Smith and Chitwood Make the Most of Junior Grand Prix Debut
by Alexandra Stevenson, Special to U.S. Figure Skating Online |
| Aaryn Smith and Will Chitwood won the silver medal in their Junior Grand Prix debut. Photo by Jay Adeff |
(9/10/04) - The first event finalized in the ISU Junior Grand Prix event in Long Beach, Calif., provided thrills, chills, upsets and smiles. Newcomers to this level of competition, Aaryn Smith, 13, and Will Chitwood, 19, who train in Colorado Springs, Colo., won the free skate by a margin of 1.12 points to finish second overall to Canadians Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison.
Smith and Chitwood went into the free skate in third place behind Brittany Vise & Nicholas Kole, who had a rough evening, placing fourth in the free skate and dropping from second to fourth overall.
Smith and Chitwood hardly thought when they placed fourth at the 2004 State Farm U.S. Figure Skating Championships at the novice level that they would be upstaging the experienced Dube and Davison, reigning Junior Grand Prix Final champions and World Junior silver medalists.
Naturally, they were thrilled at their performance.
Chitwood detailed their "Phantom of the Opera" routine.
"We started with a double twist and then a throw triple Salchow and solo double Axels," he said.
They later added a throw triple toe, a double Axel to double toe sequence, and interesting lifts.
"We concentrated and tried to keep in the present, in the now, trying to keep with the music," Smith said.
They will travel to Serbia at the end of this month to take part in another Junior Grand Prix event.
Dube and Davison did not have their best night.
"It was a tough fight," Davison said. "It certainly wasn't how we wanted to skate. There were too many mistakes. We've been training better than this."
Dube agreed, "There's still a lot of work to be done."
Falls now incur a deduction of 1.0, and Dube and Davison lost 3.0 in this unfortunate way. They began well with a triple twist and a triple throw Salchow, but then she fell on their side-by-side solo triple Salchows. Later he fell on a double Axel and then she fell on their remarkable throw triple Lutz. Had this move been successful, it would have been the first time the feat had been performed in international competition.
On Monday they fly to Harbin, China, to take part in another Junior Grand Prix where she will do double duty. In addition to competing in pairs, Dube will skate in the ladies event there.
"We want to compete in both singles and pairs divisions in the World Junior Championships which are in Kitchener, Ontario, in late February," Dube said.
Right from the start of their four minute program, Vise and Kole had problems. She fell on their first move, meant to be a triple toe loop but credited by the technical specialist as only a double. She fell again later on a double Axel attempt that was downgraded to a single. Three other moves received minus grades of execution.
Tom Zakrajsek, who along with Dalilah Sappenfield trains three of the four U.S. pairs entered in this event, could be forgiven for feeling schizophrenic.
"Aaryn and Will skated their best long of the season and that's great," Zakrajsek said. "I have a great feeling for them. Brittany and Nick had trained very well for this competition, and this performance was not near their ability and obviously that's disappointing for them."
Lucy Galleher & Justin Gaumond drew to skate first in the free skate and finished seventh overall. She fell on the throw triple Salchow and there were other smaller errors. Some felt they should have finished ahead of Russians Ekaterina Ragozina and Pavel Sliusarenko from Perm, who had a far more ambitious program. Ragozina and Sliusarenko began in great form, but their performance quickly deteriorated and they finished well after their music.
Zakrajsek said he felt Galleher and Gaumond should have received higher technical scores but added they have to work on their component skills.
Chloe Katz & Joseph Lynch also made errors but executed a couple of beautiful lifts to advance over the Russians and finish fifth.
The bronze medal went to Canadians Michelle Cronin and Brian Shales.
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| Dennis Phan Photo by Jay Adeff |
American men took first, third and fifth places in the short program, which attracted a field of 13 men from nine countries.
2003 U.S. junior champion Dennis Phan, who had to travel only 120 miles from his home in Indio, Calif., completed all eight required elements satisfactorily to take the lead in this, his sixth international event.
The 19-year-old, who is trained by Tammy Gambill at the Riverside Ice Arena, gave a polished and energetic performance to music from the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" which earned him a total element score of 30.78 plus factorized program component marks of 29.89. That gave him a lead of 4.77 going into Saturday's free skate.
"The first element, the triple Lutz to triple toe loop, was solid; the double Axel was a little crooked in the air but the landing was OK," Phan said, describing his performance. "The flying camel was a little dicey for a few seconds at the beginning but I corrected it. The straight line footwork was fine. The footwork to triple loop was good. The sit-change-sit spin was good. The circular footwork went well and the combination spin was good. I wasn't nervous. I just act as if it's a regular practice."
Christopher Mabee, a Canadian who trains with Doug Haw in Rochester, Mich., is second with a score of 55.90. Mabee, 19, was sixth in the Canadian championships at the senior level and fifth in the last World Junior Championships. He two-footed his triple Axel but managed to get airborne for the second jump, a double toe. He successfully completed the triple loop but the landing was held with a bent leg.
Just over two points behind Mabee in third is reigning U.S. novice champion Princeton Kwong, 14, from Los Altos Hills, Calif.
Performing to the music “To Bee or Not to Bee," a fantasy on the Flight of the Bumblebee, Kwong presented a program with no major errors but with a less difficult jump combination - triple Lutz to double toe loop.
"I felt like everything went well," Kwong said.
Canadian Kevin Reynolds is fourth, only 1.71 points ahead of 16-year-old Charlie White from Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
White, the current U.S. novice bronze medalist, showed off his ice dancing experience with superb footwork. White and partner Meryl Davis are the current U.S. junior ice dancing silver medalists.
However, he made two errors. He had to make a double three turn to hold the landing of the triple loop and he had trouble on the landing on the double Axel.
"I was a little nervous which showed on the landing of the Axel," White said. "I stepped out it."
Nobunari Oda, a 17th-generation descendant of the famous war lord Nobunaga, born in 1534 in the age of Japan's civil war, is sixth. He attempted a triple Axel in his combination, but it was underrotated and therefore classified as a double Axel.
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| Morgan Matthews and Maxim Zavozin (in the original dance) Photo by Jay Adeff |
Earlier Friday, the ice was transformed into a ballroom as the dancers interpreted two or three of the rhythms set for this season's original section — Charleston, Quickstep and Foxtrot.
Morgan Matthews & Maxim Zavozin, U.S. Figure Skating's double junior champions, added an extra 1.30 to the 4.60 point lead they established in the previous day's compulsory dance. They had a delightfully lighthearted but flawed two and a half minute presentation set to music from the Roaring 20's musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie."
They opened with a lively and cheekily cheerful Charleston which transitioned into a smooth Foxtrot with Julie Andrews singing the ballad "Jimmy! Oh, Jimmy!" They concluded with a snappy "Good, Goody Girl" Quickstep, but that was executed well below the stellar standard they had set in practice.
They incurred a 1.0 deduction because they suffered a near collapse on their last move, a level 3 rotational lift.
"It was a one in a million thing," Zavozin said. "We were traveling very fast. I lost my momentum and it was too late to put her down."
They earned 17.70 for their technical score and 31.33 for program components and now carry 85.18 points into Saturday's free dance.
Moving up from third to second were Canadians Siobhan Karam and Joshua McGrath, who train with Igor Shpilband in Canton, Mich. The policy in this rink must be politically correct with friendship and working together stressed.
Not only did Karam appear in U.S. champion Tanith Belbin's yellow polka dot red dress which Belbin wore last season, the Canadians used the same music as Belbin and Agosto did for the Foxtrot - "Why Don't You Do Right?"
Karam explained, "We're all very friendly and about the same size. Tanith's mother is a wonderfully skilled dressmaker and dresses cost so much. Josh is even wearing Ben's shirt."
Karam and McGrath's teammates, Mylene Lamoureux and Michael Mee, who had been second, dropped to fourth. Anastasia Gorshkova and Ilia Tkachenko of Russia advanced from fourth to third.
Caitlin Mallory and Brent Holdburg, who train in San Jose, foxtrotted well to Stevie Wonder's "For Once in My Life." They looked very elegant - she in a knee-length, full skirted blue dress straight out of a Fred Astaire movie, and he sophisticated in tails.
Unfortunately that debonair look dissolved somewhat when he fell during their "The Spider Quickstep" during a side-by-side move.
"He caught an edge and we had a little trouble getting back together," Mallory said. "It's only our fourth competition and first international, and we have to learn to deal with these things."
They earned 12.70 for technical and 21.64 for program components which kept them in ninth place of the 11 couples.
Look for more Jay Adeff photos from Friday's action on Saturday.
