Reston Skater Set for Nationals

Updated Story, Monday, 12:40 p.m. - Oleksiy Melnyk is in eighth palce after Sunday's Novice Mens Short Program.  The free skate and final judging will be Monday.

Original Story: 

On almost any afternoon, you can find Oleksiy Melnyk gliding and jumping over the ice at. He is there six days a week, sometimes twice a day, as he prepares for the biggest competition of his young career.

Melnyk, an eighth-grader at will compete in the 2012 U.S. Men's Figure Skating Championships in San Jose this weekend.

Melnyk, 14, earned the entry after finishing fourth in the Eastern Sectionals in November. 

"Some people just think it is a couple of jumps," says Melnyk. "But it is so much more."

In addition to schoolwork, in any given week, Melnyk spends time in ballet class, stretching workouts, ballroom dancing and off-ice conditioning. Still, jumps are his favorite part of his program. He says he is proud to be able to land a triple flip and a triple lutz.

Melnyk skates for the Washington Figure Skating Club and is coached at SkateQuest by his mother, Nataliya Tymoshenko, and Serguei Kouznetsov.

Kouznetsov was the Russian National Silver medalist and just missed making the 1992 and '94 Olympic teams. Tymonshenko, who hails from the Ukraine, was a top-ranked skater there who formerly skated in American ice shows.

Melnyk was already a young skater on the rise regionally when he and his mother moved to Reston three years ago. He started competitive skating at age six. He won his first big title, a Juvenile Regional Championship, at 11.  

Melnyk will skate his long program to The Feeling Begins by Peter Gabriel and his short program to Tango from Moulin Rouge.

Ultimately, Melnyk would like to skate in the Olympics. He says his favorite skater is Alexei Yagudin, the Russian skater who won the gold medal at the 2002 Winter Games.

He would rather be his own Oleksiy, though.

"I usually just try to have my own style," Melnyk says.