TWO NEW CHAMPIONS CROWNED IN NASHVILLE

The third day of championship-level competition took place Saturday at the 2022 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships, where Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc, and Madison Chock and Evan Bates won the pairs and ice dance titles, respectively. Reigning U.S. champion Nathan Chen leads the men’s field after the short program, taking a 2.61-point lead into the free skate.

Championship Pairs

Cain-Gribble (SC of New York) and LeDuc (Los Angeles FSC) performed a solid free skate

to music from the “W.E.” soundtrack by Abel Korzeniowski that included side-by-side triple loop jumps, a throw triple flip, throw triple Salchow, a Level 4 death spiral and three Level 4 lifts. They earned 145.84 points in the final segment and 225.23 overall to top the podium by more than 15 points. The win marks their second U.S. title, having previously won gold in 2019.

“I think we’re both pretty overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude for everyone that’s helped us along our journey, for our amazing coaches that have helped us here this week,” LeDuc said. “This is something we’ve dreamed about for a long time. We’ve worked so extremely hard and visualized it so many times, so to see a really good result here coming true in reality is very fulfilling.”

“I think we’re both pretty overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude for everyone that’s helped us along our journey, for our amazing coaches that have helped us here this week,” LeDuc said. “This is something we’ve dreamed about for a long time. We’ve worked so extremely hard and visualized it so many times, so to see a really good result here coming true in reality is very fulfilling.”

Reigning U.S. silver medalists Jessica Calalang (DuPage FSC) and Brian Johnson (SC of New York) defended their standing, placing second for the third-straight season. Landing an impressive throw triple Lutz near the end of the program to “Who Wants to Love Forever” by the Tenors and Lindsey Stirling, they earned 132.29 points to finish the week with 209.87.

Audrey Lu and Misha Mitrofanov (SC of Boston) held on to their bronze medal standing after the short program, earning 123.43 points for their “Ancient Lands” free skate. Their impressive technical arsenal included a side-by-side triple Salchow-Euler-triple Salchow jump series—the only jumping series with two triple jumps completed in the event. They earned an overall score of 191.54 points.

In just their third season as a team, Emily Chan and Spencer Howe (SC of Boston) earned the pewter medal with a personal-best 177.25 points.

Championship Ice Dance

Chock (All Year FSC) and Bates (Ann Arbor FSC) set new U.S. records for the final segment and overall score, totaling 227.37 points for gold. Their Daft Punk free dance earned 135.43 points with eight Level 4 elements, including an opening combination straight line to rotational lift that garnered 14.92 points. The duo was awarded near-perfect component scores for program composition to win their third-career U.S. title by 1.78 points.

“It feels really good to be sitting here right now, and to have won a national championship again against some of the toughest competitors that we’ve ever faced year after year after year,” Bates said. “We really had to work hard for it. I think the training and the preparation, we needed all of it because it wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t necessarily the best performance that we dreamt of today."

Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue (Lansing SC) earned the silver medal with 225.59 points, winning the free dance segment by less than a point. Their performance to “Drowning” by Anna Sila featured nine elements, each of which received grades of execution of +4 or higher across the panel toward a personal-best segment score of 136.20.

Rebounding from a fourth-best rhythm dance, Kaitlin Hawayek (Detroit SC) and Jean-Luc Baker (Seattle SC) won their fourth-consecutive U.S. bronze with 205.68 points. Their free dance, set to selections of music by Frédéric Chopin, earned 126.29 points.

Caroline Green (Pavilion SC of Cleveland Heights) and Michael Parsons (Washington FSC) earned their second-straight pewter medal with 203.27 points.

Championship Men

Chen (Salt Lake Figure Skating) broke his own U.S. scoring record with a performance to music from “La Boheme” worth 115.39 points. His quadruple Lutz-triple toe loop took place in the second half of the performance for a 1.1-point bonus. Chen, who trains in Irvine, California, under Rafael Arutunian, received a Level 4 on all three spins and his step sequence.

“This U.S. Championships short program was insane,” Chen said. “Every guy laid down an amazing program, so it’s a huge honor to be up here with these two guys, and I’m happy to start the competition off this way.”

Vincent Zhou (SC of San Francisco) sits solidly in second place with a personal-best 112.78 points. His performance, set to “Vincent (Starry Starry Night)” by Josh Groban, opened with the highest-scoring element of the event—a quadruple Lutz-triple toe loop combination worth 21.29 points. Zhou trains in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and is coached by Tom Zakrajsek, Drew Meekins and Mie Hamada.

Ilia Malinin (Washington FSC) made his championship-level debut, qualifying by way of a Championship Series win in Leesburg, Virginia, earlier this season. Skating to David Cook’s rendition of “Billie Jean,” the Reston, Virginia-based skater executed a quadruple Lutz, quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop combination and triple Axel en route to a segment score of 103.46—a number that tops his previous best by nearly 14 points. Coached by Tatyana Malinina, Roman Skorniakov and Rafael Arutunian, the 17-year-old rounds out the top three heading into Sunday’s free skate.

Earning the event’s highest program components score, Jason Brown (Skokie Valley SC) sits in fourth place with 100.84 points. Competition resumes tomorrow with the championship men’s free skate.

Full results from the 2022 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships are available here.