For Sonya Vaninskaya, it all starts with her parents’ wedding ring taped to her rib cage, a piece of “sparkle fudge” her coach used to make before competitions, that she now does, carrying on the tradition.

“[It’s] really good fudge…and a crap ton of sparkles in there to show that you’re, like, a star, and you shine,” she explains. 

And with her skates tied left to right, and a prayer to God, she’s ready.

“My body will be strong enough to do it,” she tells herself. “I am worthy enough for this. God has given me the ability to do this, and I’m just so blessed to be here in this position.” 

As she steps onto the ice, a freeing feeling washes over her. 

“The ice is crisp, and you can hear your edges, the sounds your skates make,” she illustrates. “It’s just really soothing, [it] is something I can control.”

Within the walls of Brooklyn Tech, Sonya Vaninskaya is a junior in the PharmD major. Outside, she is a synchronized figure skater competing with the Skyliners, a competitive skating organization. 

At the age of 2, Sonya started ice skating in her home country of Russia. Her mom inspired her to try out many sports, but figure skating was her favorite. After moving to the US at the age of about 3 1/2, Sonya continued to skate. By the age of 4, she had already won her first competition in the Westchester Classic. She still remembers the feeling:

“Holding that little medal in my hand, I was like, this is it. I love winning. And this is what I’m good at. So I’m gonna do it.” Figure skating was her sport.

She started her ice skating career through a program called Learn to Skate. Her coach there noticed her potential and recommended her for Skyliners, a large skating organization for talented, young synchronized skaters. She started in the Intro Beginner Line in 2014, eventually moving up the ranks to intermediate by 2022. 

At Skyliners, she met her longtime coach and mentor, Nikki Wylan.

“She was very powerful just from the beginning,” said Wylan. “Something that usually takes some maturity and years to develop. We could tell she’s very smart, very quick, very responsive, which is great for a team sport like ours.”

At 12 years old, Sonya began pushing herself more than she should have, following intense practices with even more exercise once she got home. 

“I just wasn’t treating my body like an athlete,” she recalled. “I was treating it like somebody that doesn’t care.” 

The strain on her body brought her to a breaking point when she developed two herniated discs and a stress fracture in her back, as well as a broken hip. According to coach Wylan, Sonya’s injury occurred “right before the national championships, [meaning] she wasn’t allowed to skate, which [was] really devastating.”

After 4 months of recovery she was eager to get back on the ice.

”She picked up pretty much where she left off, the vast majority of her elements,” Wylan said. “Obviously [she had to work on] the flexibility stuff that puts a lot of pressure on your back”. 

Sonya is also a lefty, which, according to Wylan, meant she “had to put in extra work and extra time to relearn some elements so that she [could] rotate the same as everybody else.” 

Since her comeback, Sonya has only improved, joining the Junior (13-17) division in March 2025, and becoming one of the strongest skaters on the team in only her first year, mastering the “camel spin”, in which a skater spins on one leg with the free leg extended behind, parallel to the ice.

“She has one of, probably, the best camel spin on the team,” said Wylan. ”It’s really difficult, but she does and she excels with it. It’s really special to see.” With effort and determination, Sonya has honed her natural talent and matured as an athlete.  

“When she started, she was not the most extroverted on the ice, and that’s something that some kids have naturally, and some kids really need to work for,” said Wylan. “But being able to go up there with confidence and poise, is something that she’s really developed over the years. She’s strong, she’s powerful, she looks commanding on the ice and that’s hard to teach.”

Sonya quickly integrated into the community of her Junior division team as her best friends all started around the same age as her .

Her best friends are now on the Junior team with her, which is a great aid for Sonya, she explains: ”Competing at such a high level, it’s just so comforting to know that there’s somebody there to help you always, and that your teammates will be there to catch you.” 

So far in her first year in the Junior division, she has skated in seven major competitions, in most of which her team has placed in the top three. 

The team has traveled everywhere from Boston to the Czech Republic, facing off against some of the best international teams. Most recently, Skyliners competed in the Junior World Championships, placing third worldwide, beating other USA teams, as well as Canada, Germany, Sweden and elsewhere.

Sonya doesn’t plan on pursuing figure skating further, as she wants to be a pediatrician or a teacher, both inspired by the coaching she provides for younger skaters, or a sports medicine doctor for USA’s figure skating team so she can give back to all the doctors that helped her. 

Sonya has gained many qualities from figure skating. Close friend and classmate Azalea Torres explains that she is hard-working, selfless, and outgoing both at school and in her day to day life; all things she has learned on the ice. 

Regardless of her profession path, she will always allow figure skating and the things it has taught her, guide her through life.

“Every single time I step out before that, [Coach Wylan] holds my hands. She looks me in the eyes and tells me the body achieves what the mind believes. It’s really, like, a testament to if I put my mind to it, I’ll be able to do it. There’s nothing, like, the sky’s really the limit. You can do anything you wanna do. You have the ability, you are given the ability to do anything that you want to do.”