Nathan Chen performs his powerful free skate for the last time this season.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates perform their entertaining short dance. The veteran team earned the most points for Team USA with personal-best ISU scores.
Ashley Wagner puts out a strong performance to wrap up her pre-Olympic campaign.
Brown showed his love of the event with two ISU personal-best programs: a clean, inspired short that earned 94.32 points to rate fifth best, and a stirring free skate that opened with a spectacular triple Axel-triple toe combi- nation and scored 179.35 for sixth place. “I’m bummed about messing up my
(triple) loop, but other than that I’m very pleased,” Brown said after the free. “I felt like it was clean, polished and it was a nice farewell to the program. To do that here in Japan with this incredible crowd in front of my teammates is a great feeling. I’m really proud of our team.” Wagner had a season’s best outing of
her sexy, edgy short to Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” that earned 70.75 points for sixth place. Te three-time U.S. champion hit a clean triple flip-triple toe loop combination in her free, which also rated sixth best. “Tis has been a turbulent season for me so to finish with such a strong performance was really nice,” Wagner said. “Tat wasn’t perfect, but I fought for every single thing. I’m very happy.” Karen Chen wasn’t as pleased with her season-closing programs. Te U.S. champi- on, a sparkling fourth in the world in March, popped a triple loop into a single in her short and faltered on several jumps in her free skate to place eighth and ninth, respectively. “Although I didn’t end the season with
two clean programs, it was a good experience for me. I’m still growing as a skater and a person,” Chen said. “It was a tough season for me, but I feel like I learned a lot. I’m going to use all of this experience to help me be more consistent next season.” Ashley Cain and Timothy LeDuc capped a successful debut season with a pair of solid, fifth-place programs, including clean side-by-side triple loops and triple Salchows in their free skate. Te U.S. pair bronze medalists laughed off a scary double fall on a spiral sequence in their free skate, with Cain coming off the ice to tell her team- mates, “Hey, ice is slippery.” “You keep going, no matter what,” she
added. “Ashley and I really had to push through
a tough program today, but it’s a good expe- rience for us,” LeDuc said. “We got up and we’re proud of tonight’s program, minus that one blooper.” Te powerful tandem of Yuzuru Hanyu
and Shoma Uno, gold and silver medalists at the 2017 World Championships, con- tributed two first places in Tokyo, with Uno winning the short and Hanyu landing four quads to triumph in the free skate. Russia’s two-time world champion Evgenia Medve- deva set world record scores in both her short program and free skate to lead Russia to the silver medal.
SKATING 11
ATSUSHI TOMURA-ISU/ISU VIA GETTY IMAGES
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