2017 ISU WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue perform their love medley free dance.
sequence in their dramatic program to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury’s “Under Pres- sure,” dropping that element to Level 1. Tey placed eighth in the free dance and seventh overall with 182.04 points. “Getting a Level 1 twizzle obviously cost us a lot of points, and in a competition like this, a lot of points means a lot of place- ments,” Bates said. “So, it was a big mistake but it can also be a big learning experience. I think this whole season on a grand scale can be a big learning experience for us. We will continue to work and improve.” Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue
stood third after an exhilarating hip-hop short dance that gained the second-highest technical scores of the event. A spellbinding perfor- mance of the first three-quarters of their ro- mantic free dance to a medley featuring “Can’t Help Falling in Love” put a medal within their grasp. Ten a fall by Donohue on a twizzle sequence dropped the U.S. bronze medalists to ninth place overall with 177.70 points. “It was a moment of complete calm and
control and [the fall] came out of nowhere,” Donohue said. “At that point, we had a no-level twizzle. It’s devastating. We lost a lot of points, probably about 10.” “I think we’re proud with how far we
have come this season, and to even be told ‘Just do your job and you’re going to be third,’ is such an honor,” Hubbell said. Canada’s 2010 Olympic champions
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir continued their outstanding comeback after two seasons away to win their third World title with 198.62 points. Two-time defending World champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of
22 MAY 2017
France gained silver with 196.04 points. As expected, the U.S. earned three ice dance entries for the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.
MEN Nathan Chen rolled the dice in
Helsinki — and lost. But when you’re 17 years old, there’s always tomorrow. Te U.S. champion arrived in Finland as
a podium favorite, having defeated Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu to win the 2017 Four Continents Championships in February. Since then, though, he had changed boots, and by the time he hit Helsinki, his two- week-old pair was already collapsing under the pressure of all of his quad jumping. Since his back-up pair was not yet broken in, Chen and his coach, Rafael Arutunian, strengthened the old pair with duct tape and used stiffer hockey laces to make it through the competition. “Skaters always have issues with their
body, their minds, their skates,” Chen told ice- network. “Little things can have a big impact on your performance. It’s whoever is able to deal with that best.”
Te U.S. champion landed two quads —
Lutz and flip — in his short program, but fell on a triple Axel and sat sixth entering the free skate, about five points away from the podi- um. To help make up the deficit, he planned six quads in his free skate to Borodin’s “Te Polovtsian Dances,” one more than he hit at the 2017 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. During the six-minute warm-up for the
free skate, Chen attempted a quad Lutz and fell. A few minutes later, he opened his pro- gram with the jump and fell again. A second fall on a quad Salchow sealed his fate: sixth
place with 290.72 points. “Tat was a really, really risky program. I
threw in an extra quad because I’m a technical skater and the technical side has been working for me this season,” Chen said. “It didn’t play out the way I wanted, but this is the longest season I’ve ever had. I’m at the World Cham- pionships, so overall it’s been a great experi- ence.”
U.S. bronze medalist Jason Brown per- formed a clean short program that didn’t have a quad, but impressed judges with its spins,
U.S. champion Nathan Chen puts his heart into his free skate to “The Polovtsian Dances.”
JOOSEP MARTINSON - ISU/ISU VIA GETTY IMAGES
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