Legendary Figure Skater Rory Flack Talks Starring in New Docuseries ‘Breaking the Ice’ (Exclusive)

Rory Flack made history during her figure skating career, becoming the first Black woman to win the US Open Professional Figure Skating Championships. And now she’s using her talent and knowledge of the sport to coach young Black figure skaters in a new docuseries called Breaking the Ice. PopCulture.com spoke exclusively to Flack, who explained why she wanted to be part of the WE tv docuseries. 

“Well, I wanted to show the world the back scenes or the background of figure skating and what you don’t get to see on TV,” Flack exclusively told PopCulture. “You just see the finished product. So I wanted to teach the world the process.” 

Breaking the Ice focuses on Flack coaching Team DMV, the first wholly diverse, competitive synchronized skating team looking to reaching to the Ice Sports Industry’s (ISI) national championship. The team includes 10 middle and high school girls who are looking to be champions but it won’t come easy as they have to deal with rigorous training on and off the ice, dealing with vocal parents and listening to Flack who doesn’t take it easy on them. 

“It’s been nice to be able to teach them how to be champions, because going into with this group of girls, they weren’t used to winning,” Flack said about working with the young girls. “They expected last [place] every time they stepped on the ice. So to teach them and to work with them to be able to get on the ice and to expect to win has been incredible.”

Flack knows what it takes to be on top of the figure skating world. Along with winning the U.S. Open, she won the bronze medal in the junior division of the U.S. National Championships in 1986. The 54-year-old also won the American Open Artistic Championship in 2002 and competed for Team USA in the CBS series Ice Wars in 2006. And while Flack was competing professionally, she was also coaching which is something she always wanted to do. 

“I coached through my competitive professional years,” Flack said. “And that made me a better coach and it made me a better skater. It made me more relatable. So right now, still every day I love to coach because I can relate.”

And when it comes to what Flacks wants fans to take away from watching the series, she wants viewers to understand that Breaking the Ice is “about breaking barriers. And these girls break barriers every day, so with inspiration and they have golden dreams, that there’s no barrier that you can’t break to move forward with your dreams.”

Breaking the Ice premieres on July 6 on WE tv with new episodes available on the network every Thursday.