Chock, Bates power through to win ice dance gold
A duo of duos were crowned U.S. champions Saturday night at Nationwide Arena.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates took home the gold in ice dance, and Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea won first place in pairs figure skating.
With this being Chock and Bates fifth national title, the two are just one shy of tying Meryl Davis and Charlie White’s record for most U.S. ice dance championships.
It was far from an easy free dance program for the long-time partners, though, as both Chock and Bates started to feel ill on Friday. The two missed practice that day and Chock even admitted that they might have been unable to compete if they had to perform a day earlier.
Holding about a nine-point lead over the second-place pair of Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko following Thursday’s short programs, Chock and Bates fought through feeling under the weather to defend their 2023 U.S. title.
“I think that Evan and I have a lot of determination and willpower,” Chock said. “We’re like, ‘Okay, let’s make it happen. Let’s step out there and just give it all we’ve got.’ And we did that.”
Bates struggled with a few timing issues at the beginning of the program. As a result, he and Chock scored a 123.75 on their free dance, lower than Carreira and Ponomarenko but enough to put them in first overall.
After nearly 15 years of experience as partners, the possibility of this being Chock and Bates’ last U.S. Championships wasn’t at the forefront of their thoughts until faced with possibly having to withdraw.
“When we were contemplating whether or not we should skate or we shouldn’t skate, it clicked in my mind, ‘Well what if this is it? ... Would we regret that decision?’ “Chock said. “And I think that would have been a yes.”
The event’s bronze medal winners Emily Bratti and Ian Somerville started the day one spot out from a podium position. It was a pleasant surprise for them when they realized their free dance was enough to jump that one spot.
“I think coming into this competition, we didn’t really know what was going to play out in a competitive field,” Bratti said. “But we knew that we’re capable of being on the podium, and it was a really big goal for us.”
‘Soak up the moments’
In 2016, the “young, cocky” O’Shea would have never expected that it would take eight years for him to get back atop of the U.S. Championship pairs’ podium after winning his first national title with Tarah Kayne.
Now knowing how long it can take to repeat that kind of success, O’Shea had some advice for his partner of two seasons, Kam, to apply to her first U.S. gold medal experience.
“Something I was talking to Ellie about as they called our names to go out to bow for the medal ceremony, soak up the moments,” O’Shea said. “Really live within the moments, because you never know when the next time you get an experience like this is.”
Following the withdrawal of Emily Chan and Spencer Howe, who were originally at the top of the leaderboard after the short programs, Kam and O’Shea took over first place. With the pair of Katie McBeath and Daniil Parkman less than a point behind, it looked like it would be a close race to the finish.
Neither pair had their best performance on Saturday night during the free skate, as both suffered falls that led to deductions. McBeath and Parkman’s falls proved to be more damaging, and they dropped to fifth place with a 172.81 overall score while Kam and O’Shea earned a 187.76.
Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov had the best free skate score of the night with a 126.43, which was enough to jump two spots to second place overall, just missing first with a 186.91. Not too far behind with a 181.03 were Valentina Plazas and Maximiliano Fernandez, who slid into the bronze position.
“It kind of just shows how difficult the field is, that it is up for grabs for anybody,” Mitrofanov said. “You never know what’s going to happen in any sport and especially in figure skating pairs.”