Olympic skating greats come to Delaware to honor the sport’s legendary pairs coach

In 1984, adopted siblings Kitty and Peter Carruthers won the silver medal in pairs figure skating at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.

They are still one of only six U.S. pairs to medal at the Olympics, and none have medaled since 1988.

“I think in America, a lot of times we say the grass is greener on the other side,” Kitty Carruthers Conrad said via Zoom from her home near Houston. “And maybe that was a real plus for Peter and I being brother and sister, because, I mean, my gosh, we fought like cats and dogs. But, you know, we were going to stick together.

“I think every year, a lot of coaches think, ‘Well, this girl would be great with this guy, and let’s change it up.’ But really, you know, like everything else, perseverance and staying with it and working through troubled times: That’s my belief. ... It’s important to learn how to work through difficult periods of your life.”

The Carruthers siblings learned from another of those six U.S. Olympic medalist pairs. Nancy and Ron Ludington, at the time a married couple, earned Olympic bronze in 1960. Nancy was the Carruthers’ coach when they were children growing up Burlington, Mass. Ron was the coach of their teens and early 20s who took them to the Olympics in 1980 and ‘84.

And for many years, Ron Ludington, known as Luddy, was the reason Wilmington (and later Newark, Del.) was the center of U.S. pairs skating and ice dance. He invented many of the moves still skated today.

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He also created champions, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.

Ludington died in 2020 at age 85, and many of his former Olympians finally are able to return to the Skating Club of Wilmington this weekend to honor him. They also will kick off the Ron Ludington Skaters Fund, which will benefit young pairs skaters and the education of pairs coaches.

Figure skating is an expensive sport. The Carruthers were lucky that their parents managed to send them to Delaware and pay for their ice time and training. But Delaware might not have been a skating center if another pair had more money.

The year after his Olympic medal, Luddy began coaching a top ice dance team, Patricia and Robert Dineen. But neither skaters nor coach had the funds to bring him along to the World Championships in Prague. The Dineens, along with the rest of the U.S. figure skating team, was killed on the plane en route to that competition.

After that, it was up to coaches like Luddy to rebuild figure skating in America. He would go on to coach skaters in nine Olympics and 36 World Championships.

So what made his training so successful?

“First of all, I think he loved it. More than anything,” said Carruthers Conrad, who teaches skating a few hours a week in Texas. (Peter, who worked as a skating commentator on TV for many years, lives again in Burlington, Mass., and also teaches skating, but to hockey players.)

“Number one, he had an incredibly creative mind. He invented so many things in pair skating, different lifts, outside death spiral, the lasso lift overhead. I mean, year after year, he would make something up.”

He also knew how to bring out the best in his skaters.

“If you went around to anybody that was there at the time, they would swear to you that they were his favorite. ... We didn’t all have good days, but he knew how to bring all of our best qualities out,” she said.

The Carruthers started skating at ages that are considered to be late for future champions: Kitty was 9 and Peter 11.

At the beginning they did both pairs and ice dance.

“We were the same size for a really long time,” Carruthers Conrad said. “And then Peter just took a big growth spurt, and then we really had too much of a size difference for dance. And so it was suggested that we did pairs because I was little and he wasn’t.”

When they were about 14 and 16, Nancy Ludington thought they were ready for something more.

“She suggested she felt like we may have had some talent and so suggested during the summer that we go down and take some lessons from Mr. Ludington,” Carruthers Conrad said.

“So my parents packed us up. Because there were so many other really great skaters there, we were kind of awestruck. But just, you know, you really improve so much faster when you’re in a camp where everybody’s so good.”

And Luddy, it turned out, also competed in both pairs and dance.

“He was amazing,” Carruthers Conrad said. “He did everything. Like, he was an extraordinary trumpet player and golfer and fisherman. I mean, it feels like I’m still learning more and more about him, just how talented he was in absolutely everything.”

At first, the siblings just stayed for the summer and returned home. But then they moved to Wilmington (and briefly Haverford). They lived away from their parents, attended public school, and skated midnight to 3:30 a.m. every day.

And they worked hard. Carruthers Conrad compares their success to what Penn psychology professor Angela Duckworth describes in her book, “Grit.”

“It’s almost never the talent. You have to have that work ethic and that grit,” Carruthers Conrad said. “Obviously, God gave us some talent, but he also gave us the perfect storm of all the other things: Great coaching, parents that were incredibly supportive. We kind of had it all.

Or possibly not all. “We were one of the least talented [pairs],” she said.

As adopted siblings, they had nurture if not nature on their side — as did Carruthers Conrad’s oldest child. Brett Conrad was born in Cherry Hill and adopted by Carruthers Conrad and her husband, also named Brett. He would be the first of their four children in four years: two adopted sons, followed by two biological daughters.

And yet nurture and skating success found him as well. Brett landed his first axel on a trip to Delaware to see Luddy. He qualified for the U.S. Junior Championships several times before giving up the sport. But he took it up again for a year in college and won the U.S. Collegiate Championships in 2015 at the junior level.

The Carruthers will be hosts of a Saturday night skating show. The weekend also includes a reception and a golf outing at the Rock Manor Golf Course next to the rink.

Along with the Carruthers, the Olympic skaters expected to attend include Scott Gregory (1984 and 1988 Olympics), Suzy Semanick (1988), Kim Seybold Catron (1988), April Sargent Silverstein (1992), Russ Witherby (1992), and Todd Waggoner (1988), along with coaches John Nicks and Kerry Leitch.

The future of pairs skating also will be on hand. Sonia Baram and Daniel Tioumentsev, the 2022 U.S. junior pairs champions, will skate in the show.

Tickets are available on luddysk8ersfund.com.

The rink and the golf course are on Carruthers Lane in Wilmington — yes, named for the most successful skaters who trained there under Luddy.