Starting August 19th at 3:00p.m., 200 competitors will descend on Ashburn Ice House in Ashburn, VA to compete in 44 different events over the course of three days. The Potomac Open, a U.S. Figure Skating sanctioned event hosted by Washington Figure Skating Club (WFSC), draws skaters from Pennsylvania to Florida. International participants include Isadora Williams and Luiz Manella, who represent Brazil, and Roobi Gaskins, who competes for Puerto Rico. Another WFSC competitor, Raya Willoughby, has competed for Malaysia.
The Potomac Open, which is open to the public with free admission, offers competitive events for girls, boys, ladies, men and adults. There will be international level judges who will be judging under the same scoring system as is used in the Olympics for the highest level skaters. The scores from this competition will be used to rank the skaters going into the national competitive season, which starts in October.
The Potomac Open is a great way to get a preview of the up-and-coming skating talent in the DC area. Many of the competitors representing WFSC went to last year's Junior Nationals including Oleksiy Melnyk (Silver – Intermediate Men), Brianna Laxson (Pewter – Intermediate Ladies), Madison Vinci, Stephanie Chang, and Elise Romola. Haley Mulera represented WFSC at last year's Eastern Sectionals, the qualifying competition for the U.S. National Championships. Many of the competitors from other area clubs went to Eastern Sectionals and Junior Nationals as well.
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The Washington Figure Skating Club, founded in 1938, based in Rockville, MD, is the second largest skating club in the nation with more than 750 members and is affiliated with multiple rinks in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, including Cabin John Ice Rink (Rockville, MD), Ashburn Ice House (Ashburn, VA), Fort Dupont Ice Arena (Washington DC), Kettler Capitals IcePlex (Arlington, VA), Mount Vernon Ice Rink (Alexandria, VA), Prince William Ice Center (Dale City, VA), SkateQuest Reston, (Reston, VA), Wheaton Regional Park Rink (Wheaton, MD), and Rockville Ice Arena (Rockville, MD).
