By Hiro Yoshida

In just three seasons, Phebe Bekker and James Hernandez have crammed a wealth of experience into their career together. As they embark on their first senior World Championships, the future is looking bright for the promising British ice dancers.

Bekker and Hernandez started off this season at the Nepela Memorial in Bratislava, Slovakia where they finished eighth. They picked up a silver medal at the Swiss Ice Skating Open in Lausanne, Switzerland at the end of October 2023. In early December, they came second at British Nationals to secure their place at the 2024 European Figure Skating Championships and the following week they were fourth at the Golden Spin of Zagreb in Croatia.

At the European Championships in Kaunas, Lithuania, Bekker and Hernandez got their campaign off to inauspicious start when Bekker fell during the twizzle sequence in the rhythm dance. They squeaked through to skate in the free dance and moved up a couple of places to finish in 17^th. Despite the mistake in the rhythm dance, they found the event to have been a positive experience.

“The atmosphere, the energy, the crowd, and also the special thing about it being our first Europeans as well, overall made it very enjoyable,” Hernandez said. “But I think it’s made us hungry to work on the things that we know we lost points on. It could have put us a lot higher in the standings. It’s to prove that we’re not just here to take part, but to do really well.”

“For our first Europeans it’s been such a special event,” Bekker agreed. “We’re looking forward to Worlds and we know what to expect now. I think that’s a big thing.”

Bekker and Hernandez spent two years competing on the Junior circuit and last season they qualified for the Junior Grand Prix Final in Torino, Italy and just missed out on a medal at the 2023 World Junior Championships in Calgary, Canada when they finished fourth. It is clearly a source of pride for the British team at how far they have in such a short space of time.

“At the beginning of every year we have set big goals for ourselves,” Hernandez said. “Last year, in our second year together, after coming very low down at our first Junior Worlds, it was to make the Final. It wasn’t even a question of medalling at Junior Worlds and, obviously, we were very close. This season we said we wanted to go to Europeans and Worlds, and we want to make an impression. I think we’ve achieved that already.”

“I don’t know how we progressed that quickly to be honest,” Bekker said. “I was really surprised and excited in a great way. We had our first season that was just kind of a testing the water situation and then we kind of took it and ran with it. We went into that second season with almost nothing to lose, but everything to prove. I think we just climbed through the season knowing our potential. Obviously, it’s a lot of different coming into this first Senior season. I think we’ve got to keep different expectations and set different goals. It’s a very big adjustment, but we’re very excited.”

“In Senior, the standard that everyone puts out is very different,” Hernandez added. “We’re learning fast, and Europeans has been a brilliant example of what we need to do going forward.”

Although they have moved on, the competition at last season’s Junior Worlds where they came so close to winning Great Britain’s first medal at the event since 1977 was an emotional one that still haunts them.

“It was a crazy week for us,” Hernandez explained. “We had a difficult few weeks leading up. My father passed away two weeks before. I came back to train the day after that. We were at a competition in Germany (Bavarian Open) and my mother called me literally once we finished our free dance and said, ‘I think you should come home.’ I flew back to England and then he passed away the next day. I said to myself, ‘We’ve worked all season. We’ve got a shot at a medal. I have to go back and train.’ Those few weeks everyone was so supportive of me. I just got my head down and we worked. Then going to Junior Worlds, we just didn’t really need to speak did we? We just knew what we had to do.”

“It will be on our minds for a very long time,” Bekker said. “Very bittersweet memories obviously.”

“It was one of those skates, and one of those competitions that felt euphoric,” Hernandez continued. “Everything was so wonderful. We were able to just to connect with each other. What happened after was so difficult to understand. It wasn’t levels. It was a lift, and there was nothing we could do.”

Bekker and Hernandez had been third after the rhythm dance in Calgary. An extended lift deduction on a combination lift meant their score was docked by one point. They lost out on the bronze medal by 0.06 points.

“I think just accepting it has been the hardest thing honestly,” Bekker said. “I feel like I’ve struggled this season to put it past me almost and it’s such a difficult thing to come to terms with. The fact that we were so close, and with such a hard-to-understand result, really took a lot. We haven’t really fully had closure on it. We feel like it’s kind of just always up in the air for us. Obviously we were very disappointed at that time, but onwards and upwards.

“In training what we always talk about, and so does every skater and athlete, is you can only control what you do,” Hernandez said. “It was the first time ever we felt like we really controlled what we did and there was a very strange outcome. Normally if you mess up an element, you suffer or if you have a wonky practice, you suffer later on. It was one of those things that was unlike anything else and hopefully we never have to go through again.”

“I watch it back quite frequently, actually,” Bekker revealed. “I look back with loads of emotions. I do look back and we were so happy with the score. It was our first time hitting 100 and I didn’t even look at the placement. It was actually not until we got backstage where we saw the scores and how close it was.”

“We’d had an extended lift (deduction) during the season,” Hernandez said. “In training we had been practicing so we would not get another extended lift. You know when it’s long and I was shocked to see (the deduction) because I was sure it wasn’t a long one. It was quick. It was one of the quickest ones I’ve done. I had that gut feeling and then when we checked with the footage that we had available, it sort of confirmed that it was not over. But these things happen. Mistakes happen. It happens all the time in freestyle. We’ve seen it at Nationals loads. Our coach (Nick Buckland) tried to go and appeal. He couldn’t. Our team leader had to be with us because we were in mixed zone. Phebe was under 18 at the time and so our team leader couldn’t leave us, but then Nick wasn’t allowed to get to the judges without the team leader. It was a very awkward situation, and he was desperately trying, and I think just couldn’t get there in time. Who knows even if he had got there in time, what could have been done? All I remember is that the teams in the top group, we all skated so insanely well. Everybody deserved to be in the mix there.

“If you ask anyone else the same, we all deserved to be on those top positions,” Bekker said. “It was such a shame that there were four of us. We’re getting over it and we’re very excited for our future. We have a lot of opportunities that many people don’t, and we’re very excited. We’re ready to take them and run with them.”

All three teams that finished above them at 2023 Junior Worlds also turned Senior this season and received Grand Prix assignments last autumn. While Bekker and Hernandez set their main goals for this season as qualifying for Europeans and Worlds, they had hoped to get invited to a Grand Prix event. Unfortunately, these aspirations were dashed.

“Understandably there’s often a transition period where people competing Junior are finding their feet in Senior and we really didn’t want to take our time to do that which is why we said we want to go to Europeans and Worlds,” Hernandez said. “In doing that you have to get scores, but that was a very blanket goal. We didn’t want to disappear into Senior, and I don’t feel like we have. Now we know where we can slot in, and we know what we have to do.”

“Obviously, we were very disappointed not getting any Grand Prix allocation,” Bekker said.

“That was what made the result at Junior Worlds difficult because we took our time off season,” Hernandez said. “We worked on new stuff, and the carrot of Europeans and Worlds. We had something to work towards and we could move on from Junior Worlds. Then the Grand Prix allocations came out. We weren’t expecting to get one, but then a lot of people withdrew. I remember a weekend when there was a team that withdrew from NHK Trophy. We’d found out we were really high up on the reserve list. We spent all weekend nonstop refreshing our phones just waiting, talking to our federation. We were so disappointed as we really want to compete in Asia.”

“It wasn’t even Asia,” Bekker said. “It was just the fact that we could have had a chance to compete at any Grand Prix. It was very disappointing not getting any of the reserve spots. That was something that really affected us as well. I think that it just hit very close to home because of the Junior Worlds result.”

“We saw the people that we were directly compared to last year competing at these big events,” Hernandez said.

“While we try not to dwell on it, it is obviously still in the back of my head and we try to go on from it,” Bekker said. “It would have affected our season greatly in a better way. It would have made us way more prepared for these huge ISU events. It would have given us a lot more traction, given us better international scores, higher rankings, World scores, everything. It’s been a big hurdle to overcome.”

Bekker and Hernandez put a lot of thought into the programmes that they would perform in their maiden season as Seniors. For the 1980s themed rhythm dance, they chose a selection of songs by Prince and their free dance is to music by Muse. Their coaches Penny Coomes and Nick Buckland also skated to Muse during their competitive career. Bekker and Hernandez insist the choice is purely coincidental.

“We were thinking of Muse and not even just inspiration from Nick and Penny,” Bekker said. “We love that music, and we really connect to it.”

“The free dance we kind of slightly struggled over time to find,” Hernandez said. “We played around with a few different ideas and honestly played our current free dance music and thought that it hit quite well and in an arena it really does. The rhythm dance was tough because everyone’s gone in different directions with 80s. We wanted something just powerful. There was a lot of music that didn’t feel like it could transfer to an ice rink, and I think that’s why you’re seeing a lot of fairly similar music.

“It was really hard to be original,” Bekker said. “You want something that’s powerful, and you want something that’s strong, but you also want to make it fun and upbeat. You also have to listen to it for a whole year and some of the songs I was listening to I was already fed up with it.”

“We’ve enjoyed seeing the different paths everyone’s taken,” Hernandez said.

“I put pressure on the fact that we’re doing Prince because so many people are doing Prince this year,” Bekker said. “I think putting that pressure on it I don’t know if it’s benefited or not. It’s taking it and doing it in your own way and just not comparing it to anyone else’s. We’re skating to different music, different concepts, different choreography, different elements, and you’ve just got to own it.”

The newness of Bekker and Hernandez’s partnership means they are still finding their feet artistically when it comes to programme choices, although they have some ideas of which directions they would like to go.

“We’re still figuring out what that absolute niche is,” Hernandez said. “We’re young and I think we also don’t want to do something that doesn’t suit us because then you’re just putting yourself at a disadvantage. We’re not afraid to do the greats of skating. We did ‘Four Seasons’, and we’ve done Prince, but we will pick music every year that we think will suit us but will be a challenge. I think as we’re gaining experience with skating, we’re also getting mental maturity with what we’re picking and how we portray that.

“As a team, I think we take pride in the fact that we are quite versatile and that we can pick a lot of different music that I think will suit us,” Bekker said. “I think whatever we do pick I feel like we go for it. We loved our rhythm dance last year. We got a lot of good feedback and we loved competing it. I’ve always loved Swan Lake. I know that’s so overdone. It would be a dream to compete that. There are so many things to choose from, but then you want to be original as well. It’s hard to find the right balance. It’s very hard to find the perfect thing.”

Bekker and Hernandez both moved to the United States as teenagers on their own and are based in Aston, New Jersey where they train with coaches 2014 European bronze medallists Penny Coomes and Nick Buckland. Unlike many of their rivals, they do not train with many other ice dance teams.

“We’ve made a lovely system around us and that helps us get through,” Hernandez said. “We train alone, but we have a Brazilian team that we’re really good friends with that come and train sort of part time because they’re still at college. We train with a lot of free skaters. We bring in different people every year to improve us as dancers and skaters. We seem to have got that right the past few years and it makes you feel supported.”

“It was a tryout at the end of the day,” Bekker said about coming to the U.S. to train. “I moved to America and then it was a case of let’s see how this goes. We were very lucky it worked out.”

“I remember saying to Penny, ‘Hang on. She’s coming all this way. What happens if it just doesn’t look right,” Hernandez recalled. “I think you just got on and skated round and me and Penny just did a nod and that was the all clear for it being brilliant. I was fully aware what a big decision it was when Phebe moved at 15. I remember I did a little bit of training in Germany when I was 15, but no longer than three or four weeks. I remember towards the end of those three or four weeks, I would start to get quite homesick. At that age, I just felt like that quite a lot. She kind of just jumped into it straight away.”

“I think my family was a bit upset that I didn’t miss them,” Bekker laughed. “I feel like I’ve always been the type to just adapt to my surroundings and find people that I like being around. I think I adapted pretty well. We do see our families quite a few times a year, especially now that Covid has made things easier with travel. There are times that can be hard, like when my dog passed away. I can’t imagine what James went through. Things like that where you can’t be with your family and it’s sad.”

“Training as an athlete is really difficult,” Hernandez said. “Credit to everyone that does it.”

“The life lessons that it’s given me moving away at such a young age is something that I would never be able to get anywhere else,” Bekker said. “When I see my parents and my family again, it makes it so much more special and makes you realise how much you really love them.”

Naturally, Bekker and Hernandez will have differences of opinion from time to time, but for the most part they feel like they have established a good connection with each other from skating together over the past three seasons.

“We went from strangers to then very quickly spending a lot of time at the beginning just to try and see how things worked out,” Hernandez said. “Ultimately, we’ve now been through some of the hardest things that can happen in someone’s life, like losing a family member and a dog, to being in the most pressurised environment at these competitions, to just everyday training. In such a short space of time, we’ve seen each other through all of these huge life events. Turning 18, turning 21 – all these things that are key moments in your life that if you were to write a timeline at the end would be part of them. It’s what I love about our relationship maybe more than anything. When the going gets tough, we just really strengthen together. When we’re on the ice before our names are announced, we don’t need words. We’re on the same page. We can feel that. I think all of our horrible things and great things that have happened have contributed to that. We’re not surface level. We have a deep level of understanding and appreciation, but as two very different people.”

“As with any other team, we do bicker as well,” Bekker said. “I think that’s one thing that everyone struggles with that. We work through it, and I think that that’s what makes us such a strong partnership. We’re not afraid to hear each other’s opinions and there’s nothing that we don’t want to share. To work through that is such a valuable skill in life, to be able to work with someone that closely going through the high pressures, the lowest lows and the highest highs.”

“It’s almost worth more than a marriage,” Hernandez said.

“Partnerships are like marriages because you don’t like each other most of the time,” Bekker laughed.

“But you have to be incredibly strong for each other,” Hernandez added.

Any British ice dance team have the burden of coming from a country with such a rich legacy in the sport. Coincidentally, Bekker shares a birthday with Christopher Dean (27 July) and Hernandez’s birthday (15 October) is just eight days apart from Jayne Torvill’s (7 October), making for an auspicious combination of a Leo and a Libran. With teammates Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson currently contending for medals at ISU Championships, Bekker and Hernandez have the expectation and belief that their time will come as well.

“We see our future at a very high standard,” Bekker said. “We both know how good we can be and there’s nothing holding us back. We’ve got a great team. We’ve got great family to support us and talent. Honestly, that’s something that you can’t even just be modest about. We are very talented and hard-working. We’ve got everything going for us to be one of the best in the world.”

“We always try to look no further than the competition or the immediate goal ahead,” Hernandez said. “But we always do then see where that fits in to our long term. We really do give 100% to our short-term goal with the view of what we want to do long term, which is those really high standards of being where Lilah and Lewis are now and achieving all those things that British ice dance legends have achieved. We don’t take that lightly. We don’t sacrifice everything we sacrifice with the family time and all of that just to make up the numbers and qualify when we have those high expectations.”

“It’s our passion, but it’s our job at the end of the day,” Bekker said. “It’s something we work our whole lives towards. It’s what we wake up thinking about and go to bed thinking about most days.”

Right now, Bekker and Hernandez have this month’s World Championships on their minds.

“I think our goal will be to go and improve on what we did at Europeans,” Hernandez said. “Even if it’s just one of the lessons we learned and show that on the biggest stage. If it gets bigger than that, then there’ll be more lessons to be learned. I think Europeans has given us a good idea of how to prepare, what to expect for and then how to deliver.”

“Hopefully we are more prepared with skating in front of bigger crowds,” Bekker said. “If we went to Worlds as our first big competition that would have been a little shocking. We’re looking forward to getting ready and showing what we can do when we finally get there.”