The icy surface frequented by the world’s top figure skaters is rock-hard and brutally unforgiving. SA’s Gian-Quen Isaacs can truly testify to that fact — she can also attest that life off the ice can be equally as hard and unforgiving.
The Cape Town-based skater will turn 21 at the end of the year, but her life has certainly not been all celebration as she sets her sights on getting to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.
As complicated and beautiful as her on-ice routines are to behold, behind the scenes things have been as much about being bullied and broke.
“Being bullied in my early school years were tough times … the name-calling was the worst,” she recalls. “I could kind of understand where the kids where coming from but not the teachers.
“I would go to school from 8am-12pm and then go, with permission, to the ice rink. I’d get my homework and stuff from the lessons I missed and would always catch up, but many of the kids thought I was just leaving early.
“The kids called me all sorts of things… from ‘ice-queen’ to ‘the princess’, ‘the ice-bitch’ and some teachers called me a ‘visitor’ to the school.”
She did her best to fit in, even qualifying to represent the school in high jump, only to find the school hadn’t seen fit to register her.
All that changed when she moved to Holy Cross High school in Maitland, a school that finally understood and valued her.
An only child of single mom Letitia (she’s only met her father once and he plays absolutely no part in her life), the sacrifices made by both women have been huge.
“Affordability has always been a major concern and I learnt from an early age and have seen my mom reaching out for financial help from sponsors or attend fund-raisers and seen so many doors slammed in our faces, even ward councillors saying that they don’t deal with ‘things like this’ because figure-skating is a ‘cinderella sport’.”
But despite all the hurdles, Isaacs has gone on to become an eight-time national champion and the winner of the prestigious Santa Claus Cup competition in Hungary in 2017.
She’s come close to quitting at least once, her toughest year being 2021 after her main goal had been the Winter Games in 2022. Then she was laid low by Covid-19 and couldn’t compete for a while.
“To be honest, skating became a chore or a job and just something I didn’t really want to do, but after a while it became a do-or-die thing in the sense that I could either hang up my boots or do the one thing that made me feel whole as a person, and that made me realise what a huge part of my life skating is.”
She spends as much time as she can training overseas in Italy in “an Olympic environment”, where she’ll train up to 11 hours daily, while at home things depend on ice rink availability — she normally gets in two hours in the morning and then two hours in the afternoon. There’s also gym training and she does assistant coaching to help raising funds for her sport.
It’s entirely a team effort and to this effect she has Megan Allely-Painczyk as her main coach assisted by Italy-based Onrej Hotarek. Lisa Stignant is her spin coach and then she also has a dance teacher in the form of Oleksii Ischenko.
For now though, Four Continents in Seoul, Korea in February is firmly in her sights with Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania being represented.
“We’ll only know the exact number of entrants later this month. I’m hoping to use Four Continents to get to World Championships and if I can make the top 24 at worlds that qualifies me for Winter Olympics — if not there’s another qualifier in Beijing, China later this year.”
The last time SA had a competitor at Four Continents was eight years ago, and when it comes to the Winter Olympics it’s a whole lot further back — Shirene Human in Japan (1998) and before that Dino Quattrocecere in Norway (1994).
To make SA’s next bit of Winter Games history she’s going to need every bit of help though. Amazingly, despite being an eight-time national champion, she still has no sponsor.
“Figure-skating is just not a big thing in SA but we’re trying so hard. The majority of funding is self-financed and things are really tight. My gran is a pensioner but she still helps and my uncle Quentin (who she’s partly named after) helps where he can but he has his own family in Johannesburg.
“My coach is very accommodating and the national federation helps where they can and some very kind people have helped out as well.”
How expensive is it? Apart from international travel and accommodation, a competition dress comes in at nothing under R4,000. And then there’s the bed-rock of her sport, the ice-skating boots and blades, which cost R25,000 a pair.
Consider the fact that in 2023 she went through 11 pairs, almost a pair a month, and that figure starts to rocket skywards.
Whether or not she makes the Winter Games, Isaacs doesn’t want her career put on ice.
“We still have a world champ skating at the age of 41, which is inspiring. The mentality is that your prime years are your late teens until 25 but she’s breaking the mould and I take inspiration from her and want to do it for as long as I can.”
For now though, funding is key for her future.
A lover of reality show Strictly Come Dancing, she’s as South African as it comes. “My mom, gran and I watch it religiously. My gran calls me a ‘koffie-kop’ because of my love for coffee, I love a good braai, I love my music – from mainstream to Mozart, to Afrikaans songs, which are often under-rated.”
Mom Letitia prefers to rather be in the shadows than the spotlight. “Im always in the background.. it’s all about Gian-Quen. When I bought her first pair of skates at the age of seven, I told her we have to commit for at least a year. She looked at me and said: ‘Mom, I simply have to do this’,”
She affirms her daughter’s views on the tough beginnings.
“Gian’s dad wasn’t interested in my pregnancy, nor her — I can’t tell you the ugliness, the judgmental attitude… our whole lives, it’s always me and Gian against the world.
“But she’s made it so easy to be a parent, and is mature ahead of her time. She wasn’t always aware of the tears after dark but I’m so humbled to be the parent of what she has become — the type of person you look at and think: ‘do people like you still exist in this world?’”
Gian-Quen’s “momma-bear” went back to studying to give her the best life she possibly could, despite the many hiccups.
“After she had Covid I asked her if this was the end of her figure-skating — but at 3.30am the next day she was ready to go again after being off the ice for three months.
“One of her favourite quotes comes from Cinderella [it’s actually a slightly adapted quote]: ‘In a world where you can be anything, be kind’…. and she absolutely lives by it.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.