Levito’s goal was to become the national champion. Once she stepped on the ice, looking calm and strong, it didn’t take long.
For about two hours last Friday evening, South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito, 15, walked almost anonymously around the bowels of the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif. She was trying to warm up, stay in the zone, and keep her muscles loose.
The anonymity would not last long.
Levito, who lives in Mount Holly and trains in Mount Laurel, already was the 2022 World Junior champion, the 2022 U.S. Championships bronze medalist, and had won the silver medal at December’s Grand Prix Finals. But she had worked much of the year with her eye on this moment.
She was at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, and her goal was to become the national champion.
She had won the short program on Thursday by just two one-hundredths of a point over two-time champion Bradie Tennell. But once she stepped on the ice for the free skate, looking calm and strong, it didn’t take long to realize a special performance was happening.
“She has the technical ability. She has the style and the artistry,” commentator and 1998 Olympic champion Tara Lipinski said as Levito opened her program. “Her secret weapon is her consistency, and that is exactly what she needs in this free skate.”
Moments later, Levito completed her opening combination, the triple Lutz-triple loop.
“That was like light, fluffy whipped cream,” Lipinski said, admiringly.
Before Levito’s free skate, or long program, was finished, it was clear: She would get that gold medal.
She had some help. The other skaters within striking distance after Thursday’s short program had made mistakes in their free skates.
But she earned it. She skated cleanly, the best she had in competition all year.
She got a standing ovation, scooped up one of the stuffed animals that fans had thrown on the ice, and made her way to the kiss-and-cry area, where she learned her score, a personal best. She hugged her coaches.
“I’m just so happy and proud of myself,” Levito said the next morning. “This was my goal coming into the event, and I just feel so happy that I performed the way I wanted to.
“It’s so funny,” she said. After all that solitude before she skated “and nothing going on … it’s like bam! Drug testing, medal ceremony, press. ‘You [have] to be here.’ ‘You [have] to do that.’“
‘Kind of a blur’
About an hour later, the 11th grader was in the car with her mother and coaches. “And then I’m looking at my phone, and it’s blowing up.”
But she still hadn’t fully digested it. Yes, she was U.S. champion. But what exactly happened during that skate?
“It’s kind of a blur, because I feel like once I get into my program, I get sucked into a different world,” she said. “And then once it’s over, it’s kind of like having awakened from, like, zoning out.”
Nor did she have time to think about it once she got off the ice.
“It’s so crazy,” she said. “Because, like, with everything going on all of a sudden, it becomes such a chaotic moment with everything happening. I kind of got distracted from the fact that I skated so well.”
Not everything went perfectly, however. She left her Team USA jacket at the hotel.
“And I was like, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be so embarrassing not to have my jacket,’” Levito said. But her friend, Josephine Lee, came to the rescue. Lee had already skated, also performing spectacularly (to a fifth-place finish). She loaned her jacket to Levito, who thanked her in the kiss and cry.
After leaving the arena, Levito had time to reflect.
“Once I do get back to the hotel and everything’s done, and I’ve checked my phone for an hour — it was so much stuff! — I’m finally like, I’m like, ‘Whoa, I am so proud of that program,’ you know?
“And then I just watched the program over and over,” she said. “Watching the video is just fun for me at this point.”
She heard the commentary, and she was pleased.
“I’m really grateful for those kind words,” Levito said. “And I’m really glad to have done the first element that nicely, so it looks like whipped cream, because I do it so nicely in practice. And it was about time when I finally did it in a competition. So just watching the program over and over was just so rewarding for me.”
Her coach agreed.
“I know how she can skate because I see it every day at home,” said coach Yulia Kuznetsova, who also choreographed her programs. “And of course, in my mind, I always want to see the same run-through I see at home. I understand there are so many distractions going on at the same time when she skated. I was just hoping and I’m glad she did it, that she controls herself very well. And that I saw my job was going [in] the right direction.”
Levito is Kuznetsova’s first national champion. “It feels great. It feels exciting. It feels special,” the coach said.
It also was a full-circle moment for skater and coach. In 2018, when Levito competed in her first U.S. Championships, they also were in San Jose. That year, she won the juvenile event, the entry level, which still is highly competitive.
‘Perfection, precision’
Friday night’s performance was one to remember.
“That was a gold-medal performance if I ever saw one,” Lipinski said. “Perfection, precision. She takes her jumping passes with the precision of a heart surgeon. But then she floats around like a ballerina. It’s the perfect mix that you want in figure skating. And I think this may be the first of what may be many, many national titles for Isabeau Levito.”
Commentator Johnny Weir agreed.
“I’ve been to a good many U.S. championships in my day,” he said, “and that is one of my favorite performances I’ve ever seen. It was a portrait of a young athlete in the prime of existence.”
Kuznetsova still sees small things that need to be fixed. “It’s not 100 percent yet, but close,” she said.
Levito will have more chances to get there soon.
After the win, she took Saturday off. Much of her time at competitions, when she’s not skating, is spent in the hotel room reading, knitting, or crocheting.
“So, really, I’m just a full-fledged grandma at this point,” Levito said.
On Sunday, there was practice for the show and then the Skating Spectacular, highlighting the champions. (It will be broadcast from 4-6 p.m. Sunday on NBC.)
Instead of going home, Levito flew to Colorado on Monday to prepare for yet another major competition. She will be back on the ice Feb. 7-12 at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Colorado Springs, an international event.
Then, she’ll finally return to New Jersey to train for the World Figure Skating Championships, March 20-26 in Saitma, Japan.
Later in the spring, she will be skating with the Stars on Ice tour.
So is she now a star on ice? Levito is still impressed skating with the longer-term champions. But it’s starting to sink in.
“Once she gets to see her idols, she will understand she is an idol, too, for somebody,” Kuznetsova said. “So, ‘I’m the same like the person who’s standing next to me.’ And [that’s] going to make us stronger.”
Is Levito ready to be someone’s idol?
“Obviously now that I’m national champion, it should be less weird,” she said.
TV schedule
U.S. Figure Skating Championships’ Skating Spectacular: 4-6 p.m. Sunday on NBC.
Four Continents women’s short program: 10 a.m.-noon Feb. 10 on USA Network.
Four Continents women’s free skate (long program): Noon-2 p.m. Feb. 11 on E! Repeated from 4-6 p.m. Feb. 19 on NBC.
World Figure Skating Championships women’s short program: 6-8 a.m. March 22 on USA Network.
World Figure Skating Championships women’s free skate: 6-8:30 a.m. March 24 on USA Network. Repeated 8-10 p.m. March 25 on NBC.