Chock and Bates, Cain-Gribble and LeDuc Reclaim U.S. Titles in Nashville

On the third day of championship-level competition at the 2022 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee, champions were crowned in two more disciplines while the men's competition got underway.

In pairs, Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc delivered to win their second career U.S. title, and in ice dance, Madison Chock and Evan Bates edged out their training mates to win their third title. Meanwhile, Nathan Chen leads the men's field after a short program competition that saw four skaters break the 100-point mark.

PAIRS

Cain-Gribble (SC of New York) was crying before the final pairs free skate scores were announced.

Jessica Calalang and Brian Johnson (DuPage FSC/SC of New York) were still awaiting their fate, but the scores ultimately proved Cain-Gribble's tears were worth it: she and partner LeDuc (Los Angeles FSC) had won their second U.S. title.

The duo earned 225.23 points overall and won both the short program and the free skate, scoring 145.84 points for their free skate to music from the W.E. soundtrack by Abel Korzeniowski. Their short, free and overall scores set new personal bests.

"I think we're both pretty overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude for everyone that's helped us along our journey, for our amazing coaches that have helped us here this week," LeDuc said. "This is something we've dreamed about for a long time. We've worked so extremely hard and visualized it so many times, so to see a really good result here coming true in reality is very fulfilling."

Cain-Gribble and LeDuc are the 2018 Four Continents silver medalists and 2019 U.S. champions, but with Olympic berths on the line, this might be their biggest accomplishment yet.

"I'm really proud of us, and I'm proud of our team and the way that we handled everything this season and over the last four years," Cain-Gribble said. "We're pretty speechless right now, because I think we were so laser-focused this whole week that we feel tired, we feel exhausted, but so much relief and gratitude."

Another huge accomplishment not to be overlooked is that LeDuc becomes the first publicly out nonbinary person to win a U.S. title.

"My hope is that when people see my story, it isn't focused on me and saying, 'Oh, Timothy is the first out nonbinary person to achieve this level of success in sport.' My hope is that the narrative shifts more to, 'Queer people can be open and successful in sports,'" LeDuc said. "We've always been here. We've always been a part of the sport. We just haven't always been able to be open. And I know that me being here and being able to be out now is only possible because of the many, many brave people that have come before me."

Calalang and Johnson finished second with 209.87 points overall, earning 132.39 points for their free skate to "Who Wants to Live Forever" by the Tenors featuring Lindsey Stirling.

"That wasn't the performance that we wanted," Calalang said. "We wanted to take the approach to just stay present, stay in the moment, so I feel like we accomplished that. We really took everything step by step, and in that performance, we really had to fight for each element. It wasn't easy, but we got it done."

This is Calalang and Johnson's third consecutive U.S. silver medal, and it comes after a difficult year that saw them suspended for eight months (and subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing) when Calalang tested positive for a banned substance.

"After everything that's happened this year, we're both just so grateful to be here and be performing in front of an audience again," Johnson said. "It's an experience that, at the beginning of the year, we weren't sure if we were going to have again. This whole week has been a bunch of fun."

Audrey Lu and Misha Mitrofanov (SC of Boston) earned bronze with 191.54 points overall, earning 123.43 points for their free skate to "Ancient Lands" by Ronan Hardiman.

"We definitely had some mistakes happen on the ice that kind of surprised us, but that's what's the beauty of the sport: you never know what's going to happen," Mitrofanov said. "So I'm just really proud of us that we were able to push through. We fought to the end no matter what."

In their second U.S. Championships as a team, Emily Chan and Spencer Howe (SC of Boston) earned the pewter medal with a total of 177.25 points. Their free skate to "Elegy for the Arctic" by Ludovico Einaudi earned 115.31 points.

"It was a very enjoyable experience," Howe said. "We've been training very hard leading up to this event, and you can feel it running through those legs, that adrenaline. Our goal here, we want the elements, but we also want to be able to touch people and showcase our skating, and I think that we did that well today."

ICE DANCE

One of the greatest rivalries in U.S. Championships history has come to an end.

For the last decade, Chock (All Year FSC) and Bates (Ann Arbor FSC) have dueled with Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue (Lansing SC) atop the U.S. ice dance world, earning 10 and 11 medals, respectively, and splitting the last five U.S. titles.

With Hubbell and Donohue announcing their retirement following this season, this U.S. Championships was the last time these teams would face off on U.S. ice, and it was Chock and Bates coming out on top.

Chock and Bates scored a new personal best of 227.37 points overall and 135.43 points for their free dance to a Daft Punk medley to take their third U.S. title. Hubbell and Donohue won the free dance with 136.20 points for their skate to "Drowning" by Anna Sila, finishing second with 225.59 points total.

"It feels really good to be sitting here right now, and to have won a national championship again against some of the toughest competitors that we've ever faced year after year after year," Bates said. "We really had to work hard for it. I think the training and the preparation, we needed all of it because it wasn't easy, and it wasn't necessarily the best performance that we dreamt of today. But I'm really proud of all the work that we put in, because it showed up and we relied on it, and now I feel like the momentum is now good for us going forward."

Pending the announcement tomorrow, Bates is posed to become the first-ever U.S. figure skater to qualify for four Olympic teams. He and Chock finished ninth in 2018 and eighth in 2014, while he competed with former partner Emily Samuelson in 2010.

"I feel like this generation of skaters has grown up with Tanith (White) and Ben (Agosto), Meryl (Davis) and Charlie (White), and I'm incredibly proud to be a U.S. ice dancer," Bates said. "From basically the early, early years of my career, having those people around me, and to have learned and studied under them, had a huge impact on me. I'm incredibly proud to be alongside those who came before us."

For Hubbell and Donohue, who fell to their knees and embraced following their final U.S. Championships performance, it was a bittersweet way to close out this chapter.

"We wanted to end our career here at the U.S. Championships with a performance that felt fully present, and we're both very satisfied with how we skated this evening," Hubbell said. "I think stepping off the ice, we were content with what we put out there today. The competitor in us at the end of the event thinks, 'Ugh, I would really like to be first.' But at the same time, being realistic with ourselves, we knew coming in that we wouldn't be able to win the national championships with a bad skate with the competitors that we have."

Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker (Detroit SC/Seattle SC) earned their fourth consecutive U.S. bronze medal, scoring 205.68 points overall and 126.29 points for their free dance to selections of Frédéric Chopin.

"The relief that you might have seen was more of bliss," Hawayek said. "This program for us is something that I especially have dreamed about skating to forever, and it's just one of those programs that feels really special to skate to. So to finish it really satisfied, and then to have a standing ovation for the first time in what seems like forever, and especially with a U.S. home crowd, was really special."

Caroline Green and Michael Parsons (Pavilion SC of Cleveland Heights/Washington FSC) claimed the pewter medal with 203.27 points overall, earning 122.42 points for their free dance to Violin Concerto No. 1 "EsoConcerto" II by Adagio and "Clouds, The Mind on the (Re)Wind" by Ezio Bosso.

"We skated well," Parsons said. "I'm really happy with how we skated. Nothing else was under our control, so the things that we did, I'm very proud of, and I'm really proud of Caroline. I think we skated our hearts out, and this was the best skate we put down this year."

MEN

When the spotlights were the brightest, the U.S. men threw down.

Four competitors broke the 100-point mark – all earning standing ovations as well – led by five-time U.S. champion Nathan Chen (Salt Lake Figure Skating).

"This U.S. Championships short program was insane," Chen said. "Every guy laid down an amazing program, so it's a huge honor to be up here with these two guys, and I'm happy to start the competition off this way."

Chen scored a new personal best of 115.39 points for his short program to "La Boheme" by Charles Aznavour, returning to an old program from the truncated 2019-20 season.
The decision paid off, as he says the performance is one of the best of his career.

"This is definitely up there," Chen said. "There have been many amazing short programs done over the history of figure skating, so I can't say definitively this is for sure the best, but in my career, it's definitely one of the standout few."

The three-time World champion had his three-plus-year undefeated streak ended in October at 2021 Guaranteed Rate Skate America, taking bronze, but rebounded to win Skate Canada International the following week.

The last man to win six U.S. titles was Todd Eldredge, who did so in 1990-91, 1995, 1997-98 and 2002. The last man to win six in a row is Dick Button, who won seven from 1946-52.
However, Chen's sixth consecutive U.S. title is far from a runaway, or even a sure thing.

Three-time U.S. silver medalist Vincent Zhou (SC of San Francisco) earned 112.78 points for his short program to "Vincent (Starry Starry Night)" by Josh Groban.

"That was probably one of the craziest short program events ever," Zhou said. "To skate how I did and score 112 and still not be in first place really shows the depth of talent the U.S. men's field has."

Zhou is the man who ended Chen's undefeated streak with his gold-medal performance at Skate America and has been consistently closing the gap on him at the U.S. Championships. In 2019, the first time the current points system was used at the U.S. Championships, Zhou's deficit on Chen following the short program was 13.17 points. In 2021, it was 6.13 points.

In 2022, it's 2.61.

"My goal coming into this event was to skate a personal best, and I achieved that goal, so I'm very happy with the result," Zhou said. "Right now, I'm just doing my best to stay grounded, keep my head in the game, and just do my job, take it one day at a time, one element at a time."

In his debut at the championship level, Ilia Malinin (Washington FSC) is in third place. The 2017 U.S. intermediate champion earned 103.46 points for his short program to "Billie Jean" by David Cook.
"That performance was one of my best, obviously, and I think I prepared well for it and it gave a good result in the end," Malinin said. "So I'm really happy with how I skated. It felt really good, and gave me a lot of motivation to try to do the same thing tomorrow in the long."

In fourth place is Jason Brown (Skokie Valley SC), whose nearly flawless short program to "Sinnerman" by Nina Simone scored 100.84 points.

"I just wanted to bring a big smile to people's faces, and that was really the main goal of today," Brown said. "We've all struggled, and we've all had to fight through and persevere in our own ways. I could really feel the energy out there, and just the gratitude that everyone felt so happy to be there. It was really special, and I think I was just trying to soak that up every step of the way."

The men's free skate will close the 2022 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships tomorrow in Nashville. Fans can tune into the action live on NBC from 2-4 p.m. ET, 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.