U.S. Ice Dance 2023-24 news & updates

[Sylvia]

Fan Zone article on Katarina Wolfkostin and Dmitry Tsarevski before their CS debut at Autumn Classic International in Pierrefonds this week:

Wolfkostin and Tsarevski: Off to a Fast Start - U.S. Figure Skating Fan Zone

Ice dance is a discipline that requires patience; it can take years for new teams to build their skill set. But Katarina Wolfkostin and Dmitry Tsarevski's new partnership

usfigureskatingfanzone.com

"I was a bit burned out and not quite happy at the time, so I needed a little bit of a break and just to chill," Tsarevski said of his decision.
He also wanted to spend more time on his music studies. Tsarevski has played the cello since he was seven and is considering applying to colleges with specialized music programs.
During his break, Tsarevski skated at a rink in the Denver, Colorado, area, where his family lives. At first, it was just for exercise; but soon, he felt his competitive mojo returning. He had some tryouts. Then he reached out to Wolfkostin.

 

[aliona22]

Fan Zone article by @clairecloutier on Katarina Wolfkostin and Dmitry Tsarevski before their CS debut at Autumn Classic International in Pierrefonds this week:

Wolfkostin and Tsarevski: Off to a Fast Start - U.S. Figure Skating Fan Zone

Ice dance is a discipline that requires patience; it can take years for new teams to build their skill set. But Katarina Wolfkostin and Dmitry Tsarevski's new partnership

usfigureskatingfanzone.com

He needed “a break” and “to chill” so he ghosted his partner and coach a week before nationals with no explanation? And that’s all he has to say about it?

 

[Wyliefan]

For real. I mean, maybe there are things he can't say publicly -- but if his attitude toward the whole thing is really just "Whatevs, dude," then I sincerely hope he doesn't pull the same stunt with Katarina.

 

[Trillian]

He needed “a break” and “to chill” so he ghosted his partner and coach a week before nationals with no explanation? And that’s all he has to say about it?

I’ve always assumed there are two sides to the story, and maybe a good reason he’s never shared more details. But either way, it would probably be in his best interests to come up with a spin like “I’d rather not talk about it publicly.” Because regardless of how much it captures the whole truth, “I ghosted my partner a week before nationals to chill” is not the best PR strategy I’ve ever seen.

 

[Kateri]

I said to myself when he vanished: I hope when Dimitri finally turns up, I'm mad at him for being an asshole, because that's actually way better than many other possibilities. But still: jeez.

 

[Wyliefan]

I mean, Katarina gave more of an explanation of her breakup than Dmitry did. And hers was the conventional kind, where both partners are aware that it's happening.

 

[Rukia]

I’ve always assumed there are two sides to the story, and maybe a good reason he’s never shared more details. But either way, it would probably be in his best interests to come up with a spin like “I’d rather not talk about it publicly.” Because regardless of how much it captures the whole truth, “I ghosted my partner a week before nationals to chill” is not the best PR strategy I’ve ever seen.

Precisely this. Like obviously we only know the very public version of the story. But literally all he needed to say was, "I was going through a difficult time" and keep on keeping on. He had some amount of sympathy from people anyway I think. This just makes him look careless of his partner's feelings if we're being generous and kind of awful if we're not.

 

[Tinycities]

This just feels like such an incomplete story that I’m not sure how to feel about it. The mixture of him ghosting and her posting everything online in real-time. Trying to also remember they’re teenagers.

 

[Karen-W]

I think everyone is ignoring the FIRST part of his quote which states "I was a bit burned out and not quite happy at the time..."

Yes, the second part probably should have best been left unsaid, but I certainly am not reading into this him being your basic jock a$$hole. We don't know what he said to Isabella. What we know is that she says she couldn't get in touch with him. There may have been very good reasons why he was not responding to HER or her family & associates. For all we know, she was crushing on him and he wasn't returning her feelings and things got too weird for him, so he extricated himself from the situation and is now trying to be the nice guy and not make things any more public than they already are.

 

[Wyliefan]

That's why I said "maybe there are things he can't say publicly."

 

[Rukia]

I think everyone is ignoring the FIRST part of his quote which states "I was a bit burned out and not quite happy at the time..."

Yes, the second part probably should have best been left unsaid, but I certainly am not reading into this him being your basic jock a$$hole. We don't know what he said to Isabella. What we know is that she says she couldn't get in touch with him. There may have been very good reasons why he was not responding to HER or her family & associates. For all we know, she was crushing on him and he wasn't returning her feelings and things got too weird for him, so he extricated himself from the situation and is now trying to be the nice guy and not make things any more public than they already are.

I'm not ignoring anything. That statement about being burned out and not quite happy is something that probably every skater can say about times in their lives. And yet we rarely (if ever) have a scenario like the one we had here. I'm not going to create some scenarios in my head for him and instead go by what he has said publicly which is kind of oof.

I'm not trying to say the kid is evil or anything, but I will 100% side-eye this whole thing.

 

[ice coverage]

"I was a bit burned out and not quite happy at the time, so I needed a little bit of a break and just to chill," Tsarevski said of his decision. ...

I think everyone is ignoring the FIRST part of his quote which states "I was a bit burned out and not quite happy at the time..." ...

My take is that in an effort to be diplomatic, Tsarevski likely understated -- perhaps greatly understated? -- all parts of his sentence.
I did not and still do not have any desire to be judgmental of Tsarevski.

My heart went out to Flores, and she has been a force of nature in establishing a promising new partnership and playing a critical role in obtaining Desyatov's release.

My best wishes both to Wolfkostin/Tsarevski (at Autumn Classic and beyond) and to Flores/Desyatov.

... He also wanted to spend more time on his music studies. Tsarevski has played the cello since he was seven and is considering applying to colleges with specialized music programs. ...

IIRC, Tsarevski used to have a second Instagram account focused on his passion for cello.
A multi-talented guy! (As many skaters are.)

 

[Tinycities]

I just don’t think MIDA would take him in if what’s in the article was his entire story. He sounds so flippant in the article that it feels like this story only contains a quarter of the truth.

 

[Prancer]

I think everyone is ignoring the FIRST part of his quote which states "I was a bit burned out and not quite happy at the time..."

Yes, the second part probably should have best been left unsaid, but I certainly am not reading into this him being your basic jock a$$hole. We don't know what he said to Isabella. What we know is that she says she couldn't get in touch with him. There may have been very good reasons why he was not responding to HER or her family & associates. For all we know, she was crushing on him and he wasn't returning her feelings and things got too weird for him, so he extricated himself from the situation and is now trying to be the nice guy and not make things any more public than they already are.

I agree that we don't know, but I don't see how speculation like this helps in any way. Why make her the problem in this when there is absolutely no evidence to support such assertions? For all you know, it could be he is your basic jock a$$hole; there is actually some evidence for that.

 

[Stephanie]

FWIW I found it odd (to put it euphemistically) that in their USFS profile under previous partnerships he just mentions Leah Neset, who he skated with before Isabella Flores, with no mention of Bella at all.

 

[Rukia]

FWIW I found it odd (to put it euphemistically) that in their USFS profile under previous partnerships he just mentions Leah Neset, who he skated with before Isabella Flores, with no mention of Bella at all.

To be fair idk who has been doing stuff for USFS lately but they completely left Andrew Torgashev off their little Lombardia Trophy thing last week (it took them a few days to fix it). Also they don't seem to have posted anything about him winning a medal, so it just seems to me whoever they have doing these things isn't very thorough? All this to say it may just be a genuine oversight.

 

[ice coverage]

FWIW I found it odd (to put it euphemistically) that in their USFS profile under previous partnerships he just mentions Leah Neset, who he skated with before Isabella Flores, with no mention of Bella at all.

Maybe an odd oversight when USFS put together the bio?

FWIW, the USFS bio for new Liu/Nagy partnership does not mention that Nagy skated with Kate Finster.
Just says: "Previously partnered with Maria Pavlova."

 

[Trillian]

My take is that in an effort to be diplomatic, Tsarevski likely understated -- perhaps greatly understated? -- all parts of his sentence.
I did not and still do not have any desire to be judgmental of Tsarevski.

I agree. And he’s young and relatively inexperienced at doing interviews, so I don’t expect him to be great at handling a question about a delicate situation on the fly. But this isn’t a question that should surprise him or his team - he was going to be asked and he’ll probably be asked again. So IMO it would be in his best interest to find a better diplomatic way to dodge the question and practice saying it until he’s comfortable. He doesn’t owe us the whole story, so these conversations will be easier to navigate if he can politely decline to get into it without making himself look bad.

 

[Katesk8sgr8s]

My take is that in an effort to be diplomatic, Tsarevski likely understated -- perhaps greatly understated? -- all parts of his sentence.
I did not and still do not have any desire to be judgmental of Tsarevski.

IMO it would be in his best interest to find a better diplomatic way to dodge the question and practice saying it until he’s comfortable. He doesn’t owe us the whole story, so these conversations will be easier to navigate if he can politely decline to get into it without making himself look bad.

I think the article just shows that he's moved on and he's not complaining about the past.

 

[kwanfan1818]

Maybe Kelsey Parker Gislason is in charge of the website.

 

[Wyliefan]

I think the article just shows that he's moved on and he's not complaining about the past.

Why would he complain? He's not the one who got ghosted a week before Nationals.

 

[jlai]

Fan Zone article by @clairecloutier on Katarina Wolfkostin and Dmitry Tsarevski before their CS debut at Autumn Classic International in Pierrefonds this week:

Wolfkostin and Tsarevski: Off to a Fast Start - U.S. Figure Skating Fan Zone

Ice dance is a discipline that requires patience; it can take years for new teams to build their skill set. But Katarina Wolfkostin and Dmitry Tsarevski's new partnership

usfigureskatingfanzone.com

I'd take the article with a grain of salt. The guy went mia late Dec 2021 But the article says the partnership ended Dec 22

 

[Sylvia]

^^^ Typos happen - it's been corrected.

 

[Katesk8sgr8s]

Why would he complain? He's not the one who got ghosted a week before Nationals.

He said he wasn’t happy at the time, and FWIW I also heard there were other issues which would not have cast other parties in a good light, though perhaps speculation. Unfortunately we will never know the whole story as it is obvious he’s not saying much.

 

[Karen-W]

Why would he complain? He's not the one who got ghosted a week before Nationals.

Again, you are taking Isabella's very public sided version of what happened as fact. I'm open to the notion that there is more to the story there than Dima being a total douche, which is very much what you are implying every time you repeat the phrase "he ghosted her."

 

[Hedwig]

I think there is hardly any explanation possible not to appear at Nationals and not to tell his partner anything about apart from illness, death, severe family problems etc.

So it does not really matter if there were other problems or if he was unhappy. This was an absolute no go and makes me very wary of him as a partner.

How hard is it to call your partner and at least let her know it is over?

So not really interested in „there may have been other factors“ since that is simply not relevant. If there were- grow up and end the partnership. Case closed.

Now to give Flores part of the blame who was incredibly classic about the whole scenario and never once blamed him publicly is very unfair.

 

[ice coverage]

... How hard is it to call your partner and at least let her know it is over? ...

I am not a skater, and have never been in a skating partnership.
But as a general reply -- not specific to any one skating partnership -- my guess based on my experience as a human being would be that it sometimes could be very hard indeed. Ending any kind of relationship sometimes can be very hard, especially when the other party is not expecting the end.

(In the specific case of Flores/Tsarevski's partnership, my opinion is that the information available to the public does not make me feel judgmental of any party.)

 

[Theatregirl1122]

I am not a skater, and have never been in a skating partnership.

But as a general reply -- not specific to any one partnership -- my guess would be that it could be very hard indeed. YMMV.

(In the specific case of Flores/Tsarevski, my opinion is that the information available to the public is not sufficient for me to be judgmental of any party.)

Yes, in the same way that breaking up with someone is hard. But if you ghost someone you've been in a long term relationship with, you're still an *sshole.

 

[Sarah]

At the end of the day, they were both young (they still are but 2 years is a lot at their age) and we don't know the entire story. But, I'm sure they've both grown up and moved on and I'd like to think things would be handled differently now.

 

[jlai]

It is possible that what he said is true, but at the time he was also kept from communicating with the skating world.