Wilsonville middle schooler wins gold in national figure skating competition

For 13-year-old Odessa Akervall, hours of training and preparation paid off when she won gold in a national figure skating competition.

The Excel National Festival, held annually in July, is the culminating competition for the Excel track in figure skating. At the competition Akervall won gold for the intermediate women's level with a personal high score.

Akervall, who is the daughter of Wilsonville City Council President Kristin Akervall, has been skating since she was 5 years old and participated in the competition for the first time this year. She choreographed her performance herself and incorporated American Sign Language into her moves — which has personal significance to Akervall since some of her family members are deaf.

Upon learning she won the competition, she said her mind was “just in shock.”

“It was unreal. It felt like I was dreaming,” Akervall said. “It was kind of magical.”

Akervall first started skating in a class through the Wilsonville Parks and Recreation Department, and said she became more serious about training after the COVID-19 pandemic. She began digging into the training aspects she did not enjoy and previously avoided, such as workouts and dance classes.

“After COVID, I started realizing (that) if I want to get to a really high level then I need to start doing all of it, even if I don’t like it,” Akervall said.

She trains six days a week; during summers she averages around 30 hours each week. During the academic year, she trains in the morning before school starts. While the training gets tiring, she said she remembers her love for the sport and “it feels worth it.” She credits the intensified training as a reason she won gold at the competition.

Akervall’s program was significant to her on a number of levels. Outside of incorporating sign language into her performance, with some moves using signs and others taking inspiration from signs, she performed to a personally meaningful song titled “Both Sides Now” by Amelia Jones. The song is used in the movie “CODA,” standing for Child of Deaf Adults, which follows a protagonist who is the only hearing person in her family.

“(The song) is about looking at two perspectives, and how they can both hold truth,” Akervall said.

In the movie’s context, she said the song is about the protagonist belonging to both the deaf and hearing community. Because Akervall’s uncle and his fiance are both deaf and her cousins are CODAs, the song’s reference to the movie and message are personal to her.

“I really wanted to make my program personal — not just to myself, and not just to the audience, not just the judges, but to everybody,” Akervall said. “I wanted to bring them back to their childhood.”

Choreographing the performance herself also contributed to the personal significance of it, Akervall said. This wasn’t planned and she did so because the ice storm earlier this winter prevented her from working with her coaches during the week they planned to make the choreography.

“It’s more common for coaches to choreograph the skating routines. Oftentimes skaters hire another coach or choreographer to choreograph it,” Akervall said. “So it was a little different that I choreographed most of it myself.”

Akervall is unsure what her next steps are, saying she can’t compete at the intermediate level again because she won gold. But, she knows she wants to continue improving her skills.