Ava Marie Ziegler on mindset, maturity and motivation: 'I've grown a lot as a skater'

The evening that Ava Marie Ziegler shocked the figure skating world by leaping from fifth to first to capture the NHK Trophy Grand Prix title she arrived back to her hotel in Osaka, Japan, to a swarm of fans.

“I have never felt so cool,” a smiling Ziegler, 17, tells Olympics.com. “I got back from the arena and they were all in the lobby and I just felt so special.

“It still feels surreal.”

Two months later, Ziegler will return to competitive ice for the first time since at this week’s Four Continents Championships in Shanghai, where she leads the American women in a field that features reigning world silver medallist Lee Hae-in, among other top skaters.

Dealing with a lingering hip injury, Ziegler took the unusual step of sitting out the U.S. Championships last week, where Amber Glenn captured her first national title. 2023 champion and Ziegler’s fellow New Jersey native Isabeau Levito took third.

“It was definitely very hard... I was sitting there being like, ‘I should be there,’” Ziegler said. “But my team and I thought the best decision would be to focus on Four Continents [because] it’s been a struggle to recover. I’ve been working on my mental and physical health.”

Ava Marie Ziegler levels up

On a recent winter morning, Ziegler was in one of her favourite places in the world – New York City – for a stop on the TODAY Show, where she and fellow NHK Trophy medallist Lindsay Thorngren took a spin on arguably the most famous patch of (temporary) ice in the U.S.: Rockefeller Plaza.

“I am a city girl all the way; I love it,” she confirms of her affinity for New York, having grown up in its outskirts in northern New Jersey.

“My friends and I go shopping in Soho and I love going to Levain [Bakery]; their chocolate chip cookies are the best in the world.”

Ziegler’s first coach in skating was her mother, Tricia (a 1995 medallist at U.S. nationals), who guided her until her early teens, when she began working with Larisa Selezneva and Oleg Makarov, the 1984 Olympic bronze medallists in pair skating who now coach in the U.S.

Just over two years ago, Ziegler was still on the Junior Grand Prix, and in 2022 she was the national silver medallist in juniors.

Her out-of-nowhere triumph at NHK Trophy was just her second senior Grand Prix assignment, having been fourth at Skate Canada in 2022. But she possesses the kind of skating that can awe when it’s on: She’s fast, attacks her jumps and commands the ice. There’s a maturity about her that is well past her age or experience.

Nikolai Morozov, the well-known coach and choreographer, has done her free skate the past three seasons as part of her extended coaching team.

And, if Ziegler can stay injury-free, she’ll remain a factor among the U.S. women as the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 draw closer.

'I've had my eye on 2026... since I was four'

“I’ve had my eye on the 2026 Olympics... probably since I was four,” Ziegler says, smiling again. “My mom introduced me to skating and I can remember being [so young] and watching everyone else skating and thinking, ‘I want to go to the Olympics.’

“Ever since, it’s been a recurring thing I’ve been telling my parents.”

She won’t go to March’s World Championships, with the U.S. already handing out assignments to Glenn and Levito, its two most recent champions. But she and Thorngren will be joined by Elyce Lin-Gracey at Four Championships, an opportunity to make another mark on the international stage.

Ziegler and Thorngren’s 1-2 finish at NHK was a first for the U.S. women at an international Grand Prix since 1997, when Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan swept the top two spots at the Grand Prix Final.

“It was just amazing,” Ziegler says about that weekend in Osaka, when she jumped from fifth place to first after the free skate, edging Thorngren by just 1.77 points. “I knew that I wasn’t in the top consideration [for the women], but I had in my mind that I wanted [the judges] to put me there.

“That was my mindset going into the competition,” she continued. “That’s why I love this sport; that’s why I do it. What I did is every top figure skater’s dream... and to accomplish that, it’s just really rewarding from everything that I’ve gone through and the hard days I’ve pushed through.”

Ziegler says the last two years have all been about taking things one day at a time, finding a new maturity in her skating and her mentality, and shifting her goals to be more internally based than performance. Much easier said than done.

“The biggest aspect that has changed is my mindset, maturity level and the way that I view my training and my goals,” she said. “That’s really helped me see a more positive side of myself. I’ve grown a lot as a skater.”

More podiums and on-ice successes? She hopes those come, yes, but also knows it all comes back to the day-to-day and how she approaches her skating.

“I really want to enjoy what I’m doing in the moment,” she said. “We only get so many competitions as skaters until we’re done. And that’s my biggest fear... I love to compete and I just want to make the most of it.”