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Post by Admin on Jul 3, 2019 6:37:40 GMT
The athletes who will represent Team USA in the 2019-2020 season have been announced. Selection for assignment to the Team Envelope is based on approved criteria and results from the previous season. The Team Envelope is used to determine funding amounts and other privileges. Skaters and teams that have been assigned to a Grand Prix event (and are not listed below) will be added to the roster in due course. One of those is the new ice dance team of Caroline Green and Michael Parsons who have been assigned to Skate Canada. Green and Parsons formed a partnership in the off-season following the retirement of their respective sibling partners.  Alysa Liu, 13, the reigning senior ladies champion, will make her international debut on the Junior Grand Prix circuit this season. TEAM A Men: Jason Brown, Nathan Chen, Vincent Zhou Ladies: Mariah Bell, Alysa Liu, Bradie Tennell Pairs: Ashley Cain/Timothy LeDuc Ice Dance: Madison Chock/Evan Bates, Kaitlin Hawayek/Jean-Luc Baker, Madison Hubbell/Zachary Donohue TEAM B Men: Alex Krasnozhon, Tomoki Hiwatashi Ladies: Starr Andrews, Karen Chen, Ting Cui, Hanna Harrell, Megan Wessenberg Pairs: Jessica Calalang/Brian Johnson, Haven Denney/Brandon Frazier, Tarah Kayne/Danny O’Shea, Audrey Lu/Misha Mitrofanov, Alexa Scimeca-Knierim/ Chris Knierim Ice Dance: Christina Carreira/Anthony Ponomarenko, Lorraine McNamara/Quinn Carpenter  TEAM C Men: Jimmy Ma, Camden Pulkinen, Sean Rabbitt, Andrew Torgashev, Ryan Dunk, Joonsoo Kim, Dinh Tran Ladies: Amber Glenn, Gabriella Izzo, Emilia Murdock, Audrey Shin Pairs: Nica Digerness/Danny Neudecker, Sarah Feng/TJ Nyman, Kate Finster/Balazs Nagy, Laiken Lockley/Keenan Prochnow, Isabelle Martins/Ryan Bedard Ice Dance: Avonley Nguyen/Vadym Kolesnik SYNCHRONIZED SKATING: Haydenettes |
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Post by Admin on Jul 3, 2019 23:03:30 GMT
World bronze medalist Vincent Zhou will attend Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island in the fall. He’ll train in Boston, though.  He plans to live on campus, he told NBCSports.com/figure-skating, and his mother will also make the cross-country move to help him commute to practice. He could train on campus at Brown, he said, but all their ice time is taken up by hockey, and his options were limited to midnight sessions. “My mom will be coming to help with transportation because making the hour-plus commute to training and back can and will be dangerous under fatigue and mental load,” he said. Zhou chose Brown for its “flexible, self-directed undergrad curriculum, beautiful campus and great surroundings, and relatively short proximity to a viable training location.” He’s interested in a variety of courses, including business, economics, public policy, philosophy and psychology. He will complete the fall semester, then take gap years or semesters until after the 2022 Olympics. “I can return home after the fall semester ends to get some good, proper training in before the more important second half of the season starts,” Zhou said. “Subsequently, I will be able to put full focus and effort into achieving my dream of becoming 2022 Olympic champion.” |
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Post by Admin on Jul 7, 2019 17:49:45 GMT
Standing center ice at the completion of her free skate Friday night at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Saitama, Japan, 2018 Olympian Bradie Tennell let out a roar: This is the kind of skating she wanted to show the world she could do.  Following a frustrating short program two days prior, Tennell roared back to a personal-best 143.96 score, raising her arms above her head in fists of triumph. The nearly-flawless program vaulted her from 10th in the short to seventh overall, with a total score of 213.47. It was a career-best free skate for American teammate Mariah Bell, as well, with Bell skating to a 136.81 for a 208.07 total, finishing in ninth place. While the U.S. women miss out on qualifying a third skater for the 2020 world championships (they needed their combined placements to total less than 13), they leave the ice with their heads held high against a world-class field that delivered sensational skating throughout the week. Though no third spot was gained, Tennell was proud of herself for the effort in Saitama, coming in seventh a year after being sixth in her debut at the same event. “I’ve really been working on my artistry this season,” said the 21-year-old from the Chicago area. “I’m trying to show more maturity in my skating. I’m really happy with the progress I’ve made. I think my confidence wavered a little bit this season, but since Four Continents I’ve really tried to bring it back. I wanted to come here and skate for myself and show everyone what I can do.” She added: “I know that I belong here.”  Skating in the penultimate group, Tennell would have to be at her best to be factored in with the top skaters of the night. She took the ice with a stern look on her face for her “Romeo and Juliet” free skate, and after she landed a double axel to start and then a triple Lutz-triple toe combination in the opening seconds, she said was able to settle into some of the best skating of her career. “After the first combination, going into it, I was trying to relax and breathe, telling myself, ‘You’ve done this a million times,’” she admitted. “After that, I felt like, OK, I can do this.” |
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Post by Admin on Jul 17, 2019 18:14:49 GMT
Jason Brown (USA) | Saitama 2019 | #WorldFigure For most of his figure skating career, Jason Brown has glided along the frontier of the battle between athleticism and artistry, a debate that has intensified as more and more skaters casually pull off dazzling quadruple jumps. When done well, quadruple jumps are marvelous blurs of body, blade and bravery. They earn piles of points, and they advance the sport. Without athletes pushing the limits, it’s an ice show, not a competition. But when done poorly, quads can be awkward and shatter the mood a skater tries to create in a program. Splat-fests are almost as uncomfortable for fans as they are for skaters who can’t smoothly pull off those four-revolution jumps.  Brown, who contributed to a team bronze medal for the U.S. at the 2014 Olympics, has never cleanly landed a quad in competition, though he hopes to change that during the Four Continents Championships this week at Honda Center. His fluid skating, tight spins and deft footwork make a persuasive case for highly valuing artistry, and fans swoon over his born-to-do-this performances. But his entrancing abilities usually aren’t enough for him to outscore the teenager-dominated quad squad. |
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Post by Admin on Jul 4, 2020 19:36:23 GMT
For Jason Brown, the last figure skating season began and ended with some unexpected challenges.
On Aug. 22, 2019, the day he arrived for U.S. Figure Skating’s pre-season Champs Camp in Irvine, Calif., Brown was a backseat passenger in a vehicle involved in an accident. He sustained a concussion that compromised his training for several weeks and forced him to withdraw from what was to have been his season debut competition.
On March 16, 2020, the day Brown was to fly from his training base in Toronto to the World Championships in Montreal, he went the other direction, driving home to his family’s home in the Chicago suburbs because the world meet had been cancelled five days earlier over Covid-19 health concerns. His most successful competitive season, with silver medals at nationals, the Four Continents Championships and Skate America, left him feeling both fulfilled and unfinished.
Now Brown, 25, is back in Toronto (finally getting there June 23 brought another unexpected challenge). He is undergoing a Canadian government-mandated 14-day self-quarantine before a planned July 8 return to the ice at the Cricket Club to prepare for a season that may not take place.
None of the other foreign stars who train at the Cricket Club, including 2-time reigning Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan and reigning Olympic silver medalist Yevgenia Medvedeva of Russia, is expected back before the end of July, according to Brown’s primary coach, Tracy Wilson. (Brown also works with Brian Orser, primary coach to Hanyu and Medvedeva.)
We caught up with Brown, the 2014 Olympic team event bronze medalist, by phone at the end of last week for a wide-ranging conversation:
You had an unexpectedly extended family reunion, with your older sister, Jordan, 27, (and her boyfriend), younger brother, Dylan, 22, and your parents, Marla and Steven, all together longer than a week for the first time in nine years. What was that like?
Brown: It was really awesome, even if the circumstances that led to it obviously weren’t ideal. I got to know my siblings on an entirely different level, as adults. We didn’t miss a single family dinner in three months.
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