Alexandra Rout: New Zealand’s Ice Princess
Susan D. Russell, International Figure Skating
December, 2007

New Zealand’s rising star Alexandra (“Allie”) Rout realized one of her dreams last September when she claimed both the junior and senior ladies titles at the 2008 New Zealand Championships.

“It was very exciting. It was something I had been working towards for awhile,” Rout said. “It was a little shock when I saw my score and name come up in first place on the scoreboard. I felt proud and satisfied. I had been training hard to do my best in this competition.”

Rout fell in love with skating in a most unusual place. Born in Auckland, New Zealand, the young champion spent her first seven years in the Middle Eastern city of Muscat in the Sultanate of Oman.

“At first, when I was 4 years old, I skated recreationally to escape from the heat, but I also got a chance to dress up and perform in ice shows,” Rout said. “My talent was noticed early on and I was advised to find proper coaching.”

Rout and her parents returned to New Zealand in 2001 and she began training under coach Slava Kuznetov.

At her Junior Grand Prix debut at Croatia Cup in late September, Rout skated into fifth in the short, eighth in the long and took seventh place overall in a field of 32 aspiring young stars. Rout earned a combined score of 115.17 points.

“It was a real surprise to place so high,” Rout said. “It was a huge achievement for me at my first Junior Grand Prix event. I had only been to two other international competitions before, both at age group level, and that was over two years ago. So I was very pleased with my result.”

Inspired by her result at the event in Zagreb, Rout, 14, is training harder than ever. She has been selected to represent New Zealand at the 2008 Junior World Championships in Bulgaria next February.

Rout said her focus is to keep improving and master all of the triple jumps. “I enjoy the challenges skating gives me on a daily basis,” she said. “I also enjoy watching and helping some of the younger skaters at my rink and being a role model to them — this keeps me grounded on the days when things aren’t going as well as I would like.”

Her long-term goal is to represent New Zealand at the Winter Olympics. “To win a place to go to the 2010 Olympics would be one of the highlights of my life,” she said.