The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Knierim, Frazier among figure skating team selections
NASHVILLE, TENN. — Like most young skaters, Brandon Frazier had developed a carefully crafted picture in his mind of what it would be like to learn he finally realized his Olympic dreams.
Reality looked a whole lot different.
There was no hugging family members. No tearful celebration with friends. Only a Facetime call with his pairs partner, Alexa Knierim, while Frazier waited for the negative COVID-19 tests that would finally free him from his hotel quarantine.
“I never imagined it like it actually went down last night,” Frazier said Sunday, four days after his positive test forced the pair to withdraw from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and petition for a spot at the Winter Games.
“But that’s when I knew it meant the absolute world to me,” Frazier said, “because it meant just as much to me.”
Newly minted U.S. champions Ashley Cain-gribble and Timothy Leduc will join Knierim and Frazier in Beijing. The women’s team of U.S. champion Mariah Bell, silver medalist Karen Chen, and Alysa Liu was announced Saturday, while Nathan Chen and Vincent Zhou were expected to lead the three men chosen for Beijing late Sunday.
There was no drama in the three dance teams picked for Beijing: Madison Chock and Evan Bates will carry the momentum of a record-setting win at nationals to their third Olympics; runners-up Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue will try to improve on their fourth-place finish at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang; and Kaitlin Hawayek and Jen-luc Baker give the Americans a third team that could stand on the podium next month. Their selection for the Olympic team also was confirmed
‘It’s the honor of a lifetime. It’s the greatest honor we can achieve in our sport.’ Evan Bates after making his third straight Olympics with partner Madison Chock
Sunday, shortly before the men’s free skate at nationals.
“It’s the honor of a lifetime. It’s the greatest honor we can achieve in our sport,” said Bates, who will make his fourth Olympic trip after going in 2010 with former partner Emily Samuelson.
Unlike their teammates, Hawayek and Baker will experience the Olympics for the first time. It’s been a long and difficult road for the pair, both of whom have come back from concussions, including Hawayek’s this past summer.
All three American teams, who are close friends as much as rivals and training partners, work under the watchful eyes of Mariefrance Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon and Romain Haguenauer at the Gadbois Centre in Montreal. Also training there are 2018 Olympic silver medalists Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, the French ice dancers who had the highest scorer of the Grand Prix season and likely their biggest competition in Beijing.
The three American teams plan to spend the next three weeks in Montreal, putting in the final work for Beijing. But the biggest goal is not so much fine-tuning their midline step sequence, tightening their synchronized twizzles or working on their lifts. It’s ensuring they stay healthy with COVID-19 running rampant.
Chen wins again
Chen had landed some of the most difficult jumps in figure skating, soaring through the air with a dizzying array of quads and stringing together incredible combinations. Figures that he would faceplant on a simple step sequence.
It didn’t matter, though. Nor did a mistake on one of his four quadruple jumps. Chen was that much better than everyone else at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Sunday, winning the free skate with 212.63 points and scoring 328.01 in all — good for his sixth consecutive title by nearly 26 points over Ilia Malinin.
Chen’s six titles are the most by a men’s skater since Todd Eldredge won his sixth in 2002, and he is the first to win six in a row since Dick Button won seven straight in the 1940s and ’50s.
Zhou followed an exceptional short program with a calamitous free skate Sunday, barely edging Jason Brown for third place and putting his spot on the U.S. team for Beijing in question.