JUNIOR PA IR S
nal, also skated two strong programs and finished with 150.84 points and the silver medal. Like the champions, they came together just last summer and had to expedite their partner- ship. In Greensboro, they showcased the only tri- ple twist in the field and high-level lifts. Te only major blemish on their free skate to “Yellow River Concerto” occurred when Liu fell on the team’s side-by-side double flips. “We just wanted to come here and have fun, and that was accomplished,” said Liu, who earned the silver medal last year in junior pairs with for- mer partner Devin Perini. “Performance-wise, it was a great (free) program, one of the best we’ve sold to the audience.” Teir coaches, Jenni Meno and Todd Sand,
said they were happy with the team’s performance and look forward to what’s ahead. “We are taking a big-picture approach with
them,” Sand said. “Tat’s the way we are con- structing their progression and they are right on track.”
Caitlin Fields and Ernie Utah Stevens by TROY SCHWINDT
Fields and Stevens show great promise in victory Caitlin Fields and Ernie Utah Stevens ar-
rived in Greensboro with a sparse résumé togeth- er and without expectations. Tey left Tar Heels country as junior pairs champions and with a quiet confidence for the future.
“Tis is just one stop in the road,” Stevens
said. “We came in trying to do our job, walk in very casually and walk out very casually.” Fields, 19, of Scottsdale, Arizona, and Ste-
vens, 21, of Louisville, Kentucky, won both seg- ments of the competition with an overall score of 155.41 points. Teir unison, flow, speed, cho- reography and execution of elements resembled that of a veteran team. Remarkably, it was only their third competi- tion after joining forces in late August. “We both had partners who had suffered
injuries,” Stevens told icenetwork. “We both thought we were done with skating.” In Greensboro, the team representing the
Indiana World Skating Academy FSC moved to the lead with a strong and complete short pro- gram performance to Maksim Mrvica’s powerful “Nostradamus.” With an advantage of 2.22 points over the
California-based Chelsea Liu and Brian Johnson, Fields and Stevens capped their week by per- forming a nearly clean free skate to Minkus’ Don Quixote. “We are not at our peak with this program,”
Stevens said. “We’ve only had it for four months, so the choreography isn’t even solid, but the facil- ity and ice were amazing, our competitors pushed us to new extremes, the best that we could be, so that’s all we could really ask for.” Te team has been working with a ballet instructor, which paid dividends with the perfor-
SKATING 37
Liu, 15, of the Saint Paul FSC, and John- son, 19, of the Detroit SC, earned the highest technical scores of the event.
“I think the thing with Chelsea and Brian
is that they show a little bit of everything,” Meno said. “Tey’ve only been skating together since June, so we just see them progressing.” Te team of Olivia Allan and Austin Hale,
mance to the balletic Don Quixote. Te program component scores for both programs were tops in the field.
“I feel like all of our competitors are so
strong technically that the only way we could move ahead is by our second marks, so we fo- cused on that this year,” Stevens said. Fields, who did an outstanding job landing
the team’s huge triple throws, said “respect and maturity” fuel the partnership. “With every competition they’ve shown im-
provement,” their coach Serguei Zaitsev added. “We look forward to continuing on this journey and the next competition should be better. Tat’s our goal.”
Liu and Johnson, who competed at two Ju- nior Grand Prix Series events and at the JGP Fi-
Olivia Allan and Austin Hale
fourth after the short program, finished with 130.60 points and the bronze medal. Allan, 15, a member of the DuPage FSC,
and Hale, 18, of the Fort Wayne ISC, enjoyed a successful free skate to music from the movies 1492 Conquest of Paradise and Dragonheart. “We started out pretty strong,” Allan said.
“I was really happy. It was the first time landing the throw triple loop in competition. Everything was really good until the last elements, including our Group 4 lift. I think I just got too excited, because I thought we were going to be clean on everything, so then we started bobbling a little at the end.” Tird after the short program, Illinois-based
Lindsay Weinstein and Jacob Simon claimed the pewter medal with 123.02 points.
Chelsea Liu and Brian Johnson
JAY ADEFF/U.S. FIGURE SKATING
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