Phebe Bekker & James Hernandez talk about the fire that motivates them

by Matteo Morelli

Phebe Bekker and James Hernandez are a young team representing Great Britain. In their first year as senior skaters, they competed at the European Championships in Kaunas, Lithuania, and at the World Championships in Montreal, Canada, where we spoke with them about their journey as junior skaters and how they feel stepping up to senior level.

Phebe and James, thank you so much for talking to us. Montreal 2024 was your first Senior World Championships. How did you feel entering it?
James Hernandez (JH): We are really happy that we did what we set out to do, which is just to skate our absolute best and how we know we can. We trained really well for this event, to turn things around since Europeans, trying a lot of new approaches to our training and doing everything we can as athletes to try and make the end result as good as possible. To just miss out in this way (they were the first team that didn’t qualify for the free), you wish we could go and do the free because we have done all the hard work on it as well.

Phebe Bekker (PB): It is a shame that we couldn’t show our new and improved free, but to compete on that world stage was still amazing. Even during practices, I was smiling the whole time, I really enjoyed this event. I felt like Europeans got the best of me and I felt very overwhelmed. I stressed myself out a lot of the time, so I didn’t get to enjoy the little moments of competing at that big event. We didn’t have any pressure on us at Worlds, but we actually did set a goal to qualify for the free. The fact that we were so close almost feels like we have achieved that goal. It is not exactly what we wanted, but we did the best we could, we did a skate we know we can do. No matter what the score is, you are doing it for yourself and for the fans to enjoy watching as well.

20 is not a large enough number of teams to get into the free dance!
PB: 20 out of 36 is just more than half and there is so much quality out there. We were doing the math: we knew we were ranking 21st, we just tried not to stress ourselves out with it.

You mentioned Europeans, saying that you were a bit stressed getting into the event. You had a mistake there that was a bit costly, but now that a bit of time has passed since that competition, how do you feel about it?
PB: The training going into Europeans was very good however, speaking for myself, I found it really hard to train for it mentally. It was way bigger than anything we have ever experienced. It was our first senior ISU event, we didn’t do any of the Grand Prix. I was so overwhelmed! I loved it, but it was distressing and I didn’t know how to handle it. After our rhythm dance, I felt like it really did disappoint me because I know we could do so much better and I was getting really in my head about the reason why I do what I do. Going into the free skate, I was in survival mode, thinking of having to stay on my feet and just keep it going and enjoy the process. Then I got the flu as soon as we came back from Europeans, so I was in bed sick for a week and that was our time off, so I didn’t really get much time off afterwards. I came back on the ice and it was really tough to get going and anyone at the rink could see that I was not in a great place. But we both work with each other and I can lean on James to really help me out. We changed our mindset completely: it took the Europeans to shift our headspace into what we want, to focus on our motivations and goals behind everything. We used that as a seven-week plan to how can we prove ourselves at Worlds.

The British ice dance movement is going through a renaissance, with you being out of any doubt part of it. This year, you got a silver medal at British Nationals, behind Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson.
PB: We were so excited, we got our first mention on the BBC sport page!

JH: Coming to all these events with them (Fear and Gibson) is almost like seeing where we know we might want to be. Them too weren’t qualifying for the free when they first started and were low down at Europeans. It takes those seasons and the necessary time to prove yourself. They are opening opportunities for us, getting those spots at Europeans and Worlds. We are really appreciative that we can have those competitions to develop and really get us in a place for the next few years.

PB: At the Europeans, it was so special to have a full team with three dance teams (and two pairs) for Great Britain! It is inspiring for us, and we hope we can inspire the young generations as well, because it is a hard sport and it is hard to get up those rankings.

I bet you are looking forward to the 2026 Europeans in Sheffield, UK!
PB: Yes! Thinking about the crowd at Europeans and Worlds, the crowds in Sheffield will be amazing!

Let’s look at your first senior year. How did you live the transition from junior to senior?
JH: Oh, it is really a big thing! It is a whole different ball game in senior. It is not much about programmes being 20-30 seconds longer, it has more to do with the standard of the competition: everybody brings the absolute best. The attention to detail at every event is something that we have noticed a lot this year. We have made little mistakes here and there and you get punished for them. We have already learned that the standard that you have to come to competition with is very difficult and a big step up. I think we now know that this is the expectation. Whatever event you are going through, whether it is a Challenger event or Worlds, skaters will be showing up and skating being really well prepared. I think that is what we will take into next year. I know we will probably be between 15 and 22, in that range. Each year what you hopefully aim for is to shifts upwards, giving you the extra motivation.

PB: I think it has been a change in mindset as well. Last year, it was all about fighting for podiums and medals, but obviously it is not what we are aiming for now, we are doing this for ourselves, we are finding and creating ourselves while enjoying the process. I think it has been in the back of my mind to not compare ourselves with the rest of the juniors moving up. We were all on the same plain field and now you set off in senior an everyone has their different ways of fitting into it.

You are still a new team, having been together for just about three years. How did your partnership start?
JH: During Covid, my previous partnership ended and Penny Coomes, one of my coaches, knew what to do about it: she called Phebe’s coach at the time.

PB: I had a previous partner for a year and was then looking for a partner just as Covid started, in March 2020. I had a try out in the summer of 2020 in France, where I was staying at a host family. I was still living in the UK back then but I had everything sorted out, I was also studying French. Then at midnight we get a call from Penny Coomes, she saw me reposting something on Instagram of someone saying “good luck in France” and she said that James had split up with his old partner, asking if I was interested in going to America for an extended trial. I wasn’t quite sure, but deep down I knew I wanted to do it, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

JH: Because of the travel bans, we had to fly to Serbia and then New York, but we had a month in Serbia because of it, so we had a chance to bond. We then went to the US and had our try out.

It seems that you had a good connection from the start!
PB: We actually knew each other very briefly, we were in the same home rink for a while. I was a baby doing jumps and he was with his previous partners going to Junior Grand Prix. Our mums were friends!

So that is the start of your junior career.
PB: We had a two-month trial, and then James said I was acceptable! (she laughs) We saw the potential right away and became officially a team. Our first Junior Grand Prix was my first international competition ever, it was a very interesting start.

You achieved very important results, including two silver Junior Grand Prix medals, and then you had a fourth-place finish both at the junior Grand Prix finals and at Junior Worlds. What is your reflection on your last junior year?
PB: There is definitely some underlying fire from junior that we brought to senior. We have progressed way more than we thought we would: it was an amazing season, we were the first team for Great Britain to medal at a Junior Grand Prix and to qualify for the Final.

JH: Because we achieved so many firsts that season, they didn’t feel like losses. But when you look back and think how close you were, there is a little bit of sadness in that. But we have a small medal from Junior Worlds and I think the teams that we were up against were far more established than us. We were lucky to be where we were, and deserved it. Ultimately the season ended on a difficult note, missing out at Junior Worlds, which I don’t know if I will never not be sad about. We wanted bigger and better things. We made mistakes in the final, you have to learn from these lessons, they really teach you.

PB: Everyone else was established, we were lucky to be in that mix with those great skaters. It was surprising for us at first, but we realised we belonged there. When we got the third place at Junior Worlds in the rhythm dance we realized we could do this. It is a shame that there were four teams that were just as good as one another. It was upsetting, I still watch that Kiss & Cry and get emotional. We had a great junior year, but this is senior, this is what counts. I know we can do really well and I see us in World medals in time. We are still one of the younger teams!

After three years together, do you already see an evolution in the way your relationship is shaping up?
JH: We are very opposite, we approach moments of stress and moments of happiness in opposite ways. But this season, we learned to trust and respect what the other person does. We get it now, that has taken time.

PB: We are opposites, but it has benefitted us in a lot of ways. We have one thing that the other person doesn’t have. Opposites attract! As a team, we have a lot of great attributes, which is an advantage for us. We have definitely become more comfortable with each other, also when we need to have difficult conversations. I am very happy with our relationship.

JH: The goal is to get to that stage where communication is on such a high level that you are on the same page, like here at Worlds!

What age were you when you started skating and ice dancing?
JH: I was four years old and I have done it my whole life. I did free style and dance for a long time, but I got fed up of falling over, I was not very good at jumping and thought ice dance was more for me. I had my first partner when I was eleven!

PB: I started skating when I was eight, I had no connection to the sport: none of my family skated and I didn’t even watch it. I went to the Saturday morning public skating and it all started from there. I did free style and solo dance, I loved free style. Then someone told me to try ice dance and that is when I started to think ‘wow, this is amazing’. I spoke to Ben Augusto the other day. I didn’t even recognise him! That’s because I never watched skating growing up. I started dance in 2019, I didn’t do dance until I had a partner and actually the first ever time I watched ice dance was Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s Moulin Rouge at the 2018 Olympics.

JH: I was thinking about the people that we have met when we were young in those ice rinks in England. My old coaches are still in contact with my mom: my first coach messaged my mom saying she was seeing us competing at Worlds. You don’t think about these things, but that person did shape me to where I am now, she was a part of me getting to and competing on this stage. I think that is an awesome thing about sport life. Those people at the beginning, they played a role in your career, whatever that role was, and hearing them say that they are so proud is amazing.

Are there any skaters that you look at and you get inspired by?
PB: Definitely Tessa and Scott. I think Tessa is such an amazing skater, I really look at her and I see what I could be. I really get inspired by her.

JH: For me, it is our coach Nick (Buckland)! When I was really young, they were skating at high level and were towards the end of their career. I remember watching them in Sheffield, and asked for a photo with them. I used to watch their Michael Jackson programme, pretty much on a daily basis. He is an incredible skater, one of the greatest skaters of the past twenty years. He is so good, it is annoying sometimes when we exercise every day and he, without even warming up, would be demonstrating something I can’t do with such ease! It is great because that is also part of getting that fire trigger for us.

Last question: off the ice, what are your passions and interests?
JH: I love golf. I do love being outside and I like nature, so I am looking forward to when the weather gets lovely. I will be playing as much golf as I can, enjoying the offseason and being able to have a little bit extra time for these things that make us human as well as an athlete. I am really looking forward to seeing friends I haven’t seen in a long time. I look forward to seeing my family too, we spend so little time at home with them that it does make it really special when you have got a week to see them. I am really looking forward to that.

PB: I always hate this question! I feel like I came from the UK to America and I am still figuring out my life. Obviously, I have hobbies and passions I am interested in, but I just love going to the rink and then hanging out with friends, enjoying the time that I have. I am hoping to start coaching soon, it is just difficult because I don’t have a specific visa to do so. I was home-schooled for a long period of time and I have just finished high school, so I am in the period of limbo right now, figuring out what I want to do. It is always important to have something else as well, but I just love hanging out with friends, being able to be social, going out and exploring things. There is something really special in doing this.

This was a pretty good answer! Thank you so much to both of you, it was lovely to get to know you a bit more.