Behind a plexiglass barrier scuffed from years of birthday parties and recreational hockey games, two U.S. Olympic athletes glide, spin and leap across the fluorescently lit ice.
A crowd of 50 occupies the concrete bleachers overlooking the rink, taking advantage of the opportunity to see Olympians at work without having to travel across the world.
After running through pieces of various routines for the cameras, Felicia Zhang and her partner, Nathan Bartholomay, meet in the center of the ice to take a bow.
As Zhang skates back to her coach, her dark eyes glisten, her ruby-lipped smile ceaseless. Though her 5-foot-tall figure is dainty, her pronounced quads cannot hide under her black spandex pants.
The 20-year-old U.S. Olympic figure skater is also a freshman psychology student at USF St. Petersburg.
Zhang was born in New York and moved to New Jersey when she was eight. After graduating high school in 2011, she moved to Florida to train at the Ellenton Ice and Sports Complex with renowned coaches Jim Peterson and Lyndon Johnston.
Zhang’s passion for ice skating developed at a friend’s birthday party when she was 7. Thirteen years, and a second place rank at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships later, and she’s on her way to the 2014 Winter Olympics.
The pair embarks on Feb. 1, making a pitstop in Munich, Germany, before heading to Sochi, Russia, for the games. Zhang thinks that might be when it finally hits her # when she steps off the plane into the Olympic village. That’s when she might start feeling like an Olympian.
The Olympics are always in the back of a nationally competitive figure skater’s mind, but the possibility of actually going didn’t seem real until Zhang and Bartholomay completed their routine at the national championships earlier this month.
“We left nothing on the table,” Zhang said in an interview last week, post-practice. “We gave the judges no excuse not to send us.”
Peterson, describing figure skating as a labor of love, said most of his athletes have jobs and school along with training. Zhang is no exception.
For most 20-year-olds, an eight-hour training day, along with a part-time job at J. Crew and night classes, would seem daunting. But for Zhang, the balancing act comes naturally.
“I’ve just been doing it for so long,” she said.
Even during high school, she became accustomed to dedicating half her day to classes and half to training.
Though she put school on hold this semester, and understandably so, graduating from college will be one of Zhang’s main focuses after the Olympics. So far, she’s taken a mix of online and night classes. Her favorite course yet was Sociology with Professor Jason Laguna.
When Zhang isn’t on the ice, doing cardio work, selling cardigans at the Ellenton outlet mall or working on school, she’s sitting at home relaxing # probably watching the TV show “Friends.” She has the show’s schedule memorized for TBS and Nick at Nite. As a rare treat, she may go get frozen yogurt with Bartholomay, who she shares an apartment with down the street from the ice complex.
Bartholomay said his partner levels him out. While he tends to be more intense, Zhang is more laid back and easygoing.
After Sochi, and later on in life, Zhang isn’t quite sure what the future holds. However, she does know it will involve skating.
“I don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t on the ice all day,” she confessed.
When she and Bartholomay arrive in Sochi, the plan is simple: “Take in the experience, learn from it and just have a blast.”
After all, the Olympics is “just another competition, another routine we have to do … another jump we have to land,” she said.
And even if she doesn’t land the jump, even they make five mistakes # or a hundred mistakes # that’s OK, because they made it to the Olympics, Zhang explained.
The pair will also keep Peterson’s coaching motto in mind # “Keep it frosty.”
In addition to competing, Zhang and Bartholomay are excited to meet the 13 other skaters on the U.S. Olympic team. They already talk to each other daily in a group chat, through which they often playfully remind one another, “Hey, remember that time we all made it to the Olympics together?”
Just as they do at every competition, Zhang and Bartholomay will try to make the Sochi rink their home. Though, with hundreds of people coming to watch them practice each day, applauding them for simply stepping on the ice, even the Ellenton rink has begun to feel foreign. Being recognized in public, waiting in line at Starbucks, or, for Zhang, working at J. Crew, and being asked for photos and autographs is “weird.”
“I’m just as surprised as they are,” Zhang said of the fans who approach her.
But the feeling of instant celebrity is also “kinda cool,” the pair agreed.
“It’s really cool knowing there’s so much support … it’s a special feeling,” Zhang said, assuring she’s yet to develop any stalkers.
Zhang’s father will accompany her to Sochi while her mother and 18-year-old brother watch from home in New Jersey. While Mom was usually the one taking her to skating competitions, helping her with hair and makeup, now it’s Dad’s chance to cheer from the sidelines.
Zhang is also looking forward to the opening ceremonies and, just like any 20-year-old girl might be, a chance to meet dreamy, redhead snowboarder Shaun White.
Cheer on a Bull: The 2014 Winter Olympics begin on Feb. 7. Figure skating pairs compete on Wednesday, Feb.12. Tune in to NBC to watch and visit nbcolympics.com for a full schedule of the games.
