US Figure Skating Nationals Update
2008 US Ice Skaters Challenge Each Other as well as Themselves
Here are the standings leading in to this weekend's highlight performances as the nation's best skaters contend for trip to the World Championships.
Ladies
An extremely strong group of young ladies is challenging World Champion Kimmie Meissner in what Scott Hamilton called an incredible second half of the women’s short program competition Thursday night.
Mirai Nagasu sits atop the leader board right now with a record score of 70.23! This 14-year-old member of the Pasadena Figure Skating Club took advantage of Kimmie’s slight bobble on one jump and flew past second place finisher, Ashley Wagner of Washington. Ashley’s score of 65.15 bested Rachael Flatt (Broadmore) by two and half points.
That left Kimmie in fourth place before the freeskate. Her score of 57.58 is only half a point above fifth place finisher, Katrina Hacker of Boston. Katrina and sixth place finisher Bebe Liang (All Year) will not let Kimmie make any mistakes if she is to regain her crown.
Pairs
Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker (LA & Broadmoor Figure Skating Clubs) overthrew World Bronze Medalists Rena Inoue and John Baldwin of the All Year Figure Skating Club. The top scores were 66.54 and 65.24 respectively, so there’s not much “bobble” room for either pair as we head in to tomorrows free skate.
Current National Champions Brooke Castile and Ben Okolski, both from the Arctic Figure Skating Club, sit in third place with 58.95 points. Fourth and fifth place finishers posted point totals of 58.95 and 57.10. They are Amanda Evora and Mark Ladwig (Southwest Florida and Red River Valley Figure Skating Clubs) followed by Tiffany Vise and Derek Trent (Broadmoor).
Ice Dance
The Compulsory Dance, during which teams have to skate the same moves and pattern to the same music, brought no surprises for the top teams. In fact, those standing remained the same through the OD. Final standings aren’t likely to change, but hey, ice is slippery, and anything can happen, right?
The Original Dance standings weren’t that original. Olympic Silver Medalists Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, both representing the Arctic Figure Skating Club, easily took the top spot with a score of 64.29. Their training partners and friends, Meryl Davis and Charlie White (Arctic and Detroit Figure Skating Clubs) hope to dethrone Tanith and Ben. With a score of 62.69 in the OD, Meryl and Charlie can only hope for the current king and queen of US ice dancing to make a mistake – if they want to take the crown.
Combined Compulsory and OD scores are as follows: Tanith and Ben have 106.15 points, Meryl and Charlie earned 103.28 points, and Kimberly and Brent have 94.09. The third place team hopes to gain the much coveted international experience in the hopes of making it to the 2010 Olympics. According to Olympic Gold Medalist Scott Hamilton, however, Tanith and Ben are still the favorites for that competition as well. So much for the new judging system. Meanwhile at this Nationals: Tune in to the Free Dance, broadcast live on NBC tomorrow.
Men
Our leading men duke it out during their short programs tonight, from 7:30 to 10:50pm EST. Johnny Weir hopes to remind the nation why we took notice of him in the first place. That young man that literally jumped on to the scene years ago has refocused and trained for the single goal of regaining his US National title.
He’s in extremely capable hands to do so. His coaches are none other than Galina Zmievskaya and Nina Petrenko, and they’ve seen a few Olympic champions in their day – to say the least. This must be a dream come true for him, considering that he began ice skating after watching their girl, Oksana Baiul, on t.v.
Evan Lysacek is not likely to let that happen. Although, he is daring to venture away from his Carmen routine. Even if it ain’t broke, Evan, thank gawd! I wonder if his choreographer, someone named Kurt Browning, had anything to do with the new program? Ya think? OK, so Zorro was a good compromise. Let’s hope he lands those triple tomorrow with the same finess as he landed costume designer Christian Dior for his short program’s costume.
Evan’s goal this season is to improve on his personal best scores. Like the true champ that he is, he sees himself as his greatest competitor. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until their free skate on Sunday to find out who actually takes home the prize.
