Kevin Aymoz: French figure skater on the struggles and triumphs ahead of Beijing 2022

Kevin Aymoz is one of the top men’s figure skating athletes in the world and an inspiration to many in his native France and around the globe.

At the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 competition on Tuesday 8 February, the 24-year-old finished 10th in the men’s singles short program, posting a score of 93.00.

Reigning and three-time world champion Nathan Chen leads the competition into the next stage, the men’s singles free skate, after producing a world record score of 113.97.

It puts Chen five points clear of Youth Olympic Games Lausanne 2020 champion Kagiyama Yuma, and PyeongChang 2018 silver medallist Uno Shoma in third.

In a demanding and precise sport, Aymoz finds himself a couple of places behind Kagiyama and Uno’s countryman, and two-time Winter Olympic champion Hanyu Yuzuru, who opened his short program skate with a popped quadruple Salchow attempt.

Hanyu eventually posted a score of 95.15 to be in eighth place.

The pressure and expectation on the athletes at the Capital Indoor Stadium is immense, and for Aymoz, a return to the big stage and skating in his Olympic Winter Games debut, has been as much about the struggle of the process, as the result.

“Right now I'm just thinking it's 20 years of work, like figure skating eats almost all my life. I have no memories of my life before skating,” he said.

“I was super stressed. I did not eat today. It was awful. I was sitting on my chair and just shaking. I don't know. I just enjoyed being on the ice after everything happened this year. And I just wanted to enjoy the moment.”

Speaking to Olympics.com, Aymoz added: “It was a tough season. My body was falling apart, like injured everywhere; it was awful.

“I was like homeless, powerless, I was super lost through the Covid year. I was far away from my training centre for 18 months. Right after, my body started to fall apart and I was like ‘No’.

A student of choreography and central to the choreography of his own routines, Aymoz relocated and then moved to Florida in the USA to train with Silvia Fontana and John Zimmerman in 2018.

He was later unable to return to his training base because of the Covid-19 pandemic, instead working online with his coaches and training with his former long-time coach in France.

Injury struck soon after, with the former French baton twirling champion suffering from pubalgia (chronic lesions of the groin) in the summer of 2021.

“It was not just the time off during the summer,” Aymoz told Olympics.com after his short program skate at Beijing 2022.

“I came back in September to skate and two-and-half weeks after starting again I had an important French competition to qualify.”

He says he then had a hectic schedule without any moments to calm down and reflect on or fine-tune anything, before realising his dreams in 2022 of competing at an Olympic Games.

“I gave blood and tears during training; it was so difficult. But today it’s a life goal achievement, like a childhood dream to be on the ice,” he said.

“Today I was super stressed but I had no goals; I was just like ‘OK today you just enjoy the moment’ and it was super good.”

It's been a very busy few years for the skating star, who not only trained, travelled, dealt with injury and the distance and difficulties the Covid-19 pandemic created, but he also made news this past summer by coming out publicly as gay, in the French documentary Faut qu'on parle.

"When the directors got in touch with me they asked if I wanted to be part of a project trying to help open the conversation about homosexuality in sport. For me, it seemed natural to say yes but I gave myself one or two days to think about it," he told Olympics.com in November.

"Then I came back to them and agreed. They followed me for several months. We did a very long interview after a training session - we talked for three or four hours. They asked me a lot of questions and, at the end, I felt exhausted and empty.

"As I told the directors: When I first came out, I had put a bandage on a wound. But now, with this documentary, talking about it publicly and freeing myself gave me the opportunity to remove that bandage and to let the wound breathe. And there’s no wound anymore. It was over. It made me feel good. And if it helped other people, it helps me feel better too."

At Beijing 2022, the Grenoble native now has until Thursday 10 February before he competes again, this time in the men’s free program.

“I don’t want any goals in the free skate because when you want to reach too many goals, you lose something. I just want to represent France with their best colours and show that French skaters are good and great.”

Keep up with all the action in our Live Blog updates throughout Beijing 2022, here.