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"As soon as I finished, I experienced a surge of emotions: happiness, relief, and definitely excitement--so much so that I spontaneously jumped up off of the ice into the air. I soaked in the moment and thanked the crowd. Proceeding to the kiss-and-cry where my two coaches waited, I reveled in the moment with them and anxiously awaited my scores." In January, home-schooled figure skater and Potter's School student Eliot Halverson of Saint Paul, Minnesota competed in the United States Figure Skating Championships. His score in the Short Program of 65.12 had earned him first place. Now, with his Free Skate complete, Eliot waited nervously for the score that would decide his final placement. After a moment, the large monitor flashed a number: 122.67. "At that point, I didn't care about my [final] placement at all. It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't skate, but, at that moment, the perfect program supersedes any medal."

Unfortunately, Austin Kanallakan (Colorado) bested Eliot's Free Skate score by .23 points, leaving Eliot in second place in that event. But, since the scores for the Short Program and the Free Skate are both totaled together, Eliot's first place win in the Short Program proved great enough to boost his final score to 187.79, nearly ten points above Brandon Mroz (Missouri), who came in second. "Eventually, I discovered that I had maintained first place and had won! I ran up the flight of stairs to find my mom in the audience and sobbed and hugged her with excitement. Everyone was staring at me! Then a few older ladies asked me for my autograph. Then more people did the same. It was so cool. With tears in my eyes, I called my Dad and shared the news. Everyone was proud of me, but, more importantly, I was proud of myself."

Eliot started skating at a young age. "I began skating at the age of six on the pond in my backyard," he explained. "I copied the moves and jumps of skaters I saw on television." On his seventh birthday, he got his first pair of real figure skates. "My mom said that I wouldn't come in from skating that night," he commented. "I cried because I wanted to sleep on the ice." Soon thereafter, he participated in the U.S. Figure Skating Association's Basic Skills Program, and, when the World Figure Skating Championships rolled around in March, Eliot's mom let him take the week off from school to go to Minneapolis and watch all of the events. "I was mesmerized," Eliot said. "Two months later, I started [taking] private lessons and competed at the Beginner Level that August."

In 2003, when he was twelve, Eliot qualified at the Juvenile Level to compete at the U.S. Junior Figure Skating Championships in Lake Placid, New York, where he won the bronze medal. He followed the very next year with his first national gold medal at the intermediate level. This placement awarded him a chance to compete internationally for the first time at the Triglav Trophy in Jesenice, Slovenia, where he took first place. In 2005, Eliot moved up to the novice level and won the pewter medal (4th place) at the U.S. Championships in Portland, Oregon. Hoping to improve his placement at the U.S. Championhips from the previous year, Eliot returned in 2006 and won the Novice Men’s title with a gold medal performance in Saint Louis, Missouri.

 

Following his novice win, Eliot was selected to Team USA, U.S. Figure Skating’s international team, and competed in the Junior Grand Prix series in Budapest, Hungary and The Hague, Netherlands. He earned the bronze in both events. His junior level victory this past January at the U.S. Championships earned him back-to-back national titles, a record that had not been set since Evan Lysacek won the gold in both 1999 and 2000. Since the 2007 U.S. Championships, Eliot has competed in the World Junior Championships in Oberstdorf, Germany, earning 10th place with a final score of 155.97.

Eliot has some big plans for his future in figure skating. He won the gold medal at both the 2006 and 2007 U.S. Championships and plans to stand victorious on the podium as the U.S. Senior Men’s National Champion one day.  Next year, he will get the chance to take a step closer to that goal in front of a hometown crowd from Saint Paul, Minnesota, where the 2008 U.S. Championships will be held. While he realizes that it will take a few years of hard work and practice to seriously contend, Eliot sets his sights high for his first year at the senior level. Eliot would also like to someday make a World Championship team and the Olympic team. "I’m so excited about everything that will come with my skating career and with my life,” he said. “As I get older, I think about how much I’ve changed just from a couple years back, and it gets me so excited for what’s going to happen in the next ten years, twenty years."

 

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