Holding an Edge: A Documentary About Ting Cui

[Sylvia]

Holding an Edge | A Documentary About Ting Cui (Middlebury College Class of '25.5)
Directed, Produced, and Edited by Lucy Curtis-Cherry (Middlebury College Class of '26.5)
December 2025 / 24 mins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG1_kJfSGok

ETA Ting's closing words in her documentary: "... Something is still pulling at my heart. I think my default is always skating. Part of the hope that I still have for my own skating career is that I've finally found really great coaches and I'm really excited about the potential that's there. It almost feels like a beginning, because this is my first performance since surgery [in May 2025] and so it almost feels like a start, a different approach to it that I'm taking. If I'm doing it again, I don't want to do it to just to be there and be someone in the list of names. Not just doing it because this is what I've always done, 'cause if I want to continue to push myself in my sport I can't have that same mentailty then. I want to do it if I have a shot to accomplish something that I haven't yet. So, I don't know... let's see what happens next."

 

[mtnskater]

Ran across this on YouTube yesterday. She was always one of my up and coming favorites and it was so sad when she was derailed by repeated injury. It would be very exciting if she decided to seriously train again.

 

[Skaterbob]

Oh goodness, was the video of the triple axel in the harness actual video of her breaking her ankle? I can't believe they were even trying that jump.

 

[Sylvia]

More truths spoken by Ting in her documentary:

(After breaking her right ankle less than a month after 2019 Junior Worlds) "I will say the first injury was not that bad because you're still in the state of I don't know what an injury is... this is kinda of fun experiencing it for the first time. It's almost like I feel like a real athlete now that I've had an injury and can just get past it."

(After her second serious injury) "... I still had that idea in the back of my mind 'she's going to be world champion one day.' It just seemed so natural, in a sense. I was trending upwards. It was strange because it just never occurred to me that progress wasn't guaranteed."

"By the time I was an upperclassman in college I started to realize that, no matter how hard I try, I won't be able to do the same thing that the most competitive Senior ladies are doing because training is their full-time job."

 

[Sylvia]

BIG for Ting on her upcoming graduation from Middlebury College!

January 22, 2026 - From both sides of the boards: a sports editor's sign-off by Ting Cui:

From both sides of the boards: a sports editor's sign-off - The Middlebury Campus

I came to Middlebury as a figure skater with five years on Team USA, trying to figure out how to balance training in college and exploring other interests. As an Aaron Sorkin devotee, I'd romanticized the fast-paced world of journalism through “Sports Night” and “The Newsroom.” I loved writing...

www.middleburycampus.com

I came to Middlebury as a figure skater with five years on Team USA, trying to figure out how to balance training in college and exploring other interests. As an Aaron Sorkin devotee, I'd romanticized the fast-paced world of journalism through “Sports Night” and “The Newsroom.” I loved writing. I wanted to try telling other athletes' stories. Little did I know that the sports section would launch me to the Olympics — just not as a competitor.

I never imagined my journey with The Campus would lead to covering figure skating at the Olympics with NBC, but my flight is booked for Milan the day after graduation.
My time with the paper taught me how to walk into spaces where I'm not the expert, how to ask good questions, how to learn a sport's internal logic fast and how to find the untold stories that matter. I have learned how to honor other people's athletic obsessions the way others have honored mine. And I learned that the best part of journalism, whether you're covering club sports or the Olympics, is getting to walk into a world you don't yet understand and stay long enough to learn why people care.

 

[Sylvia]

A companion piece in the The Middlebury Campus - Amateur vs Athlete: A figure skater’s last hurrah by Kanan Clifford:

Amateur vs Athlete: A figure skater’s last hurrah - The Middlebury Campus

“Oh my god. It was the most awesomest thing, ’cause leading up to it, you’re like ‘I can’t do it! I can’t. I can’t! And then, bam, I can!’” said Tonya Harding in the fictionalized account of her life –– “I, Tonya,” after completing a triple axel. The triple axel involves 3.5 rotations, and is so...

www.middleburycampus.com

Excerpt from the end:

This was a special edition of Amateur vs. Athlete, as three of The Middlebury Campus’ own sports editors — myself, Theo Maniatis ’28.5 and Senior Sports Editor Simon Schmieder ’26 — took to the ice to skate one last time with Cui, our former Senior Sports Editor and the current Business Director for The Campus.
Maniatis and Schmieder agreed with Funk. “The people she’s competing against aren’t full-time students,” Schmieder noted. “She’s going to Middlebury and excelling while also pushing herself to the limit. Her ability to do it all so well is insane.”
“She’s an incredible skater and an incredible person at the same time,” Maniatis added.
“Ting will be impossible to replace,” Schmieder finished.
Cui’s contribution to this school won’t be forgotten as she inspires all of us to keep saying I can — from sports editors to Zamboni drivers to the members of Middlebury’s figure skating team.