Hello, we’re Molly Cesanek and Yehor Yehorov. We are Team USA ice dancers, but we’ve had a unique journey to get here... Molly was born in the United States, Yehor in the Ukraine. It all began when Molly stepped on the ice at age 5 and Yehor at age 7, however, it wasn’t until much later that we both decided to try ice dance. After a few years in ice dance, our story together began when Molly just turned 17 and Yehor was 18. 

 

This is where the story would typically reveal how one another met, however that is the crazy part - we still do not know exactly how we found each other. On Molly's end, she heard about a boy from Ukraine, and on Yehor's end, his Ukrainian coach showed him videos of Molly skating, and together he and his coach liked the videos of Molly and decided to give it a try. In April of 2018, Molly and her family picked Yehor up at the airport who flew to the U.S. alone from his home town of Brovary, Ukraine. Molly didn’t know who Yehor was, and Yehor didn’t know who Molly was; Molly did not speak Russian, and Yehor spoke very little English, but despite how truly unsure we are of how it all happened, we consider each other the greatest happening of our lives.

 

Despite how foreign the situation appears, when we tried skating together, it felt like an out of body experience as if we both had skated together before. Our skating styles were very in sync and we both felt very comfortable with the other. Given the language barrier, communicating was very difficult at first, however, our skating passion was our commonplace, and our desire to work, improve, and enjoy was the roots of how we began to understand one another and grow our communication to a point that we can now understand what each other is feeling or thinking without even speaking. 

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Yehor came to the U.S. but he was previously on Team Ukraine, so our first season together, we had to receive Yehor’s release from the Ukraine Skating Federation. Because of a rule stating you cannot compete internationally for one year after changing countries of representation, we could only compete domestically within the United States for our first season. We competed at the Junior level together in Texas (4th place), Chicago (3rd place), Lake Placid (3rd place), Philadelphia (1st place), Salt Lake City (1st place), and Detroit (5th place). We were the Pacific Coast Sectional Champions in Salt Lake City, and took 5th at our first U.S. Junior National Championships in Detroit, MI. We could not attend any international events until our second season together. (See “Interviews” at top of page). After Nationals in Detroit, Yehor received his release from Ukraine, and the next season we became official Team USA athletes.

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In our second season (2019), we competed again at the Junior level and took 3rd at Lake Placid, NY in the summer. However, it was at this time that we began feeling a unique love for how dance felt between us - how we created shapes and movements that were unusual to anything we had done or felt before. Our ideas kept flowing into something more interesting and emotional; we were inspired by something inside of us that was even more unique because we combined what we felt together. We started going to the ballet room in between and after practices to create contemporary dances and positions by ourselves and a mirror. At Lake Placid, we had a photo shoot, but instead of taking Headshots, we took contemporary photos and a documentary video in the middle of a street, barefoot, completely in love with the moment. (See “Photos”, “Videos” at top of page). 

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Our realization of how much we were inspired by movement is something that we began to incorporate onto the ice. Even though we have a unique story, our love for dance and being on the ice is a place we cannot escape. It is our passion, our connection, and something of the greatest importance to us, but also something we are beyond grateful for in a way words can’t describe. For we have dreams of being Olympic Champions, World Champions, and National Champions, and above all, bringing our creations and heart to the world to inspire in an immense way. 

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Our dreams inspire us greatly every day, but they do not come without a cost. Molly coaches private lessons and Learn to Skate after our training days and between her college classes, and she runs her own business on the side, all to help afford skating. Molly also went part-time in college to provide more time for training and also to have some time to earn money. However, despite the finances not being the easiest, together we value the significance of the passion we share for skating and its responsibility for bringing us together to experience, create, and inspire something unique. Thus, we want to thank you and express our extreme appreciation for any donation to help with our skating costs and to support our continuation of reaching the Olympics and beyond, thank you. 

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Love,

Molly and Yehor