Vincent Zhou Wins Short Program on First Night of 2021 Guaranteed Rate Skate America

The Grand Prix season kicked off tonight in Las Vegas with 2021 Guaranteed Rate Skate America. The event at The Orleans Arena is the first major figure skating event in front of a live audience in more than a year and a half.
 
Vincent Zhou holds the top spot in the men's competition following the short program, while Jessica Calalang and Brian Johnson lead the way amongst U.S. pairs in fourth place.
 
MEN
 
At the 2021 ISU World Figure Skating Championships, Zhou placed 25th in the short program, failing to qualify for the free skate.
 
Seven months later, the situation couldn't be more different.
 
Zhou, the first man to skate, scored 97.43 for his skate to "Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)" by Josh Groban, good for first place in the short program in Las Vegas.
 
"Who would've expected that I'm sitting in the middle tonight?" Zhou joked at the post-event press conference, flanked by Japan's Shoma Uno (in second place with 89.07 points) and Jimmy Ma (third with 84.52 points). "I think that I did a good job performing the program and showing some of the great things that we've been doing in training."
 
This season, Zhou has won at Cranberry Cup and Nebelhorn Trophy, which earned the U.S. men a third berth at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. That accomplishment was some redemption for Zhou, who failed to earn the third spot at the 2021 World Championships.
 
"It's always a pleasure to skate this program, and even more so with a live audience once again. It was a really good feeling," Zhou said. "And I think the score is definitely good. I have definitely trained better. I knew that I really had to put on a good show to try and set the bar right away. So that was my intention coming into tonight, and I think that I did a pretty good job."
 
It's been an interesting few years for Zhou, as he sat out most of the 2019-20 season before the pandemic shutdown derailed everyone's plans. But now, with the Olympics on the horizon, things seem to be headed back in the right direction.
 
"I feel like this season has definitely been very consistent so far in terms of my training. I've been training very consistently, and my performance in training has been definitely more consistent than in past seasons," Zhou said. "We've been building progressively through the season at each competition, so I feel like I'm definitely on the right path."
 
Ma sits in third place, scoring 84.52 points for his program to music from Black Swan.
 
"Those are the kind of programs I'd like to start consistently putting out," Ma said. "It's what I've been doing in practice, and I'm glad that, with this team behind me, I could finally show people that I'm not just saying it. This is actually what I do in practice."
 
In two prior appearances at Skate America®, Ma placed 12th in 2018 and 10th in 2020.
 
"The only goal for this competition was to leave my heart out there," Ma said. "Everything I do in training, everything that I feel with the music. I didn't want to have any regrets going home. Obviously, there's still a big job ahead of me tomorrow. I'm really, really excited, and I'm excited to learn from this experience. It's unreal."
 
Three-time World champion and four-time reigning Skate America® champion Nathan Chen sits in fourth place with 82.89 points for his short program to "Eternity" and "Nemesis" by Benjamin Clementine.
 
Chen hasn't finished below first place at a Grand Prix event since 2016, or any event since placing fifth at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
 
"I need a little more time to think about it, what went wrong, and try again tomorrow," Chen said. "I have a lot of events coming forward this season. This is not the one opportunity I have to perform the short program. So from here, just learn as much as I can and go forward. I'm human. I'm going to make mistakes. Unfortunately, it happened today, but it happens. So just learn from it, grow from it, and try your best next time."

PAIRS
 
Competing at their first Grand Prix of the season, Calalang and Johnson have already overcome more than they ever wanted to.
 
At the 2021 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January, Calalang had tested positive for a banned substance. Eight months later, her suspension was lifted and her name was finally cleared.
 
In Las Vegas, they lead the U.S. contingent of pairs in fourth place after the short program, scoring 68.87 points for their skate to "Come Together" by Gary Clark Jr. and Junkie XL.
 
Two teams from Russia hold the top two spots, with Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov in first (80.36) and Aleksandra Boikova and Dmitrii Kozlovskii in second (75.43). Japan's Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara are in third (72.63).
 
"We felt like we really performed the heck out of it, which is what we were trying to do," Johnson said. "All the elements were done really well, which we're really happy with. Loved it.
 
"It was really great to get out and skate in front of fans again. The energy is so different than skating in front of cardboard," he added with a laugh.
 
The two-time reigning U.S. silver medalists have competed at Skate America® twice before, finishing second in 2020 and fourth in 2019, their debut Grand Prix.
 
But now, after emerging from a place of such hopelessness, skating well means so much more.
 
"It was unbelievable," Calalang said. "I am so satisfied with that performance. After my suspension was lifted, it really felt like we could skate with a new sort of joy or freedom. I feel like it definitely showed."
 
"Like a huge weight has been lifted off," Johnson added. "Like we were trying to carry our whole career on our back, and now it's like we can just skate."
 
In fifth place are Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier, who earned 66.37 points for their short program to "House of the Rising Sun" by Heavy Young Heathens.
 
"I felt like I was a little tight in some areas, and I think we maybe came out of the spin a little different this time, but very uncharacteristic of us," Knierim said. "I think there were just some spots we're going to grow from and get better (at the Internationaux de France). I'm very, very proud of Brandon and I."
 
Since teaming up in the spring of 2020, Knierim and Frazier have won their only prior Grand Prix, 2020 Guaranteed Rate Skate America, as well as the 2021 U.S. pairs title. At the 2021 ISU World Figure Skating Championships, they placed seventh.
 
Despite all of their successes, Knierim and Frazier know that the longer they skate together, the better things will get.
 
"We are still a newer team, and I know long-season teams can agree that there's a lot of waves you ride as you gel and grow and you compete more," Frazier said. "And that's what we're still doing, is riding these waves and figuring out what makes our boat go full force."
 
Chelsea Liu and Danny O'Shea sit in seventh place after earning 60.16 points for their skate to "Lover" by Taylor Swift.
 
This is the pair's debut Grand Prix event after teaming up in March of this year.
 
"I think we had a good philosophy coming into it," O'Shea said. "We were just trying to go out there with the understanding that we had probably the least amount of pressure of any team stepping onto the ice, and we were going to go after it and have some fun. I think we did a great job getting out there on the big stage for the first time today."

Competition continues Saturday with the rhythm dance, women's short, pairs free and men's free. Competition will be live and on-demand on Peacock Premium. Saturday's events will also be live on NBCSN with the rhythm dance and women's short program airing 5:30-8 p.m. ET, and the pairs and men's free skate airing from 10 p.m. – 1 a.m. ET.

Fans can also check out the 2021 Guaranteed Rate Skate America Virtual Fan Experience to get a behind the scenes look of the event.