By Hiro Yoshida

Grand Prix Final bronze. Italian national title. European Championships gold. World Championships bronze. Sara Conti and Niccolò Macii made it to the upper echelons of pair skating last season and this season they are aiming to reach even higher.

Very few people had predicted the meteoric rise of the Italian pair last season. Not even Conti and Macii themselves.

“I can count on the fingers of one hand the people that really believed in this,” Macii said.  “And we were not in that hand. At the beginning, we didn’t expect what we could do. We know we could do good, but we worked a lot.”

They first served notice that they were contenders when they made the podium at both their Grand Prix assignments at Skate Canada (bronze) and MK John Wilson Trophy (silver). These results earned them a spot at the 2022 Grand Prix Final in Turin, Italy. While the accolades began to build up, so did the pressure of expectation.

“At the first Grand Prix, Skate Canada, we were third after the short and my legs before the free were shaking so much,” Macii recalled.

There was also the pressure from their training partners at Ice Lab in Bergamo, Italy and Italian teammates Rebecca Ghilardi and Filippo Ambrosini. Both pairs were entered for the 2022 World Championships in Montpellier, France, but were both side-lined due to positive Covid-19 tests. This meant that Italy only had one spot for the 2023 World Championships in Saitama, Japan. Conti and Macii bested Ghilardi and Ambrosini at the Grand Prix Final, but finishing ahead of them at nationals and Europeans would be key.

“Europeans were hard,” Macii said. “Nationals were much harder than Worlds actually.”

“We had to get the gold medal if we wanted to go to Worlds,” Conti continued. “For us, nationals was very important.”

“The assignment for Worlds by the (Italian) Federation is made by a national ranking,” Macii explained. “It’s the two best scores from international competitions plus Nationals. These three total scores together make a ranking and whoever is the first in the ranking goes (to Worlds). For Europeans, we had three spots so there was no problem. But it was important to win Nationals with a big gap because Rebecca and Filippo scored a lot of points in the beginning of the season, and we were really low with points behind them.”

Conti and Macii scored 11 points more than Ghilardi and Ambrosini at Nationals and over eight points at Europeans. It was enough to secure them the sole spot for Worlds.

Ice Lab has been an ISU Centre of Excellence since 2019 and many of the top European pairs now train there. All of the medallists in the pairs event at the 2023 European Championships are based in Bergamo. For Conti and Macii seeing their closest rivals practice in close proximity is a source of motivation.

“It is difficult, but it’s stimulating,” Conti said. “We have different elements that we do well, especially the side by side jumps and throws, and they (Ghilardi and Ambrosini) have the lifts and the twist.”

“The German team (Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel) that is skating with us have become a high-level team,” Macii said. “We skate with different coaches, but we skate on the same sessions. It’s really stimulating for us because you always have to keep up.”

Conti and Macii put down their meteoric rise down to having the ideal training environment and a good work ethic.

“We have a really beautiful ice rink,” Conti said. “We have a lot of space for the gym, for ballet, two ice rinks and the coaching team is very solid.

“We live there,” Macii said. “We have asked a few times if we could have a little bed to stay there.

“It’s a big family. We enjoy staying there. We have everything we need. Even the small ice rink is very useful – after the first session we do 20 minutes or half an hour session of just spins and death spirals and that makes the difference.”

“We hate this session, but it makes a difference,” Conti agreed.

“The work makes the difference because in the situation of pressure like at Worlds,” Macii said. “I have no memories from during the programme. No memories. I was just doing it and that’s because of the work. We worked so much and that’s why we do it even with the pressure on.”

The absence of Russian pairs due to the ban on competing internationally because of their country’s invasion of Ukraine has presented opportunities for skaters like Conti and Macii that they may not have had other had otherwise.

“We need to try to do the best we can to get every chance that we can,” Macii said. “To do the maximum, to reach the maximum level, because it’s not an objective sport. The name counts. In our category, Russians are not doing quad jumps. Quad twists perhaps, but not like in women’s single skating. It’s not impossible, it’s just the quality of execution. I think this year, we really got closer to them. We went higher with the name and with the points. We don’t know when they will come back, but of course they will. And we’re working to beat them.”

First up for the Italians will be the Lombardia Trophy at their home rink in Bergamo this weekend. Changing out their short programme but keeping their free skating routine was the plan at the end of last season. They have also talked about introducing new technical elements.

“We are strong in the jumps,” Macii said. “We’re trying always different combinations. We wanted to put Salchow Euler Salchow, triple-triple. We will try maybe flip side by side.”

“We want to put in the free other lifts.” Conti added. “We don’t know, but we want to put in the flip throw.”

Beyond this season, a home Olympics in less than three years’ time is looming large on the horizon. What has changed for Conti and Macii after last season is they are now no longer thinking of competing in 2026 just to make up the numbers.

“We were put together for the Milan-Cortina Olympic Games,” Macii said. “We did in one season what a couple normally does in three years because of the alignment of the planets and our hard work. The dream is to participate at the Olympic Games, of course, as it is for every athlete, but I think we can get at least closer to a medal. It would be a great achievement, because nobody (from Italy) won a medal after Carolina Kostner (in 2014) and nobody ever in pair skating. Nobody even in the top five.

“It will be a very long journey and very hard work. But I think we can make it after this year.”