The Cornell University Figure Skating Club won the 2025 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Figure Skating Classic Competition on Feb. 2, clinching a place in the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Intercollegiate National Championship.
At the competition, CUFSC won medals in every single event and ultimately brought home the gold. Notably, the Red bested Boston University — a team that has won the US Figure Skating Intercollegiate National Championship five times since 2017.
But with the team on the rise, so are its financial woes. The executive board of the club is trying to find a way to raise roughly $23,000 in approximately six weeks to be able to travel and participate in the National Championship.
Excelling on the Ice
Fresh off winter break with minimal practice, CUFSC was initially nervous to compete against historical favorite Boston University. This competition was also important in determining qualifications for the national competition as only the top four teams from the Northeast Division will advance to the final competition.
Going into the competition, the mindset for the Red was to work hard and do its best.
“[We] went into it thinking we were going to skate our best and perform [with] our best efforts forward,” said Emma Lu ’25.
After the first day of competition, everyone that competed had medalled.
“We were still not thinking about the end goal or final results,” said Elizabeth Song ’25. “We just wanted to perform well through the end of the competition and get through what we call the ‘second competition curse.’”
By the end of this second competition of the season, the team would conquer that curse by earning 12.0-point scores in 11 different events. Earning 12.0 points in figure skating is most comparable to a perfect score.
Most notably, the team was awarded medals for all 27 events they competed in and earned a cumulative score of 275.0 points — meaning that every single gymnast who went to the competition came back with a medal.
Maria Persaud Fernandez ’26 participated in the Excel Preliminary Women Free Skate Grp B for the Red, earning a score of 12.0 points towards the team score and taking home a gold medal.
“The competition went better than I could have ever imagined it to go,” Fernandez said. “Despite the long ride to the meet and all the logistic difficulties, all of our skaters handled everything so well and I think everyone rose to the occasion.”
Co-captain Karen Chen ’25 is a former Olympic gold medalist. She participated in the Senior Solo Free Dance Grp B and Pre-Gold Solo Pattern Dance events and added 20.0 points to the final score, also earning a gold medal.
Emily Li ’27 and Jessica Wiemels ’27 both were awarded gold medals and added 24 points collectively to the Red’s final score in their respective events. Nicholas Hsieh ’25 grabbed three gold medals during the competition — and contributed another 32 points to the team score.
CUFSC was also able to dethrone the Terriers, a team that has historically reigned as National champions. And, with this win, the skaters will participate in the 2025 National Intercollegiate Final.
“I think the whole experience was really eye-opening for us to know what we are capable of,” Chen said. “We are so capable of doing well at Nationals and to continue this strong momentum and team spirit.”
Background to Boston
The drive from Ithaca to Cambridge was a six-hour snowy affair. But before that, CUFSC got minimal ice practice time.
“The drive to MIT is always interesting because, as a club sport, we provide our own transportation and we [are] not able to afford a bus,” Lu said. “I think it showcases our initiative and how committed we are to competing.”
Prior to this semester, the CUFSC used to have to hold practices from 9:30 to 11 p.m. due to Lynah’s tight schedule. For the team, this sometimes meant having only a nine-hour turnaround between practice and competitions.
Thankfully, the team now usually holds general practices from 7:45 to 9:45 p.m. on Monday and Wednesday nights, with a special team practice on Saturday at 8 a.m. during a competition week. Luckily, the change came to do changes in varsity ice hockey’s schedule. The club has to share Lynah Rink with other sports and the physical education courses taught there.
Still, many of the schools the Red competed against, like Boston University, have open practice times of up to 15 hours a week. Due to winter break, the team was also unable to hold a spring semester practice before competition day.
“We have limited practice time in comparison to other schools, … so it is really impressive what we have been able to do with what we have got,” said co-captain Ciara Flaherty ’26. “Our team’s efforts on the ice and in leadership have been very successful.”
Those “efforts” entail working around Lynah’s tight schedule, planning practices, funding the club’s participation in competition and quite literally getting to the competition.
And just one day before the competition, the figure skating community was left shocked after 14 skaters died aboard the American Airlines flight 5342 plane crash near Washington D.C. This tragedy directly and deeply impacted the team as some skaters knew individuals who died on the plane.
“The [figure] skating community is really small, so we had many members of our team that knew someone on the plane that still went on and competed,” said Angela Chang ’26. “I knew one of the skaters, … so it was a strange feeling to know that even though they were gone, the sport of skating continued.”
With the competition possibly getting canceled due to the plane crash and emotions high, CUFSC had a lot to overcome, according to Song.
Next Stop: Nationals
The 2025 national competition will take place from April 11 to April 13 at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana. While the club is thrilled to have qualified, they are currently working through logistical preparations to travel to the competition, where the Red will take on 15 other teams from across the country.
The biggest challenge for the team is securing the funds needed to attend Nationals. Some of the financials the team is responsible for are travel expenses, registration fees and car rentals to drive to the competitions. The team’s executive board said the trip would cost the team roughly $23,000.
While the team receives some funding from the Club Sports Council, it primarily fundraises via Giving Day donations and ticket sales from the club’s shows. The team wants to take 27 members to Nationals, and currently, these college students would each have to pay an additional $600 out of pocket to travel to achieve the $23,000 goal. To aid the skaters’ costs, the team has also started a GoFundMe.
“We are really looking for ways to get us to this competition that will not put too much of a strain on our skaters because I think it is important to remember that we are all college students at the end of the day,” Chen said. “After everything we have been through we are going to do everything we can to make it to Nationals and give 110 percent there.”
