Like many students at the University of Michigan, Kristina Bland and Matthew Sperry are exhaling after finishing their exams for the fall semester. Unlike other college students, they’re not heading off on vacation. Bland, 18, and Sperry, 20, are an ice dance team and will compete at the 2023 U.S. Figure Skating Championships that will take place in San Jose, California, in January.
“We’re focusing on polishing our programs and doing nitty gritty work, focusing on the details,” said Sperry. “Making sure the synchronicity is on point.”
Bland and Sperry currently compete in the junior ice dance division. This is their second trip to the U.S. Championships as a team; they finished eighth at the 2022 Nationals. This fall, they gained valuable experience when they competed at an ISU Junior Grand Prix event in Poland.
“It was very nice to have a taste of what we could do internationally,” said Bland. “It encouraged us to keep pushing ourselves…to keep getting Grand Prix competitions because it was so much fun. Watching the other teams, we could see how good everyone was, it inspired us to tweak little things in our programs and try to make ourselves even better.”
Bland, who grew up in Michigan, began in synchronized skating (large group). There was a boy on the team, and the coach encouraged them to become an ice dance team. They teamed up and competed for several years. “I fell in love with ice dance from there, ended up quitting synchro and putting all of my energy and focus into ice dance,” she said.
There have been very few Black ice dancers. The upcoming U.S. Championships mark 30 years since Tiffani Tucker and Franklyn Singley became the first Black skaters to medal in ice dance. The only other podium finish at Nationals since then was Nathan Truesdell in 2008 novice dance. Bland and her former partner won the intermediate ice dance title at a separate national event in 2020.
“At this Nationals, I’m just hoping to put out two clean programs; that’s all we can hope for, skating our best,” said Bland. “I’ve tried this year to not stress as much about ‘We have to place. We have to be perfect.’ I want to focus on doing our personal best and putting out two good programs.
“Our rhythm dance is very different,” she added. “I haven’t this year seen anyone with our music or the way we structured the program. … In our free dance we have a lot of cool and different moves…that are really fun to do and are satisfying to see them play out well.”