Coral Springs’ Chiera, Torgashev head to trials
Two skaters from Coral Springs will vie for spots on the U.S. Olympic team in the national championship competition at San Jose, Calif., beginning Friday and running through Jan. 7.
Franchesca Chiera, 20, a graduate of Coral Glades High, will be competing in the Olympic Trials for the second time in the senior women’s division while making her fifth appearance at nationals.
Andrew Torgashev, 16, has been skating at the junior level but will step up to the senior men’s division in his first bid for an Olympic berth.
Both compete for the Panthers Figure Skating Club and are trained by Torgashev’s parents, Artem Torgashev and Ilona Melnichenko, who competed for the Soviet Union’s national team.
“Franchesca is an amazing athlete who knows how to focus and put on her best performance when it counts. To make it to her fifth national championship at the senior ladies division is quite an accomplishment,” Melnichenko said.
Chiera qualified by finishing second at the Eastern Sectionals last month at Boxborough, Mass. Last time at nationals she finished 15th.
Torgashev gained national prominence when he turned in a dominant performance in winning the 2015 U.S. junior men’s championship with a record-breaking score. The youngest competitor in the field, at 13, he won by nearly 32 points.
Over the past year, Torgashev earned enough points to also quality for Junior Grand Prix Championships in Nagoya, Japan, earlier this month. He finished sixth.
Two other PFSC members also earned trips to nationals with their performances at the Eastern Sectionals.
Sophia Chouinard was fourth in the novice ladies division and Lucas Altieri was second among novice men.
There are five skaters going to nationals from the Pines Ice Arena in Pembroke Pines, including Parkland’s Eric Prober (Novice Men’s), Plantation’s Ethan Kohn (Juvenile Boys), Weston’s Alexa Binder (Intermediate Ladies), and the Boca Raton ice dancing duo of Dimitriy Bogomol and Maxine Weatherby.
U.S. team selections will take place at the conclusion the Olympic trials at the SAP Center in San Jose. The Trials will be televised on NBC.