Chock/Bates team claims U.S. title
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Madison Chock and Evan Bates knew from the crowd response that Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, their close friends and longtime rivals, had laid down a near-flawless performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
It took a mesmerizing, out-ofthis-world show of their own to answer them.
With Chock portraying an alien in haute couture, and real-life partner Bates an astronaut, the couple danced their way through a medley by French electronic duo Daft Punk to earn a career-best 227.37 points — and a standing ovation — and win their third national championship on Saturday night.
“It was frankly a challenging set of circumstances skating last, knowing Zach and Maddie had skated well,” Bates said. “We really relied on our training. We’ve been working hard to be as prepared as we can be for this time in our careers, knowing it’s incredibly important. It showed up tonight.”
Indeed, Chock and Bates did just enough to hold off Hubbell and Donohue, the defending champions, who had a career-best score of 225.59 in their final nationals appearance. Earlier in the night, Ashley
Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc laid down a dazzling pairs program that Jessica Calalang and Brian Johnson were unable to match to earn the national title and a likely spot in next month’s Olympics.
As usual this week, there were more positive covid-19 tests Saturday: men’s competitor William Hubbart and ice dancers Raffaella Koncius and Alexey Shchepetov had to withdraw. They joined two-time U.S. champ Alysa Liu, Amber
Glenn and defending pairs champs Knierim and Frazier in sitting out at least a portion of the competition.
Like Knierim and Frazier, Liu petitioned U.S. Figure Skating for a spot in Beijing. She was chosen by a committee Saturday along with newly minted U.S. champ Mariah Bell and runner-up Karen Chen, who will appear in her second Olympics.
“I’ve basically been training forever for this moment,” said Liu, adding that she felt fine health-wise, “and I’m really happy (with) the decisions I’ve made, because apparently they were all pretty good ones. I’m here right now.”