Red is definitely her color.
It shouts from the Austrian flag that her fans wave proudly, and beams from Montclair State University all the way to the ice rinks of Prague.
Olga Mikutina, a business administration student at Montclair State, packed away her bright red skating costume and boarded a flight to the Czech Republic for the ISU World Figure Skating Championships.
Just over a month after the Winter Olympics, the figure skating elites gathered in Prague to show off their skills once more before the season ended. Mikutina took center ice and finished 17th overall.
Fans may not have recognized her when she started her short program, sporting the red dress she competed in for the first half of the season. Mikutina switched back in honor of the season’s end.
She scored a 60.11 in the short program, just two points under her season-best performance at the Olympics.
“I was well-prepared physically,” she said. “At least [the] jumps were consistent, and it was very nice to perform.”
However, four elements into the program, a tough fall on a planned triple flip stopped Mikutina in her tracks. She scored 4.66 points in base value, but lost out in her grade of execution. Still, Mikutina doesn’t let one slip define her performance.
“The beginning was so good,” she said. “It was almost the best and cleanest beginning of my program, so after I fell, I just tried to continue [skating] and pretend nothing had happened.”
Mikutina dominates in her spins and step sequences, earning a level four in every one of those respective elements. Her extensive acrobatic and dance training is clear in every movement.
Two days later, her free skate proved more challenging. After underrotating several of her jumps, Mikutina began to have self-doubts.
“The first jump in the beginning was wonderful,” she said. “[The] second jump went alright with a little mistake [in] the rotations, and then I felt in my head the negative thoughts, like, ‘I’m tired, I can’t do it anymore, the last competition of this hard season, I want to have it over.’
“I don’t know why I started to think this,” Mikutina said, echoing the thoughts of feelings of countless professionals who experience self-doubt. “It was stupid.”
She admitted the mistakes broke her focus and clouded her mind.
“I felt that I lost a little focus after the second jump,” she said. “Mistakes happened, and then I just kind of gave up. I didn’t fight enough as I should have.”
Mikutina scored a 109.73 on her free skate and placed 17th. After her performance, Mikutina still raves about her artistry on the program, in which she skated to an orchestral rendition of “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica.
“Even though I [made] so many mistakes and jumps, people really like this program,” she said. “A lot of them told me they like the free program even more than the short — the Metallica vibe [and] the style — so I’m keeping this program for next season because I received a lot of compliments and appreciation.”
Mikutina had plenty of support in the stands to cheer her on. Her mother and other family friends sat proudly as she finished both of her programs. Her physiotherapist even brought her good luck charm, a stuffed Monkey named Marta, as well.
Now in the offseason, Mikutina has more ambitious goals for her figure skating future, with one specific goal in mind.
To complete a quad jump.
It’s a feat that very few elite figure skaters have achieved. Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva was the first woman to complete a quad at the Olympics in 2022. Her teammates, Alexandra Trusova and Anna Shcherbakova, followed suit in the same competition, winning silver and gold, respectively.
If Mikutina follows through with her plan, she will become the first female Austrian skater to complete a quad jump — cementing her place in Austria’s skating history.
Mikutina plans to graduate from Montclair State in December, next sporting red on her cap and gown. Until then, she travels back to Austria to prepare for the next competition cycle.
