbus skater has attained that rating.
And 13-year-old Alexandra Greenfield earned her USFS senior level gold medal despite the Chattahoochee Valley’s lone affiliated club being closed for months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Alexandra, an eighth-grader at Blackmon Road Middle School, credits the Columbus Figure Skating Academy at the Columbus Ice Rink for teaching her the basics, Atlanta area coaches for sharpening her skills, and her parents, Tracy and Tom Greenfield, for supporting her — and driving her to and from practice.
“I’m absolutely elated,” she told the Ledger-Enquirer. “I think it’s pretty safe to say I’ve never wanted anything more than this in my life really. With the amount of work and effort I’ve had to go through, … I’m very proud of myself and grateful to everyone who helped me.”
Robbie Przepioski, who has coached Alexandra the past three years in Columbus, described her as “a very, very strong skater.”
“She’s still in the learning stages, but what she accomplished already, I mean, she meets girls taking those tests that are extremely jealous she did that in three years,” he said. “Some of them take, five, 10, 15 years before they do what she did. … To be that determined, that focused, that hard-working, it shows you how different she is.”
The USFS tests skaters in five disciplines: “moves in the field,” freestyle, pairs, ice dance and solo dance.
“Moves in the field” is the basic skills progression, with required patterns of turns, edges, spirals and steps — but no jumps. This is the discipline in which Alexandra earned a gold medal at the senior level, the highest of the eight levels, when she tested last month.
‘Terrible, just terrible’
Even before the pandemic, the Columbus Ice Rink closed each summer. That’s when Alexandra did off-ice training and occasionally sought ice time in the Atlanta area.
After the coronavirus hit in March, Alexandra could do only off-ice training for five months until getting ice time and receiving coaching at The Cooler in Alpharetta or the Ice Forum in Duluth.
The Columbus Ice Rink reopened the week of Nov. 21 for the academy and the Columbus Hockey Association, but it remains closed for public skating.
Going that long without being on the ice, Alexandra said, “was terrible, just terrible.”
“I had a rhythm going,” she said. “You feel truly comfortable and happy, and then when it’s not there, it’s tough mentally and physically.”
While she wasn’t on the ice, Alexandra had to learn how to overcome self-doubt and worries about losing her positive outlook.
“That first time I failed a test, I didn’t know if I could push on all the way to the end of this,” she said. “But I think that’s one of the things that builds character in skating.
“Many times, I cried when I failed, when you’re working and working and still not getting anywhere. But that’s when my parents push me and keep me in it. They say at least finish this season or this level. By the time I do that, I’m back to loving it again.”
Skating has taught her to “always get up when you fall” — literally and figuratively.
“There’s never really something that makes or breaks your entire life,” she said. “You just need to take a deep breath and try again.”
‘Freeing, fascinating’
Alexandra has been ice skating for nearly seven years, around when the local academy was established in 2013. She explained the joy skating gives her.
“Just the feeling like nothing can touch me when I’m on the ice,” she said. “It’s freeing, fascinating. It’s such a beautiful and graceful sport. Once you get on the ice, it sounds cliché, but if feels like flying. … It’s super cool, like wind in your hair and the sound the blades make when you get the right edge.”
The academy has grown to include about 30 competitive skaters and 300-400 participants in group classes, Przepioski said.
It went through periods without a coach when the first two left, and Przepioski said he is leaving for an opportunity elsewhere, which he declined to disclose.
“We were just a starter club,” he said. “We had nothing. We were like the school with the ceilings falling in. Now, we have kids becoming coaches and inspiring kids and getting competitive and passing these tests that a lot of kids would quit just thinking it’s impossible, and Alex achieved it.”
Alexandra hopes her achievement motivates other local skaters to improve.
“Going on this road alone, it was much harder for me than if I could ask someone for help on a pattern or watch someone else practice,” she said. “But I feel good that when I’m old enough to coach, I’ll be able to help them a lot more.”
Alexandra also wants to become a pediatric neurologist.
“I love kids and the vastness of neurology,” she said. “There’s so much to learn. … The brain is the control center of us, and I think the more you know about it, it’s just an amazing addition to society.”
Przepioski is confident Alexandra will continue to succeed on and off the ice.
“She can go really far,” he said, “and she can help a lot of kids in the future too.”
Skating will help her as a doctor, Alexandra said, to trust her ability, manage crises and stay determined.
“I really hope I can take the lessons I learned from skating and put that into anything I do,” she said.
This story was originally published January 18, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
