Natálie Taschlerová is a Czech ice dancer. With her brother and skating partner Filip Taschler, she is the 2020 Nebelhorn Trophy Champion and two-time Czech National Champion (2022–2023). They represented the Czech Republic at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
At the junior level, she is the 2019 JGP USA bronze medalist and has competed in the final division at three Junior World Championships, with her highest finish being fourteenth in 2019. At the national level, she is a three-time Czech Junior National Champion.
Taschlerová began learning to skate in 2004 and then began learning ice dancing with her brother Filip after his partnership with Karolína Karlíková ended. Years later, Taschler would say that “our relationship is better since we started skating together. When we were younger, we fought like little children, but now we are adults. We respect each other.”
Taschlerová/Taschler made their junior international debut in the 2017–18 season, including two appearances at the ISU Junior Grand Prix, placing twelfth in Poland and thirteenth in Austria. After winning the first of three Czech junior national titles, they made their first appearance at the World Junior Championships, where they finished eighteenth.
Competing in their second season at the Junior Grand Prix, Taschlerová/Taschler were thirteenth at JGP Lithuania and eleventh at JGP Czech Republic. They then won their first junior international medals competing in small events, a bronze at the Open d’Andorra and a silver in the junior category at the Inge Solar Memorial. National junior champions for the second time, they finished the season by placing fourteenth at the 2019 World Junior Championships.
Women’s Gymnastics President Ms. Namita Nayyar meets Natálie Taschlerová, an extremely talented Czech ice dancer and two-time Czech national champion, here she talks about her gymnastics routine, diet and success story.
Namita Nayar:
You were born in Brno, Czech Republic. You started skating at the age of three and then you started learning ice dancing with your brother Filip Taschler. In the 2017–18 season you won the first of three Czech national titles. This later propelled your career to the height where you found yourself at the top of the ice dancing world. Tell us more about your professional journey of extraordinary hard work, perseverance and endurance?
Natálie Taschlerová:
I started figure skating at the age of two, initially just to learn to skate. Of all the sports I’ve tried, I fell in love with figure skating the most. At the same time, I was also involved in sports gymnastics. However, there came a time when I had to make a choice between the two. I had talent in both disciplines, but it became increasingly difficult to maintain my commitment to each. Consequently, at 11 I chose to continue figure skating and left gymnastics.
My transition to ice dancing was prompted by a previous injury. I seriously broke both bones in my right forearm for the second time, which resulted in a long and difficult recovery. When I got back on the ice, the fear of jumping was overwhelming. I found myself contemplating whether to leave figure skating altogether to live a more conventional school-centered life. The alternative was to switch disciplines, and I’ve always had keen skating skills and an intuitive feel for music on ice. That’s when my brother, Philip, suggested we try skating together. Now, here we are in a different country, chasing our dreams. Sometimes, it all seems quite surreal.
Our first youth medals gave us a glimpse of a promising future in the sport. These achievements fueled our ambition to reach higher levels. During the 2018-2019 season, we were still skating and living in our hometown of Brno, training under our former coach Nikola Višnová. Our coach had trained and lived in Milan during her professional career. Although home was comforting, we knew that in order to improve, we had to get out of our country. We explored staying home as much as possible, trying to find the right training conditions. However, this proved too challenging.
The first major change was our school. With practice starting at 11am and ending around 5-6pm, attending school everyday became almost impossible. Some teachers did not support our trip, causing more problems. As a result, we switched to e-learning at home, which has been a huge help. We both graduated from high school and found that we really enjoyed studying. The best part was just needing a computer and wifi to connect to our lessons haha!
That season, we started working with Matteo Zanni, traveling to Milan for weeks at a time to prepare for major competitions like the 2018 Nationals and the 2019 Junior Worlds in Zagreb. After the season, Matteo invited us to move with him to the USA, offering us the opportunity to start a new life there. It was a pivotal opportunity and we knew that if we wanted to excel, we had to seize it. Our former coach, who was pregnant for the second time and was planning to retire from coaching, supported this move. Leaving our family was hard, especially because our father was sick, but he encouraged us to follow our dreams.
In the summer of 2019, we moved to Chicago. It was a huge change – new country, different language – everything was unfamiliar, but it was exciting. We even spent the first week sleeping on the floor without beds, which is now one of my fondest memories. Exploring the US, experiencing the new culture and meeting athletes and coaches was incredible. In addition to training with Matteo Zanni, we worked with Collin Brubacker and Oleg Ebstain. Everything looked perfect. It was the summer of my dreams. Until our lives turned upside down.
In July 2019, our father died of cancer. It was devastating and stopped everything. We returned to the Czech Republic, unsure of our next steps – whether to continue skating or stay home to support our mom. The financial aspect was a major concern, as figure skating is very expensive. However, we tried to carry on. Skating became one of the things that saved us. Although we didn’t have much time to process our grief, we carried on, knowing that this is what our dad wanted – to always fight and follow our dreams. Figure skating is a long journey where patience, passion and love for hard work are very important.
The full interview continues on the next page
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