Alexander Gamelin

Alexander Gamelin and his twin sister, Danielle, were born on February 22, 1993, in Boston, Massachusetts.[1] In 1998, along with his family, he moved to Merrick, New York, where he attended public elementary and middle school.[6] In 2010, he relocated to Newark, Delaware, where he attended the American School, an accredited distance learning high school, from which he graduated in 2013[7] with high honors.[8]

In May 2014, Gamelin moved to Novi, Michigan.[9] He is a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society college student, majoring in linguistics and foreign languages.

Gamelin was granted South Korean citizenship in July 2017, and now lives in Incheon, South Korea.[10][11]

Gamelin's interest in ice dance emerged at the age of 3 when, with his twin sister, he watched a television broadcast of the 1996 World Figure Skating Championships ice dance event.[6] The interest then blossomed in 2000,[12] when at the age of seven, he and his sister began the U.S. Figure Skating Basic Skills Program in Merrick, New York.[13][14]

In 2003, the Gamelins started taking private ice dance lessons from the husband-and-wife coaching team of Alexander Esman and Marina Koulbitskaya.[15] The Gamelins started competing as a juvenile dance team in 2005. In the 2006–07 season, the Gamelins won the gold medal in juvenile dance at the 2007 North Atlantic Regional Ice Dance Championships[16] and finished 9th at the 2007 U.S. Junior Figure Skating Championships. While Esman remained the principle coach throughout the duo's juvenile, intermediate and novice dance career, Evgeny Platov choreographed their programs and provided additional coaching.[17] The Gamelins won the gold medal in juvenile dance at both the 2008 North Atlantic Regionals and the 2008 U.S. Eastern Sectionals and the bronze medal at the 2008 U.S. Junior Championships.[18]

The following season, skating on the intermediate level, the Gamelins won the silver medal at the 2009 Eastern Sectionals and gold at the 2009 U.S. Junior Championships.[19][20] Shortly after that, the New York State Senate together with the New York State Assembly passed a resolution honoring both for inspiring young people in the State of New York through their work ethic and commitment to excellence.[21] During this and the previous season, the Gamelin twins incorporated a unique choreographic feature into their programs, an inverted eagle, which became known as the "Gamelin Eagle" and the team's signature move.[22]

The Gamelin twins advanced to the novice level the following season. They won the silver medal in novice dance at the 2010 U.S. Eastern Sectional Figure Skating Championships and finished 5th at the 2010 U.S. Championships.[23][24] During this period, the Gamelins performed as apprentices in the New Works and Young Artist Series with the Ice Theatre of New York (ITNY) and were part of the ITNY Outreach Program.[25][26][27] They were recognized by U.S. Figure Skating as 2010 Athlete Ambassadors.[28]

At the start of the 2010–11 season, the Gamelins relocated to Newark, Delaware to train at the University of Delaware's High-Performance Figure Skating Center under Christie Moxley-Hutson, Karen Ludington, and Alexandr Kirsanov.[29] They finished 16th at the ISU Junior Grand Prix in Germany in Dresden.[30] At home, they won the bronze medal in junior dance the 2011 U.S.Eastern Sectional Figure Skating Championships[31] and finished 7th at the 2011 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.[32]

Early in the 2011–12 season, the Gamelins finished 9th at the 2012 ISU Junior Grand Prix in Latvia,[33] 4th at the 2012 Eastern Sectionals[34] and in 12th at the 2012 U.S. Championships.[35] Ahead of their first senior season, 2012–13, the Gamelins relocated to Silver Spring, Maryland to train at the Wheaton Skating Academy with Alexei Kiliakov and Elena Novak. They finished 4th at Eastern Sectionals[36] and 11th at the U.S. Championships.[37] Remaining with Kiliakov for their second season as seniors, the Gamelins won the bronze medal at the 2014 Eastern Sectionals[38] and finished 12th at the 2014 U.S. Championships.[39]

In May 2014, the Gamelins relocated to Novi, Michigan to train with a coaching team led by Igor Shpilband.[9] Under the coaching team of Shpilband, Fabian Bourzat, Greg Zuerlein, and Adrienne Lenda,[12] they won the gold medal in senior dance at the 2015 Eastern Sectionals[3] and moved up five places from the previous season to finish in 7th place in Championship Dance at the 2015 U.S. Championships.[4] In April 2015, the Gamelins ended their 15-year on-ice partnership.[40]

GP: Grand Prix; CS: Challenger Series; JGP: Junior Grand Prix

• Yura MIN / Alexander GAMELIN at the International Skating Union
• Official website of Yura Min and Alexander Gamelin
• Official website of Danielle and Alexander Gamelin