Above: Elyce Lin-Gracey displays her patriotic spirit after winning the bronze medal at the 2025 ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships. Photo credit: Getty Images
By Mimi McKinnis
Three weeks after the ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships 2025 concluded in Debrecen, Hungary, Elyce Lin-Gracey and her coach, Tammy Gambill, landed in Boston. When most 17-year-olds would be celebrating a bronze-medal finish or looking forward to completing their senior year of high school, Lin-Gracey was eager to get started at the U.S. Figure Skating-sanctioned World Junior training camp, postponed after the devastating crash of American Airlines Flight 5342. But, according to Gambill, that non-stop hunger is typical of the rising star.
“Elyce is one of those kids who, if she didn’t do a clean program, she’d put the music on again and do another full run-through,” Gambill said. “She wouldn’t just re-do the elements. She’d do a full run-through until she got it right. She’s a perfectionist, which is good in a way, but can be detrimental in a way, too, if you’re not careful.”
This past season, Lin-Gracey learned that lesson the hard way. After a start to her 2024–25 campaign that included two top-seven finishes in her Grand Prix Series debut and personal-best scores across the board to win the Nebelhorn Trophy, the 2023 U.S. junior bronze medalist settled for an eighth-place finish at the 2025 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas.
“I was nervous about everything [at that event],” Lin-Gracey said. “I was trying to put out a performance like Nebelhorn, and I don’t think that mindset — telling myself I had to skate like Nebelhorn — was the right mindset to have going into a competition.”
Thirty days later, she was ready to try again — only this time, not trying quite as hard.
“After the U.S. Championships, I reevaluated my training,” Lin-Gracey said. “Going into World Juniors, we tried some different training plans and I learned that less is more. After the six-minute warm-up, you have those two minutes or so before you compete. I learned let’s not do 15 triple Lutz-triple toes in those moments. Let’s set a max at two in the six-minute warm-up, and none in that time in between. Let’s use that time to keep myself calm and know that I have to fight through the entire program.”
“She always says, ‘one more, one more, one more,’” Gambill added. “We knew she was doing too much, and it came down to saying, ‘You’re only allowed this much.’ We practiced that before Junior Worlds. She had to trust herself a little bit more. Instead of having to keep feeling it and keep feeling it, she had to mentally trust herself that she knew she could do it. It was more like a relief for her, I think, because she was limited on what she had to do. It wasn’t up to her. It’s been a positive change.”
The adjustments paid off with two solid skates and the first World Junior medal for a U.S. woman since 2022. More than that, the arts and crafts enthusiast regained her momentum and is now armed with a working strategy heading into the Olympic season (which just so happens to align with a planned gap-year after her graduation from California Online Public School this spring).
“I think last year was a good learning process for her,” Gambill said. “We know what works and we know what doesn’t now. This Junior Worlds was one of the strongest fields I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to quite a few Junior Worlds before. I think the way she handled herself was pretty fierce. She was so controlled. She handled the nerves, she handled the media and she didn’t let anything affect her. I was proud of her.”
Although her music selections for the 2025–26 season weren’t yet finalized in Boston, Lin-Gracey hopes to step outside her usual short program box and show more maturity in her free skate. But she admits, her mindset toward her goals have shifted since the start of last season.
“I mean, I’m pretty sure every lady wants to make the Olympic team,” she said. “That’s probably the most obvious goal. But this time around, I’m not going to tell myself I need to skate like Nebelhorn, or even that I need to skate like Junior Worlds. I want to continue training the way I did before those events, and hopefully that will lead to performances like those consistently the whole season. That’s my main focus this year.”
But first? She received a little inspiration from training camp and the 2025 World Championships.
“I’m glad she’s able to see this level of skating before she hopefully gets to be there next year,” Gambill said. “I want her to know that she’s competitive with these girls, and that she can go out there and do it, too. The atmosphere is so inspirational. You always come home a little bit more motivated to get back to business.”
