You wait anxiously until you hear the sound of your name beckoning you onto the ice. Although you are nervous, you are excited and more motivated than ever to do well. After a quick talk with your coaches, you know it’s time to put your year’s worth of training into a two and a half minute performance. During the competition you skate your heart out, making the audience get out of their seats. The applauding from the crowd echoes through the arena as you take your final bow.

As a competitive ice skater, Hanaka VanHerik, freshman, understands this feeling more than most students. She describes ice skating as the most amazing feeling, and she would know.

Ice skating seventeen hours a week, VanHerik is not your average high schooler. She has been figure skating for seven years at various rinks, such as Addison Ice Rink, Rolling Meadows, and Barrington.

“I don’t really get to hang out or go to the mall with my school friends, or I don’t get to do any after school activities or clubs [like other kids]. I sometimes think if I didn’t do skating I could do normal teenage stuff, but then I remind myself how much I love skating,” VanHerik said.

Staying dedicated to her sport, VanHerik misses her eighth and ninth periods of school every day, leaving early to train. From 2pm to 6:30pm, VanHerik is at a skating rink practicing, and on Saturdays she trains from 7am to 3pm.

“I always feel like I’m missing out on just a normal high school experience because I leave early from school. Believe it or not, I’ve never been to an assembly and people tell me all the time they’re really fun and I’m missing out on a lot,” VanHerik said.

After seeing ice skaters spinning and jumping on the ice during a birthday party back in 2008, VanHerik realized she wanted to skate. Now as an intermediate ladies solo skater, she skates and competes alone under the Chicago Figure Skating Club, VanHerik said.

VanHerik is trained by husband and wife coaches Christophe Groc and Tiffany Sfikas, who met in Europe while doing a professional ice skating show together.

“We want to coach the kids that love this as much as we do, and if they don’t love it, then they should be doing something they love because that’s what it’s all about. [Hanaka] is definitely doing what she loves, it shows and that’s warming to me,” Sfikas said. “She shows up to the rink everyday with the most positive attitude and the biggest smile on her face, it rubs off on everybody there.”

Sfikas says that Hanaka is “on fire” this year. After the added training she put in, VanHerik has acquired a double axel [a figure skating jump with two and a half rotations] and won the whole competition in Madison, Wisconsin in an open championship.

Although VanHerik competes as a soloist, she had double lessons with Faith Nguyen, a junior at Geneva High School. Being together everyday, VanHerik and Nguyen try to push each other to be the best they can be.

“[Hanaka] is one of the most hardworking people I’ve ever known [and] she won’t stop until she gets it,” Nguyen, said. “She is so persistent. She has the attitude of somebody who will win and is after it.”

VanHerik says she never thought about quitting ice skating, or doing another sport. She is unsure where her skating career is going to go from here, but she knows she wants to continue ice skating no matter what.

“In skating you don’t really think about the future, just the present, because so much can happen in one year,” VanHerik said. “If you get all your triple jumps, then you can compete in the senior [division] and that’s when you do international competitions, so usually people don’t go to college. If that doesn’t happen [for me], then I would totally go to college, but I would go somewhere with an ice rink where I can skate and teach.”