U.S. ice dancers Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko will begin training under one of the most decorated Olympic figure skaters, Scott Moir, at the new Ice Academy of Montreal campus in Southwestern Ontario.
The news comes one week after Moir, the 2010 and 2018 Olympic champion and three-time World champion for Canada with Tessa Virtue, was announced as head coach and managing director of I.AM’s second location.
“We’re so happy and excited to start working with our new coaching team,” Carreira said in a U.S. Figure Skating release. “We’ve worked with Scott before and we really enjoyed working with him. Scott has so much enthusiasm and energy and will help us exploit our full potential.”
Carreira and Ponomarenko, both 20, had been coached by Igor Shpilband in Novi, Michigan, since teaming up in 2014. They won the 2020 Skate America bronze medal and 2018 Russia Grand Prix bronze medal, as well as five Challenger Series medals, including two golds. Two-time World Junior medalists, they finished fourth on the senior level at the 2020 U.S. Figure Skating Championships but had to withdraw from this year’s event after coming in contact with a positive COVID-19 case at their rink.
Carreira was born in Montreal and moved to the U.S. in 2013; she obtained her green card last summer. Ponomarenko is the son of Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko, three-time Olympic medalists and eight-time World medalists for the Soviet Union/Unified Team.
“We are excited to work with Scott Moir and the entire I.AM family,” Ponomarenko added. “From our first conversation, we’ve felt very welcome. I.AM’s enthusiasm and love for the sport is outstanding and we can’t wait to start this next chapter in our journey!”
I.AM is now home to four of the top U.S. ice dance teams, with Madison Hubbell/Zachary Donohue, Madison Chock/Evan Bates and Kaitlin Hawayek/Jean-Luc Baker -- the top three teams for three years running at the U.S. Championships -- all training under Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon out of the original location in Montreal. Dubreuil and Lauzon also coach many other top international teams including four-time World champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France.
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