Background and career
Evan Frank Lysacek (; born June 4, 1985) is an American retired figure skater. He is the 2010 Olympic champion, the 2009 World champion, a two-time (2005, 2007) Four Continents champion, the 2009 Grand Prix Final champion, and a two-time (2007, 2008) U.S. national champion. Lysacek was the 2010 United States Olympic Committee's SportsMan of the Year, and the winner of the James E. Sullivan Award as the top U.S. amateur athlete of 2010. On January 22, 2016, he was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
Lysacek was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in nearby Naperville. His mother, Tanya (née Santoro), is a substitute teacher in Naperville, and his father, Don, is a building contractor. He has an older sister, Laura, and a younger sister, Christina. Lysacek graduated from Neuqua Valley High School in 2003. During high school, Lysacek was a member of the honor roll, where he earned a number of academic achievement awards, including the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence in 1999. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles, California to train at the Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo, California. Lysacek studied acting at the Professional Arts School in Beverly Hills, and appeared in the independent short film Skate Great!, playing a Russian Olympic gold medalist. Lysacek is of half-Czech descent; his paternal great-grandfather František Lysáček emigrated from Czechoslovakia's Moravia region to Chicago in 1925. On his maternal side, he is of one-quarter Italian descent. He is a Greek Orthodox Christian, having stated that one of his most prized possessions is his Orthodox cross. He became engaged to real estate developer Duangpatra "Dang" Bodiratnangkura in April 2019. They married in December 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Lysacek began skating at the age of eight. His grandmother had always wanted to be in the Ice Capades, so she bought him skates for Christmas. He originally wanted to play ice hockey, so his mother enrolled him and his sister Laura in figure skating lessons to learn how to skate.
In 1996, Lysacek won the U.S. national title at the juvenile level – the lowest qualifying level in the U.S. Figure Skating competition structure. In 1997, he moved up to intermediate and won the pewter medal (fourth place) at the Junior Olympics, after winning both his regional and his sectional qualifying competitions. After failing to qualify for Nationals at the novice level in 1998, Lysacek won the U.S. Novice title at the 1999 U.S. Championships at the age of thirteen.
In the 1999–2000 season, Lysacek made his international junior debut and competed on the 1999–2000 ISU Junior Grand Prix circuit. He placed seventh at his first event and then won his second event. He was the third alternate to the 1999–2000 ISU Junior Grand Prix Final. At the 2000 U.S. Championships, Lysacek won the Junior title at the age of fourteen. He placed fifth in the short program and first in the free skate, placing first overall. He was the first male skater since Terry Kubicka to win back-to-back novice and junior men's titles in the United States. The win on the junior level was unusual in that Lysacek moved from third to first overall while sitting backstage, because he won through a tiebreak in the 6.0 ordinal system. Following the U.S. Championships, he was assigned to the 2000 Gardena Spring Trophy in Urtijëi, Italy, where he won the silver medal at the junior level.
Lysacek had a strong showing in the 2000–2001 season. He competed in his second season on the Junior Grand Prix circuit and won two silver medals. He was the 7th qualifier for the 2000–2001 Junior Grand Prix Final and placed 8th at the Final. He made his senior national debut at the 2001 U.S. Championships, placing 12th at the age of fifteen. Lysacek was named second alternate to the U.S. team to the 2001 World Junior Championships and was placed on the team after Ryan Bradley withdrew due to injury. Lysacek performed two clean programs and came in second behind fellow American Johnny Weir, giving the United States both a gold and a silver on the World Junior podium for the first time since 1987.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
