pushing through.” She finished with 172.95 points,
with Gold claiming the silver medal with 171.15 points. Gold won the free skate with a couple of splendid jump combi- nations, although she fell on her last jump.
“No one skates clean this early in
the season,” Gold said. “I thought it was a really good effort. I kept it mov- ing along and kept the flow, although I lost some speed on that last jump.” Te U.S. men dominated the
Lindsay Davis and Mark Ladwig Madison Chock and Evan Bates Felicia Zhang and Nathan Bartholomay Anastasia Cannuscio and Colin McManus
event, with Max Aaron, Armin Mah- banoozadeh, Ross Miner and Timothy Dolensky finishing in first through fourth, respectively. Aaron, the 2011 U.S. junior champion, landed a quad and eight triples in his free skate to West Side Sto- ry. He won handily, rolling up 231.27 points. “We’re trying to put more and
more out there, show the jumps and also that second mark [program com- ponents] and improve, because that’s something that can really help me get to the top,” Aaron said. “We still want a lot more energy, a lot more excite- ment in the program.” Tiffany Vise and Don Baldwin led the U.S. pairs’ effort, claiming the bronze medal with 143.34 points. Vise and Baldwin, fifth after the
short program, rallied to finish third in the free skate to a medley of Legends of the Fall and “Time to Say Goodbye.” “It felt good out there to finally
Tiffany Vise and Don Baldwin Lynn Kriengkrairut and Logan Giulietti-Schmitt
skate how we know we can skate, espe- cially early in the season,” Vise said. Felicia Zhang and Nathan Bar- tholomay finished fourth, and the new team of Lindsay Davis and Mark Lad- wig placed fifth. Lynn Kriengkrairut and Logan
Giulietti-Schmitt, performing their free dance to a medley of songs by Adele, secured the bronze medal with 140.86 points. “We had some reservations
[about the Adele music] because it is such popular music,” their coach Yuri Chesnichenko said. “Everybody has it in their heads, but at the same time, we couldn’t find anything better or more moving, so we just had to go for it.” Second-year team Madison
Chock and Evan Bates finished just off the podium in fourth place with a score of 139.84, while Anastasia Can- nuscio and Colin McManus ended up in sixth place.