Above: Katarina Suemnig gains fame from her "chicken jockey" routine at National Showcase. Photo by Melanie Heaney
By Kama Stigall
What do you get when you combine figure skating, an inflatable chicken costume and a pop hit from the 1980s? Answer: A viral video with millions of views.
Katarina Suemnig, a 10-year-old skater from Plymouth, Minnesota, used the “chicken jockey” character from the 2025 film A Minecraft Movie as inspiration for her routine at 2025 U.S. Figure Skating National Showcase in Rochester, Michigan. She earned two medals at the event — a gold and a bronze.
“This was my first year competing in Showcase,” said Suemnig, who belongs to the Starlight Ice Dance Club of Minneapolis and is coached by Mandy Pirich. “Not very many people do it where I’m from, so I didn’t know it existed before. I’m glad I do now!”
Suemnig is a fan of the popular computer game Minecraft. After she qualified to compete at National Showcase in the lyrical pop category, she decided to create a routine based on the game.
“I took my family to see the movie when it came out,” she said. “My sister Heike and I thought it would be funny to see me skate in an inflatable as a ‘chicken jockey.’”
Katarina’s mother, Sarah Suemnig, was enthusiastic about her daughter’s unconventional program choice.
“I loved the idea of chicken jockey,” Sarah said. “She and her friends play together a lot online when she’s not on the ice or at school, so it’s really bringing several of her favorite things together: gaming, skating and entertaining an audience.”
When it came time to pick a song for the routine, she suggested a well-known song from an iconic 1980’s film.
“I suggested that maybe if Katarina made it funny on multiple levels, it might resonate better with anyone who doesn’t know about the chicken jockey trend from the Minecraft movie,” Sarah said. “We all agreed that the absurdity of a hero riding in to save the day on a chicken was funny, whether you know about Minecraft or not. We found Bonnie Tyler’s epic song (‘Holding Out For a Hero’) that played during the high-stakes game of tractor chicken in the movie Footloose, and it was perfect.”
Learning to skate wearing an inflatable costume proved to be a challenge for the young skater.
“The inflatable pulls against you when you skate fast, spin or jump,” Katarina said. “My inflatable didn’t let me separate my legs very far so I had to be careful and couldn’t do any spirals or camel spins. It was also a little hard to find ice time where it was appropriate to skate in a big inflatable. I’m grateful to my home rink (Maple Grove Skating School) for supporting my Chicken Jockey goals.”
Little did they know the competition video would go viral on social media.
“We started this little Instagram account (@katarina.and.misscongeniality) together to teach Katarina how to safely use social media before she was old enough to go out there on her own,” Sarah said. “It was never meant to go global, but the comments have been so overwhelmingly positive.”
The video currently has more than 30 million views and more than 3.5 million likes on Instagram and TikTok.
“We’re pretty typical Midwestern folks,” she said. “It’s been quite something to have media outlets and TV opportunities from both coasts reach out and want to talk to my little fifth grader. She has been featured on ‘Sunday Today with Willie Geist,’ ‘World News Now,’ ‘Good Morning America,’ and ‘ABC News.’ We have been told by fans that she’s been on the news everywhere from South Korea to Australia.”
In a time when good news seems to be in short supply, Katarina is proud fans are finding joy in her skating and shining a spotlight on the sport.
“I hope that I make people happy,” she said. “I am grateful for the opportunity to bring even more global attention to figure skating and the U.S. figure skaters who I look up to going into this Olympic year.”
