Gracie Gold

Grace Elizabeth Gold (born August 17, 1995), known as Gracie Gold, is an American figure skater.

Grace Elizabeth Gold was born on August 17, 1995, in Newton, Massachusetts.

She is the daughter of Denise, an ER nurse, and Carl Gold, an anesthesiologist.

Her fraternal twin sister, Carly Gold (named after their father), is younger by 40 minutes and also competed in figure skating.

Gold was raised in Springfield, Missouri, before moving to Springfield, Illinois.

She has also stated that she has lived in Corpus Christi, Texas.

She attended ninth grade at Glenwood High School in Chatham, Illinois, before switching to online education through the University of Missouri.

She has taken ballet lessons to improve her performance.

Gold has been open about her mental health struggles, including her treatment for anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder.

They placed eighth in juvenile pairs at the 2007 U.S. Junior Championships.

Gold was fourth on the novice level at the 2010 U.S. Championships.

The next season she competed on the junior level but finished sixth at the Midwestern Sectionals and failed to qualify for the national championships.

After the event she began preparing for the following season by working to increase her technical content.

Gold made her international debut at the Junior Grand Prix in Tallinn, Estonia, winning gold.

At the junior level, Gold is the 2012 World Junior silver medalist, the 2011 JGP Estonia champion, and the 2012 U.S. junior national champion.

She then qualified for the 2012 U.S. Championships on the junior level, where she won both the short and long programs to win the gold medal.

Her total of 178.92 points is a record for a junior lady at the U.S. Championships.

Gold won gold in all seven of her competitions this season leading into the U.S. Championships.

She then competed at the 2012 World Junior Championships in Minsk, Belarus.

Gold won the silver medal at the event.

She is a 2014 Olympic bronze medalist in the team event, a six-time Grand Prix medalist (2 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze), and a two-time U.S. national champion (2014, 2016).

Gold placed 4th at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

In 2014, Gold became the first American woman to win the NHK Trophy title on the Grand Prix Series circuit and holds the record for the highest short program score ever recorded by an American woman (76.43) which she achieved at the 2016 World Championships in Boston.

Gold is a mental health advocate and was recognized with the 2022 Bell of Hope Award.

Teammate Ashley Wagner first prompted U.S. Figure Skating officials to seek treatment for Gold in 2016, but Gold did not accept their help until "snapping" in front of judges at the same USFSA event in 2017.

Since returning to skating, she has redefined her goals and aimed to find a healthier approach to the sport.

She discussed having suicidal thoughts after moving alone to Michigan in 2017 and isolating herself in her apartment.

Upon reflecting on her journey, Gold told reporters in December 2019: "Yes, things could be better, but look how far I've come."

She was featured in the HBO Sports Documentary The Weight of Gold (2020), and her memoir Outofshapeworthlessloser: A Memoir of Figure Skating, F*cking Up, and Figuring It Out, released in February 2024, became a The New York Times Bestseller.

Gold was featured in The Weight of Gold (2020), an HBO Sports Documentary which "explor(es) the mental health challenges that Olympic athletes often face."

In her memoir, Outofshapeworthlessloser: A Memoir of Figure Skating, F*cking Up, and Figuring It Out, released in February 2024, Gold alleged that she had been raped by a fellow figure skater at an event after-party when she was twenty-one.

She further stated that she reported the incident to a U.S. Figure Skating official, who then passed it on to the U.S. Center for SafeSport.

However, she didn't hear anything from the organization until two years later to be informed that her case was being looked at by different case manager.

As of her book's publication, Gold said that she had yet to hear from them again.

As of 2022, she is in with a relationship with the two-time British junior ice dance national champion James Hernandez.

Gold started skating at age 8 after attending a friend's birthday party at her local rink in Springfield, Missouri.

She subsequently began training with Amy Vorhaben and Max Liu before changing coaches to work with Alexia Griffin.

Later she joined Susan Liss and then switched to Toni Hickey in Springfield, Illinois.

Her next coach was Alex Ouriashev, who worked with her at two rinks in the Chicago area.

Gold competed in pairs with Sean Hickey.