Sarah Everhardt out to “make a name for herself” on the senior circuit with the help of some magic spells
Olympics.com spoke to the USA athlete about getting last-minute call-ups to her first Grand Prix assignments, the magical stories behind her programs and why she refuses to call Ilia Malinin the "quad god".
Figure Skating
Figure skating talent and Harry Potter fan Sarah Everhardt knows exactly what magic spell she would use as a name for a new on-ice element.
“Expelliarmus,” she suggests enthusiastically, not skipping a beat. “I don't know what kind of movement it would be, but that's the name that it would be.”
The disarming charm – Potter's duelling go-to in the wizarding world – is on theme with Everhardt’s own journey in figure skating, the challenges the USA athlete has faced and how quickly she dispatched them, albeit with jumps and spins rather than swishes of a wand.
Most recently, Everhardt was thrown into her career's first Grand Prix assignments at the last minute. Far from being disarmed by the two sudden call-ups, however, the skater who turned 18 on 12 November took them in stride.
"I am most proud of my ability to pull myself together and show what I'm capable of and make a name for myself on the senior level. That's what I feel like I've been doing," Everhardt told Olympics.com of what is shaping out to be her breakthrough season. "It's like saying, ‘I’m here’.”
Last-minute Grand Prix assignments: How Sarah Everhardt turned nerves into excitement
Getting called up to a debut Grand Prix is a nerve-wracking prospect for any figure skater, but it was even more so for Sarah Everhardt who got her assignment to the Finlandia Trophy just a few weeks before the competition taking place from 15-17 November in Helsinki.
The Virginia-born and based skater was busy preparing for what would be her biggest international competition to date when another assignment came through. Following the news that European champion Loena Hendrickx pulled out of the Grand Prix de France in late October, Everhardt was called up as her replacement.
Despite the double hit of responsibility, Everhardt was unfazed. On the contrary, her attitude was that of excitement.
"I just kept training and working hard in case the chance came and I'm glad it came," she said in Angers. "It's just a really cool experience. I grew up watching (these skaters). I've been a huge fan of (Higuchi) Wakaba for forever and now I'm competing with her, so it's really cool. And I see that hard work pays off. They've worked for a long time and now they're on the senior level. They've been on the senior level and achieving great things and I want to achieve great things too."
Everhardt appears on course to do just that. She ripped into the 2024-25 season, winning the ISU Challenger Series Cranberry Cup International by outscoring teammate and 2024 world silver medallist Isabeau Levito, and finishing second at the Lombardia Trophy, ahead of three-time world champion Sakamoto Kaori.
The Lombardia Trophy marked the first time that Everhardt broke through the 200-points barrier. She set her personal best in the short program and final score there, as she had done earlier in the free skate at the Cranberry Cup.
At the Grand Prix de France, Everhardt was fourth after the short program, only 0.03 points behind Olympic medallist Higuchi who sat in third place. She was also fourth in her free skate, which put her fifth overall with 196.94 points. While there was no podium at her debut Grand Prix, it was mission accomplished for the cool-headed youngster.
"I really am just trying to be consistent this season, that's my number one goal," Everhardt said. "I think the biggest progression I made was over last year. I just felt inside of me how to approach programs and felt how to do certain elements in a specific way. It's really clicked on how to skate well."
Sarah Everhardt opted for a Riverdance theme for her short skate during the 2024-25 season.
Spinning a spell on the ice: Sarah Everhardt's fairy tale programs
It would be easy to mistake Everhardt for a Grand Prix veteran given the calm poise with which she stepped out at Angers Iceparc. Except for under-rotations on the triple loop and triple Salchow in the free skate, Everhardt was clean on her jumps at Grand Prix de France, including her triple Lutz and four combinations.
The impressive jumping was not the only thing that captured the audience’s imagination, however. True to her fascination with wizardry, Everhardt sprinkled some magic into her programs in the 2024-25 season and brought fairy tales to life on the ice.
Her short program set to “Reel Around the Sun” by Bill Whelan – the traditional opening number of the Riverdance show – is an enchanted conversation between people and the star at the centre of the solar system.
Everhardt's free skate continues the enchantment theme as she acts out a Slavic fairy tale set to Igor Stravinsky's “The Firebird”. In the program, Everhardt glides on the ice dressed in a red and gold costume resembling a phoenix and re-enacts the movements of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes performance at the Opera de Paris in 1910.
“The story is about me being the dark side of the villain Koschei," Everhardt explained. "The firebird is on his side and then towards the middle of the program, a prince transforms her to the good side and then starting from the step sequence to the end, the firebird is battling with Koschei. In the end the firebird wins, but then dies."
Her coach, Tatiana Malinina, recommended the music choice. While Everhardt was sceptical at first, with time she embraced both the melody and her on-ice character.
"The more I listened to it, the more I could picture myself skating to it," Everhardt said. "I think it's that I understand the music well. I feel like I can mimic the movements from the ballet, and it works well for me.
"It's fun to skate and it fits me as a skater, and I hope as the season goes on, I can develop it and make it a really nice program."
Sarah Everhardt has worked with coach Roman Skorniakov (pictured here) and Tatiana Malinina for five years.
Ilia Malinin no 'quad god' for training buddy Sarah Everhardt
Everhardt's programs are also a personal nod to her parents. The skater's father is Irish while her mother is Belarussian, so Everhardt made sure to represent both cultures in her program line-up this season.
Jonathan and Ekaterina Everhardt had their daughter try out different sports as a child. She first stood on skates at age six and ultimately, figure skating turned out to be the best fit.
"It was two or three years where I was just skating around in public sessions, around in circles. And at maybe nine years old, it really clicked, like, 'Oh I really want to do this. I want to be good. I want to try my best'," Everhardt recalled. "I started skating more, going to school a little bit less and doing classes online so I could be at the rink earlier. And since then, that's what I've been doing, a little bit of school and a lot of skating."
For the last five years, Everhardt has had formidable support on her skating journey as well – her coaches Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov who were called up to two Olympic Games each. The duo also coach their son, Ilia Malinin, applying nearly identical methods to Everhardt as they do to the men's singles world champion.
"They were at the rink that I started skating at, so I've known them for forever," Everhardt said. "I switched to them because I thought that they could bring me up to a new level and I love working with them. They get me and they know what works for me and how to train me as an athlete.
"They want you to work hard and they push you to work hard. They just want you to be the best skater you can be."
Thanks to their shared Virginia origins, 19-year-old Malinin has been Everhardt’s training buddy since her earliest skating years. And while others may be in awe of sharing on-ice sessions with the world champion and two-time national champion, Everhardt joked that she is oblivious to Malinin's spell.
"I've grown up with him, so I've known him forever and he's just the kid I grew up with. He's not the 'quad god' to me," Everhardt said in reference to Malinin's Instagram handle "quadg0d". "No, I don't call (him that)! Sometimes for fun I call him the quad god, but mainly Ilia."