Lower Merion’s Blake Gilman and his partner Julia Epps are part of the small but elite group of local skaters who are representing Philadelphia at the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, writes Ellen Dunkel for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The nineteen-year-old Blake Gilman and 15-year-old Epps have been ice dancing together for a decade.
“I can take one step, and I know Julia will be able to follow me without even saying anything,” said Gilman, a freshman studying economics at Penn. “It’s just natural. She can feel where I’m going; I can feel where she’s going.”
This will be Epps and Gilman’s third outing at the national championships as a junior team. In 2018, they also competed at the juvenile level.
This year, the pair, who often train at the Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society in Ardmore, decided to set their rhythm dance, also known as short program, to an Elvis Presley medley.
“It’s really fun to embody Elvis,” Gilman said.
Meanwhile, their contemporary program aims to convey a message about finding and accepting oneself.
The championships is running Monday through to January 26.
Read more about Blake Gilman in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
