PUBLISHED 14 May 2020
Another AKS athlete reaching for the stars is talented all-rounder Freya in Year 10. Freya is a key member of the school U15 hockey team training regularly and playing at weekends as well as being selected for the Lancashire U15 hockey team but it is ‘on the ice’ that she is a superstar being one of the country’s elite young skaters and a member of the Great Britain Squad.
Freya started skating at the age of 6 with a school friend and immediately fell in love with the sport and started lessons the following year. Her natural talent and potential were obvious and she was nurtured by coaches at Blackpool in those early years. Since then Freya has had many early mornings training on the ice and has continued to develop and improve competing in competitions all over the country including Edinburgh, Deeside , North Wales and Aberdeen.
Before the enforced lockdown she trained 4-5 times a week both before school at 6-7.30am and then after school from around 5-7pm. In addition to training at her home rink in Blackburn with her new coaches, Amanda Galloway for Ice Dance and Jake Bennett for jump technique, she also travels further afield to get advice from some of the country’s top on ice and off ice coaches. Every other weekend she takes the long journey to Sheffield to train with Nancy Ambler as well as getting further coaching from Amanda in Widnes.
Freya has attended numerous training camps with Former British and World Champions. Most notably she attended a training camp with the current World Champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron and also British champion Lewis Gibson where she learnt a lot, not just about the technical moves of Ice Dance but also about competing at the highest level.
All Freya’s hard work on the ice in training has definitely paid off, moving up two levels in her age group Advanced Novice for the 2018/19 season, to compete against some of the top young ice dance skaters in the country. She competed in many British qualifying competitions and finished in a superb 8th position in the British Solo Ice Dance Championships in July 2019. Alongside qualifying and competing at last season’s British Championships, Freya secured a place in the prestigious Great Britain Development Squad for the 3rd consecutive year.
The skating season usually starts in March and so the sudden enforced lockdown has seen the cancellation of all competitions for 2019/20 season so far this year but Freya has been training hard at home in preparation for when she can get back on the ice. Running sessions, flexibility sessions, weight training and circuit training sessions all specific to ice skating, together with dance classes over facetime have been part of her daily routine in order to keep her at peak fitness for her return to competition later in the year. During lockdown, Freya has also participated in many British Ice Skating sessions, including a Q&A session with skating stars Jayne Torvill & Christopher Dean.
Freya said “My aim for this season is to again qualify for the Great Britain squad and the British Championships and hopefully attend more international training camps later in the year if we can. The thing I enjoy most about skating is that when I go on the ice I can take my mind off anything that is going on off the ice and just focus on my training session. My goal for skating is to hopefully be able to compete at a senior level in Ice Dance and to compete for as long as possible, and hopefully go into shows when I am older”.
The future obviously looks bright for Freya and we may one day be watching her on the popular ‘Dancing on Ice’ TV programme!