Next week, young U.S. junior ice dance team Oona Brown and Gage Brown will make their debut at the ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships 2020, in Tallinn, Estonia. And they could not be happier about it. "We're just really excited for it; can't wait," Gage said. Making the World Junior team was one of the Browns' top goals this season.
For Oona, 15, and Gage, 17, the event marks the biggest milestone yet in a skating career that already spans over 10 years. The siblings began skating when they were five and seven years old, respectively. Now, a decade later, they'll represent their country at a major ISU Championship.
For the Browns, skating started out as a family affair, like much else in their lives. Oona and Gage are part of a close-knit family of seven children. "I'm number four in the family," Gage noted, "and Oona is number 5." They have an older sister and two older brothers, plus a younger brother and sister. Six of the siblings still live at home.
It was their older sister who brought them into the sport. "We all took group lessons, but then she started competing," Gage recalled. "Oona and I were thinking, 'We want to compete, too!' And the next competition she had, we started. We both started off as singles skaters, for quite some time."
Their sister moved on from skating after a few years, but Oona and Gage continued. In 2015, they decided to try pairs together and competed at the Juvenile level, reaching the 2016 Eastern Sectional Championships. The next season, they switched to ice dance--and quickly realized they had found their niche in the sport. The Browns progressed rapidly through the intermediate and novice ranks and earned Junior Grand Prix assignments in their third season as ice dancers.
Their success did not come without some sacrifice. For the first three years of their ice dance career, the Browns trained at the Ice House of New Jersey--a rink some 70 miles from their family's home in Middle Island, New York (central Long Island), across two major bridges in the congested New York City area. It made for a grueling schedule.
"We would get up before the traffic started," Gage said. "We'd have to get up around 4 a.m. The drive would be an hour and a half. We'd sleep in the car until it was time to wake up, then we'd train 7:30-9:30 a.m., sometimes later than that."
Fortunately, the Browns had flexibility built into their schedule, because their mother has home-schooled all seven of the Brown children. So although the commute to Hackensack was challenging, Oona and Gage were able to continue their schoolwork while training there under coach Andrew Lavrik.
This past season, the team switched to Inese Bucevica as their main coach, with Joel Dear as co-coach. Bucevica had previously assisted Lavrik with their training, so it was a smooth transition. And, because Bucevica works primarily out of a rink in Dix Hills on Long Island, the switch meant much less commuting time for the Browns. They now train with Bucevica in Dix Hills the majority of the time and go into New York City once a week to train with Dear.
The Browns met Dear through their connection with Ice Theatre of New York (ITNY), a professional ice dance group in the city. "They're a really good organization that has given us a lot of opportunities to skate at shows," Gage said. The Browns have performed with ITNY at many of New York City's famous outdoor rinks, including Rockefeller Center and Wollman Rink.
Dear is a regular performer with ITNY, in addition to coaching. "We'd always see him at every show, and we were familiar with him," Gage noted. "So we started training with him."
Bucevica and Dear choreographed the team's programs this season. Bucevica took the lead with the rhythm dance, while Dear worked more on the free dance; but both coaches helped polish and refine the programs.
For their rhythm dance, the Browns skate to show music from
The Boy from Oz, while the free dance is set to modern interpretations of classical music. "The rhythm dance definitely was a challenge in the beginning of the season," Gage admitted. "Broadway [music] is new for us. We've never really done anything like this. The classical [free dance] was more our forte. But we've worked on the rhythm dance a lot; we've gotten it a lot better this season."
The team did well on the Junior Grand Prix circuit last fall, placing seventh and fifth at their events in Chelyabinsk, Russia, and Egna, Italy. Going into this year's U.S. Championships, where they were competing in junior dance for the second time, the Browns hoped to improve on their pewter-medal finish from 2019.
The Browns skated well in the rhythm dance in Greensboro, North Carolina, placing third, and put out a strong performance in the free dance. Skating second in the final group, they had a tense wait backstage to see if they would make the podium.
"I was surprised … I was expecting fourth," Oona admitted. "Then I saw that third place, and I was like, 'Wow!'"
"I saw the scores in the locker room," Gage added. "It was very surprising. I was happy. Thrilled with what we got there."
After the U.S. Championships, the Browns competed at another international event, the Bavarian Open in Oberstdorf, Germany. "We faced off with the top four Canadian junior teams there," Gage said. "This was their qualifier for World Juniors." It was a very competitive event, also featuring U.S. junior ice dance champions Avonley Nguyen and Vadim Kolesnyk. But the Browns held their own, placing fourth. "Both programs were pretty clean, pretty good," Gage said of their performance. The event helped build their confidence level.
One thing the Browns enjoy about competition is the opportunity to be with other high-level teams. In their current situation in Dix Hills and New York City, they train without other ice dancers at the novice, junior, or senior level. So they look forward to going to competitions and having the chance to skate with peers.
"It's always good to see everyone," Gage noted. "To have the feeling of another team there … to make it intense and have that sense of competing against someone."
The Browns, it seems, thrive on competition. One of their favorite off-ice activities is long-distance running. As with other things, running is something the Brown family does together.
"Our whole family does it competitively," Gage explained. "We run 5K races, which would be like three-mile races. Sometimes we'll run four- or five-mile races. I would eventually like to run a marathon at some point." Their mother used to run half-marathons, a source of inspiration.
The Browns feel that running is a good form of cross-training to enhance their skating. "It definitely helps," Oona said. When preparing for races, they often run a couple of miles in the late afternoon after skating practice, incorporating sprinting drills as well.
For now, though, the Browns' main focus is on their next competition, the ISU World Junior Championships. "Our goal is to be in the top 10," said Oona.
"What we want to do is to put out our programs as clean and as best as we can put them out," Gage added. "Keep it uplifting, strong, and give the judges a good show. Just skate the best that we have this season."
