When Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea first skated together two years ago, she had never competed internationally and he was technically retired after more than a decade in pairs’ figure skating.
Since teaming up in 2022, Kam and O’Shea won a national title, competed at two world championships and, earlier this month, finished second at Skate America.
They scored 201.73 points at Skate America, a total only two other U.S. pairs have ever bettered in any international event: Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier and Ashley Cain and Timothy LeDuc, the two U.S. teams from the 2022 Olympics who have since stopped skating competitively.
The 2026 U.S. Olympic team will be named in 15 months. Kam and O’Shea, who weren’t a pair when this Olympic cycle began, are now the best in the U.S. with a goal to be considered one of the best in the world by the end of this season.
Each skater feels blessed to have reached this point, but for different reasons. Kam, 19, watched high-level skating growing up — her idols were Yuzuru Hanyu and Yuna Kim — but never imagined competing on those stages.
She was born on Yokota Air Base in Western Tokyo to a mom who was a competitive runner representing Japan and a dad who served in the U.S. Air Force as a surgeon.
Kam grew up in Alaska and trained on the same rink as two-time Canadian Olympian Keegan Messing.
In singles, she was 10th in the juvenile division at nationals in 2018 at age 13. She thought she’d go to college and move on from skating. Then opportunities started coming in pairs.
She and partner Ian Meyh, coached by Drew Meekins in Colorado Springs, were fourth in the 2022 U.S. Championships junior short program, then withdrew before the free skate. They split later that year.
Kam kept training in Colorado Springs but needed a new partner, at least to practice. Enter O’Shea, who by then was retired from competitive skating and helping Meekins as a coach two days per week.
“We skated together a little bit. It was, in a way, to help her get through that time, which can be emotionally pretty hard,” O’Shea said. “In the back of my mind, I was like, this is an opportunity for myself and for us, if it feels easy and feels as good as I think it will, and it did. It was pretty awesome. She’s a rising star, and I latched on.”
O’Shea, now 33, made his senior U.S. Championships debut in pairs in 2013 with Tarah Kayne. Together, Kayne and O’Shea won the national title in 2016 and placed second in 2018, when the U.S. only had one Olympic pairs’ spot after having two or more at every Games since 1928.
Kayne and O’Shea ended their partnership in December 2020 after nearly nine years together. O’Shea initially retired, then paired with Chelsea Liu for the 2021-22 season, coached by Meekins.
In their fourth event together in November 2021, Liu and O’Shea fell hard to the ice coming down from a lift in the free skate. That was their last competitive program together.
O’Shea retired. He stayed in Colorado, began working in real estate and helped out Meekins’ group as a coach and training partner.
“(O’Shea) was like, ‘I’m comfortable if I don’t compete again, but I do still have the desire,'” Meekins said. “‘If the right opportunity comes along, I’d explore it.'”
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It came along when Kam needed somebody to skate with in practice.
“It was pretty clear after the first few days that it was a really good opportunity for them both,” Meekins said.
They officially teamed up in September 2022 and competed five times that season. That included Kam’s first international competition (Ice Challenge in Austria), her first Challenger Series event, first senior U.S. Championships (where they placed third), first Four Continents Championships and first World Championships (where they were 12th).
The two U.S. pairs ahead of them stopped competing (Knierim and Frazier) and were set back by injury (Emily Chan and Spencer Howe) after the 2022-23 campaign.
In 2023-24, Kam and O’Shea withdrew after the short program of their Grand Prix debut due to her injury. In their next competition, they posted the lowest total score of their partnership. Yet they won their following event — the U.S. Championships — and were the top U.S. pair at Four Continents (third overall) and worlds (11th).
The nearly 14-year age difference between Kam and O’Shea is the largest for any U.S. pair to compete at worlds since at least 1990. While O’Shea began their partnership with a decade of top-level experience, Kam felt impostor syndrome as she made the jump into top-level competition with no international experience.
“In pairs, I think to really give a real, true performance, you have to feel like equals,” Meekins said. “I think that part took a little bit longer. … I think it took (Kam) a bit to really feel like she could offer the team as much as he could. And now that I think she feels that way, that they feel like they’re true partners, you really are starting to see them perform to their potential.”
So far this season, they’ve placed first, second and third in their three events with the two highest international scores of their partnership. Their 201.73-point Skate America marked O’Shea’s first time breaking 200 points with any partner. They rank fifth in the world this season by best score, trailing four pairs who own world championships medals.
“I really never thought I was going to be here, so I can really appreciate this opportunity with Danny and appreciate how lucky I am to be able to be in this situation and be here skating,” Kam said.
Kam and O’Shea’s goal this season is to be considered among the world elite. With a podium finish at their next event, NHK Trophy in Kam’s birth country, they will likely qualify for the most exclusive competition in the sport: December’s Grand Prix Final takes the top six in the world per discipline.
Only three U.S. pairs have qualified for the Grand Prix Final over the last 14 editions: Knierim and her husband, Chris, in 2015 and Knierim and Frazier and Chan and Howe in 2022.
Then in 2026, Kam can become the youngest U.S. Olympic pairs’ skater since 2014. O’Shea, who turns 35 during the Milan-Cortina Games, can become the oldest U.S. Olympic pairs’ skater since 1932 and the oldest figure skater from any country to make an Olympic debut since 1948, according to the OlyMADMen.
“Being on an Olympic team in 16 months would be absolutely amazing, but to be honest with you, at this point, I’m just so happy to enjoy the ride, enjoy the journey,” O’Shea said. “I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to be out here again, to be medaling in a Grand Prix and to be pushing myself to limits that I have not achieved in the past. So, yes, I would love to make the Olympic team, and that is the goal, right? I won’t shy away from that. On top of that, I’m going to do it while really enjoying the process.”
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