“It Feels Like One other World”

15-year-old Isabeau Levito seems unfazed by the bright lights and hype. The newly crowned U.S. Figure Skating Champion exudes an unusual calmness… ice. “I feel like when I do my shows, I go into a trance and try to bring everyone in the crowd and the judges into this void where I feel like I’m there,” she tells us. “When I do it, it doesn’t feel like real life. You know, it seems like a different world to me, like a fictional show or something.” Levito channels the energy of some of his literary heroines onto the ice. “Sometimes I go to my long show and say, ‘Let’s be tough like Inej [from the book ‘Six of Crows’] it would be….sometimes I fight like her, I’m tough like her. “