Also taking gold on home ice was Mao Asa- da, who conquered the ladies field with 207.59 points. Elena Radionova, 14, of Russia, won sil- ver with 191.81 points, followed by Asada’s com- patriot, Akiko Suzuki, with a score of 179.32. Team USA’s Gracie Gold finished fourth, while her teammate Mirai Nagasu ended up eighth. World pairs champions Tatiana Volosozhar
and Maxim Trankov of Russia continued to dom- inate their discipline, winning their fifth straight Grand Prix Series title with 236.49 points. China’s Cheng Peng and Hao Zhang grabbed the silver with 182.18 points, while their teammates Wenjing Sui and Cong Han won the bronze with 171.32. Team USA took the next two spots, with Marissa Castelli and Si- mon Shnapir, and Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier finishing fourth and fifth, respectively.
TROPHÉE BOMPARD
Brown take home bronze When Ashley Wagner portrayed Shake-
Wagner repeats in Paris Denney and Coughlin,
speare’s Juliet as a vulnerable teenager at Skate America, she won silver. In Paris, the two-time reigning U.S. champion turned up the volume, and her emotional program to Prokofiev’s score — including sharper spins and a near-perfect triple flip-triple toe — helped earn her a second straight gold at Trophée Eric Bompard. “I felt a bit lost [at Skate America]; the Ju-
liet I was portraying was a victim,” Wagner told icenetwork. “I thought this was boring, so I came back with a passionate Juliet, someone who is go- ing after her love.” Wagner earned a personal-best 194.37 points for her efforts in the City of Lights and qualified for the Grand Prix Final. Russia’s Ade- lina Sotnikova took silver with 189.81 points, with countrywoman Anna Pogorilaya securing bronze with 184.69. Team USA’s Samantha Ce-
Ashley Wagner turns in her best performance of the season, easily winning again in Paris.
World champion outpaced the field by more than 30 points and won gold with 295.27 points. Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu survived a fall on his open- ing quad toe to take silver with 263.59 points. U.S. silver medalist Ross Miner withdrew from the event because of an ankle injury. Olympic gold medalists Tessa Virtue and
Scott Moir of Canada took the ice dance gold with 180.96 points, ahead of Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov of Russia with 171.89 and Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat of France with 171.08. Team USA was not represented.
Jason Brown claims his first Grand Prix Series medal with a crowd-pleasing performance.
ROSTELECOM CUP Nagasu shines
Chock and Bates win second bronze
Mirai Nagasu, fourth at the 2010 Olympics,
earned her fourth career medal on the Grand Prix Series as she finished third with a season-best 175.37 points. Julia Lipnitskaia of Russia claimed the gold medal with 190.80 points, while It- aly’s Carolina Kostner took silver with 190.12. Nagasu’s teammate, two-time U.S. bronze med- alist Agnes Zawadzki, finished sixth. In ice dance, Madison Chock and Evan
Skating to The Phantom of the Opera, Caydee Denney and John Coughlin execute a difficult lift en route to the bronze medal.
sario and Christina Gao finished in fourth and eighth place, respectively. Caydee Denney and John Coughlin’s clean,
dramatic program to Te Phantom of the Opera led the 2012 U.S. pairs champions to their third career Grand Prix medal, a bronze, and earned them the second-highest technical score of the event. Tey finished with 184.01 points. “We are very positive about our technical
scores, but we know that we need to go home and grow our component mark,” Denney said. In their 20th year together, China’s Qing
Pang and Jian Tong won gold (193.86 points). Te 2010 Olympic silver medalists have won 10 gold medals on the Grand Prix Series, dating back to 2003 and their first win at Skate Amer- ica. Canada’s World bronze medalists Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford took silver (190.89 points). Skating in just his second senior Grand Prix,
Jason Brown took the crowd by storm, winning two standing ovations with his snappy steps and engaging personality, and taking home the bronze medal with 243.09 points. “Te figure skating fans created such an in-
credible atmosphere, filling the arena with love and support,” the ever-smiling 18-year-old said. Patrick Chan confirmed his status as the
heavy favorite for Olympic gold in Sochi, skat- ing two glorious programs that shattered his own world-record score. Te three-time Canadian
SKATING 35
Bates added a second Grand Prix bronze medal to their collection. Fourth after the short dance, they placed third in the free dance to propel them onto the podium with 153.37 points. Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev of Russia generat- ed 168.32 points and topped the podium, while Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Canada fin- ished second with a score of 163.14. Germany’s Aliona Savchenko and Robin
Szolkowy grabbed the pairs title with 206.33 points, nearly five points more than silver med- alists Vera Bazarova and Yuri Larionov of Rus- sia. Bronze went to Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch of Canada with 188.73, while Team USA’s Alexa Scimeca and Chris Knierim, and Lindsay Davis and Rockne Brubaker fin- ished in sixth and seventh place, respectively.
Mirai Nagasu puts out her best performance of the season in Moscow.
OLEG NIKISHIN/GETTY IMAGES
DEAN MOUHTAROPOULOS/GETTY IMAGES
DEAN MOUHTAROPOULOS/GETTY IMAGES
JACQUES DEMARTHON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
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