¶6R PXFK ÀJKW LQ WKHP· Team North America emerges as the champion
By Troy Schwindt Team North America rode the momentum
of victories in pairs and ice dance earlier in the day to claim the inaugural KOSÉ Team Challenge Cup title, April 23, in Spokane, Washington. Inspired singles performances that evening
by Gracie Gold, Ashley Wagner, Jason Brown and Adam Rippon helped to ice the contest for Team North America. “Tis is an incredible group of skaters, not
only talented but so much fight in them,” Team North America captain Kristi Yamaguchi said. “I’m proud of them. It was an honor to be part of this.”
Te event featured a singles head-to-head
competition the night before, won by Team Asia. Saturday’s contest used each skater/team’s inter- national judging system score, added together for a final team total (each team’s lowest score was dropped). Team North America rolled up a score of 892.42. Team Europe placed second with 848.06 points, while Team Asia tallied a score of 820.22. For its win, each Team North America
athlete received $15,000. Team Europe skaters pocketed $10,000 each, while Team Asia athletes
claimed $7,500 each. Te champion pairs team from Canada, Meagan Duhamel and Eric Rad- ford, and the winning ice dance team of Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, also from Canada, each earned a $10,000 bonus. Pairs and ice dance kicked things off with
their free skate/dances early Saturday afternoon at Spokane Arena, with the two-time and reigning World pairs champions Duhamel and Radford winning easily with 147.48 points. Teir free skate to Adele’s “Hometown Glory” included a successful landing of their signature throw quad Salchow, which came just seconds after Duhamel stumbled out of a triple Lutz landing. “We’ve only missed it once this year, that
being at NHK,” Radford said of the quad throw. “We’ve been able to make it work at competitions, which you have to do if you want to win.” U.S. pairs silver medalists Alexa Scimeca and
Christopher Knierim scored 122.15 points with falls on two jumps. “It’s no surprise that jumps were a struggle,”
Scimeca said. “Tey are something that we will always be working on and someday we will get it. Today was more about personal growth and en- joying the last time hearing this music.” Weaver and Poje, medalists at the 2014 and
Adam Rippon performs to a Beatles medley.
We are the world! Team USA and Skate Canada united to bring the inaugural Team Challenge Cup trophy to Team North America.
2015 World Championships, finished fifth at Worlds in Boston and arrived in Spokane seeking a measure of redemption. Tey earned it by edging their allies on Team
North America, World bronze medalists Madison Chock and Evan Bates, by 0.26 point for the over- all ice dance title. “After Worlds being a little bit of a letdown
from where we had trained all season, we were looking forward to this competition and going out there and doing a performance that we could be proud of,” Poje said. “It felt really good,” Chock said. “Tis pro-
gram has grown so much and I think our last two performances have been our best of the entire sea- son.”
Te success of Team North America’s pairs
and ice dance teams provided a cushion of nearly 20 points over Team Europe and more than 57 points over Team Asia heading into the Saturday night singles showdown. Once again, as in the short program, Russia’s
World champion Evgenia Medvedeva and Japan’s exciting Shoma Uno shone brightest. Medvedeva broke her own World scoring record with 151.55 points. Uno, as he did in the short program, made history by landing a quadruple flip en route to a 192.92 point total. Team North America’s skaters, especially the
U.S. contingent, delivered clutch performances to seal the victory. Gold, who had a subpar perfor- mance in the short program, sent her Te Firebird free skate off in style, racking up 142.00 points. “Tat was huge for Gracie — not just for
SKATING 21
JAY ADEFF/U.S. FIGURE SKATING
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