Above: Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea compete at 2024 Skate America in Allen, Texas. Photo credit: Melanie Heaney/U.S. Figure Skating
By Lynn Rutherford
Danny O’Shea is nothing if not honest. Asked what he and partner Ellie Kam focused on in the lead-up to the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2025 in Boston, he doesn’t mince words.
“Getting the bad taste of a poor performance in the long program at nationals out of the way,” he said. “Getting back out there and attacking the programs.”
Defending a U.S. pairs title is one of the toughest tasks in figure skating. It hasn’t been done since 2014, when Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir accomplished the feat. The other three disciplines have each seen multiple repeat champions over the past 11 years.
Kam and O’Shea opened their title defense at the 2025 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas, with a superb short program, but falls and a missed lift in their free skate meant they settled for a bronze medal.
“You never want it to happen, but it’s an opportunity to grow,” O’Shea, 34, said. “It's bound to happen to us all occasionally. You learn in these moments that you wake up the next morning, your parents are still there for you, your family still loves you, you still have all the ability you had the day before. We move on.”
“We never had to defend a U.S. title before — or I haven’t, anyway,” Kam, 20, said. “There’s a lot of pressure going into the event. We had some high expectations. If we take it as a learning experience and regroup, we’ll be stronger for the next challenges to come.”
Three weeks after Wichita, Kam and O’Shea traveled to Seoul, Korea, for the 2025 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships. Arriving as the defending bronze medalists, they skated to second place in the short program, but Kam’s fall on a throw triple flip in the free skate proved costly. They placed fourth, missing a medal by just one point.
“Overall, we were happy with how Four Continents went, but we definitely know we can perform better than we did in the long program, and also a bit better in the short,” O’Shea said. “We made progress. We put that poor performance in Wichita out of the way and attacked the programs.”
The Colorado Springs duo vows to end the season strong. Under primary coach Drew Meekins, they adopted a revised training regimen designed to bring out their best in Boston.
“Ellie and Danny have been working hard, and we’ve made some changes to their preparation to help get their bodies more activated when they train and when they compete,” Meekins said. “Their free skate in Wichita was an anomaly. We chose to go to Four Continents to compete again quickly and get those feelings out of their bodies.”
O’Shea describes their recent training as “intense.”
“We’re definitely focusing on the quality of each try of the elements, not allowing ourselves too many repetitions of things but trying to get quality in the first or second time through something,” he said. “Definitely doing a lot of run-throughs, but no changes overall to the programs.”
The disappointment in Wichita followed a string of successes. When the skaters teamed up in September 2022, both considered the partnership a second chance to live out their skating dreams. Kam had competed pairs less than a full season with Ian Meyh before the partnership ended. O’Shea had over a decade of pairs experience, most notably with Tarah Kayne; the duo won the 2016 U.S. title as well as 2017 Four Continents gold. He was coaching alongside Meekins and working in real estate when the opportunity to team up with Kam came along.
“Ellie is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met, and comes in every day with an attitude of, ‘Let’s get to work,’” O’Shea said. “She is willing to go through the hard times and keep pushing. … There was a time when I would have been perfectly fine stepping away from [competition], and I did, for a minute. I cannot express how much gratitude I have.”
The pair opened the 2024–25 season with medals in their first four international events, including two on the Grand Prix circuit. The hardware made them one of six pairs to qualify for the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final, where they placed fifth.
Two captivating programs — a short choreographed by Meekins to Italian pianist Ezio Bozzo’s “Rain in Your Black Eyes,” and a free skate created by Marie-France Dubreuil to Florence & the Machine’s version of “Stand by Me” — show off Kam and O’Shea’s unison and skating skills, as well as their big triple twist and impressive lifts.
“Our goal was to show up to competitions and show togetherness — that’s one of the words we use [to describe] how we skate as a team,” Kam said. “When we’re able to accomplish that, we’re able to put out some really good skates and do some things we are super proud of.”
The skaters visited the Ice Academy of Montreal, where Dubreuil [along with Patrice Lauzon, Romain Hagenauer and others] trains many of the world’s top ice dancers, four times this season to touch-up their choreography and add detail to their programs.
“We plan on working with both [Meekins and Dubreuil] as choreographers again next season,” O’Shea said. “We’re working through a lot of music choices and program design. We love that Drew and Marie-France continue to push our boundaries. We’re excited to see what they will have for us for the Olympic season.”
Now, it’s time to channel all the work and optimism into two strong skates in Boston.
“They have been training well,” Meekins said. “They’re excited to show off their programs in a way that lets everyone see the beauty and art of their skating.”
Don't miss Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea compete at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2025 next week. For tickets, results, how to watch information and more, visit the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2025 Competition Central.
