CAMDEN PULKINEN
There were so many feelings. It was my first time putting everything together at an event.
It was a call he hardly expected to receive, but it may end up being the conversation that changes the trajectory of Camden Pulkinen’s figure skating career in a major way.
In the wake of a fifthplace finish at his country’s national championships in January, the 22-year-old was listed as the second men’s alternate for the American team headed to the 2022 World Championships in Montpellier, France.
As such, Pulkinen dutifully kept up training his programs at his home base in Colorado Springs, just in case his services were needed — even if, in Pulkinen’s mind, it seemed like the longest of shots.
The United States had sent a formidable trio of men to the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, where Nathan Chen stood on top of the podium and Jason Brown produced a sixth-place finish. But when both of those skaters decided to take a pass on the World Championships, that moved Camden Pulkinen from the on-deck circle into the spotlight.
One of his biggest career goals became very real, very fast when he learned he was headed to France for the Championships just three days before he was scheduled to depart.
“I was in a state of
