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Post by Admin on Oct 27, 2020 20:26:50 GMT
Team USA Has Young Talent On The Rise With the Junior Grand Prix cancelled due to the pandemic — and international participation in Skate America severely restricted — U.S. Figure Skating gave up-and-comers a chance to shine in Las Vegas. Two stood out, including Audrey Shin, 16, who won bronze in her first major senior event. Although Shin won a U.S. junior silver medal in 2019, the teen from Northport, Long Island, did not even qualify for the 2020 U.S. championships. In Las Vegas, though, she landed triple-triple combinations in two near-clean programs to edge out more experienced skaters including 2017 U.S. champion Karen Chen, her training partner in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
In the men’s competition, Ilia Malinin didn’t win a medal, but the 15-year-old from Fairfax, Virginia, showed up with two newly acquired quadruple jumps: a toe loop and a salchow.
“After junior worlds last season, all the rinks shut down, so I did three hours a day off ice practicing jumps, spins and choreography, and that helped me a lot,” he said. “When I got back on the ice in summer, it started feeling really comfortable, and I went from there.”
Within three weeks, he was landing the quads. In recent seasons, U.S. men on the Junior Grand Prix circuit have been unable to match Russian and Japanese competitors jump for jump; had the JGP gone forward this season, Malinin likely would have been a contender.
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Post by Admin on Oct 28, 2020 5:40:29 GMT
After Win, Mariah Bell Sees Opportunity To Kick It Up A Notch The 24-year-old Mariah Bell, who trains alongside Chen in Irvine, won the women’s title on the strength of her winning short program as well as fine program component scores. Her “Mama Mia” free skate showed room for improvement, however. The Monument, Colorado, native did not include her toughest element — the triple flip-triple toe loop combination — and she fell on her final jump, an under rotated triple lutz. The mistake dropped Bell to fourth place in the free skate segment. With some international skaters including triple axels and quads in their free skates, it’s clear Bell must increase her technical element score in order to compete. Bell acknowledged she needed more firepower, telling NBC Sports commentators: “(It was) a watered-down technical program, there will definitely be more technical elements moving forward and a stronger free skate.” Her strategy at Skate America was to focus on her strength and presentation, and leave the toughest jumps for later this season. “This free skate is a little different for me, I’ve been trying to take time to get into character,” she said. “I’m used to the slower free skates.”
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Post by Admin on Oct 29, 2020 0:25:45 GMT
Alexa Knierim And Brandon Frazier Shake Up The Pair Scene Soon after Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Brandon Frazier announced their partnership in early spring, the pandemic closed their rink in Irvine, and they scrambled for ice time. Still, the veteran pair skaters — Knierim won three U.S. titles with husband Chris, while Frazier is the 2017 U.S. champion with Haven Denney — surpassed all expectations at Skate America, showing impressive triple throws and twists and landing two different triple jumps, a relative rarity for U.S. pairs.
“I have faster timing on my toe loop and I’m trying each week to slowly make the adjustments to make it perfectly in sync (with Knierim’s),” Frazier said. “This is the first year I’m competing with the triple toe and the triple salchow, so I’m trying not to overdo it on the workload, but I do think we’ve made great strides from when we finally started our summer training and got back on the ice.”
Both are driven to compete in Beijing in 2022. Frazier, who has yet to make his Olympic debut, called it “his dream” since childhood. Knierim, a member of Team USA’s bronze medal team in PyeongChang, longs for another trip to the Olympics.
“I think about it every day and I know that skating with Brandon gives me the best chance of making that dream a reality again,” she said. “My passion, my love of the sport gets me up in the morning, but it’s that desire to go back to the Games and share that experience with Brandon that pushes me on the hardest days.”
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Post by Admin on Nov 2, 2020 1:46:25 GMT
Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue’s sensitive, free-flowing and powerful free dance to a medley of Jeff Buckley and k.d. lang’s renditions of the classic ballad “Hallelujah” won them a third straight Skate America title at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday. “Tonight was a successful first step in the competitive season,” Hubbell said. “This is a program we are very passionate about. We feel we already have an easy time skating it, because every part of it feels so purposeful.” “While there are many things to improve, going home, we are happy with this performance,” Donohue added. Hubbell and Donohue’s ice dance victory wrapped up a unique weekend of competition in Las Vegas, where skaters had to navigate a bubble environment and the field was almost exclusively American, both due to COVID-19. Earlier in the day Mariah Bell won the women’s contest, followed by Nathan Chen winning another men’s title. Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Brandon Frazier won the pairs title. The ice dancers, who won world medals in 2018 and 2019, have a long history with “Hallelujah.” They used it for their short dance during the 2015-16 season, when they first moved from Michigan to Montreal to train under Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon, two-time world silver medalists for Canada. Since then, the Americans have performed an exhibition version of “Hallelujah” in shows. “So this offseason we looked for different music, but inevitably, we were drawn to the idea of marrying the (Buckley and lang) versions,” Hubbell said. “I think they really show the different sides to ‘Hallelujah’ and kind of a raw, intimate quality, which is definitely something we have in our partnership.” For choreography, they turned to their friend and former training partner Scott Moir, who with partner Tessa Virtue won two Olympic gold medals for Canada. “Scott really took a leadership role in creating the program, and it was really lovely,” Hubbell said. “Scott is such a fun person to train with, and now that he has taken that friendship and become more of a mentor and more of a coach for us, it’s really motivational.” “We got an amazing email from him early in the season,” she added. “I’m not going to say too much, but it was about enjoying the victories when they happen and enjoying those smaller moments and then enjoying the steeper climb. … He was really great at making us feel that what we had to bring to the table, was enough.” The two-time U.S. champions began their quest for gold in Las Vegas on Friday, when their lively, slightly risqué rhythm dance to music from “Burlesque” won top honors and 85.30 points. In Saturday’s free skate, their “Hallelujah” free dance gained five Level 4 elements — the highest level possible — from the judging panel. Three other elements received Level 3, which Hubbell and Donohue will want to improve before heading into the 2021 U.S. Figure Skating Championships and another face-off with longtime rivals Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who wrested the U.S. title from them last season. Chock and Bates, who also train in Montreal, elected not to compete at Skate America. Hubbell and Donohue ended with 211.39 points. “We have to go back home and work on raising the bar,” Donohue said, adding, “I think there’s a lot more to be discovered in this program.”
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Post by Admin on Nov 2, 2020 19:32:21 GMT
Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker, who train alongside Hubbell and Donohue, and Chock and Bates, in Montreal, won the silver medal with a compelling free dance to Philip Glass selections, mixed with Blondie’s classic “Heart of Glass.”
The team showed deep edges and smooth transitions in the haunting program, which earned 121.32 points, second to Hubbell and Donohue. On Friday, their fast-paced, highly entertaining rhythm dance to music from “Saturday Night Fever" also placed second. Their final tally was 202.47 points.
“Jean-Luc found the music several years ago,” Hawayek said. “We felt a connection to it, and we wanted to create a story that would be universally understood by all watching (the program).”
Unlike the top two couples, Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko, winners of the bronze medal, left the ice a bit disappointed after their free dance, set to music from “Dr. Zhivago.”
The young couple, who train under Igor Shpilband in Novi, Michigan, had a shaky twizzle (fast turn) sequence early in the program and also looked uncomfortable on one of their lifts. Still, the romantic, waltz-like free dance holds great promise.
“We left points on the table,” Ponomarenko said. “This program is still new. We probably only did run-throughs in the single digits before coming here.”
Considering Carreira’s condition earlier this year, they are fortunate to compete at Skate America at all. The ice dancer tripped while running on an uneven road at the end of March, fracturing her foot. She was in a boot for four months and could not return to the ice until June 1.
“I had to learn to walk and run again, before I could (fully) skate,” Carreira said.
“It was very much a slow process,” Ponomarenko added.
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