Skating towards success

Like other noteworthy figure skaters, Samantha Cesario of Oceanside began her career on ice at an early age. When she was six years old, she skated for the first time. Now, eleven years later, the 17-year-old is a force to be reckoned with and has two gold medals to her name.

“She’s a real competitor,” said Cesario’s mother, Joanne. “Samantha takes her figure skating very seriously. It’s become a job for her.”

A senior at Oceanside High School, Cesario practices her skating three times during the school week and once on the weekend. Because the sport consumes so much of her time, she cannot attend classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and instead works to improve her skills at the Iceland skating rink in New Hyde Park. On Saturdays, she trains upstate with her longtime coach, Peter

Burrows.

As it turns out, all of Cesario’s hard work has paid off tremendously. She took home her first gold medal last April when she participated in the 2010 Gardena Spring Trophy, an international skating competition held in Val Gardena, Italy. During that competition, Cesario performed double axel jumps, triple jumps and perfectly executed spins and spirals to rank first among junior female skaters.

It was a defining moment, according to her. “To get international is a huge deal – and to win is even better,” Cesario said. “I was really happy with how I skated.”

2010 has certainly been an eventful year for the rising star. Her second gold medal came this fall, when she participated in the North Atlantic Regional skating competition in New Jersey and won her female division. Before that, in Romania at her first Junior Grand Prix – a series of international skating competitions – she placed forth among competitors. And just this past weekend, Cesario placed first at the Eastern Sectionals in Pennsylvania to qualify for the National Figure Skating Championship in 2011.

Like any other athlete, Cesario is human despite her triumphs. She has certainly had her share of ups and downs during her competitive career, according to her mother, but has grown during the course of her development.

“She becomes angry when she doesn’t win,” Joanne said. “The judging system in figure skating is difficult and unfair at times. When Samantha’s not participating in the sport, she tends to miss it very much. There’s a lot of fight in her.”

Fortunately, Cesario has been able to balance her time well between trying to remain a normal student at Oceanside High School while still receiving wide recognition as a prominent figure skater. She insists that she is just a normal teen, despite the fanfare.

“I hang out with my friends as often I can,” she said. “I try to have fun.”

And as Cesario looks toward the future, she has her eyes set on even bigger challenges. Although she did not qualify for the Olympics this year, four years is not that far away for her. “Hopefully I’ll be able to make it to the 2014 Olympics,” she said. “That’s one of my goals – that’s what I’m training for.”