Team USA Leads After Day One of Olympic Team Event Competition

For the athletes representing the U.S. on the first night of the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 Team Event, they carried three very different stories into Capital Indoor Stadium.
 
Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier: veteran skaters, but a new team with sky-high potential looking to make their mark.
 
Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue: after more than a decade of partnership, trying to secure their first Olympic medal before retirement.
 
And Nathan Chen: one of the greatest of all-time with an eye on redemption.
 
As the first night of competition concluded with Team USA in first place, all of those aims are solidly in progress.
 
Chen led things off for the contingent, scoring 111.71 points for his short program to "La Boheme" by Charles Aznavour – just .11 point off the record for highest short program score, set by Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu at the 2020 Four Continents Championships.
 
"I'm happy I did my part and skated as good as I can right now," Chen said. "Overall, I'm happy. Happy to be here, happy to skate the program I skated, and looking forward to the rest."
 
He finished first among the men, earning 10 points to Team USA's total of 28. Hubbell and Donohue placed first in ice dance for another 10 points, while Knierim and Frazier placed third in pairs for eight points.
 
The U.S. leads the Russian Olympic Committee in second place by two points (26) and China in third place by seven points (21).
 
"It was an absolutely fantastic day for the team event," said Madison Chock, who, alongside partner Evan Bates, is serving as team captain. "All of our skaters brought their best, and I couldn't be more proud of the performances they put out."
 
Chen's performance went a long way in erasing the memory of Chen's last Olympic showing. In the team event in 2018, he finished fourth in the short program after a fall and doubling a planned quad.
 
He then went on to have a rough single's short program as well before his historic free skate propelled him to a fifth-place finish.
 
"It feels good to be able to have a short program that I actually skated well as an Olympic experience," Chen said with a laugh. "It just feels good. Any time you skate a good program, whether in practice or a competition, it feels good."
 
Since the 2018 Games, he's been almost unbeatable, winning three World titles, four U.S. titles and going undefeated for more than three years. He credits a lot of that to the lessons he learned from his Olympic disappointment.
 
"You learn the most from your mistakes, and I certainly learned a lot from that competition, and I don't think I'd be able to be here where I am now without having had that experience," Chen said. "So I think, rather than that being a demon, that was a very helpful learning experience."
 
Hubbell and Donohue arrived for the rhythm dance competition just as Chen was finishing his short program.
 
"Nathan certainly set the bar high," Hubbell said. "Walking into the room in your USA gear, everybody turns their head like, 'Well, he just laid it down!' It's inspiring."
 
The duo went on to land a first-place finish of their own, recording a personal-best 86.56 points for their rhythm dance to a Janet Jackson medley.
 
"We're very pleased with this performance," Hubbell said. "Taking the ice, we had a plan. We've been training exceptionally well, working on just narrowing the focus and narrowing that margin of error for the last six weeks. And so we knew that we needed to just stay calm, trust the training that we did at home, and not try to oversell it, not try to convince anybody. Just perform what we needed to perform and let it speak for itself."
 
Hubbell and Donohue competed at the 2018 Games, finishing fourth in the individual competition, but did not participate in the team event. It's something that they're both thrilled to add to their already extensive resume.
 
"It's a cool energy, and I think that it really adds to our own taking in the spirit of the Olympics," Donohue said. "Admittedly, there was probably a bit of disappointment last time, whereas this year we're coming in with a sense of team and passion and drive, and we're being able to kind of leave everything out there and take it in."
 
Rounding out the evening for the U.S. were Knierim and Frazier, who also recorded a personal best to the tune of 75 points flat for their short program to "House of the Rising Sun" by Heavy Young Heathens.
 
Knierim said she watched the prior Team USA performances from her room in the Olympic Village and drew inspiration from watching her teammates.
 
"If anything, it gave me a little bit of excitement and calmness because I felt like our country collectively is ready, and it gave me a little bit of confidence, actually," Knierim said. "Watching two disciplines before us do very well put me in the frame of mind where I was like, 'We're ready, too.'"
 
And ready they were, earning Level 4s on all of their elements.
 
"We're still soaking it in, or trying to process it," Knierim said. "It felt good to skate a program like we do at home. It's something we've been striving for this season, to skate at a competition like we do at home, because it's different when you compete, and I felt like today we did that very well. We were very paced and calm, and just united."
 
Knierim and Frazier teamed up less than two years ago and found immediate success, winning the 2021 U.S. title, two Grand Prix medals and placing seventh at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2021. They were unable to defend their U.S. title in 2022 due to Frazier testing positive for COVID-19 prior to competition.
 
"At the end of the day, we're just very proud of ourselves for doing what we know how to do at home and overcoming the hurdles we've had to overcome over the last month," Frazier said. "I got sick really bad with COVID, so it was a very long process to kind of get us back feeling like we normally do. But we did it, and we worked very hard to get there."
 
Team USA is a two-time bronze medalist in the team event. While another medal should be in the cards, the color could very well change if the momentum continues.
 
"We certainly do have a very strong team, and I think we can walk away with a medal, for sure," Chen said. "I have faith in my teammates, and I know that they're going to do the best they can do."

Fans can follow Team USA on the competition central page on the U.S. Figure Skating Fan Zone.