CHAPEL HILL - Twelve-year-old Kyra Szabo's jaw dropped and she started hugging almost everyone in sight when she saw her score in the juvenile girls freeskate contest Saturday at the Raleigh IcePlex.

Kyra had been trying for months to perform a double axel with the judges watching, and she had done it Saturday afternoon for the first time. It was also her first top finish in competition.

This weekend's Dogwood Open, the region's biggest figure skating competition, happens to take place during the summer Olympic Games this year. If you ask Kyra and the dozens of other young skaters who took the ice, they'll tell you that they want to compete for Olympic gold someday, too.

"That's pretty much everyone's goal," said Szabo, who travels from Southern Pines to train with her coach, Robyn Poe, who got as close to her own Olympic dream as 12th in the U.S. Championships in 1992. "If you get there, you get there. If you don't, you don't."

But meeting little goals along the way keeps the skaters going. For Kyra, it was the double axel.

For 14-year-old Miles Addison, it was throwing 12-year-old Kay Bergdolt into another double jump, the loop. At last December's U.S. Junior Figure Skating Championships, the pair placed seventh in the juvenile competition, six spots up from their 2006 showing.

Miles said his goal this year is to win at the national championships.

"And go international?" prompted Mark Rosenberg, chairman of the Skating Club of North Carolina, which organizes the Dogwood Open. "Dude, I know what's in your head. You want the gold. Would you like to skate in the Olympics one day?"

"Of course," Miles said. "Who wouldn't?"

Miles and Kay were the only skaters in the intermediate pairs freeskate Saturday. Even though they had no competition, they wanted to tune up their throw-double-loop for the U.S. Sectional Championships in Boston in November.

They nailed the throw, drawing cheers from dozens of fellow skaters, parents and coaches around the rink.

"I really like this home competition because all our friends are here," Kay said later. "It's fun to have everyone cheering for you."

Kay, though, accidentally turned two double jumps into singles. She and Miles were both exhausted after skating as singles in the morning.

"Normally, you only have one event each day," said their coach, Oleg Efimov, two-time national champion in Belarus in the 1980s who moved to the Triangle with his wife and coaching partner Natalia eight years ago. "Three events a day; it's too much for a little girl."

Efimov said his top skaters are a little behind America's best, but he says he's just trying to get the most out of each of them.

Kay "was very tired, and she still tried to do a good job. You compete, you get more experience," he said. "Nobody can promise what will come tomorrow."

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