Printable Page
01/10 20:02 CST Olympic favorites Chock and Bates win record-setting seventh
U.S. Figure Skating ice dance title
Olympic favorites Chock and Bates win record-setting seventh U.S. Figure
Skating ice dance title
By DAVE SKRETTA
AP Sports Writer
ST. LOUIS (AP) --- Madison Chock and Evan Bates danced their way to a
record-setting seventh U.S. Figure Skating title on Saturday night, showcasing
their trademark creativity, athleticism and precision in their final
competition before the Milan Cortina Olympics.
The three-time reigning world champions, performing a flamenco-style dance to a
version of the Rolling Stones hit "Paint It Black" from the dystopian sci-fi
Western show "Westworld," produced a season-best free skate and finished with
228.87 points.
Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik were second with 213.65 points and Christina
Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko were third with 206.95, making those two pairs
the likely choices to join Chock and Bates on the American squad for the
upcoming Winter Games.
U.S. Figure Skating will announce its selections on Sunday.
"The feeling that we got from the audience today was unlike anything I've ever
felt before," said Chock, who along with Bates helped the Americans win team
gold at the Beijing Olympics four years ago, but finished a disappointing
fourth in the ice dance.
They'll be the heavy favorites to win gold next month in Italy.
"I felt so much love and joy," Chock continued, "and I'm so grateful for this
moment."
The men's medals also were to be decided on Saturday, though two-time world
champion Ilia Malinin had built such a lead after his short program that the
self-styled "Quad God" would have to stumble mightily to miss out on a fourth
consecutive title.
The real question is who will join Malinin on the Olympic team.
The U.S. also has qualified the maximum of three men's spots for the Winter
Games, and competition is tight between second-place Tomoko Hiwatashi, fan
favorite Jason Brown, Andrew Torgashev and Maxim Naumov to round out the
nationals podium.
There wasn't much drama in the dance competition.
At least for the top step.
Yet sometimes the winning programs aren't necessarily the ones that win over
the crowd. And while they only finished fifth, the sister-brother duo of Oona
Brown and Gage Brown --- former world junior champions --- earned the first
standing ovation of the night for their moody, creative program set to
selections from the film "The Godfather."
"I think that was one of the best --- if not the best --- performances we've
had," Gage Brown said afterward.
The Browns ended a stretch in which most of the couples taking the ice made
some kind of significant mistake.
Then it was a parade of near-perfect programs, each couple trying to upstage
the previous one.
Emily Bratti and Ian Somerville were the first to knock the Brown siblings from
first place, then reigning bronze medalists Caroline Green and Michael Parsons
took over first place with their program, set to "Escalate" by Tsar B and "Son
of Nyx" by Hozier.
Carreira and Ponomarenko, the back-to-back U.S. silver medalists, knew that a
podium spot would probably earn them a spot on the Olympic team. And they
delivered with a sharp program inside the Enterprise Center in which the seemed
to channel the characters from the 2006 psychological thriller film "Perfume:
The Story of a Murder."
The 23-year-old Zingas and 24-year-old Kolesnik quickly assumed the top spot,
but with Chock and Bates warming up on the ice as their scores were read, they
knew it would probably be about a 4-minute stay in first place.
___
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
|
