By Dan Murphy
While TV ratings may have been down for this year’s winter Olympics in South Korea, one of the highest rated nights, as always, was the Women’s Figure Skating finals. While watching, I realized that one of our very own from Westchester was skating on that special night.
Her name is Alexia Paganini, a 16-year old Harrison resident who represented Switzerland in the Olympics last month. Alexia’s father is a native of Switzerland, which gave her the right to represent that country in the Olympics.
Alexia Paganini was born on November 15, 2001, in Greenwich, Connecticut, United States. She began learning to skate at the age of 2 and skated at the Westchester Skating Academy in Elmsford for a few years under her former coach, Gilberto. She represented the United States at two international events, winning the junior gold medal in April 2016 at the Gardena Spring Trophy in Italy, and she finished 6th in August 2016 at an ISU Junior Grand Prix event in France.
In 2017, after finishing 5th in the US junior championships, at the recommendation of her new coach, Igor Krokavec, she became interested in competing for Switzerland. Swiss Ice Skating became aware of her interest in the spring of 2017 and Paganini made her senior international debut and her first appearance for Switzerland at the Slovenia Open in August 2017; winning the gold medal. In late September, she competed at the 2017 CS Nebelhorn Trophy in Europe, where she obtained the bronze medal, and a spot for Switzerland at the Olympics.
Alexia became the Swiss National Champion and went on to represent Switzerland in the Olympics in PyeongChang. While her father is from Switzerland, her mother is from the Netherlands. She trained for 32 hours per week in Hackensack, NJ, for the Olympics
In PyeongChang, Alexia faced off against one in a million performances from Russian skaters, Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva, who won the Gold and Silver medals, with Kaetlyn Osmond from Canada took the bronze.
Regardless of the outcome, Westchester is proud of Alexia, and enjoyed watching her on the biggest night of the Olympics this year. Congratulations on your dedication and your commitment to excellence!
