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Darien Teenager Skates To The Next Level After New England Win

DARIEN, Conn. — Friday will be a big day for Darien figure skater Emilia Murdock. 

Emilia Murdock wins the gold medal in Novice Ladies skating at New England Regionals.

Emilia Murdock wins the gold medal in Novice Ladies skating at New England Regionals.

Photo Credit: Contributed

She will be competing for a chance to go to the 2018 U.S. Figure Skating National Championships. And she will be turning 15. 

Emilia is skating this week at Eastern Sectionals, which are being held in Boxborough, Mass. At Sectionals, she will be competing against the other 11 top novice ladies skaters from the Eastern Seaboard.  

She earned her trip to Sectionals by winning gold at the New England Regionals last month.  

At Regionals, Emilia won all segments of the Novice Ladies category — the qualifying round (with 77.09 points), the short program (with 45.36 points) and the long program (with 91.21 points). 

Emilia scored her win after rehabbing from a fracture in her lower back suffered in February. She was only cleared to return to full training by end of June. 

RELATED STORY: Darien Teen Skates To Silver Medal In Intermediate At National Championship

At Regionals, Emilia landed a double axel, a triple flip and a triple salchow in her short program, and a triple flip, a triple salchow and two double axels in her long program.

Her total score at Regionals of 136.57 points is the highest among skaters competing at Eastern Sectionals.

She will compete in the short program on Thursday morning and in the long program on Friday morning at the Nashoba Valley Olympia skating rink.

The top four skaters at each Sectional competition will advance to Nationals, which will be held in January in San Jose, Calif.

Emilia, a member of the Skating Club of Boston, is a ninth-grader who studies through the George Washington University online high school. She trains in the Boston area with coaches Peter Johansson and Mark Mitchell, a Hamden native and 1992 silver medalist for U.S. senior men.

Emilia has competed — and medaled — at nationals previously. In February, she skated two clean programs to capture silver in the Intermediate Ladies category.

And in 2015, she won the Silver Medal for Juvenile Girls at the national championships.

Emilia previously attended St. Luke's School in New Canaan and has trained at Chelsea Piers New York, Chelsea Piers Connecticut, Terry Conners Rink in Stamford and Dorothy Hamill Rink in Greenwich.

She is working her way up the ranks, with national medals at the Juvenile and Intermediate levels. She is now competing as a novice. The next levels are junior and senior — the skaters who compete at the Olympics.

Emilia follows in a great tradition of figure skating in Connecticut. Greenwich is the childhood hometown of 1976 Olympic gold medalist Dorothy Hamill.

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