By: Katie Mitchell
Mira Costa sophomore Cassie Gallogly is always looking to improve on her skills in the rink as she competes in the competitive world of ice skating.
Being only 16 years old, Gallogly has already won 1st place in the 2015 Synchronized Skating Nationals in Ohio and due to her high ranking, she was also invited to compete at the Inter-Club Invitationals Competition for the past two seasons at the East West Ice Palace. This is the international skating competition where only the top 12 skaters of each level based on skill set are able to compete.
“Even when there are times I don’t want to skate, I am loving it by the end of the day and I never want to leave,” Gallogly said. “Skating has been such a big part of my growing up and I couldn’t imagine my life without it.”
Ice skating wasn’t always Gallogly’s only sport. When she was younger she tried soccer and dance, but never had a strong love for them. When Gallogly was 7 years old, she learned to skate and immediately fell in love with it. Her dad put her in private and group lessons at the Toyota Sports Center which she really enjoyed, and that was when she knew she had found her sport.
“I started with small group lessons for the first year, and then I eventually got into privates and competing,” Gallogly said. “As the years went on I put more hours into training and continued to improve.”
During the week, Gallogly is currently training at the Toyota Center in El Segundo for about 10 hours on the ice as well as several more hours off the ice where she works on building strength and endurance. She is competing individually in the pre-juvenile and open-juvenile divisions where she is judged based on her technical elements such as jumps and spins as well as her artistic performance.
“I find competing to be a good indicator for how one is doing in the season,” Gallogly said. “It helps me know what I need to work on along with giving me motivation to practice more and place higher.”
Although Gallogly loves the sport, the higher competition does come with more pressure and anxiety for skaters. According to Gallogly, the stress of not having a certain jump or being in a certain place is hard to handle. Her dedication to the sport has also caused her to make social sacrifices that involve her missing quality time with her friends and family during competition season.
“For me, the mentality is one of the biggest difficulties with this sport,” Gallogly said. “With skating you aren’t part of a team, so it gets highly competitive with advancing to higher categories. You also need to be able to trust yourself enough to catch you when you land off a jump and stay calm if you fall.”
To Gallogly, the best thing about ice skating is landing a perfect jump for the first time. Each jump takes a different amount of time to learn, but the goal is always to have the ability to consistently land it perfectly.
“Landing a jump that you have been working to get is the best feeling,” Gallogly said. “It gives you the motivation to keep working in order to perfect it and move on to more challenging ones.”
Gallogly is planning on continuing to skate hopefully through her college career. If not competing in competitions, she hopes to skate recreationally and continue to improve her skills.
“Ice skating has been a huge part of my life so far and I think it’s really allowed me to follow my passion and be myself,” Gallogly said.
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