2026 Olympic team members Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik headed to Salt Lake City, Utah, this week to promote the upcoming 2027 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships.  

"It's been so exciting," Kolesnik said. "This is my first time in Utah, it's a lot of mountains and I'm so looking forward to U.S. Championships happening here this January. And I just love how much media there is." 

The 2026 U.S. ice dance silver medalists started their tour with visits to the local FOX 13 and Channel 4-ABC affiliates to talk about their excitement for the event. During their visit to Good Things Utah, they even presented Surae Chinn, the show's host, with a copy of the latest issue of SKATING magazine — which features the team as the cover stars — to celebrate the station's birthday.  

"It was really fun to talk to [Good Things Utah] and give them a copy of our cover shoot for SKATING magazine. It's been really cool to see people's reactions to it, so I'm excited that they get to have some copies of those," Zingas said. "We had a great conversation with the host and I'm just really excited for the Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January."  

Next up on their jam-packed schedule was a special lunch with members of the local media at Hearth and Hill.  

"We had such an amazing time. We got to speak with multiple reporters, and we had really good conversations," Zingas said. "It was casual and organic, and we were able to deep dive into parts of our story that we haven't mentioned before. We also had a delicious lunch. I had the steak frites, which were wonderful."  

The last media stop included an in-studio interview with the local radio station KRCL where they talked everything from their skating careers, busy training schedules and their excitement for the event coming to Utah, the home of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games and the future host of the Games in 2034.  

The day ended with a visit to the iconic soda shop, Swig. There, they sampled the Dirty Little Secret (Dr. Pepper with vanilla cream, pineapple syrup and coconut syrup), The Founder (Diet Coke with coconut cream, sugar free coconut syrup and lime juice) and the Unlucky Ducky (Sprite with strawberry syrup, lemonade, and gummy shark candies).  

Tickets for championship-level competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, taking place Jan. 6-10 in Utah, are on sale now at https://usfigureskating.org/feature/2027USChamps.