For these competitors, the road to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships started in the Philadelphia area

Julia Epps and Blake Gilman are only 15 and 19, respectively, but they’ve been ice dancing together for 10 years.

“I can take one step, and I know Julia will be able to follow me without even saying anything,” said Gilman, who lives in Lower Merion and is a freshman studying economics at Penn. Epps, from Drexel Hill, is a freshman at Friends’ Central School. “It’s just natural. She can feel where I’m going; I can feel where she’s going.”

This junior dance team is among a small, elite group of Philadelphia-area skaters who will be competing at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, which run from Monday through Sunday in Wichita, Kan.

The lineup, however, does not include world silver medalist and Mount Holly resident Isabeau Levito. She withdrew from the competition last week with a foot injury. She can still petition for a spot on the team for the world championships.

Sydney Cooke, 22, and Matthew Kennedy, 23, are starting to get that innate feeling for how each will react in their second year of skating pairs together. Cooke, who is from Andover, Mass., but lives in Wilmington, got her first pairs partner at age 7. Kennedy, from Woodstown, Salem County, competed in singles until 2019, when he tried a year of pairs with another partner.

Cooke and Kennedy moved up to the senior level this year after winning the bronze at last year’s nationals in junior pairs. This year’s expectations are reined in, though, since it’s a big leap to the top division. Plus, Cooke had an ankle injury last summer, which put their training behind about two months.

» READ MORE: South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito is out of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships because of a foot injury

There’s an extra required lift in senior and the free program is longer, “so getting through that obviously isn’t easy,” Cooke said.

But both have a lot of experience.

“This would be, I don’t know, either my fifth or my seventh [nationals],” Cooke said, “but our second one together.”

Kennedy also went to nationals in singles, competing in intermediate in 2017.

Epps and Gilman are still teenagers but also nationals alumni. This will be their third outing as a junior team. They also competed in juvenile in 2018, but intermediate and novice weren’t included in nationals the years they were on those levels.

Emmanuel Savary has also been to nationals several times. Savary, 27, describes himself “pretty much a senior citizen in skating terms,” but the Wilmington resident is making a comeback — and still doing triple and quadruple jumps.

“This is my fifth time [at nationals], I believe,” Savary said. There used to be a separate championship for the lower levels, and Savary won the intermediate title, was second in novice, and fifth in junior.

But in 2020, he withdrew from nationals and didn’t skate much again until recently.

“Nationals was always a lot” before his comeback, Savary said. “I have to get a certain amount of points, or I have to do this many quads, or I have to beat this person, win medals and everything, but that’s no longer my perspective with the sport.

“I think that’s helped me become a better competitor, where I’m just skating for the love of it, and just to skate for myself and to deliver performances that I know I’m capable of.”

» READ MORE: South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito earns silver medal at the World Figure Skating Championships

In his time off, Savary has been chipping away at his college degree and studied physics at the University of Delaware. He also has been skating in a lot of shows, including some for Diversify Ice, a program run by his older brother, Joel, to encourage and support people of color in figure skating.

The road to this year’s nationals has been good for Savary, who trains at the Skating Club of Wilmington and won the men’s event at the Eastern Sectional, a qualifier for nationals, by 12 points.

“I think my artistry has improved a lot,” Savary said. “I’ve been doing a lot of shows over the last two years. I would say I skate very similar to how I am. I’m a very naturally introverted person. So I think when I skate, you see some of that vulnerability, and I do a lot of inward movement. I feel like there’s a lot of power behind my skating, but also like softness and some gentleness to it as well.”

Epps and Gilman are excited for their rhythm dance, aka short program, which is to an Elvis Presley medley.

“It’s really fun to embody Elvis,” Gilman said.

“I’m Priscilla,” Epps said, smiling.

Their free dance is a contemporary program with a message about finding and accepting oneself.

Ice dance is a long game, so the team plans to keep competing in junior before moving up to the big time. But they made a small but powerful move last June. Along with training at the Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society in Ardmore most of the year and IceWorks in Aston in the summer, they started going to the Ice Academy of Montreal several times a year for additional work. This is where many of the top ice dancers train, including their idols, world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates.

With time lost to an injury and the move to senior, Cooke and Kennedy, who train at the Patriot Ice Center in Newark, Del., are hoping just to skate well at nationals.

“Even if we fall in one thing, I’ll be happy if we rotate everything … and get full credit for every element,” Cooke said. ”I will not cry if this happens.”

They had to stop doing the triple twist when Cooke was injured but hope to bring it back. It’s one of Kennedy’s favorite elements.

“I can get her about four feet over my head,” Kennedy said, “which feels pretty good when it goes right. I like to call it the Sydney Space Program.”

They also would like to be selected for Team USA this year.

Both teach skating when they’re not training, and Cooke also sharpens skates. Her family owns a skate shop in Massachusetts, and she learned when she was 14.

Savary wants to end his skating career on his own terms, but Wichita won’t necessary be the end.

“As long as my body holds up, I’m willing to keep going,” he said.

He added: “I’m just excited to return to nationals. I’m excited to perform my program for everyone. In a perfect world, would love to be a choreographer, and I’m hoping maybe people will see my performance and maybe want to hire me to do choreography.”

The top skaters at nationals will be shown on NBC and USA, but events also will be streamed on Peacock.

“Last year for nationals, my teacher actually told me after that she watched the event,” Epps, “and I had no knowledge that she even knew that I was on there.”

All skaters will appear on Peacock in the following slots. The top senior competitors will also appear on NBC or USA.

Junior rhythm dance: 9:10-10:45 p.m. Tuesday.

Junior free dance: 8:22-10:10 p.m. Wednesday.

Championship (aka senior) pairs short program: 5:05-6:58 p.m. Thursday

Championship men short program: Groups 1 and 2, which will likely include Savary, 9:58-11:34 a.m. Saturday. The event will conclude with Group 3, at 1:36-2:23 p.m.

Championship pairs free skate (or long program): 6:35-8:52 p.m. Saturday.

Championship men free skate: 1:45-4:49 p.m. Sunday.