Scheduled Tribe. LOUIS – On the ice, Amber Glenn was producing another spectacular free skate, landing the opening triple Axel that has become her signature and finally putting the finishing touches on the program that would lead to her third consecutive U.S. Figure Skating title.
Outside the ice, Alyssa Liu was cheering him on.
With her newly dyed halo hairstyle going viral, Liu stuck around after her stellar performance inside the packed Enterprise Center, and she didn’t care Friday night that Glenn was about to push the reigning world champion to a silver medal.
“She trains very hard,” Liu said, “and skating a clean program, it’s very deserving.”
Glenn became the first back-to-back national champion since Michelle Kwan’s last title in 2005 with 233.55 points, while Liu finished second with 228.91 points. Isabeau Levitow earned the bronze medal with 224.45 points and, more likely, the final female spot on the US team for the Winter Games.
The official team will be announced on Sunday.
Glenn said, “I felt like I was going to throw up. My stomach has been bothering me all day. Woof.” “Fake it ’til you make it. I took it to heart. I was just trying to get in touch with my body and feel the snow, and I think my years of experience added to it.”
Earlier in the night, Alisa Efimova and Mischa Mitrofanov defended their doubles title despite some mistakes, including a scary moment when Mitrofanov was almost clipped by Efimova’s skate. They finished with 207.71 points, ahead of Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea, who were second with 197.12, and the team of Katie McBeath and Danielle Parkman.
Now there’s a nervous wait to see if Efimova and Mitrofanov can compete at the Olympics.
While she is an American citizen, born in Wisconsin and raised in Texas, 26-year-old Efimova was born in Finland and has competed for her native country as well as Germany and Russia. However, only citizens of the country they represent are eligible for the Olympics, and although Mitrofanov and Efimova are married and have green cards, they have not yet received US passports.
The Skating Club of Boston, where the pair trains, is working with US senators and US figure skating officials to accelerate the three-year waiting period for citizenship. But time is running out before Sunday’s deadline to announce the team.
The Americans have qualified a maximum of three women’s spots on the Olympic team.
There are only two places in their pair.
If their citizenships are approved at the last minute, Efimova and Mitrofanov will get one. Kam and O’Shea are close to making their first Olympic team, while McBeath and Parkman cannot go because they also do not have US citizenship.
That could force U.S. Figure Skating to make a decision on the second pairs team it will send to the Milan Cortina Games.
Emily Chan and Spencer Howe moved up from eighth place after a tough short program to finish fourth on Friday night with 186.52 points, while the rising team of Audrey Shin and Balazs Nagy was less than two points behind in fifth.
Yet ahead of them all were Efimova and Mitrofanov, clearly the best American pair in skating.
His free skate, “Where Do I Start?” is set to. The 1970 Arthur Hiller romantic drama “Love Story” was intended to pay tribute to two-time Olympic champions Katia Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, who died of a heart attack in 1995 when he was only 28.
Efimova and Mitrofanov started with a beautiful triple twist, but then a sequence after their triple salchow went awry when he fell during a double axel, and Efimova nearly wiped her forehead with her skate blade. They also struggled on side-by-side triple toe loops later in the program, but a strong finishing sequence left no doubt that they would repeat as champions.
Then, it was women’s turn to take center stage.
Levitow, the first of the American “Big Three”, performed with her trademark balletic style in a bright blue dress to the music of the 1988 Italian coming-of-age film “Cinema Paradiso”.
Her free skate score marked a season best and moved Levitow into first place.
“Being age-eligible for the Olympics was competing at nationals for the first time in an Olympic year, so there was extra pressure,” said Levitow, 18. “I’m glad I could rely on my training to be successful in my program.”
Liu applauded as Levitow’s score was read amid her own warm-up, then began her new free skate set with a medley of Lady Gaga songs. It was every bit as good as Liu’s performance at last year’s World Championships in Boston, when she became the first American to top the podium in two decades.
Glenn was under pressure to respond. And did he ever?
From her opening triple Axel, the only three-and-a-half-revolution jump by any of the medal contenders, to the final note of the music, the 26-year-old from Plano, Texas, had the crowd dancing. When her score was read over the arena’s loudspeakers, Glenn gave a standing ovation, then started crying along with her coach Damon Allen.
She was soon joined in the kissing-and-crying field by Liu and Levitow, the likely American triumphs for the Milan Cortina Games, who will try to give the American women their first medal since 2006 — and perhaps their first gold since 2002.
“If we do our thing in Milan, it’s more likely someone will be there,” Glenn said.
