Chicago skater Lorenzo Elano prepares to make senior debut at U.S. Figure Skating Championships

You haven’t heard of Lorenzo Elano.

He’s hoping to change that.

Elano, who’s 18 and lives in West Ridge, is one of the country's best figure skaters, and he’s had a big year.

He won the junior national championships in Wichita, Kan., in January.

And in November, he won the senior midwestern sectionals in Michigan — only the second time he’s competed at the senior level.

The achievement qualified him to compete in January in St. Louis in the senior national championship, which will feature 18 of the country’s top skaters.

It’s from this pool of skaters that three will be chosen to represent the United States at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

“I know that I’m not really the best candidate for the Olympics at this point,” he said, noting that he isn’t going to make the cut. “I’m just looking forward to seeing what it's like on the big stage — the adrenaline, the vibes. It will be televised, and the people in my event are actually fighting for a spot on the Olympic team. But I have nothing to lose. I’m a newbie. I’m just here to have fun.”

He’s humbled by comparisons to one of his skating role models, Jason Brown, an Olympic bronze medalist and former U.S. champion from Highland Park, who will also be competing in St. Louis.

Elano met Brown once at a rink in Milwaukee where Brown offered young athletes a seminar on his experience as a professional skater.

With Elano’s current trajectory, work ethic and determination, being selected for the 2030 Olympics in France isn’t just a far-off possibility.

“It’s definitely a goal,” he said.

One element that’s become practically necessary for top skaters to win is quadruple jumps. Elano has yet to complete one but hopes to have the jump down well before the 2030 Olympics.

“It’s a work in progress,” Elano said. “I’ve fallen on fully rotated quads; I just haven’t figured out how to stand up on them yet.”

Perhaps the strongest part of his performances is the artistry on display as he glides and moves to the music, his coaches said.

“He really skates with his heart, with a lot of passion; he’s magnetic,” said Denise Myers, one of his coaches.

“His confidence is growing,” she said, noting that Elano for the first time recently landed two triple axels — the most difficult jump due to the takeoff — in competition. “That was huge.”

As Elano has worked to move up the ranks in the past year, his name appeared in the news but for a tragic reason.

Elano fielded a few calls from reporters looking for reaction following a plane crash in January of 2025 in Washington, D.C., that claimed the lives of all 67 people aboard, including 28 members of the skating community, some of whom were Elano's close pals.

He came up in figure skating competitions with them, and despite living in different parts of the country, remained tight.

He still thinks about the tragedy.

“It’s been almost a year now, it gets better with time,” he said.

Elano first stepped on the ice at age 5 when his mother signed him up for skating lessons at a Skokie Park District rink not far from his home near McCormick Boulevard and Touhy Avenue.

His parents, who both came to the United States from the Philippines, had no background in skating.

His mother, Lorena, works overnight shifts as a nurse at Rush University Medical Center. Her colleagues have all seen videos of her son on her phone. His father, Jorge, is a Chicago Public Schools cafeteria manager.

Elano attended Queen of All Saints, a Catholic grade school in Sauganash, until the pandemic hit and he switched to homeschooling.

The flexibility allowed Elano to spend many more hours on the ice. He began winning competitions. Plans to return to in-school-learning were scuttled because Elano wanted to focus on skating.

He’s currently getting his high school education through an online program and plans to graduate in the spring, works with a team of three coaches and trains six days a week at rink in Buffalo Grove, which is like his second home.

He plans to work junior college courses into his schedule in the coming years and one day earn a degree and become a physical therapist.

For the past three years, his mom would drop him off in the morning. He trains for three hours a day on the ice. He then stretches, does off ice workouts and chills at the rink until his dad picks him up in the evening after he gets off work.

That routine will change in the future, as Elano recently got his driver’s license.

His parents never wake him up for early training sessions. He self-motivates.

“I don’t like the feeling of slacking. I don’t like the feeling of being lazy,” he said.

His college fund has been tapped to pay for things like ice time, equipment, coaches, travel and his skating costumes — some of which have cost more than $1,000. Expenses can add up to about $60,000 a year, his mother said.

A sponsor helps cover the cost of his skates, and U.S. Figure Skating, the sports national governing body, helps pay for some expenses because Elano is representing his country at international competitions (he traveled overseas five times in 2025), but he’s had to work to make ends meet.

There’s no earning money until you get to the senior level.

Elano started a GoFundMe page, and he teaches kids to skate at a rink in the Robert Crown Community Center in Evanston.

He used to count the rink as his home for training, and still participates in Evanston’s annual “Nutcracker On Ice” in December.

Elano stars as the prince. This past performance marked his fifth year in the show.

“I love doing the Nutcracker because I get to spend time with my friends mostly and perform for audiences without the stress of competition,” he said.

Elano balances skating school and life with what his coaches like to call GRIT — guts, resilience, integrity, tenacity.

His choreographer, Tommy Steenberg, said Elano has a laser focus, but the ability to keep things light.

He pointed to a recent competition when Elano was warming up minutes before a big routine and heard over the announcement system the score of a previous skater that ended with a decimal point followed by the numbers six and seven.

“He hears this, and was literally about to take off for a jump, and does the six-seven hand motion and lands it and continues stone faced,” said Steenberg, referring to a zeitgeist gesture that's ubiquitous and meaningless and silly.

“He has a certain ability to really kind of come off in a very genuine way, very in the moment, and you‘re just not worried watching him,” Steenberg said. “Sometimes in a pressure situation you see skaters’ hesitation as they start to think about the technique leading into a jump, but with Renzo everything just kind of weaves together.”

Elano‘s choice of music to skate to — “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" from "Les Miserables” — shows his progression as an individual skater, Steenberg said.

“It‘s a somber, serious song with a different kind of emotion to tap into and when I presented it last year, not everyone on team was on board with it, but Renzo kind of dug in and said he wanted to try it and has grown as an artist, and it showed he could speak up and have his own voice,” Steenberg said.

Elano keeps a steady tone while describing his future.

“Since I‘ve been doing this for such a long time, I don't really know why I would stop right now. I have goals. I still have a lot to achieve, but I also have achieved a lot, so that helps me stay in the game.”