Team USA Collects Four Medals At Two International Competitions

Team USA collected four medals this weekend at international events this weekend in Gdansk, Poland, and Bratislava, Slovakia.

Seven Americans made the trip to Gdansk, Poland, for ISU Junior Grand Prix event with five taking home a medal.

Alysa Liu entered Friday's free dance in fourth place, but after landing a quadruple Lutz for a second-straight JGP event, the 14-year-old reigning U.S. figure skating champion took home gold this weekend, punching her ticket to the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final 2019 in Torino, Italy.

Liu recorded the fourth-highest short program score with a score of 64.11, but rallied to the top of the leaderboard after receiving a score of 138.99 in the free skate for a cumulative score of 203.10 points.

Russians Viktoria Vasilieva (196.47) and Anastasia Tarakanova (194.74) rounded out the rest of the podium winning the silver and bronze medal, respectively.

The other American in the ladies' field, New York native Lindsay Thorngren, finished eighth with a total score of 158.09 points.

In ice dance, Avonley Nguyen and Vadym Kolesnik led the way for the U.S. by securing gold. The duo from the Skating Club of New York posted the highest score after the rhythm dance (69.20) and received a score of 105.48 in the free dance. With a total score of 174.68, the duo secured their spot in their second consecutive JGP Final.

France's Loicia Demougeot and Theo le Mercier (162.70), and Russians Ekaterina Katashinskaia and Aleksandr Vaskovich (162.19) rounded out the ice dance podium.

The other American duo, Ella Ales and Daniel Tsarik, finished sixth with a total score of 141.51.

In the pairs program, American duo Kate Finster and Balazs Nagy recorded a short program score of 60.91 and a free skate score of 105.31 for a total score of 166.22 en route to securing the silver medal. The event marked their first JGP podium finish.

Russians Apollinariia Panfilova and Dmitry Rylov took home gold (192.73), and Germany's Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel secured the bronze medal with a cumulative score of 156.20.

Americans Ryan Dunk and Dinh Tran finished sixth and ninth in the men's event, respectively.

In his second JGP appearance of the season, Dunk followed up his fifth-place finish in Lake Placid, New York, with a total score of 205.90 in Poland, placing him in sixth place. The 2019 U.S. junior champion posted a score of 72.90 in the short program and 133.00 in the free skate.

Tran, the 2019 U.S. junior silver medalist, was in 12th place following the short program but rallied to ninth after receiving a score of 118.35 in the free skate. He finished with a total score of 175.23.

Russia's Daniil Samsonov (250.51) secured gold in the event, Yuma Kagiyama (245.35) of Japan earned silver and Italian Daniel Grassl (228.64) won bronze.

Meanwhile, ice dance duo Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter voyaged to Bratislava, to represent the U.S. at the 2019 Nepela Memorial on the third stop of the 2019 ISU Challenger Series.

McNamara and Carpenter took home silver last year and followed up that performance by securing the bronze medal in Slovakia.

The 2019 U.S. pewter medalists registered a rhythm dance score of 73.60 on Friday, which placed them in third heading into the free dance.

The Maryland duo went on to receive a total segment score of 109.87 in the free dance for a combined score of 183.47 en route to finishing third.
 
World silver medalists Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov of Russia recorded a total score of 198.14 and took home the gold, while Spain's Sara Hurtado and Kirill Khaliavin earned silver with 188.97 points.

The JGP Series will continue next week in Zagreb, Croatia, while the Challenger Series rolls on to Oberstdorf, Germany, for the 2019 Nebelhorn Trophy.