U.S. CHAMPIONSHIPS PREVIEW
impressive 80.36 points for his short program at the 2013 Pacific Coast Sectional Championships. Making their way back to senior competi-
tion will be reigning World Junior silver medalist Joshua Farris and reigning World Junior bronze medalist Jason Brown, who both head to Omaha after competing in the 2012 Junior Grand Prix Final in Sochi, Russia. Farris, who landed a flawless quad toe at
2012 JGP United States last fall, earned the silver medal, while Brown, known for his outstanding program component scores, finished fourth.
PAIRS NEW CHAMPIONSHIP
TEAM WILL BE CROWNED by LYNN RUTHERFORD
Caydee Denney and John Coughlin’s with-
drawal from the 2013 U.S. Championships due to Coughlin’s left hip surgery has left the U.S. pairs title – and the two pairs slots on the 2013 U.S. World Team – up for grabs. Front-runners for gold are Marissa Castelli
and Simon Shnapir. Te Boston skaters won a bronze medal at 2012 NHK Trophy, their first time on a Grand Prix podium. Performing so- phisticated programs created by French-Cana- dian choreographer Julie Marcotte, they wowed judges with their risky lifts and achieved greater consistency with their triple jumps and throws.
“We wanted to come back this year as a new
team,” Shnapir said. “We’ve done something to- tally, radically different. Tis is the new Marissa and Simon. We’re working great together; we’ve been on a great run.” “We said we want to be the best skaters we
can be this year, and we’re not going to [settle] for anything less,” Castelli said. “What we did differently [was set] small goals, things we can achieve on a daily or weekly basis. We just go, ‘What do we want to do day-to-day, and what is the best way we can do it together?’ I think we really bonded over that.” Qualifying for the World Team would re-
ward their commitment to each other and the sport: Teamed in June 2006, Castelli and Shnapir have been together longer than any U.S. senior pair. Tey train under coach Bobby Martin. Newcomers Alexa Scimeca and Chris Knier- im, who train in Colorado Springs under Dalilah Sappenfield, won their international debut at 2012 Coupe de Nice. Like Castelli and Shnapir, they have met the minimum scores required by the International Skating Union to compete at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships. With solid throws and a triple twist second to none, they can challenge the Boston team for gold. Castelli and Shnapir’s
training partners,
Gretchen Donlan and Andrew Speroff, have struggled to regain the form that took them to a fourth-place finish at the U.S. Championships
Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir perform their free skate en route to the bronze medal at 2012 NHK Trophy.
last season, but their elegance and refinement will set them apart if they hit their triple throws and jumps. Veterans Tiffany Vise and Don Baldwin have added side-by-side triple flips, as well as a throw triple flip, to their programs. Some familiar faces will compete at the 2013 U.S. Championships with new partners. Mark Ladwig, who won two U.S. silver medals with Amanda Evora, has teamed with Lindsay Davis after Evora retired last spring. Caitlin Yankow- skas, the 2010 U.S. champion with Coughlin, partnered with 2011 U.S. junior pairs champion Josh Reagan last March, but Reagan’s rib injury kept them off the 2012 Grand Prix circuit. Tey, too, will strive to make their mark in Omaha.
ICE DANCING
DAVIS, WHITE SET TO JOIN ELITE GROUP;
SILVER UP FOR GRABS by LYNN RUTHERFORD
Five ice dancing teams have won five U.S.
titles, and Meryl Davis and Charlie White could join their ranks in Omaha. Te 2010 Olympic silver medalists and 2011 World Champions are expected to
etch
their names in U.S. skating history alongside Judy Schwomeyer and Jim Sladky; Judy Blum- berg and Michael Seibert; Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow; Naomi Lang and Peter Tch- ernyshev; and their former training partners in Canton, Mich., Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto. Davis and White’s free dance to Notre-Dame
Jeremy Abbott skates his short program in Paris, where he earned the silver medal.
de Paris hit new heights last fall, with complex, innovative new lifts and dazzling footwork that lifted them to two Grand Prix gold medals. In December, they won a record fourth-consecutive Grand Prix Final, defeating archrivals and train- ing partners Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, Cana- da’s reigning Olympic champions. “It’s really a departure for us from all of our
[past] programs, because we’ve really started to connect on the ice more than ever before,” White
24 JANUARY 2013
PHOTO BY TORU YAMANAKA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
PHOTO BY FRED DUFOUR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
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