A TBSA coach knows Olympic dreams can come true

As the Sochi Olympic Games come to a close, figure skating is the sport that continues to be one of the most exciting events to watch among all the competitions. 

But from an Olympic coach’s perspective, those few minutes of watching their skaters perform on a world stage are far from exciting - they’re just plain intense.

Tampa Bay Skating Academy figure skating coach Pauline

Coach Pauline Gasparini
displays her Olympic
outfit recently at
 TBSA in Oldsmar.

Gasparini knows this firsthand. She coached several winning Olympic pairs teams, including one team she took from the beginning level all the way to the Olympics. 

“You have cameras all on you, so the main thing is to stay calm and normal so when the skaters go on the ice they’re focused,” she says. “My job is to not rock the boat; not make any last-minute calls to change their focus. When I watch their performances, I’m watching every muscle movement they’re making and I know whether the element is going to be accomplished or not. I hold myself together until the final position at the end...and then I get excited.”  

Gasparini reflects on the first time she attended the world’s

The first pair team Coach Gasparini took to the
Olympics. Susan Garland and Robert Daw placed
in the top 10.

most celebrated international sporting event that this year gathered together elite figure skaters from 30 countries. In 1980, Gasparini brought the pair team of Susan Garland and Robert Daw, her stepson at the time, to the Lake Placid Winter Olympics to compete. Representing Great Britain, Garland, 13, and Daw, 16, skated a clean program and placed in the top 10. 

“It was the most exciting time,” she says. “That was my first experience being an Olympic coach.” 

Coaching the pair team is an accomplishment she is very proud of.  

“I took them from learn-to-skate classes right up to the Olympics,” she says. “So that’s a very satisfying feeling because you don’t inherent skaters, you know you can take them all the way.” 

Four years later, she and Ron Ludington, an internationally

Olympic Silver Medalists Kitty and Peter Carruthers
were coached by Ron Ludington
and Pauline Gasparini.

known skating coach, took Kitty and Peter Carruthers, a brother and sister pair team, to the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. The pair skaters won the silver medal. 

An accomplished freestyle figure skater, Gasparini was on a roll. The next Winter Olympics in 1988 in Calgary, she coached Gillian Wachsman and Todd Waggoner. The pair team, which is featured in this month’s U.S. Figure Skating magazine, placed fifth.

Coach Pauline (Williams) Gasparini
works with pairs medalists
Gillian Wachsman and Todd Waggoner
 at the University of Delaware
Ice Arena.

“There’s always that anxiousness of putting forward everything and they did. They put forward a clean program,” she says. “They were very driven and dedicated.” 

And skaters need those qualities - and more - to be chosen to participate in the Olympic Games. 

“It takes a lot of dedication and hard work,” Gasparini says. “It truthfully has to be your life. Everything goes on hold until you reach your goal.”

Born in England, Gasparini always knew she wanted to be an Olympic coach. After winning the bronze medal in freestyle skating at the 1974 World Professional Figure Skating Championships, she decided to turn all her attention to coaching. 

“I just like the idea of working with skaters and taking them to the top of what they can be,” she says.

Articles written about coach Gasparini and
the Olympic pairs team of Wachsman
and Waggoner.

Coaching for more than 40 years, she spent about 13 of those years at the University of Delaware Ice Arena after moving to the U.S. in 1981. She came to TBSA in Oldsmar in the early 1990s. 

“When I saw how nice the area was and how it had a nice rink I decided I wanted to change my coaching to a warm-weather climate,” she says.

There will be many more Winter Olympics, and many more coaches watching their skaters achieve great heights, but Gasparini will always be proud of the times she calmly coached her skaters at the most prestigious, most watched figure skating competition in the world. 

Side by side, a winning pair team skates toward Olympic dreams

For competitive pair skaters William and JoJo Hubbart, every win along the way is a point in the journey, including this year’s fourth place win at nationals. 

Capturing the pewter medal in intermediate pairs at the 2014

Pair skaters William and JoJo Hubbart compete
in January at the 2014 nationals in Boston.

U.S. National Figure Skating Championships in Boston last month was a tremendous accomplishment and a moment to remember. 

But the sibling pair team’s journey continues on ... with hopes and dreams to represent the U.S. at a future Winter Olympics.  

“It’s a long shot but it’d be nice to go to Seoul in four years,” William, 16, says, as he sits next to JoJo one recent day at Tampa Bay Skating Academy in Oldsmar. It’s here they train between four to six hours a day, six days a week.

William and JoJo, at right, enjoy their moment on the
podium after winning the pewter medal
in intermediate pairs in January.

JoJo, 15, acknowledges it’s a long shot and takes a more “wait-and-see” attitude, adding that they’re just taking it one day at a time right now.

Clearly, though, the teenagers are working toward turning Olympic dreams into reality. This was their third trip to nationals, the most prestigious event of the U.S. competitive figure skating season. And it’s the third time they’ve brought home a medal.  

In 2012, as a first-time juvenile pair team, they won the bronze medal at junior nationals, which was the equivalent of nationals for juvenile and intermediate competitors. 

The sibling pair team won the gold
medal in juvenile pairs in 2013.

Last year, William and JoJo competed at the juvenile level again and took top honors, winning the gold medal by a landslide. They also got to compete with the higher-level skaters because the national competition was changed to include senior, junior, novice, intermediate and juvenile skaters. 

This recent season the pair team moved up to the intermediate level. They also competed at the national competition at an exciting and celebrated time–the Olympics. Figure skaters who won the top spots at the senior levels this year had the chance to represent the U.S. on the world stage. 

“I was really nervous this year,” JoJo says. “It seemed bigger because of the Olympic year.”

William and JoJo had some setbacks in their short program that put them in fifth place but they went on to skate a clean long program to place fourth overall. 

The Hubbarts take the top spot at the 2014
Eastern Sectional Figure Skating Championships
in November. 

William also competed in intermediate singles at nationals, finishing in ninth place. 

Their stellar pair performance at the Eastern Sectional Figure Skating Championships in November earned them a ticket to the national event. They won the gold, becoming the 2014 Eastern Sectional Intermediate Pair Champions at the annual competition in Ashburn, VA. 

A seven-time national competitor, William also won the silver medal at sectionals in intermediate mens singles, securing

William wins the gold at regionals
in October.

another trip to nationals in the single category. A gold medal single's performance at regionals in October landed him at sectionals.

With the new pair level, new elements, and the additional pressure of an Olympic year, the Hubbarts still bounced back to keep their medal streak intact. 

“I’m really proud of how we did,” William says. “It’s about perseverance.”

And it takes a lot of perseverance to get to the Olympics, the world’s foremost sports competition with more than 200 nations participating.

Fortunately, their coach, Alex Vlassov, who recently was interviewed by Gayle Sierens of Channel 8 News, believes the teenagers have what it takes to go all the way. 

“They’re competitors. They like to be better every time that they compete. That’s the best you can ask,” he says when asked why he thinks they have a shot at the Olympics one day.

William and JoJo with their coaches Alex Vlassov and
Laura Amelina in the kiss and cry at the 2013 nationals.

Vlassov, who coaches the sibling pair team along with his wife, Laura Amelina, should know. Representing Russia, he and his pair partner won fourth place at the Innsbruck, Austria, 1976 Winter Olympics. 

“I can share experience. I can say what it means–how to be in front of a crowd, how to present yourself, what to learn and how to avoid some mistakes,” he adds during the television interview.

Back in TBSA’s snack bar, William and JoJo share what it was like in their lesson they just finished with Vlassov, who had them practicing a press lift. The pair skating move has William and JoJo facing different directions as William lifts JoJo in the air, both of them fully extending their arms. 

“It’s kinda scary,” JoJo says. “You just have to push through it and each time it gets a little better.”

William says the lifts are all about trust. “I trust myself and I trust her. As long as she does her job right and I do my job right nothing’s going to go wrong.” 

“And we trust Alex on what we can do,” JoJo concludes.

They both also share stories about how at nationals in January, they got a chance to see and meet some of the future Olympians. Both met Jason Brown, the 19-year-old who helped the U.S. Olympic Team win the bronze medal in Sochi.

“I got to meet him and talk to him and tell him good luck before he went into his short program (at nationals),” William says. “He doesn’t think of you as his fans. He thinks of you as his friends. He’ll remember me next time. He’s a very social guy.”

JoJo with Jason Brown, the  2014 U.S. Olympic Team
Bronze Medalist, and 2014 U.S. Silver Medalist.

JoJo also has a Jason Brown story: “He was warming up to do his short program and one of my friends saw him. We just went right up to him. She’s actually not very shy at all so she just started talking to him. He’s really sweet and he’s not one of those people who says, ‘Ok, get the picture, now go.’” 

JoJo also got a picture with ice dancer Meryl Davis, who along with Charlie White brought down the house with their gold medal free dance performance at the Sochi Olympics Feb. 17, 2014. 

“I saw Meryl Davis when I was eating breakfast at the hotel,”

JoJo poses with Olympic Champion
Ice Dancer Meryl Davis.

JoJo says. Meeting the higher-level figure skaters is inspiring and makes you work harder, she adds. 

For this upcoming competition season, the siblings may move up to the next pair level, which is novice. If so, they’d like to at least medal at next year’s national competition.

“Hopefully, we’ll be trying a triple throw and a triple side-by-side jump and maybe a double twist,” William says. All the while keeping their sights set on that “long shot” goal further down the road. 

“We’re definitely looking for Seoul,” William says.