(12 October 2013)  Buoyed up by their win, for the second straight year, in the U.S. Figure Skating Classic in Salt Lake City, Kristin Moore-Towers & Dylan Moscowitz said their preparation training was going well, in contrast to the beginning of the season when everything failed to jell at Skate Detroit. Moore-Towers admitted, “We have had one, not good, simulation. Detroit was just a fluke. We just needed more training with the programs.”

The 21-year-old, who teamed up with Moscowitz, who is now 29, for the 2010 season, explained further, “We got our programs out very early and we were very pleased about that. But this season, being the Olympics, you want your very best, and we didn’t feel we were getting the maximum. They just didn’t seem very “Olympic”, so we went back to last year’s Short, which is to Motley Crew by R. Beau.

“We had worked on ‘Sing! Sing! Sing!’ but that just didn’t seem Olympic enough, and some of the ice dancers were already using it for their Short Dance. And then we also scrapped our new Free. It was an interesting piece, but I didn’t think the ending was powerful enough and I wasn’t really relating to it. Now, we are skating to music from Fellini movies. It finishes with music from La Strada. We finally got what we wanted but it was pretty stressful going through the process. We wanted the very best, but when we started looking, we didn’t really know what that would be. In a way, going through this roundabout method, we learned a lot and we were able to ramp up for the season and find our grove.”

Her partner has always been on skates. His parents took him to the ice rink when he was just 13-months old, expecting to carry him around. But the staff wouldn’t let them. They found him some tiny skates and he began his long career, held up very tightly on both sides!  His first partner was his sister, Kyra, but she grew to 5’7” which is very tall for this discipline and then she hurt her back. The current duo teamed up in the spring of 2009.

At the World Championship in London Ontario in March, they very nearly got the bronze. Wasn’t that disappointing, being so close to the podium and a medal? They both agreed that it, absolutely, was not. They were skating in front of a home-country crowd and they did well. She said, “The previous season, we finished only fourth nationally and didn’t get onto the World team. That was disappointing! So this time, we really appreciated where we finished.

The Chinese have shown that you can still be a top pair skater, well into your mid-thirties. So will Moore-Towers & Moscovitch continue on to the next Olympic Games in South Korea in 2018?

They said they certainly had not ruled that out, but, he explained, “You can’t look too far ahead. You have to concentrate on what your goals are at the moment. But I certainly can’t see why not.” She said, “We’ve definitely talked about it. It really is an exciting possibility. But, as of now, we have to live in the moment. We won’t know until January who will be picked for the team.”

This season has already had some interesting new experiences because they are being invited to mix with other winter sport athletes, and they are getting exposed to what these other sports athletes do to stay in shape, and what are the demands of their sport.

I had heard Moscovitch collects Samurai swords. Was that true. "I have two hanging on my wall. They make an interesting decoration," he admitted. Burglers take note: Give this guy's digs a miss!!