Riana Patricia Villavicencio Lago dazzles the crowd with her impressive performance during a recent tournament.

Despite being a tropical country and having limited facilities for ice skating, Filipinos are fast emerging as world beaters in figure skating.

One of these Filipinos is nine-year-old Riana Patricia Villavicencio Lago, a Year 5 student at the British School of Manila.

‘I’m serious with skating,” said Riana, who started skating just two years ago but has won various local and international competitions.

“When I grow up, I want to compete in the Olympics,” Riana said.

Honed under the tutelage of coach Leonardo Aranton, the daughter of former PBA player Dwight Lago and granddaughter of top sportsfisher Vic Vic Villavicencio might just achieve her dream and make it to the Winter Olympics.

In just over two years, Riana has amassed 41 gold medals, six silvers and seven bronzes from competitions here and abroad.

This year in the USA, Riana won five golds in the 2009 Sun Valley Summer Competitions in Idaho and added six gold and three bronze medals from the 2009 Ice Skating Institute World Recreational Team Championships in San Jose, California a few weeks later.

In the Summerskate 2009 at the Mall of Asia, she emerged the highest pointer with 14 gold medals on top of two silvers.