Champions Crowned at 2020 Guaranteed Rate Skate America

They may have been hidden behind face masks and standing farther away than usual, but a number of familiar faces graced the top of the podium as 2020 Guaranteed Rate Skate America came to a close Saturday night at The Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.
 
Nathan Chen earned his fourth straight Skate America® title, while Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue earned their third straight in ice dance. Meanwhile, Mariah Bell earned the first Grand Prix gold medal of her career, and Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier took gold in pairs in the first Grand Prix of their partnership.
 
LADIES
 
If past is prologue, Bell's 2019-20 season was a very good omen of things to come.
 
Last year, she earned two Grand Prix bronzes at Internationaux de France and Rostelecom Cup, and followed that up with a career-best silver-medal finish at the 2020 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
 
And now, in her first competition of 2020, she's won the first Grand Prix gold medal of her career.
 
At Skate America®, Bell's free skate to an ABBA medley earned 136.25 points, giving her a total of 212.73. Bradie Tennell captured silver with 211.07 points overall, and Audrey Shin took the bronze with 206.15 points.
 
"It was a little bit shaky, and I felt a little bit stiff, but I was excited to be able to get my long program out in a competition setting, and I still had a really great time," Bell said.
 
A program set to ABBA is a quite a departure from Bell's usual free skate style, but she says it's allowing her to push herself in a new way.
 
"It's something that's definitely a little more out of my comfort zone," she said. "I'm excited to kind of experiment with that side of myself, and to put out some really solid skates with it."
 
This is Bell's fourth career Grand Prix medal. She also previously won silver at Skate America® in 2016.
 
Despite this being her first major international gold medal, Bell maintains a measured perspective about her accomplishment.
 
"I try not to look too much at outcomes, but more how I feel," she said. "I'm walking away from this performance a little disappointed, but I look back at U.S. Championships (where she won silver) and that was a program I was really proud of. So at the end of the day, regardless of results, I want to walk away feeling really great about what I did, which I mostly do today."
 
Tennell skated to "Sarajevo" by Max Richter and "Dawn of Faith" by Eternal Eclipse, and earned 137.78 points to finish first in the free skate.
 
The silver medal matches the best Grand Prix finish of Tennell's career, earned last year at Skate America. She also has two bronze medals, from Internationaux de France in 2018 and Skate America in 2017.
 
"I actually felt really good about the program," Tennell said. "To be able to come out here and compete like that for the first time in eight months, I feel really great. There's a lot of room to grow, but I'm really happy with what I did today."
 
In the last month and a half, Tennell has dealt with a number of issues that prevented her from fully training, including a bad pair of skates and a couple of minor injuries that prevented her from training all her jumps until last week.
 
"I was doing my programs without any combos for a while, so I really only did about three full programs in a week and half," Tennell said. "So with all of that, taking all of that into account, I'm really happy with what I put out today."
 
Shin, in her Grand Prix and senior international debut, earned bronze with her free skate to music from the Modigliani soundtrack by Guy Farley, which earned 136.38 points.
 
"To be honest, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, 'I really want to be on that podium,' but I tried not to think about it too much so that it didn't affect my long program," Shin said. "So yesterday was just my short, and today I took it as a new day, and took each element one at a time."
 
2018 Olympian Karen Chen finished fourth with 204.90 points overall, and Amber Glenn rounded out the top five with 190.09 points.
 
MEN

Not even 2020 can derail Chen.

Even amidst the unique and difficult circumstances this year has presented, the quad king remains on his throne.

While Chen may not have been perfect on Saturday in Las Vegas, popping two jumps, his efforts earned him the Skate America® title.

Chen's free skate to various songs by Philip Glass earned 187.98 points, giving him an overall total of 299.15. Vincent Zhou earned silver with 275.10 points, and Canada's Keegan Messing took bronze with 266.42 points.

"I was a little bit disappointed about the jumps that I missed," Chen said. "I shouldn't have done that. I think I know what I should've done to make that happen, but at the time it wasn't quite there."

Chen is undefeated since the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018, and has not finished worse than first at a Grand Prix event since 2016.

He's now the four-time reigning Skate America® champion.

But not even the best figure skater in the world is immune to what's going on around him, as the COVID-19 pandemic has given him cause to take a step back and reflect. He's spent time reading and educating himself on the issues facing the country and has a new appreciation for what he has.
 
"It has definitely given me a larger insight on the lives of others, considering that through social media and through a lot of other platforms, we're a lot more aware of the struggles and the hardships that other people face," Chen said. "Just to get that perspective on how privileged, how lucky we are to have so much in our lives, and that we shouldn't really take that for granted."
 
The rest of the season has as many question marks as it has answers, the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final the most recent postponement. While Chen hopes it does eventually happen – as it's an Olympic test event, and he'd like to be able to get the lay of the land in Beijing – he is taking each day and each competition as it comes.
 
"This competition had its positives, had its negatives, and now I have a platform or a sort of base on which I can keep improving," Chen said. "I think any competition that we get is a great opportunity, so I'm looking forward to U.S. Championships and then whatever the rest of the season brings."
 
Zhou skated to "Algorithm" and "Algorithm (Alternate Reality Version)" by Muse, and earned 175.74 points for his free skate.
 
"Obviously there were a few hiccups in the program, but overall I'm really proud of myself for what I did at this competition," Zhou said. "I'm always out there fighting to do the best that I can, and I'm proud of my fight this week."
 
This is the first Grand Prix medal of Zhou's career. He won bronze at the World Championships in 2019, but withdrew from his Grand Prix assignments last season as he attended Brown University.
 
"I haven't had the smoothest of summers in the past, which have led to me not being prepared for the last few Grand Prix seasons," he said. "My team and I really set our eyes on this one competition as the main objective for the time being. And I was able to get some solid training in.
 
"It's such a unique time. Crazy times we're in right now. And for everything at this event to come together, it's quite the competition to remember."
 
2020 U.S. bronze medalist Tomoki Hiwatashi finished fourth with 245.30 points overall, while Ilia Malinin placed fifth with 220.31 points in his senior Grand Prix debut.
 
PAIRS
 
It was a night of firsts in the pairs discipline at Skate America®.
 
Of the three teams on the podium, each one of them was earning a medal at a Grand Prix for the very first time.
 
Leading the way was Knierim and Frazier with the gold medal. Their free skate to "Fall on Me" by Andrea Bocelli and Matteo Bocelli earned 140.58 points, giving them 214.77 overall. Jessica Calalang and Brian Johnson grabbed silver with 207.40 points overall, and Audrey Lu and Misha Mitrofanov earned the bronze with 189.65 points.
 
Knierim and Frazier, of course, have each been here before, just not together. Knierim has three prior Grand Prix medals with her husband and former partner Chris Knierim, while Frazier has four with former partner Haven Denney.
 
It is, however, both of their first Grand Prix gold.
 
"I made a joke to Brandon when we got our scores that this partnership is going to work," Knierim said with a laugh. "It's always great to have a successful event and to place well, but more than anything, I think inside we're pleased with the progress, and we feel like our hard work is being validated. And we're just excited for what's to come, and excited to keep improving."
 
Skate America® is Knierim and Frazier's first major event as a team, as they teamed up this past March.
 
Their only prior competitive history was a second-place finish at U.S. Figure Skating's virtual International Selection Pool (ISP) Points Challenge.
 
While they're thrilled to have their first Grand Prix medal under their belt, they're even more pleased that they simply skated well.
 
"It's great that this is the Grand Prix that we were able to get our medal at, but I think even if this were a local competition, we would be at the same level of happiness, just because we're proud of the skate that we put out," Knierim said. "I think as athletes, it's sometimes more about the performance than the placement, and the placement always helps make you feel great and proud of what you've done, but at the end of the day, it's more about what you put out on the ice."
 
Calalang and Johnson earned 136.32 points for their free skate to "Who Wants to Live Forever" by the Tenors featuring Lindsey Sterling.
 
"We're a little disappointed with our long," Johnson said. "We had a couple of mistakes that we know we can do. We're going to go home, keep working and keep on trucking."
 
Calalang and Johnson made their Grand Prix debut at Skate America® last season, finishing fourth, and have been on the upswing ever since. They won silver at the 2020 U.S. Championships and placed fourth at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships before winning the ISP Points Challenge earlier this month.
 
"Getting this medal, for us, is kind of a great steppingstone up from the Points Challenge, and then from previous seasons," Calalang said. "But we're just wanting to look forward and keep working, and hopefully get a few more."
 
Lu and Mitrofanov's free skate to a Charlie Chaplin medley scored 122.13 points.
 
This is their first career Grand Prix medal. The 2018 U.S. junior champions finished sixth at the senior level at the 2020 U.S. Championships.
 
"We're very happy and fortunate with this bronze medal, and we're very proud of ourselves," Mitrofanov said. "This definitely gives us a confidence boost, and the understanding that we want to go in the right direction, so we need to continue to train hard, continue to push ourselves."
 
Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc placed fourth with 189.23 points overall, and Tarah Kayne and Danny O'Shea were fifth with 174.35 points.
 
DANCE
 
The first time Hubbell and Donohue skated to "Hallelujah," it was 2015, they had just moved to a new training base in Montreal and they wanted to restart their career.
 
Five years later, the music is back but new and improved, as are the Hubbell and Donohue who are skating to it.
 
Hubbell and Donohue's free dance to "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley and k.d. lang earned 126.09 points, giving them 211.39 points overall and a third consecutive Skate America title.
 
Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker took the silver with 202.47 points, and Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko won bronze with 185.78 points.
 
"I would say that tonight was a successful first step into the competitive season," Hubbell said. "This is a program that Zach and I are very passionate about, and we already feel like we have almost an easy time skating it because every part feels purposeful, and there's something about each part that we enjoy. And so while there are many things to improve going home, we're really happy with the performance this evening."
 
Hubbell and Donohue seem to have rounded back into form following a silver-medal finish at last year's Skate Canada International as well as the 2020 U.S. Championships. While a successful season by anyone else's standards, the pair wanted to move forward with a piece of music that fits their skating and their partnership.
 
"We kept coming back to that music for exhibitions (in past seasons), because in monumental moments in our career, that song feels like it's us," Hubbell said.
 
"It's like another restart for us, in a way," Donohue added. "Being able to work with Scott (Moir), revisiting this program on our terms with a desire to expand on it and get everything we can from it, and having a new understanding of our relationship and what we take into the program is making for magic each time we perform it."
 
Hawayek and Baker earned 121.32 points for their free dance to "Heart of Glass" by Philip Glass and Blondie, and "First Movement" by Philip Glass.
 
This is their third career Grand Prix medal, and first silver. They've previously won gold and bronze at NHK Trophy in 2018 and 2014, respectively.
 
"Tonight was a really special night for us," Hawayek said. "I think this performance, at least at this point in our career, feels like the most intentional, focused, strong performance we've had. One of the things we've worked really hard on this year is being able to stay 100% committed to our story and to our focus from the very beginning of the program, and I think we felt like that was a really big success tonight because we stayed invested every moment, and it made it fly by."
 
Carreira and Ponomarenko scored 107.15 points for their free dance to music from Doctor Zhivago.
 
This matches the best Grand Prix finish of their career; the duo earned bronze at the Rostelecom Cup in 2018.
 
"We're a little bit disappointed with how today went," Carreira said. "We left a lot of points on the table, and we made a few mistakes. And there's a lot of things we want to improve and change when we get back home to make this program as special as it can be. We love the music and our choreography, and we're really excited to improve it."
 
Caroline Green and Michael Parsons finished fourth with 178.05 points, and Molly Cesanek and Yehor Yehorov placed fifth with 168.09 points.
 
The full competition is available on-demand on Peacock Premium, your all-access pass to the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series, Learn more and start your 7-day free trial at peacocktv.com/skating.