Kevin Aymoz on how he’s learned to skate with ‘zero fear’ – and facing the challenge of compatriot Adam Siao Him Fa

There were two fourth-place finishes at the close of last figure skating season that changed Kevin Aymoz – in very different ways.

After just missing the podium at the European Championships for the second time in his career (he was fourth in 2019, as well) in January, Aymoz arrived at the World Figure Skating Championships with “zero motivation,” he admits.

“I was really upset with myself. I was really sad.”

But coach Silvia Fontana issued this challenge: “Just skate [at Worlds] because you love it... Don’t skate to perform. Just do what you can do,” Aymoz says she told him.

What Aymoz can do is something fans already knew, but experienced at a whole different level over those ensuing March days inside the Saitama Super Arena, when the Frenchman delivered two outsized and tremendously moving programs to finish – you guessed it – fourth.

“It was not a bad fourth place, it was a really good one,” Aymoz, now 26, smiles in a recent exclusive interview with Olympics.com. “It showed me, 'Look, you can be closer to the podium at Worlds.'

“So this opened my eyes for this [season]. It made me ready, and ready to work in these next three seasons to prepare for the next Olympic Games and try and go closer and closer to the podium.”

Kevin Aymoz: 'I just jump and go'

That 282.97 at Worlds is also a career best for Aymoz, who has become a fan favourite with engaging programs like his “The Question of U” (Prince) for his Olympic short program in 2022, and last year’s Gladiator free skate.

This season, he is tackling perhaps the most iconic piece of music in all of skating – "Bolero" – in the free, a decision he said he made only with the agreement among his team that his would be vastly different from what’s been done before.

As the program came to a close at Skate America last month, the Dallas area crowd erupted to its feet when Aymoz collapsed onto the ice at the finish.

Aymoz’s creativity and commitment to artistry is only furthered by an unmatched passion that the Frenchman skates with in what is his ninth season on the international senior circuit.

His experience is a double-edged sword: “I know how to control my performance,” he says, “but I can also be scared and stressed. I know how this works.”

Another of Aymoz’s coaches, John Zimmerman, challenged him with this analogy at the outset of the season: "’You have to imagine a cliff, and you can jump it, the [gap] is narrow but it's really deep, like one kilometre (3,280 feet) deep. You could fall and die.’ He says, 'If you want to jump that, you have to go with no fear. If you go with fears then you're going to stop. You have to jump like you’re never going to stop.'"

"So that's how I went: with zero fear. I just jump and go."

The challenge of Adam Siao Him Fa's rise

Between 2016 and 2021, Aymoz won five of six national titles in France, including four in a row when he arrived to the French Championships a year ago.

But fellow Olympian Adam Siao Him Fa broke his own streak of four silvers in a row, disrupting Aymoz’s domestic dominance in what turned out to be a breakout season for the 22-year-old, who would go on to win a coveted gold medal at Europeans a few weeks later. (That same Euros where Aymoz slumped to fourth.)

But the rise of Siao Him Fa hasn’t bothered Aymoz. In fact, it’s only motivated him.

“I admire Adam a lot,” says Aymoz. “He’s worked really hard, come to [my level] and [isn’t afraid of] the fight. Now we are two.

“But in my career, I don’t think I need another national title. Of course, I want it... but, I’m really focused on getting medals at international events, and I think it’s the same for him.”

This Grand Prix season, Siao Him Fa has shown some of his best skating, winning back-to-back golds at the Grand Prix de France and Cup of China.

Aymoz, with his silver from Skate America, would like to join Siao Him Fa next month at the Grand Prix Final in Beijing. It would mark the first time since 2006 that two French men qualified for the Final, when Brian Joubert and Alban Préaubert did so.

“We’re in the same boat: What we want are international medals. We are both good; we are a beautiful team.”

Kevin Aymoz: On skating heroes... and Florida

Aymoz is a skater’s skater: Ask him who he has been inspired by as a kid and then throughout his career and he gets delightfully lost in the sport’s history books.

“I can't even say a name of who I like in figure skating because there's so many skaters I like; much too long of a list,” he laughs.

But then he makes an attempt: Patrick Chan; Florent Amodio; Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron; Jason Brown; Madison Chock and Evan Bates; Loena Hendrickx; Ilia Malinin.

“It’s scary seeing the young people coming,” he says when mentioning Malinin. “But it’s a beautiful sport... a really beautiful sport.”

Aymoz has spent a good portion of his last six years with Fontana and Zimmerman training in the Tampa, Florida, area. Imagine it: A Frenchman who lives in Florida to figure skate.

Aymoz laughs, too.

“When I cross the border [so much], the agents are like, ‘What are you doing? Why are you coming to Florida.’ I tell them about figure skating and they always go, ‘There’s no figure skating in Florida. There’s only beaches sandals.

“I miss friends a lot,” he admits of his base abroad – and the tremendous amounts of travel he does each year. “My hometown rink, too. But I feel at home in Florida... And look at my tan.”