Robin Szolkowy, a two-time Olympic bronze medalist and five-time world champion figure skater, plans to come to the United States in the spring to develop a pairs training center. He will join coaches Jenni Meno and Todd Sand in Los Angeles.
Meno and Sand were three-time national champions and currently coach 2018 Olympic team bronze medalists Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Chris Knierim.
In September, the Knierims moved to Oberstdorf, Germany to under with Szolkowy’s former partner, Aliona Savchenko. She won an Olympic gold medal with Bruno Massot in 2018, her fifth Olympic appearance.
The Knierims split with Savchenko later in the fall and moved to California.
“There’s certain things that we learned [in Germany] that we’re going to continue to incorporate on a daily basis,” Scimeca Knierim said of the split in a recent media teleconference ahead of the national championships later this month.
“It’s quite simple. It just didn’t work out. Chris and I knew when we decided to part ways that there would be no regrets leaving there because we took everything we could. We just felt like if we had stayed, there would’ve been more of a downward slope in some terms of things than others. We kind of felt like we needed to save ourselves in the moment which is why we made the switch [to Jenni and Todd] so quickly.”
Scimeca Knierim seemed surprised by the news that her coaching team was growing:
When new news comes out about you before you even know...🤷🏼♀️
— Alexa Knierim (@alexa_knierim) January 11, 2019
According to a German report, Szolkowy chose Los Angeles after visiting several pairs hot spots in the U.S. and discussions with U.S. Figure Skating. The new school has plans to include both U.S. and international teams. The report also suggested this could be a long-term arrangement, through the Winter Olympics in 2022 and beyond.
This won’t be Szolkowy’s first venture as a coach. He joined the coaching team behind Russian pair Yevgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, who won silver at the 2018 World Championships and two European titles.
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