ALLEN, Texas — Kévin Aymoz wasn’t sure he was ready to compete at Skate America until the morning of Saturday’s short program.
A day later, the 27-year-old Frenchman had the best skate of his career.
Aymoz won the free skate over world champion Ilia Malinin and finished second overall to the American. Aymoz, who was third at the 2019 Grand Prix Final and fourth at the 2023 Worlds, competed this weekend on the sport’s highest level for the first time since struggling in competition late last season and feeling burned out last winter.
SKATE AMERICA: Results | Figure Skating Broadcast Schedule
THE REACTION 🥹
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) October 20, 2024
France's Kevin Aymoz ran out of the kiss and cry because he couldn't believe the personal best score he received for his free skate. pic.twitter.com/PN2KWhcqXq
When Aymoz’s free skate score of 190.84 points came up, he broke the tight grips he had with coaches Silvia Fontana and Françoise Bonnard and scurried out of the kiss and cry area, overwhelmed with emotion.
Asked what spurred that reaction, Aymoz pointed to his last event of the 2023-24 season. At January’s European Championships, he placed 31st out of 32 skaters in the short program.
“The next day after Europeans, I woke up in the morning and I was sad to not be dead in my sleep,” he said. “So I think today I’m just happy to be alive and having fun on the ice and be myself and don’t care about anything else. I’m just free, and that’s what I feel today.”
Aymoz said he has done a lot of mental preparation since January.
“I worked with my friends, my family and myself, and I took time,” he said. “I was just happy to come back here. That’s the things I felt. I was feeling I was coming back to see my friends and not for figure skating only.”
He was in tears of joy after both Saturday’s short program and Sunday’s free skate.
In his fourth-place short program, he landed a quadruple toe loop and had the best components (or artistic) score of the field. That came after what he called “awful” practices leading into the event, leading him to question why he came to compete.
“When I finished the short, I was like, yeah, that’s why I’m here, for this feeling,” he said. “I felt one with my skates. My skates were just an extension of my body.”
In his season opener in France last month, Aymoz had errors on all seven jumping passes in his free skate, including four falls, and scored 84.33 points. In Sunday’s Skate America free skate, he had seven clean jumping passes, including two quads, and scored 190.84 points.
Fontana, a 2002 and 2006 Olympian for Italy, has been working with Aymoz for eight seasons.
“To see him find himself and have the courage and being so brave to go out there and perform at his top level, it was really special to see for me,” she said. “I think he always knew (he wanted to compete), but I also thought there was a lot of fear in May, June, still not sure of himself.”
Aymoz is next scheduled to compete at Grand Prix Finland in mid-November.
“I would love for him to just gain confidence and not feel any pressure from this, because that’s been the trend a little bit with Kévin, that as soon as a special performance came in, he feels the pressure of repeating it,” Fontana said.
Aymoz said that while appreciative of crowd support, he sometimes feels that he doesn’t deserve it.
“I thank everyone that supports me when I was at the worst and when I’m at the best,” he said. “Today I’m just happy because I believed in life and skating saved me.”
