Belgium’s Loena Hendrickx has made history more than once and is the most successful skater from her country. She is a European Champion, two-time World medalist, Grand Prix Final medalist, Grand Prix event Champion … However, there is more to her career than just medals. Loena had to overcome many challenges on her way to the top and she is a role model for young skaters from all over the world.

The off-season was busy for Loena with shows for example in Japan, Canada and a visit in Paris during the Olympic Games – including some roller skating around the Eiffel Tower. Obviously, the preparation for the new season and the work on new programs continued nevertheless. Hendrickx revealed her new music in July: For the Short Program, she picked the jazzy “Black and Gold” by Brenna Withaker and for the Free “Believe” by Madilyn Bailey. Her long-time choreographer Adam Solya once again created these programs for her.

The process of creating a new program takes some time from the selection of the music to fine-tuning every detail. “Jorik was already searching music before Worlds and was putting on different kind of styles on the ice,” Loena said about the Short Program. “We immediately liked the song, the kind of style as well. It's also a style that I've never done before, but it's also not as crazy as last year because that was really a different style.”

The editing of the music plays an important part as well, to enhance it and to make sure it perfectly suits Loena’s skating. Hendrickx and her brother and coach Jorik as well as Solya have been working together with music designer Hugo Chouinard from Canada. It is not always easy when everyone is in a different time zone like this April, when Loena was in Europe, Jorik attended a camp in Australia and Chouinard was at home in Canada.

For her Free Skating, the European Champion was looking for a softer, more lyrical style this time. “For the free now I want to put more attention on my skating skills because the Vogue program was a lot with the arms and it took away a bit of my skating skills,” she explained. “The attention was really on the vogueing. In the free program we want to show to everyone that I don't have to hide my skating skills behind the choreography so that's something we want to focus on.

“It's the feedback from the audience, from skating people. They were telling me that I try to hide myself behind the choreo because my programs are full of choreo. However, that is what makes a program way harder to skate. If you don't have so much choreo, a free program is easier to skate. With a lot of choreo, it's harder for your condition, the breathing. I think many people in the audience don't really know this part because they think I try to hide my skating skills. But that's not what it is, it's just to make my program even harder. So now I just want to show them something else. This is what I like to do from the beginning on - I just tried to go out of my comfort zone, show them that I'm not only a skater who can skate on one type of music.

I want to show as well that I'm very open for any style.”

Winning the European title was a big goal that Hendrickx achieved last January. “I think I was living towards this goal for two years now because last year Europeans (2023) I didn't accomplish my goal,” the 24-year-old commented. “So this year I really felt that I really had to go for it. Living two years towards one goal is just very tiring for my body. Also mentally it was very hard and I started the (past) season with a lot of hesitations because the summer wasn't easy for me. I lost a lot of jumps and I lost the confidence and I was training and training and it didn't happen so there was a few moments that I was hesitating if I ever could come back to my level but because of the love of the sport I just never gave up. I just continued and continued and then I had on my mind - if the first competition didn't go as I was hoping then maybe it's just over but then I did a very good first competition. First Japan Open and then also Skate America so I was like, okay I still got it.”

When there are problems and difficulties, it is important to analyze what caused them in order to avoid them in the future. Loena believes that she was not used to do so many shows which eventually led to her struggling in training.

“Now I know what I have to do when I'm at the shows. At that moment I was like okay I'm doing shows and I will fully live my life and enjoy everything. I will eat whatever I want and just do whatever I want. No I just know that that it's not like that. If you still want to be in shape the next year you have to pay attention to everything even in the off –season,” the European Champion noted.

“If I just train in the off –season, then I can eat whatever I want but not when the training load is much less than normally. It's not that I was gaining a lot of weight but my muscles went down and the fat went up - so it was a bit the same level of weight but it was in a different way. So I think that was the thing when I started (full training) I gained muscles again and then that's when I became heavier and I had to lose weight again, lose the fat and it was hard but I I managed to do it. I also heard a lot of people who were doing the shows that they also struggled with this and that they now know how to deal with it.”

“Then Europeans came and I accomplished my goal,” Loena continued. There was a new challenge before the World Championships as the skater suffered from a hip injury. She won the Short Program and eventually finished fourth.

“Actually Worlds was beyond my expectations because the week before I was hesitating to come because I couldn't train,” Hendrickx noted. “I wasn't ready at all for it but I just wanted to be there and enjoy the competition and then I skated my short and didn't know what happened at that moment. That was great, it was just mind -blowing also for me because it was just not what I expected as I really had a hard time going into Worlds. With the injury I didn't have enough practice but I knew for a short program it's still okay. I've had all the practices before so it's not that I didn't work for it. However, if you didn't do run-throughs, the short program is still easy to do clean. So I was sure that I could do a good short program but I didn't expect it was that good and then because of that I got a lot of hope. However, I knew in the back of my head that it would be impossible to do a good free program. I think after all I can be very happy and I'm very proud of myself that I still accomplished to be fourth because before I wasn't even sure if I could go.”

Even with all the success she had, Hendrickx stays motivated to train hard and to continue to compete at the highest level.

“I think my love of the sport is just too big to just quit and I cannot imagine a life without skating, without training at the moment”, she shared. “Sometimes it's hard because I'm getting older, my body is getting older as well, everything is harder. When I was much younger I didn't have to warm up and I could do triples on the ice immediately but everything changed. Now I really have to warm up to be able to do just double jumps. That's just how it goes when you're getting older. Everything is more sore and you don't feel your body if it's not warmed up.”

In the past few years figure skating has started to change with more young women and less tiny teenagers at the top. The ISU has gradually raised the minimum age to 17 for senior-level competitions and Russia that used to put out every year a new wunderkind has been banned since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Among the top ten women at the 2024 World Championships, seven were 18 years or older and three of these seven (Kaori Sakamoto, Loena Hendrickx, Amber Glenn) were over 20.

Hendrickx is happy about this development. “I think it's nicer to watch it because they're real women and for me I also admire them more because at the moment now I know how hard it is,” she pointed out. “When I was young, I didn't realize it. It didn't matter if there was a 16-year-old girl or a 24-year-old girl, for me was the same. But now I'm getting older and I just know and I also feel how hard it is and that's why I also admire it more. I also think you can really see all the experience they have and you can see the difference between a less experienced skater and an experienced skater.”

Looking ahead, Loena has set new and different goals for herself. “For me the main goal for next season is that I just want to enjoy the competitions more,” she said. “I want to try to put less pressure on myself because I did accomplish almost everything I want and I think it's hard to accomplish even more. Of course, I still want to be at the top, but I think I've accomplished already so much that I just have to enjoy the sport more. I want to be more like Jason (Brown). He used to feel like ‘I have to be at the top of the US’ and ‘I have to go to worlds and this and that’. And now he's open -minded about it and just wants to enjoy and it works. So that's what I want to do for next year and still get good results.”

For now, Loena Hendrickx has been assigned to the ISU Grand Prix events in Angers, France and in Helsinki, Finland.