Practice

Here at the Olympic Base Westfalenhallen Dortmund we train every day.

The Ice Sports Center Westfalenhallen provides excellent conditions for competitive athletes in figure skating. It consists of two rinks which are interconnected. Rink 1 is the practice rink shown in the pictures; it is almost exclusively available for the figure skaters of the Olympic Training Center. The broadly glazed facade provides a view into the greenery and a pleasant atmosphere for training. Moreover, running the ice rink is eco-friendly since part of the power is generated by a solar plant on the roof. On Rink 2, on the other hand, ice hockey, public skating and the practices of Dortmund's skating clubs take turns.

Video from our practice of Oktober 2007

At the moment an ordinary training day looks like this:

We train six times a week, 2-3 hours on the ice each day, and we take Sundays off. This is not always easy, but most of the time everything works out somehow...

On an ordinary day, we get up at about 6 a.m. and then head to school and to college. While Carolina takes the bus to Goethe Gymnasium, Daniel has to drive approximately 35 km by car to his college in Iserlohn. When school finishes at 2 p.m., Carolina usually goes home for a quick meal. She also starts doing her homework then. Daniel normally eats at college and usually doesn't return until 4 p.m.

Then we go to the rink by bike. After a 20-minute warm-up we have our first training on the ice from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. During this hour, we first stroke around the rink before we start practicing the compulsory dances. This season, these are Paso Doble, Viennese Waltz and Finnstep (the new Quickstep). Afterwards, we have additional training. That's either ballet/dance training or conditioning training, which takes about an hour, after which we have our second training session on the ice.

This session usually includes free dance and original dance practices. At 9 p.m. at the lastest we are done on the ice. At the end we do some stretching and then go back to our small apartment-sharing community where we do the rest of our homework or prepare for the next day.

On Saturdays we start at 10 a.m. On those days we have a two-phase training, though, so that we don't get home until 5 p.m. Most of the time, Saturday is the most exhausting day of the week, but the pleasant anticipation of meeting friends or just doing nothing on Sunday prevails.

Our day becomes particularly stressful whenever we have to cope with additional tasks besides the everyday things. That's why the weekly shopping, for example, always gets delayed to Saturday, and other things can take a little longer sometimes as well...