"I absolutely hate the word 'retirement'… it makes me feel like an old lady!"
Marisa Castelli has never been one to hold back how she's feeling, and as she officially calls it a career after winning an Olympic Team Event bronze medal and two U.S. titles with partner Simon Shnapir and landing on another two U.S. podiums with Mervin Tran, the Rhode Island native had one request for this article: "Let's call it a 'moving-on piece,'" she told me in a recent phone interview.
Or a "moved-on piece," more accurately.
Castelli, after finishing sixth at the 2018 U.S. Championships last January with Tran, has flung herself into her post- (competitive) skating life with abandon: She's in school part-time, working as a skating coach, running half marathons, choreographing, back living in Providence with her fiancé (the couple got engaged at the end of 2018) and is – as she puts it – "very, very happy."
But just over six months ago things were much more clouded for Castelli. After Tran told her that he was headed to California to try out with other pairs partners (he now skates with Olivia Serafini), Castelli had a couple tryouts herself, neither of which were a match. Then came the discovery of the U.S. Olympic Committee's (USOC) Pivot Program, a weekend retreat that helps athletes prepare for life after elite-level competition.
"It was one of the most liberating weekends of my life," Castelli, now 28, said of Pivot. "That program helped me understand who I am and why it's OK for me to be myself versus just wanting to compete because other people wanted me to skate. It helped me distinguish where I am in my life, what I'm looking forward to and basically how to move on from figure skating."
Held in late June, Pivot is part of the USOC's A.C.E. (Athlete Career Education) program. Castelli had made the decision to go to Colorado Springs without telling anyone and got on a plane searching for the answer to a single question:
Should I keep skating?
"It taught me for the first time in a while to feel hopeful and excited about the future versus being terrified. I knew in that moment, 'I'm going to be OK without figure skating.'"
Castelli added: "Just because I'm retiring, doesn't mean that I'm moving on from sport. Yes, I'm moving on from competitive skating, but I'm not gone completely."
With the end of a big chapter of her life, Castelli is keeping with the theme of living in the now. "Things didn't really work out the way I would have liked them to at the end of last season," she said. "(When Mervin left for other tryouts,) basically, that was the end of our partnership."
But it was the start of something new for Castelli, who – with the help of the Pivot weekend – put her full focus into said moving on. First, a physical move back to Providence from Montreal (where she and Tran had trained for the past several years), and then a series of putting-her-life-together moves, including getting back on the ice to coach and getting a dog, Mosby.
Castelli looks back at her competitive career fondly. After she and Shnapir had stalled as the fifth-place team at the U.S. Championships in both 2011 and 2012, the pair took a much-needed one-month break in the summer of 2012 to sort out their goals and ambitions.
It's one of the most "defining" moments of her career, Castelli said.
"From that moment, that's when we started to train for the Olympics," she recalled. "We were both headstrong people, stubborn. We came to the conclusion that we had to stop (being like that) and work together. Without each other, we weren't
Marissa and Simon… we were just two individual athletes. We needed one another. It was like, 'Let's give this one more shot.'"
It worked. The team spent time in Montreal with choreographer Julie Marcotte and won its first (and, it turned out, only) Grand Prix medal by capturing bronze at NHK Trophy, then soared to a nearly 10-point lead at the U.S. Championships after the short program. They would eventually score a victory over Alexa Scimeca and Chris Knierim to claim their first of two national titles.
The next 15 months were a whirlwind for Castelli and Shnapir, with the 2013-14 season Castelli described as "the most" stressful of her career. But again, in the team's training town of Boston at the U.S. Championships ahead of the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014, the duo delivered confidently where they felt most secure: The short program.
This time, an almost seven-point lead after the short program would hold off Felicia Zhang and Nathan Bartholomay (as well as Caydee Denney and John Coughlin), Castelli and Shnapir winning their second straight title and – with it – a ticket punched to the Olympics.
"It was one of the most amazing moments in my life," she explained as their scores came in after the free skate, a ticket to Russia all but assured. "After Caydee and John skated, I knew in that moment that there was no way they wouldn't send us to the Olympics. It was one of the most relieving, exciting moments of my life."
Castelli looks back at that short program inside TD Garden as one of their crowning moments: "The short program… was the hardest part. We skated on home turf and we skated last in an Olympic year. Anything could have happened. We knew exactly what we needed to do."
Then came Sochi. Castelli and Shnapir helped Team USA earn a bronze medal in the inaugural figure skating team event, then skated to ninth in the pairs competition, the best finish of any U.S. pairs team at the Olympics since 2006 (Rena Inoue/John Baldwin, 7
th).
With the pairs event being held first after the team event in Sochi, Castelli and Shnapir had a loaded early schedule at the Games, including a team dinner on the night of the Opening Ceremony when the two of them, along with
Ashley Wagner, Meryl Davis and (team captain) Charlie White opted to eat in the dining hall and watch the fireworks from athlete housing – skipping the athlete march.
But Castelli and Shnapir stayed all the way through the Closing Ceremony, soaking in the experience as much as possible.
"It was one of the most overwhelming, exhausting periods of my life, but also one of the most exciting," Castelli said of the Olympics. "The best way to describe it is that I tell people I have no clue what happened in the month of February 2014 (elsewhere in the world). I was gone and it was this moment of time where I only remember what and how I felt at the Olympics. That's all I know (laughs)."
After the duo finished 11
th at Worlds in 2014, Shnapir stepped away from the sport to coach, but Castelli wanted more. Tran was a successful pairs skater in Canada and the team set out a plan to train in Montreal while Tran went through the process of attaining American citizenship. But that never happened. Tran's citizenship efforts hit roadblocks, and after back-to-back podiums in 2016 and '17, the duo – with no Olympic chance – were sixth in San Jose at the 2018 U.S. Championships.
At one point in our interview, Castelli said she feels she's in better shape now than when she was competing. She completed two half-marathons this summer, having joined a local running club, and has fixed plans to see the country – and perhaps the world – via running.
It's a newfound competitive outlet for her. Surprised? Don't be.
"I enjoy the atmosphere of running because when I run, I always get rewarded for it," she said. "Sometimes, in figure skating, you can work your butt off and you have one little slip-up and it's all gone. With running, if I show up – even with my run club – they are ecstatic. I'm really enjoying that atmosphere."
Castelli has taken on choreography since retiri… er,
moving on, too: She choreographed An Evening of Champions show in September and was asked this year to be the head choreographer for Ice Chips in Boston in April, hosted by the Skating Club of Boston. While she's teaching in Rhode Island (at the same rink where her mom coaches), she's also balancing classes at DeVry University in sales and marketing. She knows figure skating will always be in her blood, but finding out new things about herself has been equally – if not more – satisfying at this point in her life than putting blades to ice.
"Figure skating is your life 24/7 (when you're competing)," she said. "Now I feel relief. I can come home, relax, make dinner, do homework, take care of the dog. I do miss skating, yes, but I love coaching the younger generation. I think I've transitioned really well. I'm very happy."
While she's in a place of peace now, Castelli can recall some six months ago that it was mere chaos in her mind… and her heart. How do you step away from the only thing you've known for some 15 years?
"Once you're not competing anymore and thinking about stopping, the figure skating world goes on without you, but you don't know how to go on without the figure skating world," she said. "Going to (Pivot) really helped me figure out the question: 'What are you going to do beyond figure skating?' When I was in Canada for four years, I was terrified of retiring. I had absolutely nothing going on up there aside from figure skating. It was: 'What am I going to do when I'm done?' 'How can I go back to school?'"
Castelli became good friends with Olympic cross-country skier Noah Hoffman at Pivot, the now-retired two-time Olympian serendipitously moving to Providence to go to school at Brown this past year. They see each other when they can, while Castelli said weekends are often spent with her fiancé as well as with
Ashley Wagner, who moved to Boston this year.
"I'm with Ashley all the time," she laughed.
Castelli said it was clear to her she was done competing when she tried to picture herself skating – no,
training – on a daily basis in four years' time and just couldn't see it. She also knew the taxing uphill climb of trying to build something with a new partner like she had done with Tran. Longtime coach Bobby Martin helped her with the decision process, drawing up lists and making sure she was staying true to what
she wanted – and no one else.
When I ask her how she reflects on her career, she doesn't miss a beat.
"How many athletes can say that they went to the Olympics and won a bronze medal there? That is something I'll honestly cherish forever."
And her legacy?
"It's a hard question to answer," she said, this time pausing. "The most important thing for me is for (fans) to remember I touched them in some way. It's awesome to see that I influenced the younger generation of skaters. Some of the kids at the rink are like, 'Oh my gosh! You're Marissa Castelli!' Just that little bit makes me happy. That brings me joy that I could be part of their skating experience."
"Deep down inside, I know that I will always be a part of skating and it will be a part of me," she added.
And she's most thankful for the clarity with which she is moving on. She wants other athletes to know she's a sounding board if they need one – a 28-year-old setting out on a new life after a storied career on the ice.
Indeed, moving on.
