In figure skating, there are great performances that win medals. And then there are performances that transcend medals to enter the lore and iconic history of the sport. Adam Siao Him Fa had both last month at the 2024 ISU World Championships in Montreal: He won his first career World medal–but it’s how he did it that people will remember.
Siao Him Fa, 23, went into Worlds with legitimate podium aspirations. As the two-time and reigning European champion, French national champion, and winner of two Grand Prixs this season, he had the credentials and content to challenge. However, the Frenchman’s short program in Montreal was little short of disastrous: Mistakes on all three jumping passes left him in 19th place. His medal hopes appeared over.
But Siao Him Fa’s coaches–headed by Benoit Richaud of Peak Ice–urged him not to give up and to go for it in the free skate.
“I said to him: ‘You know, to be a true champion, you need to fight. You need to fight for the title, for the result. I believe in you. Everything is inside you; you just need to let it go. And fight,” Richaud shared.
That’s what he did. Skating in the first group, Siao Him Fa put out a career-defining performance with four quads and two triple Axels. Not only that, he skated with fiery energy, even going for a backflip. Siao Him Fa knew the backflip–an illegal element–would cost him 2 points in deductions. But coming from 19th place, he felt he had little to lose and wanted to give the audience a thrill. The crowd responded with a standing ovation, and the judges awarded a score of 206.90, just a few tenths off his personal best.
More drama ensued afterward. For two hours, Siao Him Fa waited in the green room backstage as skater after skater competed, trying to beat his score. None could. Would he actually win a medal? Incredibly, it happened. Only the final two skaters, Yuma Kagiyama and Ilia Malinin, were able to top his score. Siao Him Fa jumped all the way from 19th place to the podium. No one in the history of ISU championships had ever made a bigger jump in the free skate, according to reporter Jackie Wong. For Siao Him Fa, the long night in Montreal ended with a bronze medal and a spot among the sport’s legends.
It was a huge moment that Siao Him Fa wants to build on. He and his coaching team have big dreams.
“We want to push skating and make new things,” Richaud said of his hopes for Siao Him Fa. “That’s the whole plan. Because we both believe that figure skating is one of the best and most beautiful sports in the world. We want to connect people to it, and touch people’s emotions. Now that he is more established–and I’m also more established–I think we’re going to start, like, a revolution. We’re going to do more crazy things that people have never seen.”
About a week after Worlds, I caught up with Siao Him Fa for a chat via Zoom. The French skater was so charming and unassuming that you would never guess he had just set the skating world on fire! Siao Him Fa shared his thoughts on everything from how he got into skating, the significance of the backflip, his plans to raise his game technically, and his overall goals in skating.
The beginning
Q: Adam, can you tell a little about your background? You were born in Bordeaux, a city in southern France. And prior to that, your parents came to France from Mauritius, a former French colony in the Indian Ocean.
S: My grandparents, from my father’s side, are from China. On my mother’s side, my grandparents were from Mauritius. Both of my parents were born in Mauritius, and they arrived in France a bit more than 40 years ago. So I was born in Bordeaux. I have one big sister and two big brothers, and they all did figure skating. So I just followed them. I wanted to do just like them and copy them. That’s how I started.
Q: Did your parents have any prior connection to the sport?
Siao Him Fa: Not at all, actually. My big sister started doing gymnastics and figure skating. Then she had to make a choice, because it was too much to do both, so she decided to do figure skating. Then my brother tried figure skating, and he liked it. That’s how the family started in figure skating.
Q: Did your siblings compete?
Siao Him Fa: Yes. But when they turned around 15 or 16, they all stopped figure skating because of school and other things. I’m the only one who continued. They are way older than me. Now, I have one brother living in Montreal, one in Australia, and my sister is in Bordeaux, in France.
Q: Did you visit your brother when you were at Worlds in Montreal?
Siao Him Fa: Yes, actually, all of my family was at Worlds. They all came to watch and support me.
Q: When you were started skating, what drew you into it, aside from the family connection? What was it that you liked, or didn’t like, about skating?
Siao Him Fa: For a long time, I was just into jumps. I didn’t like to do skating skills, choreography, or spins. I kind of hated spins. Now it’s okay, it’s getting better. [He grins.] But, yes, when I was younger, I was only into jumps. I still love to jump.
Q: Did the jumps come fairly easily for you?
Siao Him Fa: Actually, I kind of struggled to land my double Axel, for two or almost three years. I did my first double Axel around 12 or 13. But then the triples came pretty fast.
Q: When you were little, how did you feel about going to the rink and doing training? Were you into it, or not really?
Siao Him Fa: When I was like three years old, my parents would pick my brothers up from school to bring them to the ice rink for practice. So for me, I thought it was normal–natural–to go figure skating after school. When I entered school, and then I went to the rink with my brothers, but I wasn’t skating, I was almost mad. I asked my parents [if I could] skate. For me, it’s always been normal to do figure skating.
Taking the next step up
Q: When did you start to enjoy the artistic side–choreography, skating skills, and spins?
Siao Him Fa: I started to enjoy the artistic part when I was around 18. Then I actually started to understand what skating was–how to feel the music and everything. Now, I enjoy skating so much, I don’t see only the jumps [any more].
Q: You competed on the Junior Grand Prix and won some medals. Then you transitioned to seniors around 2018-20, and it was a few years before you started to find success. What was the transition like to seniors, and what did you learn?
Siao Him Fa: That’s a good question. Of course, the level is way higher in seniors. Also, there is more maturity and better skating skills in senior skaters. It took me a bit of time to understand that and to improve on everything. On the technical part, I had to be more consistent, and work on my edgings and my landings and all the details. I could see it was really clean on the senior level, on the highest levels. It was really clean, and everything was in the details.
Q: At the time you started in seniors, Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu were dominating men’s skating. How did it feel to come into seniors and face these legendary skaters with amazing jumps?
Siao Him Fa: It felt … unrealistic. To me, they looked like superhumans. [Smiles] With these two skaters, I was really a fan, and I’m still a fan of them. They really inspired me all along my career, even right now. Seeing them skating, it felt like it was untouchable, at that time.
Q: Did you think you’d be able to catch up to them and skate at a similar level?
Siao Him Fa: Actually, the goal that I fixed to myself, when I was younger, was that I wanted to skate as well as they did, but in my own way.
Q: You finished 8th at the post-Olympic Worlds in Montpellier, France, in 2022. Then, from there, you’ve seen a lot of success. How did you evolve your skating to get to that next level?
Siao Him Fa: I would say that Benoit [Richaud] has helped me a lot to evolve on my artistic part, with the creativity, the choreography, and on my spins. He helped me develop my own style. I think this is part of why I improved that much. Because I think I started from nowhere. And the fact that Benoit knew how and what I needed to work on, it kind of exploded. But in a good way.
Q: Let’s talk about your style. The last two seasons, you’ve skated to very dramatic, intense pieces of music. And before that, you had some really interesting programs with Star Wars and Daft Punk. What do you see as your style? Who are you as a skater, artistically?
Siao Him Fa: I want to be a complete skater. I want to be as good at the technical as at the artistic, and having both at a really high level. I want to skate in a way that no one did before. And I want to bring something new in figure skating; something that hasn’t been done yet. So I can bring something more modern.
Q: At Worlds, Benoit said the two of you already have some interesting ideas for your programs next season, to do some things that are different.
Siao Him Fa: Yes, some crazy ideas. But it’s really going to look awesome, I hope.
“Doing all the quads is a goal”
Q: At the same time that you were developing your artistry, in the past couple years, you also added some new quads to your repertoire, like quad Lutz and quad flip. How did you develop those jumps? Especially since your coach, Benoit, is more on the artistic side, as opposed to the technical side. [Note: Siao performs quad Lutz regularly, and attempted quad flip at this year’s French Nationals.]
Siao Him Fa: So actually, Benoit is not managing the technical parts [of my skating]. Cedric Tour and Rodolphe Marechal are coaching me on the technical jumps. I’ve been doing quad flip and quad Lutz since I was 19, but it wasn’t very consistent. Cedric and Rodolphe helped to make it easier and to feel more confident on those jumps, so I could land them more easily. It took a bit of time to work on. It’s way harder to include them in the programs than to do it at practice. In practice, I could do them really easily. But when I had to include them in the programs, it’s another question. So it took a bit of time. But I would say that [gaining] confidence helped me a lot.
Q: Are you looking to add more jumps to your repertoire? Or is it pretty set where it is now?
Siao Him Fa: Of course, technically I still want to improve my jumps. Doing all the quads is a goal. Maybe not putting all of them [in programs] right now; it’s maybe a bit soon. It has to be more strategic, about which jump I want to include in my programs. But even if it’s only in practice, I want to be able to land all the quads. I’m actually landing quad loop, but it’s not very consistent. And obviously, we’ll be working on quad Axel.
Q: So you’re definitely going to work on quad Axel?
Siao Him Fa: For sure.
Q: Speaking of the quad Axel, you and Ilia Malinin have been competing against each other the last year or two. This winter, you both skated in Art on Ice, a series of shows in Switzerland. I’ve seen videos of you doing things together at gala practices. What is it like to compete with Ilia, who has just become World champion?
Siao Him Fa: Yes, Ilia … We have a good friendship. Skating with him is really fun and really good, because he is a really great skater and good performer. So it helps me to push my limits, and to try to do my best all the time. The fact that we could train together in Art on Ice was also really interesting for me, to see how he was training. And just training with him for multiple days, not like in competition, or when we are inside our own bubble. It was really good and really motivating. And the fact that Ilia won the World Championships, I’m really happy for him. His performance was so impressive.
The backflip
Q: One thing you and Ilia have done in practice videos is the backflip. And, of course, you’ve also done the backflip on your own, even in competition, where it is technically not allowed. Can you talk about this trick?
Siao Him Fa: I’ve been working on the backflip since last May, because I wanted to learn it. I just wanted to learn it for the soul. And, at a certain point, I started thinking, ‘Oh, maybe it would be a good idea to put it in a program.’ Even if I know it was an illegal element. I’m disappointed that the [skating] world didn’t change in more than 25 years [since Surya Bonaly was penalized for doing the backflip in competition]. The sport has evolved so much, and we are doing so many things that are more dangerous. No one is going to land [the backflip] if they are not well-prepared. I wanted to include it in the program because I feel this element is really spectacular. And also, I feel that it’s going to be the key to include more artistic elements. I want to push the sport, to help the sport to develop.
Q: To help it become more popular with fans?
Siao Him Fa: Yes.
Q: As much as the jumps are super-important, I think in many cases, it’s the choreography and highlight moments that actually get fans excited and draw them in.
Siao Him Fa: Yes. That’s the thing. Jumps are impressive, but figure skating is not only about jumps. Of course, the backflip is kind of a jump. But it’s choreography, not like technical elements. That’s how I feel. I think we should bring more acrobatic choreographic steps.
Q: Let’s say the backflip becomes a legal, or allowed, element. Would you like to see it as a choreographic element, like a choreo spin or a choreo jump? Or would you see it as one of the technical elements?
Siao Him Fa: I think it should be a choreographic element. Of course, there are so many variations about that jump. But we should keep the technical jumps for the six jumps–Axel, toe loop, Salchow, loop, flip, and Lutz. And keep backflips, free jumps, cartwheels, aerials, twists and everything–those kinds of jumps–as choreographic moves. That’s my thought.
Q: So tricks can be a part of the program, but they are not competing with the classic jumps as the main technical elements?
Siao Him Fa: Exactly. Anyone can bring their own touch.
Q: Obviously, it’s quite soon after Worlds to talk about the future. But what are your initial plans for the off-season, and for next season?
Siao Him Fa: For the off-season, I am doing the French tour in April. I have some shows in Japan, too–Fantasy on Ice. We will work on my new programs with Benoit. And then, during the whole summer, I will work with my team at Peak Ice. I will do good and hard work.
Q: Next season, do you have specific goals for placements, or what you hope to do in your programs?
Siao Him Fa: I have some thoughts about what I want to do in my programs. But there’s also one part that I don’t want to tell yet. It’s going to be part of the surprise. [Grins] I hope it’s going to be fun. Right now, I haven’t made any placement goals. Of course, I would love to perform [well enough] to make it to the Grand Prix Final again. The 2024 Grand Prix Final is going to be in Orleans, France, so it’s in my home. It would be an honor to do it. Beyond that, I haven’t really thought yet, because it’s just the end of the season one week ago. I haven’t had time to rest and go home, even for one day!
Q: You’ve spent most of your life in the south of France. You’re from Bordeaux and have trained in a number of cities in the south, including your current base in Nice. How has that shaped you?
Siao Him Fa: I like the sun in the south. [Smiles.] I feel good in France. I haven’t felt it necessary to go [train] in another country yet. I like the fact that I’ve moved to different cities in France–Bordeaux, Toulouse, Poitiers, Courbevoie–and now I am in Nice. I feel pretty good in Nice, it’s a really nice place. The rink there has open windows, so you can clearly see the city of Nice, which is good. And it’s really warm.
Q: Do you go to the beach much?
Siao Him Fa: To be honest, not that much. But having the sun feels good.
All photographs by Tina Weltz for A Divine Sport.