25 year- old Pilipino-American, Amanda Evora, along with her partner, Mark Ladwig, 29, will be competing in the sport of Pairs Figure Skating at Vancouver, Canada. The pairs’ short program begins today on Valentine’s Day where Evora will also celebrate the holiday with her boyfriend, Jeremy Barrett, who also happens to be one-half of the other U.S. pairs figure skating team. Barrett too will be taking the ice today with his 16 year old skating partner, Caydee Denney. Evora and Barrett have been a romantic item for the past five years and are now living together, competing with one another for years as well. Evora cites no problem with keeping their professional and personal lives separate on and off the ice. Evora and her skating partner, Ludwig qualified for the twenty-first Winter Olympic Games after garnering silver medals at the U.S. Championships this past January, becoming the second pair team to represent the United States at Vancouver, Canada. Prior to this feat, they also placed fourth at the U.S. Championships in 2007 and 2009. Evora and Ladwig have been skating together since 2001.
Evora, the youngest of three children, was born in New York City to Pilipino parents from Calapan, Oriental Mindoro who immigrated to the United States in 1972. Her father, Vincent Evora works as a chemical engineer. She currently resides in Bradenton, Florida along with the other U.S. pair team training at Ellenton Ice Arena, while attending school at the University of South Florida where she is majoring in Business Administration. She also teaches ice skating part time. Evora began ice skating at the age of six when her father found a pair of her sister’s ice skates that happened to fit her. She trained with Coach Megan Faulkner who also worked with 1998 U.S. gold medallist Tara Lipinski.
Evora was originally trained as single’s skater but struggled to master the jumps in order to advance in regional or sectional levels at national championships. During her junior year of high school, she decided to switch to pairs skating in 2001 moving to Florida from Sugarland, Texas to work with Ladwig. She missed out on going to her own prom and graduating with her friends in order to chase her dreams of pair figure skating success. As Evora and Ladwig skated together, they worked their way up, sitting at 4th, 5th and 6th place for awhile at competitions. They were 12th at nationals in 2003 and continued to work their way into the top five two years later, but have never cracked the top three until this year, when they placed second at Nationals. All of Amanda Evora’s persistence, sacrifice and hard work has led her here today at Vancouver, Canada with hopes of gold.
Recent News: The pairs competition is the first skating event of the Games and the short programs are TONIGHT at 7:00 PM. Amanda & Mark will skate eighth (they're in the third group) so don't tune in too late!
