Florham Park Skaters Take Home Gold at Nationals

The skaters at Florham Park Roller Rink's hard work paid off this summer when 11 traveled to nationals, with two of those skaters taking home gold medals.

Gillian Muldoon, 9, of West Caldwell, secured first place in the Elementary C Combined Figures and Loops event, and Elinor Dowd, 13, of Blairstown, won the gold in the Juvenile/Elementary B girls freestyle event at the USA Roller Sports Figure Skating National Championships held in July in Lincoln, Neb.

Both skaters represent the Florham Park Figure Skating Club that practices at the rink.

The national meet has roller figure skaters competing in one or more categories for Freeskating, Figures, Loops, Solo Dance, Team Dance, Precision and Show Skating.

In Muldoon's event, under the figures and loops category, she had to skate over a series of circles painted on the rink while doing a variety of difficult take offs, edges and turns. Dowd competed under the Freestyle category, where she skated jumps, spins, and a choreographed routine to music, similar to how Olympic figure skating is.

The skaters are judged on their content and performance. In the figures event, Muldoon was judged on her tracing, pace and body position, and in the freestyle event, Dowd was judged on her technical skills and her artistic interpretation of the music.

Muldoon competed against 19 other skaters for her Elementary C loop elimination, and against 37 other skaters for her Elementary C figure elimination, where she qualified for finals in both. Although she slipped out of medal contention in the finals, her scores were high enough to win a gold in the combined event.

Muldoon's coach, Scott Bartell, of Whippany, said he was shocked and very proud of Muldoon when he found out she took gold.

"I was very surprised," Bartell said. "I was real happy with her performance in the eliminations, especially at her young age for her first trip out to nationals."

Muldoon at 9 years old, competed with skaters at ages 11 and 12 because her age group does not go to nationals.

Muldoon has been training with Bartell for a year and a half, after only starting to skate two years ago. This was Muldoon's first trip to nationals, and at age nine she had the coaches pleasantly surprised with her gold medal win.

Dowd, who returned to Nationals for ther fourth year and is coached by Kristen Taylor, skated against 21 other competitors on July 25 and qualified for the final, where she ultimately won gold. This was Dowd's second National title after earning a silver medal in 2010.

Taylor, who has been coaching Dowd for five years since she started, said she was very happy to see her win the gold, and said she has enjoyed watching her improve over the years.

"I could tell after her very first lesson that she was going to be good," Taylor said. "She just has a natural knack for it, and throughout the years she just keeps progressing at a steady rate."

Both Muldoon and Dowd have older sisters who traveled to the National meet in July as well. Muldoon's sister, Michaela, 14, and Dowd's sister, Emily, 15, also competed in the finals.

The skaters are still practicing for future competitions. The next big meet after Nationals is World's, which Muldoon and Dowd both hope to qualify for one day.

This year's World Championships are going to be in Auckland New Zealand from October 1-13.

New Jersey is part of the Eastern Region of USA Roller Sports, which includes Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.