Around the world on a pair of ice skates

Fox Lane 2026 grad Diana Balkovski competes at synchronized skating World Championships

Diana Balkovski, front and center, performs with the Skyliners at the National Championships in Las Vegas. PHOTOS COURTESY OF DIANA BALKOVSKI

By JIM MACLEAN 

Where in the world is Diana Balkovski?

That is a question students at Fox Lane High School must have often wondered the past four years regarding their Class of 2026 classmate.

Her passport reveals the answer. She had followed a different path, and it was not an easy path to take.

The simple answer is she was somewhere away from Fox Lane on a pair of ice skates, but that doesn’t begin to tell the story. Balkovski had dedicated herself to the sport of synchronized skating, and that led her on an adventure to places around the world most people can only dream about seeing in a lifetime.

It was a journey that started when she was 6 years old. By the time she reached high school, she was on skates every day of the week competing at the top level of her sport with her Skyliners Synchronized Skating team. Three times a year she was traveling across the country for national tournaments, and three times a year she was in Europe for international competitions. Her adventure culminated this spring in Gdansk, Poland, where her Skyliners team finished third at the World Junior Championships.

To reach that level and make it possible meant a big sacrifice in terms of time and commitment away from her friends at Fox Lane and family in Pound Ridge.

“I didn’t realize how much I was missing out on, because I loved what I was doing and I always wanted to be there. It was frustrating, my friends would be doing something fun together and I would be at practice or traveling, but at the end of the day I don’t regret it because I loved it and it has been an amazing adventure.”

What an adventure. She has been on nine trips to Europe to compete at international competitions in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, England, and twice to the Czech Republic and twice in Poland. To get to the world tournaments, you had to qualify at national tournaments, which meant trips to California, Boston, Utah, Illinois, Colorado and Las Vegas.

Fox Lane grad Diana Balkovski (right) with teammate Stephanie Sze after competing on the ice at Brno, Czechia.

Anyone who has competed in team sports can understand the value of teamwork and imagine what it takes to compete at the world championships as a team. However, watching a video of the Skyliners in action performing their routine at the World Championships will leave any athlete in awe. This is team sport at a different level, a total of 16 skaters on the ice at once, requiring individual skills at the highest level performing with precision timing in unison. Weaving in and out, skating backwards and forwards, lifts, spins, jumps, tricks, every move choreographed down to the second, every move depending on every teammate to make it work. One mistake can throw off the entire line.

Balkovski could only laugh and nod her head when asked if there are collisions on the ice working out the routines during the countless hours of practice and preparation to reach that level. And then imagine the pressure, the intensity to step out on the ice and perform in a big arena competing against the best teams in the world.

The Skyliners Junior team finished third at the World Junior Championships in Poland.

“It’s very precise, and it’s an appearance sport so you have to make everything look perfect,” she said. “The one thing that stands out, the most special thing is the connection I have with my teammates, how much trust we have with every single teammate. That really shows on the ice. You get chills just sitting in the arena watching other teams perform, seeing their spirit and knowing how hard they worked. All of us have a love for the sport and that passion brings us together and we love each other.”

You have to be passionate to make the commitment it takes to be on the top competitive lines in the Skyliner program. Skaters come from all over the tri-state area to try out.

And you have to be good. It takes years of training.

For Balkovski, it all started when she was 6 years old and her mom saw a flyer at the rink for the synchronized skating program and signed Diana up. 

She did it throughout her childhood just for fun, but then came an injury and the pandemic that kept her off skates and away from the Skyliners for nine months. She came back with a vengeance.

“When I was young I was just doing it to go skating and have fun, then I was out and I really missed it,” she said. “I didn’t realize how much I loved the sport until I was able to come back. After that it was just skating and school. Every day since eighth grade, my mom would pick me up after school and take me to the rink. I started to work really hard. I loved it and I didn’t want to just have fun, I wanted to succeed.”

Balkovski poses with teammate Chelsea Peng at the World Championships in Switzerland. 

There are different levels in the program at Skyliners and only the best get to try out for the top lines. Each level is more intense, more pressure, and more competitive, requiring more hard work to stay on the team. Every year you have to try out again to make the team, and she was determined to reach the top.

The first step for Balkovski was to master the technical skills she needed on the ice. She got her gold medal in ice dancing during her sophomore year, and that enabled her to try out for the top line. She made the team and has been on the Skyliners Junior competition line ever since.

Now, she was committed to what it took to be on that top line. It meant three team practices together on the ice every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It meant individual practices and lessons on the ice every day from Monday through Thursday.

The team also had three mandatory “boot camp” sessions where they would go away for a week of intensive training and rehearsals. One week in June, August and January, six hours a day on the ice.

The result of all that hard work was earning three-straight trips to compete in the World Championships, finishing third in the world three straight years.

All year-long she was spending countless hours on the ice, and countless hours driving to rinks and traveling around the world. It was a big commitment for herself and her family.

“We had to get to airports, we had to get to practice every day, and I was very lucky to have the support of my family,” she said. “They had to take time off of work and they sacrificed so much for me to do this. I knew I wanted to do it and it was going to take up so much time and I needed their support and they did it.”

It also meant a lot of time away from Fox Lane, not just missing out on fun, but missing out on classwork that she had to make up. Each international competition would be a week away from school, and she managed to keep up good grades to graduate and will now go on to college at the University of Chicago this fall.

“I missed about five full weeks of school each year,” she said. “It was hard, but it was worth it.”