Ex US Figure Skater Todd Sand Suffers Heart Attack While Coaching At World Jr. Championships

Jenni Meno Todd Sand

Former U.S. Champion pairs figure skater Todd Sand, 59, reportedly suffered a heart attack in Calgary, Canada at the 2023 World Junior Figure Skating Championships on Thursday.

Sand was in Canada coaching the U.S. pairs team of Sophia Baram and Daniel Tioumentsev.

He was with them during their technical program performance on Wednesday night.

Sand was hospitalized on Thursday morning.

Baram and Tioumentsev dedicated their free skate to Sand on Thursday night and won the gold medal.

It is nothing short of amazing that the pair was able to stay composed and skate the performance of their lives.

They won the title by a comfortable margin of 13.11 points and achieved personal best scores.

Meno And Sand’s Performing Career

Sand won three consecutive U.S. National Figure Skating Championships titles with his partner and now wife Jenni Meno from 1994-1996.

Jenni Meno and Todd Sand skated during the Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov era of pairs figure skating.

Gordeeva and Grinkov won practically every competition they entered from the late 80s through the mid-90s.

Grinkov collapsed on the ice while rehearsing with Stars on Ice in November 1995.

He suffered a fatal heart attack but later it was learned through an autopsy that he had a genetic heart ailment.

Sand’s Condition Is Unknown

There has not been any information released pertaining to Todd Sand’s condition.

Jenni Meno was not at the competition and traveled from their home in California to Canada upon hearing the news.

Meno and Sand have a busy March as the World Figure Skating Championships in Saitama, Japan begin on March 25.

They coach the reigning U.S. and 2022 World Champion pairs team, Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier.

In 2022, Knierim and Frazier ended a 43-year drought and accomplished something that Meno and Sand could not.

They won the World Championships and became the first American pairs team to accomplish that since Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner won the title in 1979.

Best wishes to Todd Sand for a speedy recovery.

 

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