NORWOOD, Massachusetts – Madison Chock and Evan Bates extended the US streak of ice dance titles at Skate America to 14 consecutive years, despite flaws in the rhythm dance and free dance.
Chock and Bates managed to squeak by fellow Americans Kaitlin Hawayak and Jean-Luc Baker by the slimmest of margins.
Chock and Bates scored 202.80 points, while Hawayak and Baker finished with 202.07. The Canadian duo of Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain le Gac was a distant third with 178.30 points.
“Obviously there’s work to do,” Bates said according to AP, “but we’re not a couple to shy away from that. We definitely know what we need to work on. We have a couple of weeks at home before we head off to Japan for NHK Trophy and we know what to do.”
In the women’s event, world champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan performed brilliantly to hold off 15-year-old American star Isabeau Levito, who made a sublime Grand Prix debut to finish second. Amber Glenn of the US was third.
Chock and Bates, who were third at worlds this year and became engaged in June, acknowledged they didn’t perform as well at the Tenley E. Albright Performance Center near Boston as they had been at their training base in Montreal.
They lamented a couple of bobbles during their rhythm dance Saturday, though it was still good enough to leave them in first place. Then came the mistake on their character step sequence during their free dance, when they did not stretch the element from the boards on one side to the boards on the other and received no credit for it.
“It won’t happen again,” Chock said with a laugh. “We will fix it.”
“This rink is bigger than our rink at home,” Bates said with another laugh and nod.
Meanwhile, the pairing of Hawayak and Baker – who train with Chock and Bates under Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon in Montreal – almost claimed the biggest title of their careers.
Their free dance was nearly perfect; giving them the win on the day if not their first Grand Prix win since the 2018 NHK Trophy.
“Today felt really aligned between Jean-Luc and I. We felt really grounded going into the event,” Hawayak said, “and really performed, because this season, we’re really stepping into a place where we’re owning what we’re doing. And we’re believing what we’re doing is good enough to be the best in the world. We’re just really happy with the response.”
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