American figure skating pair Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc are breaking barriers together. Earlier in January, Cain-Gribble and LeDuc received a 79.39 in their short program at the U.S. Figure Skating
Championships in Nashville, setting a U.S. Figure Skating Championships record. Now fans of the sport are excited to see what the duo will bring to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Here's what to know about the figure skating champions.
How long have Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc been skating together?
In 2016, Cain-Gribble says she was considering retiring from figure skating as a single skater. “I wasn't really sure what my path was going to be, but I was ready to retire and I had that talk with my coaches and they supported me with whatever I wanted to do,” Cain-Gribble told The Tennessean. But then U.S. Figure Skating’s Mitch Moyer suggested she try out with LeDuc to see if they could have a happy partnership.
“It was one of those moments where if I didn’t try I wouldn’t know,” Cain-Gribble said. “And it turned out to be the right time to come together.” She continued, “Here I am all these years later, and I have two national titles. I can honestly say it’s been a beautiful career, and I’m really happy with it. I’m also really happy to have this chapter next to Timothy, and I really couldn’t ask for anything more.”
How are Cain-Gribble and LeDuc making history?
Aside from their record-breaking numbers, LeDuc has received attention for being the first openly non-binary athlete to compete at a Winter Olympics. NBC News reports that figure skating in particular was “built on a heteronormative ideology that has historically benefitted skaters who play into specific gender and romantic stereotypes.”
“For me, as a person that exists and really thrives outside of the binary, it can be very complicated sometimes navigating a gendered sport,” LeDuc said on a recent episode of the podcast My New Favorite Olympian. “They’re going to be the people who don’t understand it. They look at me, they see that I have a beard or they look at maybe my physical characteristics and say, ‘You’re a boy, act like a boy. What are you doing?’”
LeDuc has been openly gay throughout much of their career and shared on the podcast that, in the past, a girl refused to skate with them “because she thought me being gay was going to be a liability.” “It was not an option for her,” LeDuc said, “in an otherwise great partnership that girl and I could have had.”
Now, having earned a spot on Team USA, LeDuc told Iowa’s News Now, “I’m hoping that moves the conversation forward in that more queer people can embrace authenticity. They can embrace what makes them unique and different not feel like they have to change themselves in order to be a part of sports.”
How long have Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc been skating?
Cain-Gribble began practicing in Canada at two years old and was competing by the time she was four. She has been coached by her parents, Peter and Darlene Cain. According to KCRG-TV9, LeDuc began skating at 12 years old after they were inspired by the 2002 Olympics featuring Michelle Kwan, Sarah Hughes, and Timothy Goebel. LeDuc told Iowa’s News Now about the 2002 Games, “I was so inspired by this mix of artistry and athleticism and rhinestones and drama that was figure skating in the Olympics.”