The College of Health and Nursing Sciences' Ice Skating Science Development Center is the training ground for six pairs of figure skaters who competed at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City--including silver medalist ice dancers Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh. Of the 24 pairs of ice dancers in the world who qualified for the Olympics, five train at UD.

Tiffany Scott, a CHNS junior majoring in nutrition, and Philip Dulebohn represented the United States in the pairs figure skating in Salt Lake City, finishing in 13th place. The UD-trained pairs who competed in ice dancing each represented a different nation.

In addition to the Russian silver medalists, the ice dancers were: Ruslan Goncharov and Elena Grushina, skating for the Ukraine, who finished ninth; Daniel and Eliane Hugentobler, competing for Switzerland, who finished 14th; Natalia Gudina and Alexei Beletski, representing Israel, who finished 19th; and Tae-hwa Yang and Chuen-gun Lee, skating for South Korea, who finished 24th after qualifying for Olympic competition only a short time before the Games began.

The Ice Skating Science Development Center is a training facility designed to meet the needs of first-time competitors as well as Olympic champions by helping athletes and coaches reach their maximum potential. Under the direction of world and Olympic coach Ron Ludington, the center provides a complete training environment that includes two ice arenas, strength-training rooms and a dance studio.

National and international coaches at the center offer such areas of specialty as figures, freestyle, pairs, dance and stroking. Faculty members also work closely with the center to provide state-of-the-art research and training in areas including sports medicine, exercise physiology and biomechanics.

The center also is home to an extensive collegiate figure skating program, in which more than 50 students skate in individual events or as part of UD's synchronized skating team.

Americans Scott and Dulebohn made it to the Winter Games after a triumphant but tumultuous year. Sidelined for months by a stress fracture Dulebohn incurred last summer, they were forced to withdraw from various competitions in the fall. Only by placing second in the U.S. Figure Skating Association championship pairs competition in January 2002 were Scott and Dulebohn assured a place on the U.S. Olympic team.

Calling the past year "the hardest I ever had to go through," Dulebohn says working through his injury with Scott's support made him recognize the strength of their six-year partnership. "It really made me realize that we're very strong and can get anything done," he says.

"I never stopped believing," Scott says. "I never lost sight of my dream."

The pair is coached by Karl Kurtz, a former U.S. novice national champion, international pairs champion and U.S. junior pairs silver medalist.

At the Olympics, Averbukh and Lobacheva placed second by a narrow margin to Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat of France, who won the gold in a 5-4 vote among the judges, three of whom chose the French pair on a tiebreaker. A month later, the Russian pair placed first in the world championship competition in Nagano, Japan. Averbukh and Lobacheva, both from Moscow, are four-time Russian national champions.

All five of the ice dancing pairs who went to the Winter Games from UD are coached by former Olympians Natalia Linitchouk and Guennadi Karponossov, who are national, international, world and Olympic coaches. Linitchouk specializes in choreography for the ice dancing teams.

--Jeanine McGann, AS '93 and Laura LaPonte, AS 2002