Emmi Peltonen

Peltonen was born on 29 November 1999 in Nashville, Tennessee. She has two brothers, twins Aleksi and Jesper (one year older) and a sister, Nelli (six years younger). Their Finnish parents – Hanna, a former figure skater, and Ville Peltonen, an ice hockey player – had moved to the United States due to his contract with an NHL team. The family returned to Finland a few years later. Her paternal grandfather, Esa Peltonen, is also a retired professional ice hockey player.

Early years

Peltonen got her first skates when she was two years old, and began learning to skate in 2002. She competed on the advanced novice level in the 2011–12 and 2012–13 season. She won the novice gold medal at the 2013 Nordic Championships.

2013–14 season: Junior international debut

Peltonen began appearing on the junior international level in the 2013–14 season. She won the junior silver medal at the Finnish Championships and Nordic Championships, both times finishing second to Jenni Saarinen.

2014–15 season

Virpi Horttana coached Peltonen at Espoo Skating Club in Espoo, Finland. Her ISU Junior Grand Prix (JGP) debut came in August 2014; she finished 9th at her assignment in Courchevel, France. Competing on the senior level at the Finnish Championships, she placed 8th in the short program, 4th in the free skate, and 4th overall.

2015–16 season: Senior international debut

In 2015–16, Peltonen was coached by Sirkka Kaipio in Helsinki and Järvenpää, and by Rafael Arutyunyan in California. She placed 15th at her sole JGP assignment, in Linz, Austria.

Making her senior international debut, Peltonen placed 10th at the Finlandia Trophy, a Challenger Series (CS) event in October 2015. She did not compete at the Finnish Championships in December but took the junior bronze medal at the Nordic Championships a couple of months later.

2016–17 season

During the summer, Peltonen trained with Arutyunyan in California. In August, she placed 5th at her JGP assignment in Saint Gervais-les-Bains, France. She then competed at several senior internationals, finishing 12th at the CS Finlandia Trophy, 14th at the Volvo Open Cup, and 6th at the CS Warsaw Cup.

In December 2016, Peltonen won the senior gold medal at the Finnish Championships in Tampere, having outscored silver medalist Jenni Saarinen by eight points. She was named in Finland's team to the 2017 European Championships in Ostrava. Ranked 14th in the short program and 9th in the free skate, she finished 11th overall in the Czech Republic.

CS: Challenger Series; JGP: Junior Grand Prix