IceSkatingWorld’s interview with 3-time U.S. National Pairs Champions Jenni Meno and Todd Sand February 5, 2001 Jenni and Todd are the three-time U.S. National Pairs Champions (1994-1996) and two-time World Bronze medalists. They were married on July 22, 1995. They currently are performing as part of the Target Stars on Ice cast which is in the middle of a 65-city tour.

ISW: When did you each begin skating? Did you start with group or private lessons, or both?

JM: I started doing group lessons around age six or seven. And I did group lessons first, then started doing semi-private followed by private lessons.

TS: I started skating when I was eight years old doing group lessons. Then, I started taking private lessons when I was ten.

ISW: How did you decide that you wanted to take skating lessons?

JM: Well, I had two Aunts that are not that much older than me. They are maybe five and eight years older, and they started taking lessons. My uncle gave me skates for Christmas and, of course, I wanted to do what my older aunts were doing. So, I started taking lessons also and we were actually in our first ice show together.

TS: It was just one of those things. To be honest, I had trouble with my ears when I was young, and my doctor said I could not stay on the baseball field, so my mom took me ice skating. She asked if it was o.k. to take me ice skating. So, she took me to the local rink and I loved it. I started taking group lessons. And it just kind of went from there. I looked forward to it every weekend and I would do the group lessons and skate the public session for a few hours afterward. I just loved it.

ISW: How far into skating was it that both of you realized that you might want to do pairs?

JM: Well, actually both of starting doing pairs really late. I began pairs when I was nineteen. But, I had wanted to skate pairs for quite a long time. I had watched Gordeeva and Grinkov skate. In fact, I had seen them skate at the World Championships in Cincinnati in ‘87, and I told my parents that I really wanted to skate pairs. My dad was actually against it. He was afraid and didn’t want some guy lifting and throwing his daughter around. It was actually difficult because if I was going to skate pairs, I would have to move away from my family. So my parents hated to see me move across the country.

ISW: What level were you at then?

JM: I was competing at Nationals in Senior Ladies

TS: I was kind of like Jennie. I was always interested in skating pairs, but back then when I was skating singles you had do school figures and all that stuff. So there really wasn’t enough hours in the day to both singles and pairs. I really didn’t want to give up the singles. My parents and my coach all felt that singles skating was still very important to me as a young teenager. And my parents didn’t want to take me out of school. They wanted me to stay in school full time, and I’m glad I did. So, I didn’t start pairs until I was 20, and I was going to college part time.

ISW: How many partners did each of you have before pairing up?

JM: I only had one. I started pairs in 1991 and I started competing with someone who was already competing at the senior level at Nationals, so I went through all my tests in a really short team. We made the world team after skating pairs for only eight months. After the 1992 World Championships I started skating with Todd.

TS: My progress didn’t happen that quick. Jenni, I think, has some type of record for making the World Team in the shortest amount of time! I skated junior pairs my first year. I had two partners before Jenni. I skated with my first partner one year in Junior Pairs, three years in Senior Pairs. With my [other partner] we went to the ‘92 Winter Olympics. Then after those Olympic games, Jenni and I started skating together.

ISW: When did you know that you had found the right partner, both in skating and in life?

JM: Todd and I had the same coach and skated in the same rink. We kind of felt like that if we skated together, we could do well because we had the same ideas about skating, had the same goals, communicated well with each other, and we skated similarly. The first six weeks or so, we weren’t very good. It was awkward

TS: We had a lot of similarities and had similar goals, like Jenni said. We wanted to skate to classical music and train in the same manner artistically. The first six weeks was very rough because we had different timing from our previous partner. So, the first couple of months, one would be pushing and the other would be pulling, and it was kind of awkward. After we worked out our timing, it was wonderful and it’s been great ever since.

JM: I think we competed in our first competition three or four months after we first started skating together. I think people at that moment thought that we had made a good decision, because we looked good skating together. We were already doing the difficult elements that we needed. It seemed like it was taking a long time, but it actually didn’t take that long.

TS: In retrospect, it came together very quickly.

ISW: How long did it take each of you to land your first double axel? first triple?

JM: Oh gosh, I can’t really remember, but it took quite a while. The double axel is just one of those jumps that seems to take a while. Then, you go after the triple sow and triple toe and it seems to happen much quicker.

TS: I can’t recall when I started working on them!

JM: I don’t know if it was the triple sow or triple toe [that I learned first]. I started landing them at the same time.

ISW: What was the most difficult Pairs move you learned as a team?

JM: Believe it or not, probably our best move, the throw double axel.

TS: That’s probably true.

JM: When we first started skating together, we could not do a throw axel. It seemed really weird. After a couple of months, we left it. One day, our coach said go and try the throw axel. It worked and we even did a double throw. It turned out to be one of our best elements.

TS: We worked on it for a while and it just wasn’t working. We couldn’t even get it to come close to working the way we wanted it to, not even on a throw single axel. So, we left it for a couple of months. By the end of the summer, we said “let’s go back and try it.” It worked and we even did a double throw axel the same day. It was very weird.

ISW: What is your favorite memory of working with Stars on Ice and working with Scott Hamilton?

JM: It is hard to pick just one thing.

TS: The whole experience of working with Scott and Stars on Ice the past three seasons has just been a dream come true for Jenni and I. Everything from the whole creative process before the season starts, working with Sandra Bezic, and the rehearsal period with the other skaters is very rewarding.

JM: We feel fortunate to have worked with Scott Hamilton and to learn so much from him as a professional skater and person and to have become friends with him. Not many skaters can say that they have had that opportunity. He is definitely the greatest. I think that people will look back and he will be remembered as one of the greatest skaters ever. Definitely, a great performer. He taught us a lot in that way. He goes out there every single night and gives everything that he has, because every night we have a different audience. I think everyone in the show has learned that from him. Everyone takes alot of pride and puts everything they have into the show every night.

ISW: How many weeks do you spend in rehearsal before the show is taken on the road?

TS: Five weeks. We spend three weeks in September in Simsbury, CT and then we spend two more weeks in November in Lake Placid, NY, finishing up the lighting and the rest of the rehearsal. We open the show in Lake Placid at the end of that period.

ISW: I’ve heard that it can be grueling work.

JM: It is a lot of work. We never realized what went into it, but it is so rewarding. It is so much fun too because we are all standing there, tired and exhausted, but we’re working so hard for something. At the end of every night, we feel we’ve done something special. And it’s not just us, it is our best friends and we have a lot of great fun together.

TS: When we’re standing in the tunnel every night, before the lights come up, there is that nervous energy and excitement, and we all know that there is no other place we would rather be, than in that tunnel together getting ready to do the show. When the night is over, we know that we have really contributed something, all of us. Hopefully, we’ve made a few people smile and enjoy the evening entertainment.

ISW: When Scott Hamilton retires at the end of the year, what are you going to miss the most?

TS: We are missing him alright. It is hard because it is such a neat thing to watch him every night. He is in fantastic shape and skating so well. The audience is really appreciating his last trip into the different cities. I think in the end that is it is really going to hit all of us, that we are losing someone very important.

ISW: Does Sandra Bezic do the choreography for your Pairs numbers as well as the group numbers?

JM: She’s done our numbers this year, last year with Michael Seibert, and also the first year. We usually have Sandra do it.

ISW: It’s amazing when looking at the Stars on Ice schedule that you are going practically day after day. What do you do to get yourselves physically able to skate and perform that often?

JM: Well, we spend the summer and fall getting prepared and getting into good shape.

Once we get on the road, we practice every day before the show. Then, just the show keeps on in shape. Sometimes we workout a bit on “off” days, but on most of those days we are just trying to recover.

TS: There is a bit of pacing that goes into our performances. You get into a routine on a daily basis, especially on show days. You know what you have to do to get physically and mentally prepared, to go out and there give everything you have every night. I think that is the secret to professional skating.

ISW: How long do you plan to stay on the road?

JM: We’re not really sure. We kind of take it a year at a time. We’re really enjoying what we’re doing right now, and we’re so happy to be skating with Stars on Ice, but we do plan to have a family some day. We’ll see how we feel year by year.

ISW: We will be publishing this interview on IceSkatingWorld.com. Do you guys get a chance to get online and surf the Internet much?

TS: Actually we do travel with a laptop and exchange email on the road. Sometimes it is a lot easier than others. My modem just broke and I’ve been trying to get it fixed for two weeks!

ISW: Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share with our readers?

TS: I think that as far as the show skating goes, we look forward every year to stretching our skating in a different direction - to go somewhere musically or artistically that we haven’t gone before. That is something we really enjoy. The other thing is the interaction that we have with the other skaters in the show and with the audience; that is what makes it worthwhile every night.

JM: We’re really having fun and we enjoy what we’re doing. We have really great audiences, and it’s very special this year with it being Scott’s last. It really is a great feeling to be involved with that.

TS: The show is guaranteed to tug at your heart strings a little bit.

JM: It really is an interesting show this year because we are all doing different lifts. Todd lifts other skaters in the cast, and all the skaters are really interactive, being lifted by different people. It is really is exciting this year.

ISW: Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us here and share your thoughts. We can’t wait to see the show!

Todd and Jenni are available to answer your questions. Feel free to email interview@iceskatingworld.com and we will forward your questions or input to this great couple.