A question about Pairs/Ice-Dance Partnerships

[FSWer]

O-k...talking about a Young Pair Team for a bit encouraged me to post this. But what I was wondering is...is it actually possible for a Pair and (or) Ice-Dance Team to get together at young ages,and stay together as a Partnership long enough to grow up as an Adult Team? Also are there (or have there been any) famous Skaters that have grown up skating together?

[gingercat]

Meryl Davis and Charlie White, (just won 4 Continents) have many, many US and World Titles. Started together as little kids. Not sure exactly how long but they have been together over 10 years.

[Sylvia]

Meryl Davis (age 10) & Charlie White (age 9 or 10) and Tessa Virtue (age 8) & Scott Moir (age 9 or 10) both teamed up in ice dance in 1997 as children and are still going strong together today!

Also, the brother-sister ice dance team of Alex and Maia Shibutani started skating together in 2004 when they were about 13 and 9. Now he is 21 and she is 18.

[overedge]

Aaron Wing and Megan Lowe (Canadian ice dancers, Canadian bronze medalists and former international competitors) skated together for 20 years, starting when they were both 12. Now they coach together, and are parents of twins.

[Zemgirl]

Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder (2008 World Champions from France) also teamed up when they were about 12 and skated together for 20 years.

Alexandra and Roman Zaretskis (Israeli siblings who competed in the 2006 and 2010 Olympics) teamed up when he was 11 and she was 7, and skated together for 15 years.

[Jot the Dot Dot]

Gordeeva & Grinkov come to mind.

[easilydistracte]

Tai Babilonia & Randy Gardner were matched up when they were quite young preteens. They retired from eligible competition when they were in their very early 20s and continued to skate together as pros for decades afterwards. They never had any other partners and considered themselves to be each others best friends during all that time and probably still do.

[girlscouse62]

How about Torvill and Dean? THey are considered by most to be the greatest ice dancers of all time. They started dancing together in the ?1960-70's, and are still producing ice dance shows to this day

[aftershocks]

Tai Babilonia & Randy Gardner were matched up when they were quite young preteens. They retired from eligible competition when they were in their very early 20s and continued to skate together as pros for decades afterwards. They never had any other partners and considered themselves to be each others best friends during all that time and probably still do.

Yes, Tai and Randy were very young when they were paired up at a rink in California by skating coach and former professional skater, Mabel Fairbanks. I believe they were around 7 and 8 respectively. Famously, at first, they didn't want to hold each other's hand.

FSWer, if you can get a copy of their book Forever Two As One, with Martha Lowder Kimball, you'll learn everything in detail about how they grew up together as skaters. The book contains beautiful pictures and the text is in their own words, and in the words of mentors, coaches, competitors and others in the skating and celebrity worlds.

[julieann]

The top Chinese pairs have been together forever.