But his migration to the Great White North 2\u00bd years ago may prove to be the first step in a major transformation for Mexican figure skating. Last summer Andrea Montesinos, a two-time Mexican women\u2019s champion, followed him to Toronto to train with coaches Jonathan Mills and Myke Gillman, who also work with teenager Mar\u00eda Velazquez, Mexico\u2019s novice national champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith him coming from the background that he\u2019s come from and seeing how he\u2019s grown and developed, it\u2019s given nothing but a positivity to the younger skaters in Mexico to feel like they can do it too,\u201d Gillman said. \u201cHe\u2019s a huge influence on them. He\u2019s their hero.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Donovan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770041414_929_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Donovan Carrillo competes in the men\u2019s short program at Skate America in October 2024.<\/p>\n
(Tony Gutierrez \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t always that way. But moving to Toronto, Carrillo struggled in anonymity for ice time and support in a country with more symphony orchestras than skating rinks. On the eve of his junior international debut, the rink where he trained in Guadalajara closed so, at 13, Carrillo followed his coach, Gregorio N\u00fa\u00f1ez, to Le\u00f3n, where he practiced in a shopping mall, sharing the dark, undersized ice with teenagers on dates and frightened preschoolers wobbling on rented skates.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Mexico, it\u2019s always a bit of a challenge to practice figure skating,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not here complaining. That made me value this more. Maybe if I didn\u2019t have conditions like that, I wouldn\u2019t appreciate what I have here today.\u201d<\/p>\n
While it lasted, the Carrillo-N\u00fa\u00f1ez partnership was the most productive in the history of Mexican skating. After winning the first of seven national championships as a teenager, Carrillo scored six top-10 finishes in major international events before becoming the first Mexican skater in three decades to qualify for the Winter Olympics, where Mexico has never medaled \u2014 with all of that coming under N\u00fa\u00f1ez.<\/p>\n
That success changed everything, for Carrillo and Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something special that he was able to go for his country four years ago,\u201d Gillman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt think he\u2019s opened the road for new countries to get involved and become included in the [International Skating Union]. That\u2019s a big step. Other skaters feel like they can do it and other countries feel like they can open up opportunities for their athletes too.\u201d<\/p>\n
To some, that seemed like the summit; to Carrillo, that was just the foothills of the climb he envisioned. But he couldn\u2019t go much higher with the handicaps he faced at home. So after missing much of the post-Olympic season to an ankle injury that required surgery, he parted with N\u00fa\u00f1ez, who had become his housemate as well as his coach, and moved to Toronto to train with Mills and Gillman in facilities far superior to what he had in Mexico.<\/p>\n
The split didn\u2019t go over well with N\u00fa\u00f1ez, who coached Carrillo for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, politics and many vested interests surround sports (the great athletes, their greatest quality isn\u2019t talent, but rather what they\u2019re willing to do to reach the top, even if it means compromising their values and principles),\u201d he wrote in Spanish from Le\u00f3n. \u201cThe ambition of these athletes and their families can cloud their humanity. In the end, perhaps they get what they want \u2014 fame, money, recognition \u2014 but all of that is fleeting and ephemeral.<\/p>\n
\u201cNowadays we venerate national heroes. These are false images created by teams of marketing and social media professionals to inspire people, but much of it is fake and manufactured. Yet, that\u2019s the reality we live in today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carrillo, however, said he needed to break with the past to move his career forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very grateful with what he did for me,\u201d the skater said of N\u00fa\u00f1ez. \u201cBut I felt like I needed something different because I\u2019m getting older and I didn\u2019t want to regret not going somewhere else.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like my skating stayed the same for the past three years. So for me to get different results, I needed to expose myself to a life change.\u201d<\/p>\n
He got that in Toronto.<\/p>\n
![\"Donovan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770041415_31_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Donovan Carrillo performs during the Four Continents championships in Seoul in February 2025.<\/p>\n
(Lee Jin-man \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore I was so angry and just so tense. Now I just move on easier and faster when things don\u2019t go my way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 Donovan Carrillo, on the different mindset he\u2019s adopted.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes I get nostalgic and I go downtown to try to find a taco place,\u201d said Carrillo, whose 22nd-place finish in the Beijing Games four years ago marked the best performance by a male Latin American skater. \u201cI\u2019m still trying to find the most legit tacos in Toronto.\u201d<\/p>\n
The changes he\u2019s experienced in Canada haven\u2019t been limited to skating and food. He\u2019s also learned about patience and perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just work on the sport, not just to teach me the jumps,\u201d said Carrillo, whose slender 5-foot-7 build and wide smile belie a fierce competitiveness that sometimes has been his worst enemy. \u201cBut also giving me life advice. Showing me how to enjoy the process. I was so hard with myself, always trying to be perfect. And they were like \u2018you don\u2019t have to be perfect every single day.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to forget what I learned in the past in Mexico and try to build a new Donovan that really enjoys what he\u2019s doing and really find joy every single time I am on the ice. Even when I\u2019m falling I try to laugh now. Before I was so angry and just so tense. Now I just move on easier and faster when things don\u2019t go my way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Partly as a result, his training has never been better.<\/p>\n
Early on a brisk weekday afternoon, Carrillo, Montesinos and Velazquez have one of the community center\u2019s two full-size rinks to themselves. In Le\u00f3n, Carrillo frequently had to skate without music so as not to disturb the children with whom he shared the ice. The Thornhill Community Centre enforces no such rule so a pair of Elvis Presley songs \u2014 \u201cJailhouse Rock\u201d and the rocker\u2019s version of \u201cMy Way\u201d \u2014 blare from loudspeakers as Carrillo dances on the ice under the watchful eye of Gillman, his chief choreographer.<\/p>\n
Carrillo can dazzle with his athleticism. His routines include technically demanding jumps \u2014 he landed a quadruple toe loop and triple axel in Beijing \u2014 but his style is defined more for its passion, artistry and a cheerful, smiling exuberance that wins fans over.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is 100% a crowd favorite,\u201d Gillman said. \u201cHis personality is contagious to the audience. They love him. He\u2019s a great performer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mills and Gillman, who have spent most of their career working with young novice skaters, said Carrillo, 26, needed time to warm to his new coaches and environment, a process that took nearly 18 months. But once they weaned him off some of the bad traits he had developed in Mexico and earned his trust, they were able to take his skating to a new level.<\/p>\n
\u201cTechnically he\u2019s improved a lot,\u201d said Mills, who was first introduced to Carrillo by one of their former students when Carrillo was still a teenager. \u201cHe\u2019s just a much more mature athlete, the way he trains on a daily basis on the ice, off the ice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been able to give him a really positive skating experience. Give him the ice time, give him the access to great rinks, great facilities, great coaching, amazing off-ice facilities, off-ice teachers. That\u2019s really been, for us, the best of all this: giving him a really positive, normal skating experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Toronto, Carrillo works with an athletic trainer, a psychologist, a chiropractor and a masseur. He does Pilates, has regular sessions in a gym, has taken dance classes and \u2014 aside from an occasional taco binge \u2014 has adjusted his diet as well. On and off the ice, he said he spends about six hours a day working on some part of the physical or mental facets of his skating.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been almost a breakthrough with him,\u201d Gillman said. \u201cI feel like there\u2019s a huge independence shift from him now. He feels very confident in himself. It\u2019s always a collaboration with what\u2019s best for him. Where he should go to compete, what we need to do for him on his training.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s funded all that in part with a stipend from CONADE, Mexico\u2019s cabinet-level sports ministry, as well as sponsorships with Toyota, the British bank HSBC and others.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a life-changer for me,\u201d Carrillo said of the move. \u201cI\u2019ve been enjoying skating. I really love the lifestyle. I eat healthy. I train. I also try to sustain [good] habits, which is what I was missing back in Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of found what works best for me and my skating and for my mindset, for my approach in competitions,\u201d he added. \u201cI just feel more complete. I\u2019m also better prepared. The conditions where I train, the coaches that I have, everything is just better than before.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Donovan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770041415_56_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Donovan Carrillo acknowledges the crowd after competing at the world championships in Montreal in March 2024.<\/p>\n
(Minas Panagiotakis \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The only thing he regrets about the move is that it didn\u2019t happen earlier. Yet at the same time, it\u2019s a move he someday hopes no other Mexican skater will have to make. Carrillo\u2019s career now is as much about legacy as it is about success; as much about removing barriers as it once was about breaking them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very aware that maybe I\u2019m just opening the door for more athletes in the future to try to be their very best and maybe put Mexico in the top of world skating. We\u2019ll see,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of my goals as an athlete, as a person, is to also build a team in Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cMexicans have a lot of potential for this type of sport. You see great results in diving, in gymnastics and there\u2019s not a big difference between figure skating, diving, gymnastics. Hopefully in the future we could have conditions like here in Canada that will allow us to train this way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MARKHAM, Canada\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Suburban Toronto is more than 2,000 miles from Mexico City, but in many ways it might as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6948,14325,37184,4690,7363,78002,78000,77998,48,52,51,47,50,49,77999,78001,2457,77997,31020,7496,77996],"class_list":["post-160293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-athlete","tag-beijing","tag-carrillo","tag-coach","tag-country","tag-donovan-carrillo","tag-gregorio-nunez","tag-ice-time","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-many-way","tag-mexican-figure-skating","tag-mexico","tag-myke-gillman","tag-skating","tag-sport","tag-suburban-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160293","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=160293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}