By Hiro Yoshida

Last season was a steep learning curve for Loena Hendrickx as she struggled to adjust at times to the weight of expectation on her as one of the world’s leading skaters. Having experienced some highs and lows, the Belgian goes into 2023/2024 rediscovering her love of skating.

The 2022/2023 season started well for Hendrickx which included wins at Nebelhorn Trophy and Grand Prix de France. Despite claiming her first Grand Prix Final medal, her performance at the event was disappointing. In January, she was heavily favoured to win the European Championship title in Espoo, Finland. She did come away with her first medal from the championship, but not the colour expected as she finished second. With competitions not going the way she planned, it was a challenging time for Hendrickx in the build up to the World Championships in Saitama, Japan.

“It was a really tough season, and I really was exhausted after all the training,” she said. “I struggled a lot before Europeans and after Europeans with mental health.”

A silver medal at 2022 Worlds in Montpellier, France had been a pleasant surprise and an unexpected bonus for Hendrickx after a good season where she had finished fourth at Europeans and eighth at the Beijing Olympics. Her success propelled her into the spotlight and garnered her more attention. It also changed her outlook on her own skating and what she wanted to achieve.

“It was a problem because there were many more expectations after those Worlds,” she reflected. “I guess everybody noticed me at that time, and everybody wanted me to skate clean. That’s why I felt the pressure. I wanted to skate clean for myself but also for everybody else. I tried to put that feeling away and just skate for myself and to enjoy it for myself because that’s the most important part. I think that changed a lot and also that’s why I had mental difficulties because I was looking in a different way at competitions. I was feeling a different way and that’s why I changed my mental coach. She really talked to me about finding the love and the passion for the sport again also when I have to compete. Because at competitions I was so stressed. I wanted to perform. I had to perform. I needed to perform.”

Even though neither of her routines in Saitama were cleanly skated, she earned a bronze medal which brought her as much satisfaction if not more than her silver from the previous year.

“It was a really tough time coming into Worlds because I was working so hard. I think I never have been working so hard before competition. That’s why the relief also was good, because I knew how hard I worked for it, and how difficult it was. Then to earn a bronze medal was just an amazing feeling and all the hard work paid off.

“The main goal was to just enjoy competing again and have a fun competition, a good feeling. I was happy, although I didn’t have two clean skates. At the beginning of the season, I wouldn’t be really happy with these two performances because they were not clean. But because I know the bad time I went through was so hard that I was really happy with these two performances. I was enjoying competing again and I think you also can saw it on my face and in my skating that I was enjoying it more than especially Europeans or the Grand Prix Final.”

This season begins this weekend for Hendrickx at the Japan Open in the same venue where she won her World bronze medal in March. She will be debuting two new programmes this season created by her long-time choreographer Adam Solya.

“I’m really lucky that Adam lives in Belgium, because we work a lot during the week together. I think half of the time when I’m on the ice, he’s there as well. We always have time to improve the programmes, or if he has another idea to put in some more arm or other movements. I think that’s the secret of how good my programmes look, and how in shape they look. We start to create the programmes in summer, really basic, easy. I’m also not a quick learner. He knows it and we struggle. Also, my coordination is not perfect, so it’s not always really easy for him to make programmes for me. But he always manages to find the perfect fit and the perfect match. If I don’t feel a step, he also feels it that I don’t feel it and he immediately changes it to something else. He just keeps searching for steps. In the beginning of the season, it’s always a nice programme, but it develops during the season, because we work on it the whole year. It starts with extra arm movements, then more upper body, then facial expression. It’s the total image and I’m really happy and glad that he’s by my side a lot. It really helps.”

While Hendrickx continues to hone her artistic skills, she remains cautious about pushing herself to try technical elements with a higher degree of difficulty given her past misfortune of being sidelined by injury.

“We really have to look at what we’re doing because every under rotated jump, it’s really tricky for my ankle,” Hendrickx said referring to her previous injury that kept her out of competition 2019/2020 season. “I know I’m really sensitive to this to really work on triple Axel or quads, because it has a lot of risks. We have to choose what we want. Do we want to perform and compete in a season? Or do we want to have injuries?

“My triple loop it’s the same. I really don’t feel it. I know when I was like 16 or 17, loop was super easy for me. After Olympics in 2018, we wanted to integrate the triple loop in my programme. Since then, the feeling was gone, and I even cannot do a clean triple loop.

“I think Yuna Kim never did triple loop as well. If she can do it without loop, I can do it too. I know I’m technically not the strongest and that’s why I really work on all the rest. I think figure skating is about art as well.”

The absence of Russian women from the international circuit due to their country’s invasion of Ukraine has undoubtedly benefited Hendrickx in terms of results. The ongoing Kamila Valieva doping case may also retrospectively give her another European medal. However, Hendrickx does not really spend much time pondering about what happened at previous competitions or her absent competitors.

“I really don’t think about it because it’s in the past. If I got the medal, then I still didn’t have the moment. I knew at last year’s Worlds and this Worlds it’s an amazing feeling to have the moment on the podium, and this is what it is all about. That’s just the biggest thing. It’s so nice to have the moment and I don’t think about Europeans. It’s in the past for me and we will see what the future will bring.

“I think enjoying a competition with or without Russians, it’s the same. I think for me, now it’s more open for the podium results, because the top skaters are closer to each other. They are super close and that’s what makes it more exciting. You don’t know who will win.

“At Europeans, for me, it was always fourth was my highest possible placement. That’s a bit difficult, because I know when the Russians are coming back, that it will be the same.”

Hendrickx’s medal winning exploits have gradually made her a household name in her native Belgium and she is pleased to be able to inspire a new generation of Belgian skating talent.

“I think it developed a lot since last year, because I really hear from the clubs that they increase a lot of people and I also got many more girls or boys who are texting me that they started skating even at a later age because they didn’t know about the sport and they discovered it because of me. That’s a really great feeling and just to make the sport a bit more famous in Belgium is just an honour that I did it.”

Whatever happens in the future Hendrickx has assured her legacy in her country’s sporting history, but what gives her the most satisfaction is how she overcame adversity throughout her career.

“I was looking at my (ISU) biography and it made me proud because I was also reading the things under it,” she said. “I was reading it and it said about me making history as the first (female Belgian) medallist at Worlds, Europeans, Grand Prix Final, Grand Prix winner. I saw that I didn’t do Europeans for three years because of injuries. It made me proud that I never gave up and that I’m standing here and on this level. It’s just an amazing feeling.”