By JOHN KEREZY, eyeoncleveland.com founder

STRONGSVILLE, DEC. 6 — Mention Olympics and ice dancing to older fans, and the names Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean come to mind. More recently, U.S. champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates have dominated ice dancing, winning consecutive world titles.

 But there are always other up-and-coming teams. One of them has Strongsville’s Eva Pate on it, ice dancing partner with Logan Bye. With the U.S. Figure Skating nationals now just a month away, Eva and Logan have a shot at making the 2026 U.S. Olympic Team.

Eva, 25, and Logan 27, have been skating as a pair for six-and-a-half years. They are the 2025 Lombardia Trophy champions, the first ever non-Italian team to win the event. They also won the Ice Challenge in Graz, Austria. Pate/Bye was the only U.S. team in the Ice Challenge.

Eva and Logan were also the 2023 Autumn Classic Champions, and currently compete on the Grand Prix circuit. They also have had numerous top five finishes, including at the 2024 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

“The judges in Italy really responded well to us hitting our marks and to our routine overall,” says Logan. “We discovered that the audiences in Austria and Italy liked our rhythm dance, with its heavy metal emphasis.”

Those victories in Europe are important. The 2026 Winter Olympics will be held in Milan and in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, from February 6-22. There will be 16 sports showcased, and the motto for the coming Olympic competition is “It’s Your Vibe.”  Here is a link to the main website with details:

https://www.olympics.com/en/milano-cortina-2026

(By the way, there is a livestream video of the Olympic Flame making its way from Athens to Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo. You can follow it from the link above.)

LONG HOURS, HARD WORK, MANY YEARS

Unlike some other ice dancing teams, Eva and Logan don’t have a major sponsorship. They’re woking long and hard each day for success on the ice and with students they teach as well. Their alarm clock goes off at 5:30 a.m. and after breakfast and a packed lunch they head for the Novi Ice Arena near Detroit. There they teach younger skaters.

After that comes their turn to practice.

“We will go through 3 to 4 hours of training and practice with our coaches every day, Monday through Friday,” Logan says. “Other teams are doing more hours, but we’re probably actually on the ice more than many teams due to our coaching of young skaters at Novi.”

After their training has concluded, it’s back to teaching for Eva and Logan. They usually wrap up giving lessons around 6 to 6:30 p.m., then head back home. Dinner might be accompanied by viewing videos of their past performance and training sessions, aiming for improvements in their routines. Most days, between teaching and training, they are either at or on the ice for 10 hours or more.

Of course, hard work on is nothing new to Eva. She began with a skating class at age five. “Everyone else in my initial skating class stopped, but I just kept going,” she remembers. “I did both gymnastics and skating for a while, and slowly progressed with private lessons.”

Eva had a terrific coach at the Strongsville Skating Club in Janet Wene.

“She was struggling with her jumps and she was on the brink of quitting,” says Jennifer Matthews-Pate, Eva’s mom. “It was Janet who introduced Eva to ice dancing, and encouraged her to compete in solo ice dancing. In her first year, Eva registered for National Solo Ice Dance and she made the U.S. Figure Skating National Solo Dance Championships. The next year she came in fourth, then she followed by winning Nationals the next year. It was Janet who gave Eva the drive for ice dance, for believing in herself, and to eventually reach all the way to Team USA.”

Eva’s desire to excel in skating led her to Michigan. She first trained in Canton, then moved to Novi. There she continued to train and take lessons, and also began to search for a partner to compete with in duo ice dancing. She found one not at Novi, but back in Canton.

“Logan has been with a partner and did phenomenally well in ice dancing. He’d made the US Figure Skating team with her, and the two finished second at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics,” Eva says. “But his partner Chloe Lewis chose to pursue college and moved from Michigan to California.”

While still training in Canton, Logan began coming to Novi and working on routines there with Eva. Circumstances continued to put the two together.

“Another guy at Novi asked me if I wanted to partner with him, but I really preferred Logan,” Eva recalls. “So, one day I just leveled with him, telling Logan I had another offer, but I’d rather like to be his competition partner.”

By this time Logan had been without an ice dancing partner for several months. He liked Eva and knew that she worked very hard. The two began skating as partners in June 2019, and entered their first competition that October.

Their partnership turned into a relationship. The two became engaged in 2022, and they were married in May 2024.

WORKING WITH THE BEST COACHES

How do top ice dancers such as Eva Pate and Logan Bye make their lifts, spins and footwork perfect? It takes a lot of practice with top coaches to become excellent. They have a team of coaches — five regulars — who are assisting them.

On different days of the week, Eva and Logan will work with a different coach, helping them perfect both their Rhythm Dance and Free Dance routines.

“Igor Shpilband is our main coach, and like a terrific head coach on a sports team, he’s pretty much involved in everything,” Logan explains. “He’s been with me even before Eva and I became partners. He’s terrific with technique, but also with exercises and with general artistry too. He also knows when to have other coaches more involved with us and our routines.”

Pasquale Camerlengo is the duo’s choreography coach. “He’s really strong at the little nuances of our routines, which adds a lot to our program and also helps improve our scores,” explains Eva. “He tries to create purposeful movement with every nuance within the music.” She adds that Pasquale takes a ‘whole body’ approach to the choreographic, thinking about the direction in which she and Logan are moving throughout the entire routines.

Ice dancers’ scores are based in part on how well they execute twizzles and step sequences, as well as dance spins and lifts. For this part, Eva and Logan rely on Natalia Deller’s coaching advice and skills.

“Natalia is very focused on the important skills and our approach,” Logan explains. “She preaches whole body alignment to us, or how we use our body rotation to accomplish whatever our goal is. The lines that we make, each edge, is kind of the same as where our bodies need to be. She helps us with that, and she’s great with the compulsory dances.”

Another coach helping Eva and Logan is Renee Petkovski. “Renee assisted us a lot with our sequences in recent years and has been instrumental to improving our bodies’ movement,” Eva explains. “She assists us one-on-one with some private coaching lessons, and we also see her in a group ballet class, too.”

Logan added that Renee is also a good ‘clean up’ coach. “If our routine is getting a little messy and things aren’t coming together as well as they should, we’ll rely on her help to clean it up,” he says. (See the full list of coaches below.)

A CHANGE IN THE SELECTION PROCESS MEANS …

In past Olympic years, the top three teams placing at the U.S. Figure Skating National Championship received automatic nods onto the U.S. Olympic Team. In 2026, US Figure Skating and the U.S. Olympic Committee will select three ‘regular’ and three ‘alternate’ Olympic teams based on both performances at U.S. Championships and in international competitions as well, not just the top three team performers at Nationals.

Eva and Logan, along with several other U.S. Figure Skating ice dancing teams, have been competing internationally for some time. How they’ve done in those tournaments will help determine which skaters go on the represent the U.S. at the Winter Olympics.

Then in November, the duo learned that they are also on the “Olympic Short List” with U.S. Figure Skating.

“The selection process is taking into consideration the season as a whole, and not just performances at Nationals,” Eva says. “That’s important, because international judges are the ones who determine scores and who the top-placing teams are at the Olympics in Italy come February.” (See Level 4 Pattern Step story, below.)

Logan has also served U.S. Figure Skating by serving on the Athlete Advisory Committee, a group which has a say on changes in rules and in scoring. With nearly 10 years of international competition experience, his opinion is respected within the committee.

So –- the $64,000 question – can Eva and Logan make it to the Olympic Team in 2026?

“Everyone knows Madison (Chock) and Evan (Bates) are going. They have won multiple World Championships. They’re very polished, very decorated,” Eva says.

But after that, the second and third spots are very much up for grabs. “We’ve done well, and a lot of other teams have been scoring well in competitions all over the globe,” Logan says. “I feel it’s wide open, and a lot of us have an opportunity to be there.”  

FAST FACTS ABOUT EVA PATE AND LOGAN BYE

ROUTINES: Rhythm Dance: “Enter Sandman” by Metallica and “ThunderStruck” by AC/DC. Free Dance: Musical medley from “The Lion King”

COACHES:  Igor Shpilband, Pasquale Camerlengo, Adrienne Lenda, Natalia Deller and Renee Petovski

EDUCATION: Logan earned a master’s degree in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Michigan. Eva has an associate of arts degree from Cuyahoga Community College (former student of Prof. John Kerezy)

SOME OTHER TOP US Figure Skating Ice Dance Teams

Madison Chock and Evan Bates (2022 Olympic medalists, three-time world champions)

Caroline Green and Michael Parsons

Emily Bratti and Ian Somerville

Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko

Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani

Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik

Oona Brown and Gage Brown

https://usfigureskating.org/news/2024/6/26/a-figure-skating-love-story-eva-pate-and-logan-bye.aspx

FOLLOW EVA AND LOGAN HERE….

Eva and Logan will be the featured ice dancers at the Skate to Elimin8 Cancer event, now scheduled for the Cleveland Skating Club on Thursday, December 11 at 6 pm (moved due to inclement weather)
Details: https://fundraise.scottcares.org/cleveland

Nutcracker On Ice, Creative Arts Theater, Woodbridge, Illinois (Chicago area) December 13-14.
Details: https://www.creativeicetheatre.com/

Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships, St. Louis, Jan. 4-11
Drtails: https://usfigureskating.org/news/2025/11/26/2026-prevagen-us-figure-skating-championships-lineup-announced.aspx

You can keep up with Eva and Logan on social media and the internet as well.

Web Page: https://evapate-loganbye.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@eva-logan

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EvaPateLoganBye

X: @evampate and @loganbye1

Instagram: @eva.pate and @logan_bye1

Only PSt4 scored this year

Who’s the only ice dancing team in the world to receive a Level 4 Pattern Step (PSt4) from judges in Rhythm Dance at an International Skating Union’s Grand Prix or Challenger event in the 2025-2026 competition season?

Was it Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the US? Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier from Canada? Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri from Italy?

No.

It was Eva Pate and Logan Bye, representing the U.S. at the Challenger Series Lombardia Trophy in September. See the judging sheet below.

The Pattern Dance Type Step Sequence is a specific technical element in competitive ice dance, indicating a high level of difficulty and precise execution of fundamental steps like turns (three-turns, rockers, etc.) and holds, focusing on intricate footwork, consistent rhythm, and seamless partner connection.

The excellent performance on this technical element helped propel Eva and Logan to a first place in the Lombardia Trophy in Italy, the first non-Italians to ever finish first in the event. It’s also a reason why Eva and Logan made the US. Figure Skating’s “short list” of possible Olympic Teams for 2026.

Some of the information used here has appeared in previous eyeoncleveland.com stories about Eva Pate and Logan Bye