On the second day of championship-level competition at the 2022 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee, the first champion was crowned.
Mariah Bell outpaced the ladies field to win her first U.S. title, while in ice dance,
Madison Chock and Evan Bates lead following the rhythm dance.
LADIES
To quote
Mariah Bell's free skate, hallelujah.
Nine years after making her senior U.S. Championships debut, Bell (Rocky Mountain FSC) has finally scaled the mountain and won her first U.S. title.
And it came in the biggest moment possible, with her Olympic dream on the line.
"Obviously I'm very excited to finally be national (U.S.) champion," Bell said, her mask unable to hide the joy on her face. "It wasn't a perfect skate. I was really fighting through a lot of it, but I really fought for every point, and the audience was so incredible. I'm really looking forward to taking this and figuring out how I can make things a little more solid heading into—"
She pauses. "…what's next."
Bell finished with a total of 216.25 points, comfortably ahead of
Karen Chen (Peninsula SC), who earned 213.85 points to take silver, and scored 140.70 for her free skate to "Hallelujah" by k.d. lang. She won both the short program and the free skate. If selected, it would be her first Olympic team.
Bell's previous best at the U.S. Championships was a silver-medal finish in 2020. She slipped to fifth in 2021.
"Last year I was pretty sad leaving Las Vegas," Bell said. "I'd had a great season leading up and just didn't deliver at nationals (U.S. Championships), and you have to do that. With everything going on with COVID, that was just the end of my season, and that was pretty strange. So I took some time off and really decided that I was just going to not hold back this year. And there were a lot of things that happened this year and I'm really proud of how I've been able to just keep fighting for this ultimate goal that now I've reached.
"To go from U.S. Championships last year to this, I'm very proud."
Bell, who placed sixth at Internationaux de France and fourth at Rostelecom Cup this season, is the oldest U.S. ladies champion in 95 years.
"I personally think that it's really exciting to be a little bit older and showing that you can do it at a young age, and also at an older age," Bell said. "I'm 25, so it's not like I'm ancient, but in skating I kind of am. But I want that to be a known fact, that skating doesn't end at a certain age."
Chen, herself 22 years old, earned 139.30 for her free skate to "Butterfly Lover Concerto" by Takako Nishizaki.
In seven appearances at the U.S. Championships and six medals – including gold in 2017 – this is her first silver.
"I'm super happy with the fight that I put out there for this long program," Chen said. "It definitely was not easy. My thoughts started racing, and I had to just constantly bring myself back into the moment and go back and forth, just fighting myself. But I'm really happy with how I managed to fight through all of it and enjoy the process.
"And also, I've never gotten silver before, so I'm super, super excited about that," she added with a laugh.
At the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2021, Chen finished fourth to help earn the U.S. women the chance to compete for three Olympic berths.
In her senior-level debut, 2021 U.S. junior champion
Isabeau Levito (SC of Southern New Jersey) finished third, scoring 139.75 points for her free skate to "Russian Dance" from Swan Lake by David Coucheron for a total of 210.75 overall.
"I'm very excited because my goal was to medal, and here I am," Levito said. "I didn't have a perfect skate, but it was a good program overall, and I reached my goal."
Gabriella Izzo (SC of Boston) placed fourth for her first U.S. Championships podium, earning 188.11 points overall and 120.60 points for her free skate to "With One Look" from
Sunset Boulevard by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
"It still feels crazy, really unreal," Izzo said. "It's been quite a season. This is my eleventh competition this season, which is a lot more than a lot of people do. It's been up and down, and this is definitely an up right now."
ICE DANCE
As
Madison Chock and Evan Bates (All Year FSC/Ann Arbor FSC) are on the precipice of qualifying for a third Olympic Team together, Bates is on the precipice of making some history of his own.
Should the pair qualify, he would become the first U.S. figure skater ever to qualify for four Olympic Winter Games. (Bates and former partner Emily Samuelson competed at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.)
But Bates is firmly focused on the task at hand.
"It hasn't really come into my mind yet," he said. "This week is a unique week with unprecedented circumstances surrounding it, and we're completely focused on our skating, our health, doing everything that we need to do to make sure that we make it to the Games and we have the opportunity to compete there as the ultimate goal."
Chock and Bates are well on their way, sitting in first place with 91.94 points for their rhythm dance to "My Boy," "Therefore I Am" and "Bad Guy" by Billie Eilish.
"What a Nashville audience, I have to say," Chock said. "It was so much fun performing for them. Their energy was amazing throughout the program, and we really felt it. Every second was so enjoyable, and to be out there with Evan and perform just like we practice at home – it was wonderful. It was very fun."
The two-time U.S. champions are the reigning U.S. silver medalists and finished fourth at the 2021 World Championships. This season, they won silver at both of their Grand Prix assignments, and in Nashville managed to improve on what has been a very strong rhythm dance.
"I think it's a true testament to our training," Chock said. "Since the Grand Prix Final was canceled, we certainly had a bit of extra time to prepare than we normally would, and we took full advantage of that, just polishing and smoothing out all the details that we wanted to."
Three-time and reigning U.S. champions
Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue (Lansing SC) are in second place, scoring 89.39 points for their rhythm dance to a Janet Jackson medley.
"Zach and I are a little bit disappointed today," Hubbell said. "I think (the fans) know that we didn't skate our best, and them showing their support in the way that they're clapping for us and standing for us, it was a nice moment. So not our best skate, but still a fun experience."
The 2021 World silver medalists, Hubbell and Donohue plan to retire following this season.
"I don't think that we wanted to feel like we were coming into our last nationals (U.S. Championships) doing anything other than striving for excellence, striving for our best," Hubbell said. "And Zach and I are our best when we're really pushing the limit. So today it didn't work out, but I don't have regrets about how we handled it. [It] happens, and then other competitors skate very well, and it is what it is."
Caroline Green and Michael Parsons (Pavilion SC of Cleveland Heights/Washington FSC) sit in third place with 80.85 points for their rhythm dance to "The Knowledge" and "Rhythm Nation" by Janet Jackson and "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" by En Vogue.
This is their third U.S. Championships together, having placed fifth in 2020 and fourth in 2021.
"We're really proud of how we skated," Parsons said. "This is what we've been training for. We know that we belong here, so it was just about putting down the best skate we could. I think we did that today. Nothing's perfect, of course, but I think this is the closest we've gotten to the programs we're picturing in our heads."
Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker (Detroit SC/Seattle SC) are in fourth place, scoring 79.39 points for their skate to a retro remix of Donna Summer.
"It definitely wasn't the 100% performance that we wanted," Hawayek said. "I had (a mistake on) the twizzle early in the program. But I was really happy with how we performed the rest of the program. We've spent the last several weeks drilling our levels, and the levels outside of the twizzle were very good, so that's something we really improved on from the beginning of the season."
Competition continues tomorrow with the men's short program, pairs free skate and free dance. Fans can tune into the action on NBC and USA, and watch live and on-demand on
Peacock Premium. Visit the
2022 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships Virtual Fan Experience for a behind the scenes look at the event.
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