Audrey Shin

Audrey Sumin Shin (born in U.S. March 12, 2004) is an American figure skater who currently competes in the pairs discipline with Balázs Nagy. Together, they are the 2024 Golden Spin of Zagreb bronze medalists.

As a singles skater, she is the 2020 Skate America bronze medalist, the 2021 CS Lombardia Trophy bronze medalist, and finished fourth at the 2022 Four Continents Championships. On the junior level, she is the 2019 U.S. junior silver medalist and finished in the top ten at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics.

Personal life

Shin was born on March 12, 2004, in Smithtown, New York, to parents Eric Shin, a commercial film director in South Korea who studied film in the U.S., and Nicole Shin. She also has a younger sister named Sydney.

Shin is studying health sciences in University of Colorado Springs and hopes to pursue sports medicine and traditional Korean medicine (Hanbang) in the future to help athletes like herself recover from injuries. After competing as a singles skater for Team USA for 14 years, she officially transitioned to pair skating in June 2024.Shin is bilingual and able to communicate in both English and Korean fluently.

Career

Early career

Shin started skating in 2010 at the age of five after a new ice rink was built next to her family's church. Her dad, Eric, was a former speed skater and thus encouraged Shin and her sister to try skating recreationally. Shin ultimately fell in love with the sport and decided to pursue it competitively. Her first skating coach was Mary Lynn Gelderman.

She debuted at the U.S. Championships in 2014 at the juvenile level, placing ninth. The following season, Shin did not qualify for the 2015 U.S. Championships for the intermediate competition due to a tenth-place finish at Eastern Sectionals. Similarly, after placing fifth at the 2016 Eastern Sectionals at the novice level, Shin did not qualify for the 2016 U.S. Championships. That same year, she moved from Long Island, New York to Irvine, California to train under Rafael Arutyunyan.

Shin placed ninth at the novice level at the 2017 U.S. Championships and ninth at the junior level at the 2018 U.S. Championships. She was assigned to her first international competition, the 2017 Asian Open, where she placed seventh at the junior level.

Singles skating career

2018–2019 season: Junior national medalist

Prior to the season, Shin moved from Irvine, California to Colorado Springs, Colorado to train under Tammy Gambill.

She started the season at the 2018 JGP Amber Cup, where she placed seventh. In January, Shin competed at the 2019 U.S. Championships at the junior level, where she placed second behind Gabriella Izzo. Shin was then assigned to compete at the 2019 Egna Spring Trophy, where she placed fourth at the junior level. Shin underwent ankle surgery in May 2019 to remove a ganglion cyst and was unable to train for a month following the surgery. After the operation, she had to relearn how to walk.

2019–2020 season: Youth Winter Olympian

Shin began the season with a silver medal at the 2019 Philadelphia Summer international at the junior level and was assigned to JGP Russia, where she placed 12th.

Shin experienced several issues with her boots and blades that contributed to an unsuccessful start to the season. She failed to qualify for the 2020 U.S. Championships due to a sixth-place finish at the Eastern Sectional Final and coupled with her rough start to the season, considered quitting the sport. Shin was later assigned to compete at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she placed seventh. Shin described the Youth Winter Olympics as a "huge motivating factor" in her career.

2020–2021 season: Senior international debut

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020–21 ISU Junior Grand Prix, where Shin intended to compete, was canceled. She was instead assigned to the modified Grand Prix event, 2020 Skate America. After skating without errors on her jumping passes, Shin won a medal in her senior international debut by finishing in third place behind Mariah Bell and Bradie Tennell. Although her scores were personal bests, the domestic nature of the event meant that they would not count as official ISU records.

Competing at the 2021 U.S. Championships at the senior level for the first time, Shin placed seventh. As a result, she was named third alternate for the 2021 World Championships team.

Shin stated that she was working on both a triple Axel and quadruple toe loop with her coach, Tammy Gambill.

2021–2022 season

Shin dealt with an injury in the off-season that caused her to scrap plans to attempt to up her technical content for the new season. She began the season at her first Challenger event, the 2021 CS Lombardia Trophy, where she won the bronze medal. She was twelfth of twelve skaters at the 2021 Skate America, and went on to finish fourth at the 2021 CS Cup of Austria.

Ninth in the short program at the 2022 U.S. Championships, Shin rose to sixth overall with a fifth-place free skate, despite several underrotated jumps. Her placement earned Shin an assignment to the 2022 Four Continents Championships. She was fifth in both segments and placed fourth overall with a new personal best score of 203.86. Speaking after, Shin said that she hoped to resume her efforts to introduce more difficult technical elements.

2022−2023 season

Due to ongoing ankle problems, Shin initially scaled down her technical content at the start of the season. She began her season with a gold medal at the 2022 Cranberry Cup International. After feedback from judges at the event, she replaced her initial ''Tosca'' free skate with a modified version of her prior Michael W. Smith short program. She then went on to finish fourth at the 2022 CS U.S. International Figure Skating Classic. After the free skate there, she said, "it's a two-week-old program. So, it was very rushed trying to get into the choreography. I'm glad I performed decently, and I'm excited to build up from here."

On the Grand Prix circuit, Shin finished fifth at the 2022 Grand Prix de France. At her second event, the 2022 NHK Trophy, Shin finished fourth in the short program, less than three points back of third-place Rion Sumiyoshi. She was fifth in the free skate, but remained fourth overall, 4.12 points behind bronze medalist Sumiyoshi.

2023−2024 season

For her new programs, Shin opted to fulfill a longstanding desire to skate to the soundtrack of ''Pina'' after it came up in a school project, using it in the short program. A fan of the music of Adele, her team selected "Skyfall" as a starting point and built a James Bond-themed program around it.

Shin finished fourth at the 2023 CS Autumn Classic International to start the season. Competing on the Grand Prix at the 2023 Skate Canada International, a clean short program performance put her in fourth place after the short program. She struggled with jump underrotations and a fall in the free skate, placing ninth in the segment and dropping to seventh overall. She went on to finish ninth at the 2023 Cup of China.

Following a disappointing ninth-place finish at the 2024 U.S. Championships, Shin began looking into the idea of switching to pair skating, a discipline that she had always enjoyed. She got in contact with former U.S. pair skaters, Chris Knierim and Brandon Frazier to help her learn various pair elements.

Pair skating with Nagy

2024–2025 season

Upon learning that Shin was interested in transitioning from singles to pair skating, U.S. pair skater, Balázs Nagy, contacted her and asked if she would be interested in having a tryout with him. Shin agreed to this and after a week of skating together, the pair agreed to form a partnership. They announced that they would primarily train in Oakville, Ontario, Canada under coaches, Bruno Marcotte and Andrew Evans, while also making trips to Colorado to work with Tammy Gambill.

The pair began their season in December, winning the bronze medal at the 2024 CS Golden Spin of Zagreb.

The following month, Shin/Nagy competed at the 2025 U.S. Championships, placing fifth in the short program and third in the free skate, finishing fifth overall. While at the event, Shin spoke of her experience competing as a pair skater at Nationals for the first time, sharing, "It felt less stressful, and it’s nice having someone else out there on the ice with me, so it’s actually more fun than stressful." "We have been training fairly well, and I definitely feel confident in our training," said Nagy. "But nationals are nationals. There’s always more pressure, more everything. We haven’t had the best practices here this week, but I think we, well, I think she maximized everything.”

Selected to compete at the 2025 Four Continents Championships in Seoul, South Korea, Shin/Nagy finished the season by finishing the event in eleventh place.

Programs

Pair skating with Balázs Nagy

Single skating

Competitive highlights

Pair skating with Balázs Nagy

Single skating

Detailed results

Pair skating with Balázs Nagy

Single skating

Senior level

Current personal best scores are highlighted in bold.

Junior level

References

External links

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Audrey Shin
at U.S. Figure Skating
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Shin, Audrey
2004 births
Living people
American female single skaters
Sportspeople from Smithtown, New York
American sportspeople of Korean descent
Figure skaters at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics
People from Northport, New York
Sportspeople from Huntington, New York
21st-century American sportswomen