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Post by Admin on Jan 17, 2021 21:05:45 GMT
Bradie Tennell and Karen Chen will represent the United States in the women’s competition at the 2021 World Figure Skating Championships, scheduled for March 22-28 in Stockholm. Three men, three ice dance teams and two pairs’ teams will be named by U.S. Figure Skating on Sunday. Tennell and Chen head to Stockholm with the goal of earning the U.S. the maximum three women’s spots for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. They can do that if their placements combine to equal 13 or lower. Chen, 21, faced the same pressure four years ago and delivered. She was fourth at the 2017 worlds, helping secure three spots for the 2018 Winter Olympics. She and Tennell went on to make that Olympic team, along with Mirai Nagasu. Chen has not competed at worlds since; she was named to the 2018 team but withdrew following the Olympics. This is the third world championships for Tennell, 22, who was sixth at her senior worlds debut in 2018, then seventh in 2019. She made the 2020 world team but the event was cancelled just days prior to the start, at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. On Saturday night, she became the first woman in more than a century to win national titles three or more years apart. Amber Glenn earned the silver medal at nationals, but was passed up for the world team by Chen based on their bodies of work over the past year, which includes Chen outscoring Glenn at this season’s Skate America, as well as the 2020 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships and 2020 U.S. Championships. This is the first time the selected women’s world team did not follow nationals results (for age-eligible skaters) in a non-Olympic year since 2008, when Katrina Hacker was bypassed in favor of 2006 World champion Kimmie Meissner. Glenn was named first alternate, followed by Skate America champion Mariah Bell and Skate America bronze medalist Audrey Shin, pending minimum required score.
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Post by Admin on Jan 18, 2021 4:17:20 GMT
The greatest U.S. male figure skater in a generation had just decisively won another national title Sunday, his fifth in a row, when attention immediately turned to where it always turns for Nathan Chen.
The Olympics. The next Winter Olympic Games, now just 13 months away in Beijing.
Three years ago, Chen was an 18-year-old gold medal favorite at the 2018 Olympics in South Korea when his nerves got the best of him and he bombed in the men’s short program, finishing a dismal 17th. Having no chance to win a medal, with the weight of the world lifted from his shoulders, Chen went on to win the long program and finish fifth overall.
He has not lost a competition since. World championships, national championships, Grand Prix events – Chen, now 21, is undefeated since Pyeongchang, a remarkable achievement in any sport at any time, but especially now, at the most competitive time in his sport’s history.
Nathan Chen poses with his medal at the 2021 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. In the old days, with the 6.0 scoring system, competitions were more like coronations, with the skaters who possessed the most glowing résumés often getting preferential treatment from judges who could get away with almost anything back in the day.
There will always be shenanigans in figure skating, but because the foundation of the sport’s infamous judging system now is built on a rigid points system, the skaters truly have to deliver the goods to have a chance to win.
Skating also is a slippery sport, where athletes such as Chen land multiple quadruple jumps on a sliver of a blade of steel, on ice of course. So to do what Chen has done, to win over and over again on both the national and world stage, is extraordinary.
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Post by Admin on Jan 18, 2021 20:25:39 GMT
After placing second last year, Olympic ice dancers Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue roared back to the top of the podium at the US Figure Skating Championships this weekend, in part thanks to their flirty rhythm dance set to a medley of Christina Aguilera's vocals from the cult-classic film Burlesque. The sexy, sharply choreographed program put the pair in solid position heading into the free dance, setting the stage for them to claim yet another national title.
Hubbell and Donohue's rhythm dance featured five required elements, along with plenty of fun choreographic touches. The duo achieved level four — the highest level of difficulty — on four out of their five main elements, including a challenging twizzle sequence (the ice-dancing term for moving, synchronized spins) and an athletic, fast-moving rotational lift at the end of the program. They finished the rhythm dance with a huge score of 89.66, less than half a point behind their training mates and longtime rivals Madison Chock and Evan Bates.
Hubbell and Donohue have a knack for choosing unusual pieces of music that are recognizable to audiences outside the skating world. Last year, their free dance was set to A Star Is Born's Oscar-winning score, including the megahit "Shallow." And this year, they paired the fast-paced, high-energy Burlesque rhythm dance with a lyrical free dance set to "Hallelujah." Combined, their Burlesque and "Hallelujah" programs scored them a total of 224.56 points, putting them less than two points ahead of Chock and Bates to reclaim their national title.
Hubbell and Donohue first won the gold medal at nationals in 2018, just before the Pyeongchang Olympics, and ultimately placed fourth at the Olympics and second at the world championships that year. They repeated their national title in 2019, but struggled last year, losing the gold medal to Chock and Bates. With this most recent win, Hubbell and Donohue are setting themselves up for another run at an Olympic medal in 2022! Check out their fun rhythm dance above.
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Post by Admin on Jan 19, 2021 4:53:23 GMT
Two-time world champion Nathan Chen headlines the U.S. figure skating team for March’s world championships in Stockholm.
Chen, who won his fifth straight national title on Sunday, is joined by U.S. silver medalist Vincent Zhou and bronze medalist Jason Brown on a 15-skater roster finalized on Sunday.
That same trio would have competed at the 2020 World Championships, but that event was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. This season’s worlds are still on, though the other major international competitions this season have all been canceled.
At the last worlds in 2019, Chen took gold and Zhou took bronze between two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan. It marked the first time two U.S. men made a world championships podium since 1996.
The previously named U.S. women’s team for worlds: national champion Bradie Tennell and U.S. bronze medalist Karen Chen. Chen, a PyeongChang Olympian, was given the spot over U.S. silver medalist Amber Glenn based in part on Chen’s slightly better results over the last year. Glenn edged Chen by .35 of a point at nationals this week.
Alysa Liu, the 2018 and 2019 U.S. champion, took fourth this past week but is too young for senior worlds anyway at age 15.
The pairs’ and ice dance teams went to form, taking the top finishers from nationals in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Under normal circumstances, the top two U.S. finishes per discipline at worlds must add up to no more than 13 to ensure the maximum three spots in that event for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. However, that policy may be amended if worlds participation or competition is impacted by the pandemic.
U.S. team for 2021 World Figure Skating Championships Men Nathan Chen Vincent Zhou (pending the ISU’s decision on the minimum score required) Jason Brown
Women Bradie Tennell Karen Chen
Pairs Alexa Knierim/Brandon Frazier (pending the ISU’s decision on the minimum score required) Jessica Calalang/Brian Johnson
Ice Dance Madison Hubbell/Zachary Donohue Madison Chock/Evan Bates Kaitlin Hawayek/Jean-Luc Baker
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Post by Admin on Jan 20, 2021 4:01:37 GMT
Even with an error at the beginning of his free skate, Nathan Chen was unbeatable on Sunday, winning his fifth straight US figure skating championship. Not since Dick Button won each title from 1946 through 1952 has an American man had such a streak of success. Throw in two world championships and being unbeaten since a fifth-place finish at the 2018 Olympics, and Chen already has a resume for the ages. At age 21. Bradie Tennell returned to the top of the American heap on Friday night with a rock-solid free skate to clinch her second US title. The 22-year-old from Illinois hit all seven of her triple jumps to finish with 232.61 points, well clear of her closest rivals Amber Glenn and Karen Chen. Tennell also finished first in 2018. Madison Hubbell and Zach Donohue won their third national championship in the ice dance with a mesmerizingly intricate routine set to the Jeff Buckley and kd lang renditions of Hallelujah. They edged defending champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who had barely beaten them in the rhythm dance. Amber Glenn, who had never been on the podium at senior nationals, threw down the score to beat when she finished a sterling program to music from Italian composer Ezio Bosso with a solid triple lutz-double toe-double loop combination backed up by a triple loop-triple toe. Her stunning score put the 21-year-old from Plano, Texas, briefly into first place.
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