INSIGHT
BY ED RABINOWITZ | PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW TOMASINO
Mariko Heimbach PROFESSIONAL FIGURE SKATER
Mariko has performed with Disney on Ice for a decade.
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MARCH 2021 : L EHIGH VA L L E YS T Y L E.COM
The young girl stood at the edge of the ice skating rink and cried, her unfiltered emotions on full display. Seven-year-old Mariko Heimbach was one of the onlookers. But while others may have interpreted the tears as sadness or frustration, Heimbach saw something else. “I just thought it means she’s passionate about something,” Heimbach, now a 28-year-old accomplished figure skater and Allentown resident, recalls. “I wanted the same thing. I wanted to feel that emotionally attached to a sport.” That desire set in motion a career that would include competing for an All Japan National Championship, and eventually a “dream job” with Disney on Ice. But it also encompassed a full slate of emotional hurdles. Heimbach was born in Tokyo, Japan, on Yokota Air Base. Her father, Rick, who grew up in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, was an educational technologist for the Department of Defense Education Activity at Yokota. Her mother, Naomi, was an accomplished swimmer holding several Masters Japan National Records, and Masters World Records in breaststroke. When they met, neither spoke a lick of the other’s natural language. “They brought little