Chock and Bates Win Fourth Skate America Gold

Madison Chock and Evan Bates rolled to their fourth Skate America title in Allen, Texas, winning the event by almost 16 points, while Isabeau Levito continued her silver medal streak in ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series events with her fourth silver in four competitions dating back to last season.
 
World champions Chock and Bates continued U.S. ice dance dominance at Skate America, winning the 15th consecutive crown for Team USA. The United States has stood on the podium every year since 2002.

The Montreal-based team, performing to Pink Floyd's "Time," "Breathe" and "Eclipse," posted a winning free dance score of 128.09 and an overall total of 212.96 to defend their event title. Both marks are the highest-ever in ice dance in Skate America history.

"We love the music, but we knew we wanted to tell a story with it, so then we chose 'Time' and then dove deeper into this concept – this storytelling of time being a construct that we've made as humans, and this narrative of trying to break free of this construct to appreciate the time that we have because it's fleeting."
 
Feeling a bit nostalgic, Chock talked about what their first career Skate America title in 2014 and their latest triumph means to them.

"It really seems like a lifetime ago," Chock said. "We've certainly come a long way and experienced a lot through this sport. I'm so happy to have been on this whole journey with Evan in our careers. Skating has brought so much into our lives, and I feel so fortunate and so grateful for the lessons, the experiences and for all the wonderful people that we've met in the sport. It's a special experience." 

While U.S. silver medalists Caroline Green and Michael Parsons fell just short of standing on the podium in Allen, they felt they made progress in their ability to be storytellers on the ice.

The team, coached by Olympians Tanith White and Charlie White and U.S. bronze medalist Greg Zuerlein, in Canton, Michigan, performed to "Denmark" by Portland Cello Project and Gideon Freudmann. They placed fourth in the segment with 110.02 points and fourth overall with a score of 185.07.

"One of my favorite lessons from last year was storyboarding," Parsons said. "Getting better at creating a character and fitting that character in the program. The contemporary piece that we did a couple years ago was much less story-based and much more shape and emotion-based, which I still gravitate toward more.

"But this year we're trying to take that shape and emotion and choreography that we've taken off the ice and put it on the ice; we've tried to take that and add more of a story to it, and I still think it's a work in progress but it's a good method to really grow our programs in the future."

After changing gears with a new short program in early September, Parsons said they are moving in the right direction.

"Going through that little bit of upheaval after Lombardia, our goal in this competition was to put out two clean skates and show all the changes that we made and all the progress that we've been able to accomplish in such a short time. Are we where we want to be score-wise? No, but I think that's on us and our commitment to training and our commitment to improvement in the ways we've already started working on that will show up positive in our results next."
 
Oona Brown and Gage Brown channeled Eric Carmen's 1975 hit "All By Myself" to place seventh in the free dance and seventh overall with a segment score of 105.87 and a total score of 177.21.

"We love the song," Gage said. "It was a consideration for last season, but we didn't have enough time to make it come to fruition so this year we thought it would be a good time. Since now we're moving every couple of months to Montreal and we're there by ourselves, we thought we would take a different meaning to the song. He's speaking for one person but we're interpreting it in a different way. We wanted people to see how much we've improved with this choice, because there are different dynamics to this program."

Canada's Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha earned the silver medal and France's Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud secured the bronze.
 
In the women's event, U.S. champion Isabeau Levito rallied to repeat as the event's silver medalist at 2023 Humana Skate America with a season-best free skate score of 138.08.

The New Jersey native sat third after the short program but delivered a sparkling free skate to music from "The White Crow." Opening with a triple Lutz-triple toe combination that scored more than 11 points, she moved her into first place momentarily with a segment score of 138.08 and overall total of 208.15.

"I feel pretty happy with my performance today," said Levito of her third Grand Prix medal. "It's wonderful to compete my programs in a home crowd and I love Skate America so much. I'm so glad to be on the podium again this year."

Levito added that having an international season of competition under her belt should pay dividends this season and in the future.
 
"One of the only differences is that I have more experience and I have a little bit more of an idea of what's going down and what's about to happen," she said. "With that experience comes a lot of lessons and a lot of changes in mindset learned from those lessons." 
 
Amber Glenn, second after the short program, landed a triple Axel for the first time in competition. Only five other U.S. women have ever successfully landed the triple Axel in competition. A few mistakes, however, followed her impressive feat, forcing Glenn to settle for a fifth-place finish in the segment with 118.18 points and fifth overall with a total score of 189.63.

"It was incredible," Glenn said of the triple Axel. "It's something I do every day in practice, so it felt normal. After I did it the crowd was so excited and so up and I just kept going up and up and up with it and lost my focus completely. The energy and excitement of doing it just killed me. Instead of thinking 'breathe, just stay in the moment,' I got too excited. Next time I won't be thinking, 'This is the first time,' I'll just move on to the next thing."
 
Colorado Springs-based Clare Seo finished 10th overall in her Grand Prix Series debut, notching an overall score of 163.77, including 105.63 points in the free skate.

The 2022 World Junior champion experienced some back pain in Saturday's short program, which carried over into Sunday's free skate and hindered her triple toe combination, she said.

"I handled the rest of my program really well," Seo said. "I just did my best. It was hard to focus on technique because of my back pain so I tried to focus on every single element."  

Belgium's Leona Hendrickx, the short program leader, sealed the victory as the last skater to compete. Hendrickx's winning free skate score of 145.36 propelled the World bronze medalist to an overall total of 221.28. Estonia's Niina Petrokina earned bronze.
 
For full results, as well as full Skate America coverage, visit the 2023 Humana Skate America Competition Central.