Oceanside Athlete Skates to the Top

Samantha Cesario took her first lap around the ice when she was just 7, at a childhood friend's birthday party. Now, at 16, the Oceanside High School junior is heading to the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships Jan. 14-24 in Spokane, Wash., where she will compete against skaters from across the country vying for spots on the Olympic team that will represent the U.S. in Vancouver in February.

Samantha has already skated her way to the top at several competitions this year. In October she finished first overall at the North Atlantic Regional competition in Hackensack, N.J., outskating 2006 Olympian Emily Hughes, who came in second. The top four skaters there advanced to the Eastern Sectionals in Newark, Del. in November, in which Samantha placed third. Now she is preparing for her first senior nationals, a year after she finished sixth at the 2009 junior nationals in Cleveland.

In Spokane, Samantha will compete against 23 other skaters vying for just two slots on the Olympic team. Three others will qualify for the World Figure Skating Championships in Turin, Italy, in March. Samantha knows it will be tough to make it into that rarified company. “It's really exciting that it's going to be an Olympic trial, but to make it to the top 10 or 12 would be awesome,” she said. “We'll see.”

While skating at the nationals may be a bit of an unexpected opportunity, members of Samantha's family and her coaches say she has always had the drive to excel. Her skating career began in earnest soon after that first lap around the ice. Her mother, Joanne, said Samantha began taking group lessons, and did so well that her coach recommended that she take her skating to the next level. She had linked up with her current coaches, Peter Burroughs and Mary Lynn Gelderman, by the time she was 10.

Samantha is up at 5:30 most mornings, and is on the ice by 7. Three times a week, she practices for three hours before school, from 7 to 10, at Iceland in New Hyde Park. On Thursdays and Saturdays, she travels to a larger rink in Monsey, N.Y., to practice. She attends classes at OHS, where she is a straight-A student, from 11 to 2:30, and then does a couple of hours of homework. She works out off the ice four times a week.