GRAND PRIX F INAL
Chock and Bates, Wagner depart Spain with hard-earned medals
Te ice dance team of Madison Chock and
Evan Bates claimed the silver medal, while Ashley Wagner rallied to grab bronze at the 2014 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final in Barcelona, Spain, Dec. 11–14.
Te ice dance team of Maia Shibutani and
Alex Shibutani finished fourth. “We had a rough skate yesterday, so it was nice to finish off the competition this way,” Chock said. “It was a lot of fun, the crowd was so energetic.”
Chock and Bates experienced a sluggish
performance and a fall at the end of their short dance, which resulted in a one-point deduction. “Compared to last night, we feel 100 times
better,” Chock said. “We were ourselves and we were in synch.”
Te two-time and reigning U.S. silver med-
alists finished second in both segments of the competition to the Canadian team of Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje. Weaver and Poje post- ed an overall score of 181.14, while Chock and Bates generated 167.09 points. “We’re going to get some feedback from this
event, regroup and prepare for the U.S. Cham- pionships,” Bates said. I felt like tonight was our best performance of the season, which is really nice after a tough outing yesterday. Tat shows resilience and shows that we are a strong team,
Madison Chock and Evan Bates
and that one performance is not going to define us as a team.” France’s Gabriella Papadakis
and
Guillaume Cizeron, won the bronze medal with 162.39 points. Te Shibutanis, who recorded a score of 158.94 points, placed third in the short program and sixth in the free dance. Te sister-and-brother team called their
short program “our best skate of the season.” “After the Grand Prix Series and our two
Challenger Series events, we went home and worked really hard, made some adjustments to the program based on the feedback we received,” Alex said of the team’s short dance to flamenco and paso doble rhythms. “As every program does throughout the season, it’s just getting stronger and stronger.” Tey were also pleased with their free dance,
which received a warm response from the crowd. “Te audience really connected with it and
the standing ovation that they gave really meant a lot to us, especially when you can’t control the scores,” Maia said. “We are going to take the two strong performances that we had here, go home, train hard and build for the second half of the season.” Wagner, sixth after the short program, put it all together in her season-best free skate. Te two-time U.S. champion and reigning U.S. silver medalist finished with an overall score of 189.50. Russia’s Elizaveta Tuktamysheva won both seg- ments of the event and the gold with 203.58 points, while her countrymate Elena Radionova secured the silver medal with a score of 198.74. “Te short program was not what I wanted to put out, but that long program, there was a lot of pressure on it to be a good performance,” said Wagner, who has won a medal at the last three Grand Prix Finals. “It goes to show that I am capable of being competitive with these stron- ger technical skaters. My biggest challenge right now is becoming a consistent skater, and I need to start putting out short program performances and long program performances like that every time.
“Tis performance showed exactly what I’m
capable of. Tis season has been full of great mo- ments and not-so-great moments, so the key to the second half of the season is sweeping the not- so-great moments under the rug and bringing out two strong performances. Tat’s what these competitions are all about. I’m really pleased with today but I have a lot of work ahead of me.” Te Canadian pairs team of Meagan Du-
hamel and Eric Radford won gold with 220.72 points. Russia’s Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Kli- mov claimed silver with 213.72 points, with China’s Wenjing Sui and Cong Han placing third with 194.31 points. Olympic men’s champion Yuzuru Ha- nyu blew away the competition with a score of
12 JANUARY 2015 Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani
288.16 points. Spain’s Javier Fernandez won the silver medal with 253.90 points; Russia’s Sergei Voronov captured bronze with 244.53 points. Junior Grand Prix Final Te only U.S. entry, the pairs team of Chel-
sea Liu and Brian Johnson, finished sixth with 124.86 points. “I think they’re going to take a lot from this
event,” coach Todd Sand said. “I think they will be very happy with the results in Greensboro if they skate well. I think what they need to do is learn how to handle these big events.”
Ashley Wagner
DAVID RAMOS/GETTY IMAGES
DAVID RAMOS/GETTY IMAGES
DAVID RAMOS/GETTY IMAGES
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68