Tarah Kayne has a pre-competition ritual that's a little bit unconventional: she cries.
She gets so nervous before each competition that she breaks down in tears.
"I can't not do it. I haven't figured out a way not to," Kayne laughed during the pairs press conference after the event. "I hysterically cry. And sometimes Danny holds me until I stop, other times I just cry by myself."
Prior to her and partner Danny O'Shea's short program at the 2019 GEICO U.S. Figure Skating Championships, she got so nervous at practice that she started crying while it was still happening.
"Everything was going fine and I'm crying and that's part of the process," Kayne said. "I get very nervous."
O'Shea, normally the bastion of calm, shared her nerves before taking the ice at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
"Tarah and I were talking earlier about how we both wanted to throw up before we skated," O'Shea said. "We were pretty nervous going into today. It's something that means a lot to both of us and we're very happy that it went as well as it did."
It couldn't have gone much better; Kayne and O'Shea sit in first place after the short program. Skating to "Turning Page" by Sleeping At Last, the duo earned 71.83 points to take a slim lead over Ashley Cain and Timothy LeDuc heading into the free skate.
Kayne has dealt with a number of injuries in the last several years. She underwent knee surgery in February of 2017 for a persistent two-year injury, and a hip surgery just three years earlier.
The pair has since made the move to Colorado Springs, Colorado, living at the Olympic Training Center and training under coach Dalilah Sappenfield.
"It has been quite a process," O'Shea said. "Tarah's been a trooper. I think that's part of the sport and part of what makes elite athletes great, the tenacity to be able to come back, fight and push through and keep striving for more. I'm very happy to say that we're both healthy at the moment, feeling good. It's great. Living at the Olympic Training Center right now, we're able to get physical therapy and maintenance on a constant basis. It was a pretty vital part of coming back to health."
This season, Kayne and O'Shea competed at the NHK Trophy in Hiroshima, Japan, finishing fifth, and at the Internationaux de France in Grenoble, France, where they earned a silver medal.
They have a medal of each color from the U.S. Championships under their belts already – bronze in 2015, silver in 2018 and gold in 2016 and are now primed to earn another.
Behind them, Cain and LeDuc sit in second place with 70.47 points for their short program to "Bella Belle" by The Electric Swing Circus.
The performance itself was impressive, but some may be surprised to see Cain and LeDuc in Detroit at all.
On Dec. 8, at the Golden Spin of Zagreb, Cain fell badly when a lift went wrong.
"I would say that it's every pairs skater's worst nightmare, what happened in Croatia," LeDuc said. "Undoubtedly what got us through was our connection to each other and our coaches. It was really hard for me to fight through a lot of the doubts after that accident, but what got me through was Ashley's courage. Every day, I could see her fighting to push herself to her maximum so she could get better and be ready for this competition. It was inspiring to me on a daily basis."
They went through concussion protocol to ensure that Cain would be able to skate, though her condition varies from day to day. LeDuc says that they adjusted several elements in their programs to keep their levels but reduce the time Cain spends upside down.
The pair skated last, sliding into second place and in position to earn a third U.S. Championships medal. They won bronze in 2017 and pewter in 2018.
"At this point, we're just really happy to be here," Cain said. "We didn't think, a month ago, that we would be on that ice. So to have a performance like that, it gives us a lot of confidence in the training that we've done.
"I think the biggest part was that he was strong for me in all of this," Cain said of LeDuc. "So, I was able to count on him being there for me and he was able to count that I'd do my best effort out there."
Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier sit in third place with 68.32 points for their short program to "Billie Jean" by David Cook.
"We were very excited with what we were able to put out," Frazier said. "It feels good to be able to put out what we've been training."
The pair won the U.S. Championships in 2017 before struggling to a fifth-place finish in 2018. Like Kayne and O'Shea, they've dealt with a number of injuries in recent years. Most recently, Denney suffered a stress fracture in her ankle that kept her off the ice for more than a month and forced the pair to withdraw from one of their Grand Prix assignments this fall.
"It was just so painful to skate and then I just couldn't," Denney admitted.
At the Grand Prix they did make it to, Skate Canada International, they placed sixth.
"We've kind of had a rocky start to the season, dealt with a big injury in the midst, so there's a lot of baggage coming in to start this competition," Frazier said. "We've really prepared and put a lot of energy and worked. Probably not the perfect short we've ran but it's something to be proud of to regain some momentum. We came here, we got the job done today. That's all that matters."
In fourth place are Deanna Stellato and Nathan Bartholomay with 68.18 points. Unhappy with their original short program, a tango, the duo regrouped and debuted their program to "Somewhere" by Barbara Streisand at Golden Spin of Zagreb in December.
"[The tango] was a great performance piece, it was great from the choreographers, everyone did everything right. We just never truly felt it," Bartholomay said. "That showed in our marks and it didn't draw people in. Whereas this performance, we felt like it has a real strong character for us to play, and we can come out the gate and just draw people in, and that proved to be the case today."
Stellato noted that the crowd came alive during their side-by-side spins, cheering their perfect timing on so loudly that they almost couldn't hear each other's cues over the noise.
"It felt like a complete performance and it felt like I could get off the ice pleased with what I did," Stellato said. "I'm always going to be hard on myself because I want to be technically perfect as well, but it certainly felt choreographically proficient in terms of the package that we were able to deliver."
Stellato and Bartholomay, who are competing at their third U.S. Championships together, placed fourth in 2017 and third in 2018.
This season, they placed eighth at Skate America and sixth at the Grand Prix of Helsinki.
Reigning U.S. champions Alexa Scimeca-Knierim and Chis Knierim are in seventh place with 61.56 points.
Pairs competition continues with the free skate on Saturday at Little Caesars Arena.
