Above: Audrey Shin and Balazs Nagy execute a daring lift at the 2025 U.S. Championships.
By Lynn Rutherford
This week, Audrey Shin and Balazs Nagy have the chance to help Team USA do something it hasn’t done since 1984: bring 18 athletes — three entries in each of the four figure skating disciplines — to the Olympics.
The pair will represent the U.S. at the ISU’s “Skate to Milano” Olympic qualifying competition, held Sept. 18–21 in Beijing. The event is the final opportunity for countries to earn figure skating spots for the upcoming Games, after the main qualification at the 2025 World Figure Skating Championships in Boston. Three pair entries are up for grabs.
“We look at it as a huge opportunity,” Shin, 21, said. “We’re motivated to do our best there. A lot of responsibility comes with it, but as long as we stay focused, I think we can handle the pressure. We’ve been training well and working hard the last few months.”
“At the end of the day, we need to treat it like any other big competition, and control what we can control,” Nagy, 27, added.
The opportunity comes just 18 months into their partnership, and less than two years after Shin, the 2019 U.S. junior silver medalist, began practicing pairs skills.
“We’ve been working and preparing for this assignment all summer long, because the goal was to peak in China, even before we knew we were going,” Meagan Duhamel, who with husband Bruno Marcotte coaches the skaters in Oakville, Ontario, said. “Their goal has to be to go there and just get it done. If they focus on their job — which we know they can do — and skate well, then they will be rewarded with one of those spots.”
U.S. ice dancers, women and men each had three entries compete at the 2025 World Championships. These disciplines qualified three Olympic entries outright, by virtue of the placements of the top two finishers adding up to 13 or less.
The U.S. pairs entries in Boston — Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov, and Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea — placed sixth and seventh, respectively. Their 13 points earned Team USA an entry to the qualifier, where the top three pairs’ finishers will gain Olympic berths for their countries.
“It’s amazing we’re getting the chance to try to slate a full team,” Justin Dillon, U.S. Figure Skating senior director of athlete high performance, said. “We are the only country with the chance to do so, which is exciting. With that said, there are a lot of good skaters competing in China, so [gaining a spot] will require Audrey and Balazs to skate as strongly as they did, both at Glacier Falls [Summer Classic] and then at Champs Camp.”
When they teamed up in the spring of 2024, both skaters were in transition. Shin had just finished ninth at the 2024 U.S. Figure Skating Championships and was eager to try pairs. Nagy’s former partner, Chelsea Liu, had recently announced she was taking a break from the sport.
“Even though it was tough at times learning these new elements, I was excited to go in every day, and I was determined,” Shin said. “And it was actually quite fun. I found a new passion in skating, and I think that’s what I needed. It was super tough, and I had my doubts, but I’m glad I pushed through.”
The skaters made their international debut at 2024 Golden Spin of Zagreb, winning bronze. They were a strong fifth at the 2025 U.S. Championships and went on to compete at the 2025 Four Continents Championships, where a disappointing free skate left them in 11th place.
“The worst competition of our lives,” Nagy said, groaning.
“We sat down with our coaches after and reviewed everything, talked about what went wrong, and made adjustments for this season,” Shin said. “Obviously, you don’t dwell on it. But I think because of that competition, we’re able to communicate better.”
Improving the triple twist was goal one this summer.
“They came home from Four Continents frustrated with that experience and open to working hard, not wanting to have that type of experience again, which is normal for new teams,” Duhamel said. “And we worked on the twist a lot, because last year they just had a double twist and then a very, very rocky triple.”
“It all comes down to communication during the program — how much do I share? Is this too much, or too little? — and kind of finding the right balance,” Nagy said.
The skaters traveled to Florida for choreography this spring, to work with John Kerr on a short program set to music from The Godfather, and John Zimmerman and Silvia Fontana for a free skate to “Two Men in Love” by the Irrepressibles.
“[The Godfather] idea was floated, because with the Olympics being in Italy, it is such a memorable soundtrack,” Kerr said. “And when I saw them, they were obviously super capable. So I threw a lot at them, in terms of steps, and we did a lot of repetitions to create the flow.”
“We’ve given them a bit more mature, intricate choreography, and worked on the consistency of the other pair elements, like the spins and steps,” Duhamel said. “We’re working on tweaking those things, but they have the look. They’ve got all the great tricks when they put it together.”
Observers at Champs Camp, held in Norwood, Massachusetts, in August, agreed with Duhamel. A simulated pairs competition, with complete technical panel equipment, technical panel and judges was held. Shin and Nagy won both the short program and free skate events.
“We communicated to our entire pairs community that the simulation at Champs Camp would lead to the qualifying spot,” Dillon said. “When they won, Audrey and Balazs were selected.”
After Champs Camp, Kerr traveled to Oakville for some tweaks to their programs. They elected to compete at the John Nicks Pairs International in New York City Sept. 2–3, where they placed seventh.
“Our goal was to get additional practice competing,” Nagy said. “(Nicks) was a great opportunity to do that, keep developing the programs, keep pressure testing things.”
“They went back and forth on whether to compete, and decided to go for the practice, which I think was good,” Dillon said. “It gave them the opportunity to go home afterward and get in a full week of work before heading to Beijing.”
In China, Shin and Nagy will square off against pairs from 10 other countries. Their toughest competition could come from Jiaxuan Zhang and Yihang Huang of China, the reigning Junior Grand Prix Final champions, as well as Japan’s Yuna Nagaoka and Sumitada Moriguchi, who recently won bronze at the 2025 Kinoshita Group Cup.
Like the other 10 pairs, Shin and Nagy have powerful motivation: a trip to the Milano Cortina Games. Gaining a third U.S. entry would make that trip far more likely.
“I’ve wanted to go to the Olympics as long as I can remember,” Nagy said. “Absolutely, that is our goal, and that’s why we go to the rink every day and work hard.”
“We have to have the mindset that we are going to the Olympic Games,” Shin said. “That’s the goal, and that’s what we want.”
