At Enterprise Center during the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Annabelle Lacey and Cabanne Miller felt pressure before skating onto the ice. With dreams of making the Olympics, they knew they had to be quick, precise and skate just the right angles.
But neither Annabelle nor Cabanne were even competing.
The two 10-year-olds, members of the Metro Edge Figure Skating Club based at the Webster Groves Ice Arena, were among nearly 60 young skaters chosen to pick up stuffed animals off the ice. It’s a tradition in figure skating that fans throw stuffies onto the ice following a skater’s performance as a way to show appreciation.
For St. Louis, the championships were about more than medals and Olympic spots. Over the course of a week, the city had a rare opportunity to showcase itself on the national stage — as a place capable of hosting tens of thousands of visitors while giving its own kids a front-row seat to greatness. Community leaders and skating advocates say the question now is whether that moment can translate into something lasting.
Earning a sweeper spot was highly competitive. The process began months ago with a video audition.
“You grab stuffies from your home, and you place them on the ice,” Cabanne said. “And then we had to speed around the wall and pick them up, and they're trying to see if we can go really fast.”
During the competition, speed and accuracy are important because the next skaters can’t start their routines until the ice is clear.
“There are so many stands, like everybody’s watching you … and so it’s kind of stressful a little bit,” Annabelle said.
Her mother, Brooke Lacey, said the chance for her daughter to be a sweeper and be so close to world-class talent has provided extra motivation.
“Earlier this week, she’s like, ‘I’m going to land my double axel by the time I’m 12 or 13,’’’ she said. “It’s kind of pushed her to want to skate more and try a few new things and just get better. It’s given her some aspirations to one day be doing this herself.”
Jessica Miller feels similarly about her daughter Cabanne.
“She comes here and sees Olympic-level athletes,” Miller said. “So it has given her goals as well that someday maybe she can do that.”
Miller also sees real benefits of having the championships in St. Louis.
“I’m a city dweller. I love the city,” she said. “I know that people that don't live around here kind of have a negative connotation.”
But instead of hearing negative things about St. Louis, she’s only heard of visitors’ positive experiences.
“I think it's really brought a lot of attention, in a good way, to St. Louis and brought more people downtown. … And so I think it's really been great for the St. Louis area, and bringing just a good favorable light.”
Between performances, Jennifer Conlon of Austin, Texas, was in the concourse getting a drink.
“I've always loved watching the ice skating portion of the Olympics with my mom as a kid,” Conlon said. “And so it's a big dream of mine to see this in person.”
Outside of seeing the championships at Enterprise Center, Conlon’s visit to St. Louis included seeing live jazz, and she had plans to visit City Museum and do some brewery hopping.
“St. Louis is beautiful — the buildings, the brick buildings, I love,” she said. “Everything looks so put together and historic and preserved.”
It was always on Ina Downey’s bucket list to attend a U.S. Figure Skating Championships. The Philadelphia resident bought an all-session pass to be able to see every day of competition. She also chose this year’s championship because it’s an Olympic year — she’s going to Winter Games in Italy next month — and she wanted to get the chance to visit St. Louis.
“Today, we went to go see the Arch, something we've always wanted to do and learn a little bit more about how St. Louis, being in the middle of the country, was literally the Gateway to the West,” she said. “We've really enjoyed everything that we've been able to do.”
The St. Louis Sports Commission wants to parlay the success of hosting the Figure Skating Championships into more opportunities to host other events. The commission submitted a bid to host the 2028 Olympic marathon trials, expects to bid on multiple NCAA championships and has aspirations to host the figure skating championships again in 2030.
“This whole experience only reinforces that track record of success and reputation St. Louis has. Now we have to look back on this event and highlight it going forward with those other bids, and in our industry, word spreads,” said Marc Schreiber, president of the St. Louis Sports Commission.
Business leaders projected the event would generate about $14 million in direct spending and additional tax revenue. Figure skating fans also hope the championships can raise St. Louis’ stature as a place for figure skating.
Pauline Lee and Igor Lisovsky attended the championships together. Both have lived in the St. Louis area for more than two decades. Lee competed in the 1988 Olympics for Taiwan, and Lisovsky is a former Soviet pair skater who won the world championship in 1981.
Lisovsky, who teaches in the Learn to Skate programs at Maryville University Hockey Center and Creve Coeur Ice Arena, said the event is likely to increase the sport’s popularity in the St. Louis area.
“Maybe we're going to find some good skaters who are going to compete in a few years in the U.S. nationals,” he said.
St. Louis, he said, has the makings of a great ice skating town. It has the rinks — and the coaches.
“It’s just, I think, it's management of ice rinks,” Lisovsky said. “They're more direct for hockey and not very welcome to figure skaters. If they would open the door a little bit more for figure skaters, it would be a lot higher results for St. Louis figure skaters.”
Lee is also optimistic about the potential for St. Louis to increase its stature as a place for figure skating.
“To have such an important and big athletic event right before the Olympics, I think it builds up a lot of energy for the city of St. Louis,” she said.
Noting that the U.S. Figure Skating Championships were in St. Louis two decades ago in advance of the Olympics in Turin, Italy, Lee said she hopes the championships can return in 10 years.
“And I think in St. Louis, [maybe] we can look back on today and think that this was the beginning of St. Louis being a great figure skating city,” she said.
