Team USA Wins Five Medals at Junior Grand Prix Final
by Jyrki Pirkkalainen, Special to U.S. Figure Skating Online |
| Morgan Matthews and Maxim Zavozin skate to "Lord of the Dance." Photo by Jay Adeff |
(12/4/04) — At the ISU Junior Grand Prix Final in Helsinki, Finland, U.S. skaters took home two gold medals on Saturday. Dennis Phan, who was in second after the short program, won the men's event, and Morgan Matthews & Maxim Zavozin successfully defended the lead they had after the compulsory and original dances. Overall, the U.S. won five medals, including silver and bronze in pairs and a bronze in ladies. That marks the most medals the U.S. has ever won at the Junior Grand Prix Final, which began in 1997-98.
Ice Dancing
In the free dance, Matthews and Zavozin picked up their first ISU championship title by winning the gold in Helsinki. They skated without errors, and their Riverdance program was well received by the crowd. The couple is already looking forward to competing as seniors at the 2005 State Farm U.S. Championships.
"It will be our debut at the senior level, and we're excited to show everyone what we can do," Matthews said. "We have been training our senior free dance a lot lately, and it has helped us a lot. It was easier for us here because the senior program is a minute longer."
Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir danced a strong Piazzolla tango. The couple in fact won the free dance, but they placed second overall behind Matthews and Zavozin.
"This has been an incredible experience for us," Virtue said. "The Canadian nationals will be in our hometown, and Junior Worlds will be in Canada, so we look forward to those events."
Anna Cappellini & Matteo Zanni from Italy held on to third place. Natalia Mikhailova & Arkadi Sergeev from Russia had problems with their synchronized twizzles, which cost them just enough points in the element scores to lose against the Italians in the free dance. Unlike the other medalists, the Italians said they are not going to compete at their senior nationals this season.
Pairs
Junior pairs Brittany Vise & Nicholas Kole and Mariel Miller & Rockne Brubaker, both from the Broadmoor Skating Club in Colorado Springs, won the silver and bronze medals, respectively, in Helsinki.
Vise and Kole skated an energetic free skate to the" Pirates of the Caribbean" soundtrack. They landed all of their jump and throw elements;their only error happened on the side-by-side jump sequence where she had problems on the landing of her triple toe.
"This program was one of the best ones we've done. We didn't have the best of skates in our JGP events in California and Germany. Today we felt very relaxed. We tried to do our personal best, which we did, so we're happy about that."
Miller and Brubaker aborted a lift early and she put her hand down on the throw triple Salchow, but otherwise they pulled off a good performance to the "Pearl Harbor" soundtrack.
"Now that there has been a lot of talk that U.S. pairs skating is struggling, it's nice to have two pairs on the podium and to show that U.S. pairs can do some good again," Brubaker said.
Maria Mukhortova & Maxim Trankov from Russia won the gold medal even though she fell on the triple Salchow and stepped out of the landing of the throw triple loop. Their overall skating and quality was clearly superior to the American teams.
When Mukhortova was asked about the fall, it was Trankov who took the floor and entertained the journalists with his answer: "Russian girls are very tough, they just get up and continue."
Julia Vlassov & Drew Meekins were fifth in the free skate. He had trouble with the landing on his double Axel, and she stepped out of the landing of the throw triple Salchow, but they had a lot of unusual and interesting transitions and variations on their elements.
Aaryn Smith & Will Chitwood had problems with their side-by-side double Axels and the throw triple toe and were sixth in the free skate. Sydney Schmidt & Christopher Pottenger had a scary-looking fall on their opening triple twist, and in their next couple of elements they seemed to be still suffering from the shock before they got their skating back on the right track.
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| Dennis Phan File photo by Jay Adeff |
Dennis Phan (Indio, Calif.), landed seven triples in his free skate and beat his previous personal best by almost seven points, despite a -1.00 deduction he received for a time violation.
"It's my first time in the JGP Final, and I'm excited to be here," Phan told the international media. "I just went out there and skated my best."
The 19-year-old skater didn't do a triple Axel, but he had two different triple-triple combinations — a Lutz-toe and loop-loop. He touched down with his hand on the landing of two jumps, but it was only a small error. Also, the inside edge on his sit spin worked better than it did in the short program.
"My triple Axel has been getting more consistent, but for the last week and a half I've been struggling with it so we decided to leave it out," Phan said.
It was a very tight duel between Phan and Japanese skater Yasuharu Nanri. In the end, Phan beat Nanri by less than two points. Nanri, who won the short program on Friday, fell on his second triple flip but landed seven triples, including two triple Axels.
"I did about 80 percent of what I had planned, but I'm very satisfied with my skating," Nanri said.
Alexander Uspenski from Russia looked like a totally different skater from the one that finished sixth in the short program. He skated a great free skate with eight triple jumps. He was ranked second in the free skate and was able to capture the bronze medal. The second Japanese finalist, Ryo Shibata, doubled his planned triple Axel and also eased up on a couple of other jumps, and he dropped from third to fourth overall.
Ladies
The leader after the short program, Japan's Mao Asada, didn't leave any room for speculation about who was the queen of the evening. The 14-year-old skater from Nagoya opened her free skate with an impeccable triple Axel, followed by five other triples and great spins, Interestingly, her program didn't include a triple toe or Salchow, but that didn't keep her from scoring an incredible total of 114.92 points in the free skate — almost 24 points more than her closest rival.
Asada even got a standing ovation, which is something that hasn't been seen at any figure skating competition in Finland since the 1999 World Championships in Helsinki.
"I'm very satisfied; I skated very well today," Asada said. "I was very happy about the triple Axel. It's always hard to land the triple Axel in competition."
Kimmie Meissner (Newark, Dela.) skated the second-best free skate and climbed from seventh to third overall. She looked like a totally different skater from Friday's short program.
"The short program was very weird," Meissner said. "My timing was really off yesterday, and I screwed up my jumps. I thought of today's long program as kind of an exhibition, so I skated without pressure. It didn't matter where I would end up."
The 15-year-old did five triple jumps, and her only error was a fall on the second triple flip attempt.
The silver medal went to Yu-Na Kim from Korea, who had surprisingly many problems with jumps, but her spins and program components were excellent. Fourth overall was the home crowd favorite Kiira Korpi from Finland, who got the wildcard entry of the host nation. The second U.S. skater, Danielle Kahle, who was in fifth after the short program, didn't have a good day. She landed a triple toe at the beginning of her program but couldn't produce other clean triples and had to settle for ninth place.
