Ilia Malinin draws closer to his definition of perfection with third U.S. figure skating title

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Ilia Malinin draws closer to his definition of perfection with third U.S. figure skating title

WICHITA, Kansas – Ilia Malinin doesn’t back down.

When all of his jumping passes at last month’s Grand Prix Final were judged to contain under-rotation, he still had a sweatshirt made that reproduced the scoresheet, a memento of his having tried a free skate program with unprecedented difficulty.

And it was a program he had never previously tried in practice.

Hubris?

Nah. Just the quadg0d being himself.

“I really like to push my physical limits and just challenge myself,” he said.

When he could have easily won a third straight U.S. title Sunday with a safely watered-down program, Malinin instead rolled out the same one he used in the Grand Prix Final, packed with the same unprecedented jumping difficulty.

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Amber Glenn, still learning to be a champion, wins another U.S. Figure Skating title

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Amber Glenn, still learning to be a champion, wins another U.S. Figure Skating title

WICHITA, Kansas – A year ago, when Amber Glenn won the national title but went on to finish an underwhelming 10th at the World Championships, her coach said in an interview that Glenn was still learning how to be a champion.

Glenn, who masks nothing of her emotions and frequent inner turmoil, appreciated coach Damon Allen’s honesty when she read the interview.

“Now I’ve kind of learned how to be a champion,” Glenn said.

In Friday’s free skate at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Glenn showed the full resolve of one, fighting off back pain to rally from a disappointing third-place finish in the short program and win a second straight national title.

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Sarah Everhardt goes from scene stealer to spotlight at U.S. Figure Skating Champs

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Sarah Everhardt goes from scene stealer to spotlight at U.S. Figure Skating Champs

Sarah Everhardt’s expected role at last year’s Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships seemed to be like that of an extra on a movie set, there to fill out a scene … or, in this case, the field for a competition.

After all, it was Everhardt’s national debut at the senior level, and she had finished 13th and 11th at the junior level the previous seasons, and her results leading up to the 2024 event were unremarkable.

So who could have foreseen Everhardt turning into a bit of a scene stealer as she finished fourth overall and third in the free skate? She did it with two clean programs (no negative grades of execution) for the first time in her career, according to skatingscores.com.

“I know I have it in me,” Everhardt said via Zoom. “When I go to a competition, I know that I’m capable of skating clean, doing my best. So I always just try to use that confidence going in.”

After a solid international season this fall, with a first and second in two Challenger Series events, Everhardt goes into this week’s nationals in Wichita, Kansas as one of a half-dozen medal contenders in a competition that became even more wide open when reigning world silver medalist Isabeau Levito withdrew last week with a foot injury.

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Audrey Shin, Balazs Nagy forge unique pairs’ figure skating partnership

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Audrey Shin, Balazs Nagy forge unique pairs’ figure skating partnership

Over the three seasons after what seemed like a breakthrough bronze medal performance at Skate America in 2020, Audrey Shin had slowly lost both her confidence in the skills needed to be successful in singles and her motivation to keep doing it.

At the end of last season, his first in what seemed a promising partnership with Chelsea Liu, veteran pairs’ skater Balázs Nagy lost Liu when she announced on Instagram in late March she had ended the partnership to prioritize her mental health.

Because of those losses, Shin and Nagy found each other and a new career path in the sport.

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How Alysa Liu rediscovered figure skating and came out of retirement

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How Alysa Liu rediscovered figure skating and came out of retirement

How did Alysa Liu get to this point, to where she is skating in this weekend’s Budapest Trophy in Hungary, her first real competition in two and a half years?

How and why did she return to the spotlight after purposefully retreating to the shadows, her break from being ALYSA LIU (drum roll) so complete that she also broke from social media, then began posting photos in which alysa liu (whisper) often turned her face from the camera or made it indistinct.

At age 13, Liu had stood the figure skating world on its head. At 16, soon after skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics and winning a bronze medal at the 2022 World Championships, Liu retired from the sport.

She did some post-Olympic shows and did not skate at all for nearly a year and a half. At 19, a sophomore at UCLA, she is competing again.

Talk about things turning upside down.

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