From Montreal to Milan: Christina Carreira's journey to US citizenship and the Winter Olympics

Christina Carreira made the trip across the Blue Water Bridge separating Port Huron in Northern Michigan from the Canadian town of Sarnia so many times that border officials came to know her by name.

They would ask how practice went. How she fared in her latest competition. What was next for Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko, her long-time ice dance partner, and whether they'd heard any news as the Milan Cortina Olympics approached.

“Most of them were very friendly,” Carreira says.

The news the couple was waiting for finally arrived in November, when all the paperwork and years spent commuting from Port Huron to their training base in London, Ontario, paid off: Carreira, who was born in Montreal, had become a U.S. citizen.

That cleared the way for her to compete for the country at the Winter Games.

“The process of becoming an American was pretty tough, and it took forever,” Carreira says. “It was very, very stressful.”

The rules of the International Olympic Committee state that athletes must be citizens of the nation they represent. Many countries are accommodating to foreign talent, offering expedited citizenship through a practice known as “sports migration.” That is rarely the case in the U.S., where athletes typically must endure the yearslong process like anyone else.

In fact, the inability of pairs skater Alisa Efimova to get her passport in time — despite the efforts of U.S. Figure Skating, the Skating Club of Boston and even her elected Massachusetts senators — kept her from being on the American team headed to Italy.

It was a blow to the U.S. squad, too. Efimova and her partner, Misha Mitrofanov, are the reigning pairs national champions.

“We were waiting for a last-minute miracle to make it happen,” Mitrofanov says.

Carreira didn't want to leave her citizenship situation to a miracle. And she didn't want anybody reviewing her application to have any questions about it. So, rather than staying in Canada for a few days at a time, the 25-year-old would make the two-hour drive each way — longer if the bridge was out or there was road work — on a daily basis to get their training accomplished.

“I would listen to podcasts. I'd listen to music. I'm a huge ‘Dance Moms’ fan,” Carreiera says with a laugh.

One of the biggest rivals of Carreira and Ponomarenko — besides teammates Madison Chock and Evan Bates — are Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron. She also was born in Montreal and has spent most of her career representing Canada, but had to search for a new partner when Nikolaj Sørensen was suspended by Skate Canada.

Cizeron was available after Gabriella Papadakis stepped away following their gold medal for France at the Beijing Olympics, so Beaudry asked him to team up early last year.

She was granted French citizenship in November, eight months later, and the IOC approved her nationality change in December.

There are many such cases in figure skating.

Anastasia Golubeva was born in Moscow but represents Australia in pairs with her partner, Hektor Moore. Olga Mikutina was born in Ukraine but has represented Austria for nearly a decade. Israeli-born Alexandra Feigin competes for Bulgaria, and pairs skater Deanna Stellato-Dudek, who still calls Chicago home, represents Canada in pairs with Maxime Deschamps.

Such nationality switches happen in plenty of other sports, whether it be American hockey players representing other, less powerful nations on Olympic ice, or San Francisco native Eileen Gu choosing to represent China in freestyle skiing.

Yet the movement of an athlete from another nation to the U.S. is relatively rare because its a long, tedious and time-consuming process.

"I've lived in the U.S. for almost 10 years at this point," says Olympic ice dancer Vadym Kolesnik, who was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, who gained his American citizenship last summer and will compete in Milan with his partner, Emilea Zingas.

“I have a car. I have a house. I have a dog. I feel very honored to represent the U.S. at such a high level,” Kolesnik says.

“He represents the American dream very well,” Zingas says. "When he got here he didn’t speak the language; he learned the language. He works here, he puts so much into representing the United States well. It is very special.”

Newly minted Americans such as Carreira and Kolesnik realize they've obtained their citizenship during a fraught geopolitical time. Many actions of the Trump administration, whether related to Greenland or domestic immigration, have been deeply unpopular, especially among Europeans preparing to welcome the world to the Olympics.

They frankly have no idea how they will be received when they perform at the Milano Ice Skating Arena beginning next week.

“No matter what,” Carreiera says, "it’s an honor for me to represent the U.S. I’ve lived here for half of my life. I really consider it my home.”