Local skater's collegiate career golden -- even before classes start

Last month, even before Lindsey Roman of Arlington Heights started her freshman business classes at the University of Iowa, she earned the title of Collegiate Junior Champion.

Roman, 18, won the gold medal among junior ladies at the U.S. Figure Skating Association collegiate championships, held in Arvada, Colo.

She shared the medal podium with Lexi Ibanez, a freshman at UCLA, who won silver, and Erica Ransford, of Monroe County Community College in Monroe, Mich., who took the bronze.

This was Roman's first collegiate competition after training locally - at Twin Rinks Ice Pavilion in Buffalo Grove under Denise Myers, and at the Oakton Ice Arena in Park Ridge, where she works with David Santee, Fury Gold and Jeremy Lieb.

"My short program was one of the best I have ever done so I was very happy to have skated so well at my first collegiate competition," says Roman, who graduated in May from St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights.

Roman built up a 10-point lead going into the free skate portion, and nearly pulled off another clean program until she just stepped out of the landing on her double axel, her favorite jump in her program.

"I felt pretty confident going into the free skate because I had been skating well leading up to the competition," Roman says. "However, I did feel some pressure to follow up such a strong short program with an equally strong free skate."

Winning the junior title only reaffirmed Roman's decision to continue her skating in college, where she hopes to pursue a double major in marketing and finance, while continuing to polish her skating routines.

In fact, Roman says she intends to try and skate four to five days a week at a nearby rink, off campus where the Hawkeye's hockey team trains.

Her decision differs slightly from her older sister, Lauren, who skated with the University of Illinois' synchronized skating team, and now is working as a graduate assistant intern with the nationally ranked University of Miami synchronized skating team in Oxford, Ohio.

When they are back in Arlington Heights, both Roman sisters return to the place where they took early lessons: the Rolling Meadows Ice Arena, to work with up and coming skaters as their instructors.