Cleveland ice dancers continue dominating national skating scene

Photo courtesy: Beth Hellerstein

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Posted: 01/23/2012

By: Elizabeth Misson, newsnet5.com

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Cleveland is quickly becoming a powerhouse of ice dancing talent and that talent was on display in full force at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose, Calif. on Monday afternoon.

Two local dance teams (both representing the Pavilion Skating Club in Cleveland Heights) stood atop the medal podium on Monday.

Holly Moore, 16, and Daniel Klaber, 17, won the Novice Ice Dance division with a free dance score of 62.02 enabling them to edge out the leaders after the compulsory dances by a total of 1.4 points. The team improved greatly on their 8th place finish in the same event last year. Moore and Klaber were also national champions in the Intermediate division in 2010.

Moore and Klaber split their training time between Cleveland and Detroit, where they share the ice with both the French European and Canadian ice dance champions.

"Just being on the ice at the same time as those teams is incredible," said Klaber in an interview with icenetwork.com

"We really had a lot of fun," Moore, 16, said. "We love our free dance so much, and we hope it showed and everyone could share in it. We worked hard this season and it paid off, said Moore in an interview with icenetwork.com.

Moore and Klaber’s training partners, Hannah Rosinski, 16, and Jacob Jaffe, 17, won the bronze medal after placing third in both compulsory dances and 4th in the free dance. This is the first season that the Rosinski and Jaffe have competed as a team and have come a long way in a short period of time.

Rosinski and Jaffe train in Cleveland under coaches Jackie Miles and Chip Rossbach.

Jaffe commented that the arena was much fuller than he thought it would be--big like The "Q"in Cleveland with all the bells and whistles. The skaters were excited their names were displayed around the arena while they skated.

"We're really excited," Rosinski, 16, said in an interview with icenetwork.com. "We think it was our best free dance performance today."

"We just really go into it, after the twizzles," Jaffe, 17, said in an interview with icenetwork.com. "It's a fun program. You get pumped up throughout it. It's a change from what I've had before in free dances, where it's more dramatic. James Brown, how can you not have fun?"

Also competing at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships this week is 17-year-old Troy Tomasello of the Strongsville Skating Club. Tomasello placed 7th in the Junior Men’s short program on Sunday and will skate his long program on Tuesday.

You can follow the results of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships live on icenetwork.com .