Galit Chait

Chait was born in Israel. Her family moved to New Jersey when she was young, and she first skated at age 8.[2]

Her father, Boris Chait, has been president of the Israeli Ice Skating Federation[3] since 2002.

On August 23, 2008, Chait married former Italian military policeman Francesco Moracci in New Jersey and then on September 13, 2008, they had a second wedding in Florence, Italy.[4][5] The two had met at the 2006 Olympic Games in Torino, Italy, where Moracci was a member of the security detail assigned to protect the Israeli team.[6] They have two daughters, Raffaella, born in 2009, and Gabriella, born in 2011.[7] They also have a son named Matteo.

Chait has been a resident of Paramus, New Jersey.[8]

She first tried ice dancing in the 1990s when she traveled to Russia with her father, who was teaching there at a sports camp.[9]

She competed with Max Sevostianov at the U.S. Nationals in 1992 and 1994.[9] They were involved in a collision with Renée Roca at the 1994 U.S. Championships.[10] In 1994, the pair placed 6th at the U.S. Nationals and 28th at the World Championships (representing Israel).[9]

Chait met Sergei Sakhnovski while they were both students at the University of Delaware.[9] Partnered since 1995, they trained initially in Russia with Ludmila Buytskova and Elena Maslenikova before moving to Monsey, New York.[2] They rose steadily in the international rankings. The highlight of their career was winning the bronze medal at the 2002 World championships. Sergei Sakhnovski suffered a foot injury that forced the pair to miss the entire 2006–2007 season, and they subsequently announced their retirement. Their coaches included Natalia Dubova, Tatiana Tarasova, Evgeni Platov, Natalia Linichuk and Gennadi Karponosov.[11]

Chait was the flag bearer for Israel at the 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics.

Chait is an ISU Technical Specialist.[7]

After her retirement as a competitive skater, Chait began coaching ice dancing. She was the head coach of the Israeli brother-and-sister team Alexandra Zaretsky and Roman Zaretsky, and of Tamar Katz as well.[3] In October 2008, Chait and the Zaretskys filed a lawsuit against the Ice House training rink in Hackensack, New Jersey, claiming that officials at the rink discriminated against them on the basis of their Israeli nationality, denying them prime skating time and threatening to ban them from the rink.[12] The Zaretskys, under her coaching, won the gold medal at the 24th Winter Universiade Games in Harbin China, the bronze medal at Skate America 2009 and they qualified for the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver Canada.

Chait has also coached:

• Cathy Reed / Chris Reed[13]
• Siobhan Heekin-Canedy / Alexander Shakalov[14]
• Allison Reed / Otar Japaridze[15]
• Ekaterina Bugrov / Vasili Rogov[1]
• Siobhan Heekin-Canedy / Dmitri Dun[16]
• Anna Bolshem / Ronald Zilberberg
• Adel Tankova/ Ronald Zilberberg

As of 2010, Chait was the head coach of the Israeli figure skating team.[17]

(with Sakhnovski)

GP: Champions Series / Grand Prix

• List of select Jewish figure skaters

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Galit Chait.

• Galit Chait at the International Skating Union
• Galit Chait at Olympics.com
• Galit Chait at Olympedia
• Official homepage – Chait / Sakhnovski (archived)