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UD ice skating send-off show scheduled Jan. 14
11:47 a.m., Dec. 15, 2006--The University of Delaware will hold its National Ice Skating Send-Off Exhibition at 2:30 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 14, at the Fred Rust Ice Arena off South College Avenue in Newark. The show, held in advance of the 2007 State Farm U.S. Figure Skating Championships set Jan. 21-28 in Spokane, Wash., features skaters who train at UD's internationally renowned Ice Skating Science Development Center and have qualified to compete in national competition. Competitors scheduled to skate in the exhibition include reigning world champion Kimmie Meissner, U.S. ice dance silver medalists Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov, 2006 Junior World bronze medalist Christine Zukowski and world ice dance champions Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski of Bulgaria. Meissner is a senior at Fallston (Md.) High School and a member of the University of Delaware Figure Skating Club. She was the silver medalist at the 2006 national championships and earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team, finishing sixth in the Winter Games in Turin, Italy. Soon after the Games, she skated a flawless long program at the International Skating Union's World Figure Skating Championships in Calgary to win the world championship. She has been training at UD since age 8 and is coached by Pam Gregory, the 2006 Professional Skaters Association Coach of the Year. Like Meissner, Gregory and Petukhov were members of the U.S. Olympic Team at Turin. They made the team as silver medalists in the national championships. The ice dancers earlier this year left their former training site in Connecticut to work with internationally recognized UD coaches Natalia Linitchuk and Gennadi Karponosov. Zukowski, also a member of the UD Figure Skating Club, won the bronze at the 2006 World Junior Championships in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She took the podium with gold medalist Yu-Na Kim of Korea and silver medalist Mao Asada of Japan. She is a native of Philadelphia, and is coached by Jeff DiGregorio and Barbara Roles-Williams. Denkova and Staviski also struck gold in Calgary, winning the 2006 world ice dance championship. The Bulgarians train at UD with Linitchuk and Karponosov, and are the first figure skaters from their nation to have medaled at international championship events. Sponsors include Skatebuys and the News Journal. Tickets are $15 for the general public and $12 for senior citizens 62 and older, children 18 and younger, and UD faculty and staff. Tickets are $10 for groups of 10 or more. Call (302) 831-6038 to make group arrangements. Tickets can be purchased at UD box offices at the Trabant University Center or the Bob Carpenter Center, or through Ticketmaster [www.tickemaster.com]. Tickets also will be sold at the arena the day of the show, if available. The doors will open at 1:30 p.m. Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson |
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