Filipino skaters Isabella Gamez and Aleksandr Korovin. Paige Javier, ABS-CBN News
MANILA – The duo of Isabella Gamez and Aleksandr Korovin are keeping their eyes on the bigger picture even with their good start at the Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy 2025.
The tandem ranked second in the Pairs short program category on Sunday.
Gamez and Korovin garnered 55.69 points, behind China's Jiaxuan Zhang and Yihuang Huang who got 63.70 to lead all pairs. In third was North Korea's Ryom Tae Ok and Han Kum Chol with 51.18 points.
Gamez and Korovin believe they could perform better than they did, but said it's still a good performance to kick off the 2026 Winter Olympic season.
"It's not too bad, it's not perfect but it's a good start for the season," Gamez said.
"A little but tired because our competition schedule changed a little bit. So we kinda wait a little bit of time. But it's fine. It's not good yet, but it's okay for we kinda trained two months. For beginning of season it's okay," Korovin added.
The duo faced familiar foes in the tournament with the North Korean pair. They last met in the Asian Winter Games last February, where Gamez and Korovin finished fourth and the North Korean team finished second.
But for the Philippine duo, their goal is to perform and show what they've prepared.
"I don't think we have any thoughts on it because we came here to skate, we just want to show our programs. We want to get feedback and start this season. We don't have any thoughts on who placed higher, we just want to skate, that's just the goal," Gamez said.
With the country hosting the Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy, Gamez and Korovin hope to raise more awareness and interest in the sport, especially Pairs skating.
"For me and Aleksandr, it means so much when we come home and we get to compete and perform. We raise awareness on figure skating in a tropical spot. I'm so happy that we can bring pairs here to the Philippines," Gamez said. "This is just the start. I'm so thankful for President Nikki Cheng for this opportunity. May more pair skating come here to the Philippines.”
The duo enjoyed skating in front of the mostly Filipino crowd and on home soil.
"It's very nice. With all these crowd here. Many people here don't know a lot about figure skating but they're very happy with what we do they’re like wow, so yeah it's very important," Korovin said.
"Especially for me, when we're training we train with a lot of pair teams. So we're always encouraging and clapping when they are doing successful elements. Especially here skating in front of our kabayan, it's amazing it gives me the energy and motivation to keep skating and doing more," Gamez added.
After the tournament, the duo will go back to training for another month before the 2026 Winter Olympic qualifiers in Beijing, China in September.
"We will be going to another challenger series in Osaka. Japan [in September] which we're super excited for. So I think we have time to just learn from our mistakes and polish for our competitions," Gamez shared.
Philippine Skating Union President Nikki Cheng told ABS-CBN News she is optimistic Gamez and Korovin will bring home more medals for the country on the world stage.
Gamez and Korovin have been making history since teaming up in 2021. They were the first Southeast Asian and Philippine duo to qualify and compete at the World Championships in 2023 and 2024.
Last December 2024, the 30-year-old Russian was granted Philippine citizenship ahead of the Asian Winter Games.
The two-time Philippine National Champions for Senior Pairs finished fourth in the Asian Winter Games last February.
Before that, they won the first Pairs medal for the Philippines at an International Skating Union competition in France in 2022 during their debut season.