The American ladies and ice dance contingents were solid on Friday at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2019 at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.
In the ladies competition, the United States earned two top-10 finishes. Bradie Tennell was the top finishing American after earning 143.97 points in her free skate. Her score totaled 213.47 points and she finished seventh.
“I’m so happy with the way that I skated [tonight],” Tennell said. “It’s been a goal of mine all season to have [that type of] performance and I don’t think it could have come at a better time.”
Mariah Bell, who scored 71.26 points in the short program on Wednesday, earned 136.81 points in her free skate for 208.07 total points and a ninth-place finish.
“I’m so proud that I was able to put out two strong programs this week,” Bell said. “I just focused on doing what I know how to do and it was special to perform in front of such a great crowd.”
Alina Zagitova of Russia won the title, followed by Elizabet Tursynbaeva of Kazakhstan and Evgenia Medvedeva of Russia.
In ice dance, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, who won the silver medal at the 2018 World Championships, are fourth heading into Saturday’s free dance. The duo earned 83.09 points on Thursday afternoon.
“We were pleased today to give out a strong performance,” Hubbell said. “We got all Level 4’s, which was our goal. It’s a great start to our competition.”
Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who last month won the gold medal at Four Continents Championships, are sixth after earning 82.32 points.
“Coming into the World Championships, we wanted to reset,” Chock said. “We’ve made some changes to our programs so we had a lot to focus on. The programs feel refreshed and new and different, so for us we were excited to come here and show them off. It felt great to perform for the audience today.”
The American duo of Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker sit in ninth place following their 75.90-point rhythm dance.
It was a really good performance for us,” Hawayek said. “This program is a special program to us. It was a new style and we really enjoyed the challenge of the new style. I think we were happy with putting out another solid performance today.”
Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France were first with 88.42 points, while Russia’s Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, and Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin were second and third, respectively.
Hubbell and Donohue, and Chock and Bates are within less than two points of the podium heading into the free dance.
NBC will broadcast coverage of the ladies and men’s free skate from 8-10 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 23, followed by a recap show from 3-6 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 14. There will be an additional 12 hours of competition coverage on NBCSN. Additionally, the Figure Skating Pass on NBC Sports Gold will stream live coverage of the World Championships to subscribers. A full television schedule is available here.
