Team USA figure skater Liam Kapeikis, 20, of Blaine, is perfecting his quadruple jump before heading to the 2025 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas January 20-26.
Kapeikis has been practicing at the Richmond Olympic Oval in Richmond, B.C. with his coach Keegan Murphy to regain momentum after last year’s championship. In the 2024 U.S. Championships, Kapeikis placed 13th, his worst finish at the senior level in a national championship.
“The last couple seasons have not been the best, and that’s just been due to a lack of consistency,” Kapeikis said. “I had to start adding in these harder elements that make the whole package much harder.”
Adding quadruple jumps into his rotation has been a change Kapeikis has made over the last couple of seasons.
“A couple years ago, I was doing a lot of clean programs and winning a lot with easier elements,” Kapeikis said. “But with those elements, I would not be able to continue pushing forward and win even bigger competitions.”
His best finish in a U.S. Figure Skating Championship came in 2022 when he placed 7th in his senior debut. The placement came after Kapeikis had hit a rough patch in his skating career due to the pandemic and a loss of motivation.
“I was either going to quit or come back and skate and work 10 times harder. So I came back,” Kapeikis said. “I worked 10 times harder and then got nationals.”
In a sport where you are judged by your mistakes there can be overwhelming pressure on skaters. Murphy has trained the body and mind of Kapeikis in order to compete on the national stage.
“It’s going to be messy and sweaty. Some things are going to hurt sometimes and being OK with that allows the training and the progress to really take place,” Murphy said. “Every high-performance athlete wants to nail it every day, all the time. But of course that’s not realistic.”
Growing up in Wenatchee, Kapeikis began skating at two and wanted to play hockey. When hockey didn’t seem to be in the cards for his size, he ended up taking to the family sport: figure skating.
His mother Louise and father Paul are both figure skating coaches who both worked for Disney on Ice. Louise is a Skate Canada and U.S. Figure Skating coach with 30 years of experience who works at the Connaught Skating Club in Richmond, B.C. Paul works for the Wenatchee Figure Skating Club and has over 35 years of coaching experience.
“The first 15 years of my skating career, both my parents played the roles of coaches,” Kapeikis said. “That becomes very hard because they need to be coaches at the rink and parents at home.”
Through their guidance, Kapeikis has raised himself into one of the highest competitive groups in U.S. figure skating. He’s competed alongside Olympians at competitions like the 2022 U.S. National Championship in Nashville, where they were selecting athletes for the Winter Olympics that year in Beijing.
“Being able to be on the ice with athletes going to the Olympics is extremely motivating,” Kapeikis said. “It makes it so clear what the path is. You can see where you want to be when you’re out there with those skaters.”
At the Richmond Olympic Oval, Kapeikis shares the ice with other highly talented skaters. He is the only skater going to the U.S. nationals this year, but eight skaters he trains with qualified for the Canadian National Skating Championships.
For Kapeikis, his goal is to be the best he can – which means going to the Olympics.
“I’m not necessarily in a position where it’s obvious that I would go to the Olympics, but I’m not in a position where it’s completely out of the picture,” Kapeikis said.
In order to keep his name in the Olympics conversation, he will have to perform well at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
“I feel good,” Murphy said. “I feel like we’re peaking at the right moment.”
If Kapeikis cannot make the 2026 Olympics in Italy, he plans on sharpening his blades and skills for 2030.
Kapeikis will compete at the senior men’s short program on Saturday, January 25 and the senior men’s free skate on Sunday, January 26. All championship and junior-level events will be livestreamed on Peacock.
“I want to prove that I am still a contender for the coming Olympics,” Kapeikis said.
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