2022 Skate America – Pairs’ Recap

USA’s Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier reclaimed the Pair’s title at 2022 Skate America in Norwood, Mass. on Saturday night. Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps of Canada grabbed the silver — their first medal as a team together, while teammates Kelly Ann Laurin and Loucas Ethier took the bronze in their Grand Prix debut at this event.

Knierim and Frazier placed first in the short program on Friday with 75.19 after a fairly solid short program. Performing to the “Sign of the Times” for their free skate, the 2022 World Champions produced a throw triple twist, side-by-side triple toe-double toes, and three level-four lifts. Knierim took a fall on the throw triple loop and the throw triple flip was two-footed, but the pair combination spin was graded a level four with many positive grades of execution (GOE). They scored 126.20 for first place in the free skate and 201.39 overall.

“It was a lot of fun out there this weekend!” said Frazier. “It was our first competition of the season and tonight was a fight, so a lot of grit out there tonight. I’m really proud of Alexa and us for just trusting each other. It’s a starting base for us. I can see this program growing for us and I’m excited to get home and get working on it. We did lose a lot of points out there, so I’m disappointed about that.”

Knierim countered that they were perhaps not too disappointed with the program as they knew coming in they were not in their best shape they needed to be to do their best.

“That’s part of our journey and our process,” she explained. “Coming into this competition, we were the least-prepared that we’ve been in a while. It’s a quite interesting learning curve coming in as the World champions and a little less prepared than what we are comfortable with, but we’re going to continue to grow, build and work hard.”

Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps earned new personal bests for both their programs in their second season as a team. Their “Cleopatra” free skate featured a strong level-three triple twist and level-four Axel lift, as well as a throw triple flip, throw triple loop, and side-by-side triple toe-double toes. The 2022 Nebelhorn Trophy Champions, who stood in second after the short (73.05), scored 124.84 points in the free skate and placed second overall with 197.89 points.

“Max and I are really happy for our first Grand Prix!” said Stellato-Dudek. “Our goal is to go to every event and score a little bit higher than we did in our previous one and improve the levels. We scored a little bit higher than a couple of weeks ago at Nebelhorn, but we haven’t seen our levels yet.”

“We are also really pleased with how it went today,” Deschamps noted. “It wasn’t the easiest free program today, but we still fight through the whole program together and stay together throughout the program.”

Teammates Laurin and Ethier also scored all new personal bests, placing fourth (52.59) in the short and third (104.35) in the free skate. The highlight of both routines were their level-four lifts.

“We did not expect anything at all,” said Ethier, who was thrilled with being in the last warm-up group in the free skate. “The energy was great and was super-motivating for us. Skating along these  guys and the crowd and everything, that was really great. It was a fight, but it was the best we could do today and we’re very happy with that.”

USA’s Maria Mokhova and Ivan Mokhov placed fourth overall (145.23), followed closely by Anna Valesi and Manuel Piazza of Italy (144.47) and USA’s Valentina Plazas and Maximiliano Fernandez (143.55).

The medalists at 2022 #SkateAmerica:
#KnierimFrazier 201.39
#StellatoDudekDeschamps 197.89
#LaurinEthier 156.94 #GPFigure #SkateAmerica pic.twitter.com/1SD7FOfihj

— Golden Skate (@goldenskate) October 23, 2022

Related Info

• Full Results
• GS Forum Competition Threads

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