US Nationals Preview: Couples Skate!

In which I try to tackle both Ice Dance and Pairs in one marathon post

Day 4 of the Grand Re-Opening party! This is my last promised entry until next week, though I might be drawn to give some quick hot takes as the competition starts to unfold tomorrow. We’ll see!

Business items first!

• Again, if you want actual good technical analysis, check out Jackie Wong from Rocker Skating.

• If you want insights from actual skaters, I suggest Adam Rippon/Ashley Wagner/Sarah Hughes on The Runthrough.

• Maybe you’d actually like to know how/when to watch Nationals? Here you go! If you are outside the US, check So You Want To Watch Figure Skating for options.

• And I started an Instagram! It’s where I’m likely to post any live reactions, if I have them. While I do have a personal Twitter account, I’m not keen to post much there because…Twitter. I am mostly there to see what Skating Twitter thinks and report back.

Today, we’re talking about the couples— Dance and Pairs. Pairs is the one where they jump and throw and do lifts over the head. Dance is not that.

Pairs First!

This event will be the equivalent of this gif:

In this case, Regina George is former World Champ Alexa Knierim basking in how much US Figure Skating misses her as she watches the competition from her quasi-retirement. I’m betting they are BEGGING her to return next year, if only so they can have a solid Pairs team at the Worlds in Boston in 2025.

Thanks to Knierim/Frazier, Team USA has three Worlds spots and no clear front runners to take them. Everyone competing is either newly paired, recovering from injury, or inconsistent. How inconsistent, you ask? All together now…WILDLY. Here’s a very quick run-down of the likely top contenders, but you should know that it’s possible that no one on this list wins a medal AT ALL because the potential for chaos is so high.

Emily Chan/Spencer Akira Howe: They placed 5th at Worlds last year, and they would be the clear favorite here… except Howe had shoulder surgery last summer and they haven’t competed in 10 months. They’re a question mark. Of interest to some of you— Spencer Howe is pretty easy is on the eyes. Hot Javi territory— IYKYK. Don’t bother Googling. He’s not the most photogenic. Just look for him live. Trust me.

Alisa Efimova/Misha Mitrofanov: Newly paired, but they’re both sort of Russian, so they’re already half a step ahead of everyone else. I think they’ve got technical potential to break out in the next year or so and make a run for the Olympics, assuming Efimova can get citizenship (she’s Finnish-Russian).

Ellie Kam/Danny O’Shea: Oh boy. Where to start without writing you an essay. I’m just going to say that he’s 32 and she’s 19 and that makes me cringe. Given his age, he is very seasoned, and so they look more polished than some other teams, but they still make me uncomfortable.

Chelsea Liu/Balazs Nagy: These are my dark horse faves. Paired up this year and already won a Grand Prix bronze, but I’m in it for their personalities. I just saw Jackie Wong interview them after a practice, and they won me over when Balazs explained that any “candy connoisseur” knows that you have to “age” your Twizzlers by letting them sit out overnight. I don’t care how often you fall if you give an interview that doesn’t start and end with, “I just want to focus and skate my best.”

Katie McBeath/Daniil Parkman: Another brand new pair. They haven’t competed at all internationally yet, but Jackie Wong is already predicting they’ll win here based on the strength of what they’ve done in local competitions. Katie McBeath tried pretty hard to be a singles skater, and then she tried pretty hard to be a pairs skater with Nate Bartholomay, and now third time might be the charm since she found herself a Russian. Good luck to her— I like a scrappy gal that keeps trying.

Valentina Plazas/Maximiliano Fernandez: These two are very extremely good at lifts and picking stirring instrumentals from blockbuster action movies, such as Top Gun and The Avengers. They are not consistently good at anything else. But their lifts really are gorgeous.

Now, time for Dance!

Dance has notoriously shady judging because it’s harder to tell when people are making mistakes. Yes, a wobbly Twizzle or a fall are clear deductions. But most of Dance is nuance, so it’s easy for politics to sneak into scoring. Team USA has a very deep Ice Dance bench. They can essentially decide who they want to promote and then make sure they get the scores to push them ahead. Given Hawayek and Baker might be retiring, I think this Nationals will be a bellwether for who Team USA plans to push as their next stars since they know Chock/Bates can’t actually skate forever. Here’s what to watch for:

Madison Chock/Evan Bates: Evan Bates has been competing at the National level for the US since 2001. He is 34 now, and he must be tired because I am older than him and I just walk on my treadmill every morning and I am EXHAUSTED. But Madison Chock can basically taste her Olympic medal, if they can just hang on for two more years, so I don’t think they’re going any where. At this point, they could fall twice and still win handily. Consider the fact that they fell during Worlds last year and still won and still set a world record. They’re just here for the adoration. But their programs are legit fun. She is dressed like an actual clock in one of them, just as Taylor Swift would have wanted. (It’a a clock. She’s a clock.)

Then, it’s probably a fight for silver between Christina Carriera/Anthony Ponomarenko and Caroline Green/Michael Parsons.

Christina and Anthony have GREAT programs this year, including an inspired Stevie Nicks short program in which Christina is increasingly channeling The White Witch with every performance. They train with Scott Moir, half of Virtue/Moir (the lusty Canadian Ice Dancers you loved 6 years ago who did Moulin Rouge and ice banged), and it’s fun to see him in the kiss and cry with them, looking very confused about why they are not scoring as high as he used to.

Caroline and Micheal really made a statement when they won Gold at Four Continents in 2022— that was the year all the other top US teams were on their way to the Olympics and didn’t want to chance Covid at 4CC. Since then, they’ve had middling programs and haven’t quite had the same magic. But I love Caroline Green. She is legitimately talented, and she has zero poker face when getting her scores. She KNOWS when she’s getting screwed and she wants you to know, too. I’m guessing they come out ahead of Christina and Anthony here, but I’m not sure the audience will be as excited about them.

After that— it’s the Hunger Games for the next gen of US Ice Dance. There’s a lot of even footing here. It will be interesting to see who pulls ahead when they’re all face to face.

Emily Bratti/Ian Somerville: Solidly, technically good. One of the only couples where the dude pulls more of your attention than the lady. He’s done some shady partner jumping in the past, but he seems to be sticking with this one.

Oona Brown/Gage Brown: Shades of the ShibSibs, if you remember them. They’re siblings, and they’re very good and very underscored. They don’t seem to be as bougie as some other skaters as they’ve worn the same costumes for a couple of years and always have a GoFundMe rolling. They went to Montreal to train at the infamous IAM this summer, and they camped out instead of staying with another skater or at a hotel. Much was made of this on figure skating twitter, but they claim it was by choice. What a choice.

Isabella Flores/Ivan Desyatov & Katarina Wolfkostin/Dimitry Tsarevski: I’m putting these two together because this is the drama I told you about last October. This is the one where Bella posted all dramatically online about Dimitry, saying his parents were holding him hostage before Nationals, but then there was a safety check and he was fine and just kind of ghosting her. And then she went and got a new partner and then Dimitry came out of hiding to pair off with Katarina, who was also dumped by her former partner, seemingly unexpectedly. Yes! This drama! They will both be at Nationals, and I very much look forward to doing some Body Language Assumptions when they are at practice together.

Emilea Zingas/Vadym Kolesnik: Here’s your Ice Dance dark horse. They have the It Factor— something about them is imminently watchable and compelling. Emilea just started Ice Dance in the last year or two— she was previously a singles skater— but she already looks very well put together. Vadym is a previous Junior World Champ with his former partner. (They seem to have been romantically involved and maybe broke up after they won Worlds? The internet is hazy on details here, but it seems like something sad happened.) For a brand new team, they’ve been scoring very, very well. I think there’s some political strings being pulled in their favor to push them ahead, and they could maybe knock someone off the podium if the stars align.

Eva Pate/Logan Bye: These two are engaged to each other, and they are also secret MAGAs. Or at least, skating twitter thinks they are. They were following various politicians of a certain variety on social media and then unfollowed them when Skating Twitter came after them. As for their skating, it’s fine! Sometimes very well scored, sometimes scored average. Their Rhythm Dance to “My Prerogative” is very fun, and Eva has really fantastic hair.

Up next: The actual fun! Competition starts at 2 PM ET on Thursday with the Pairs. I’ll still be at work but watching with half an eye. I may pop in here for quick reactions or updates over the next few days, but I’ll at least return next week to give you a preview of Four Continents. Because someone decided it was a good idea to have a huge international event in China the week after US Nationals. That person was not Ava Ziegler, as we have already discussed.

Three Small Updates:

• Remember how I said Isabeau seemed kind of fragile and was skating not to lose? I feel vindicated.

• Speaking of Isabeau, she seems to be shaking off an awful short program at the Grand Prix Final by completely changing her short program. No more snake routine! Rumor is that her new music is opera music. Which, as you know, is not for me. But she did not ask. Nor should she for I would have advised she skate to something from Evermore, and I would have been wrong. Also changing music— Jason Brown heard everyone side eying Tarzan because his music is now listed as “The Impossible Dream.”

• According to Ashley Wagner and Adam Rippon, who would know, Ava' Z’s decision to skip Nationals for 4CC does not make any sense at all from a strategy standpoint. I still speculate that she was convinced not to go as a strategy to make sure at least one US Woman does okay at 4CC while the others are emotionally drained and jet lagged, but they are obviously more knowledgable about these things than me.

As always, I hope you will excuse typos and other errors. Typing fast and working without an editor and not getting paid, so don’t even worry about Substack hinting that you should be paying money some how.