{"id":126743,"date":"2026-01-09T15:56:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T15:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/126743\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T15:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T15:56:14","slug":"oakland-county-ice-dancers-balance-marriage-olympic-dreams-at-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/126743\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland County ice dancers balance marriage, Olympic dreams at nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich. \u2013 Making the Olympics isn\u2019t everything for this Oakland County<\/a> married couple.<\/p>\n

How climbing the summit of a sport makes athletes feel, and who they get to do it with\u2014that\u2019s everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just made us better people,\u201d Eva Pate said of training with her ice dance partner, Logan Bye. \u201cWe have a good relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pursuing greatness on the ice since 2019, their relationship off the ice has flourished even longer. <\/p>\n

Pate and Bye, University of Michigan<\/a> alumni, began dating in December 2018 and married in May 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Skating] is what we enjoy doing, not just alone, but we get to do together and with a person that we love,\u201d Bye said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely special,\u201d Pate added. \u201cWe spend almost 24-7 together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teammates 24-7-365, dancing at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis this weekend with dreams of the Winter Olympics in Milan, an opportunity shaped by a sharp physical edge and relentless pursuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely spend a lot of time at the ice rink,\u201d Bye explained between sessions at Novi<\/a> Ice Arena. \u201cBoth of us do some coaching. We\u2019re training at least three to four hours every day\u2014not including off-ice\u2014then we\u2019re off ice for about an hour in the middle of the day. We both are here until essentially six o\u2019clock.\u201d <\/p>\n

Pate and Bye\u2019s coaches include figure skating legend Igor Shpilband, Adrienne Lenda, Pasquale Camerlango, and Natalia Deller, training at the same facility as Team USA hopefuls Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s rinse and repeat the next day,\u201d Bye quips. \u201cIt\u2019s gruesome, but we enjoy doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like any successful marriage, their program is refined through compromise and commitment.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to pick music that everyone likes,\u201d Pate said. \u201cWe all have to agree, and then we start choreographing. It can take anywhere from two to four months to really finalize your program.\u201d <\/p>\n

Music, including selections from \u201cThe Lion King,\u201d is only part of the process leading up to a major event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think Ava excels at costuming and designing. I can certainly say that it\u2019s not my expertise,\u201d Bye said with a laugh. \u201cWhen they say it takes a village, it does take a village. It\u2019s all of us working together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pate and Bye worked towards the Lombardia Trophy, first place at the Ice Challenge in Austria, and eighth place at the U.S. Nationals in 2025. They\u2019re loving the process and each other non-stop on the journey, wherever it takes them next.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a really successful season so far for us, so we\u2019re happy to be where we\u2019re at,\u201d Pate said. \u201cWe\u2019re happy to skate, excited for nationals, and just ready to enjoy it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich. \u2013 Making the Olympics isn\u2019t everything for this Oakland County married couple. How climbing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[13684,13448,143,904,145,144,26781],"class_list":{"0":"post-126743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-michigan-wolverines","9":"tag-novi","10":"tag-oakland","11":"tag-oakland-county","12":"tag-oakland-headlines","13":"tag-oakland-news","14":"tag-university-of-michigan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}