I love watching Sectionals. For the most part, the second round of American national qualifying events presents a lower level of skating than a major international competition, but that’s part of the fun. Many of the athletes will consider their season a success if they secure a spot at Nationals – and some are shocked and delighted just to have made it to Sectionals. Sectionals is a formality in some disciplines (with the bar set so high in American ice dance, not many senior-level teams bothered to try this year), but it’s fiercely competitive in ladies’ singles in particular, with some perennial Nationals favorites ending their season early as they fell short in stacked fields. Sectionals are a reminder of how many talented figure skaters compete in the United States, and how hard they work without expectation that we will ever see them on NBC.
What follows are my favorite performances from the three events that took place more or less simultaneously from November 14-17: Eastern Sectionals (Easterns), hosted this year in Wake Forest, North Carolina; Midwestern Sectionals (Mids), in Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Pacific Coast Sectionals (Pacs), in Salt Lake City, Utah. To keep this post from getting completely out of hand, I’ve limited myself to juniors and seniors, although I did catch some standout Novice skates (shout outs to Eric Prober’s magnificent new triple Axel and Calista Choi’s exceptional poise and impeccable triple lutz). While a lot of these are winning performances, some didn’t even qualify through; they’re the skates that stuck with me, regardless of the athlete’s placement, and that I think deserve a wider audience.
You can see all the videos I uploaded, including a few honorable mentions that didn’t make it to the blog post, on my YouTube channel.
Ice Dance
Ella Ales & Daniel Tsarik, Mids, Junior Rhythm Dance
The American junior ice dance field is crowded with talent these days, but after the Junior Grand Prix, a pecking order seemed to have emerged. This newly formed team doesn’t have any intention of waiting their turn, as evidenced by their surprise silver-medal finish. It was clear from the twizzles that opened their rhythm dance that they have a big technical advantage over several of the more established teams. They’re also a lot of fun. Ales’ hammy performance style pushes Tsarik toward more expressive range, which adds up to a surprisingly cheerful, surprisingly effective take on the tango.
Caroline Green & Gordon Green, Easterns, Junior Free Dance
These rising stars sat out the Junior Grand Prix while Caroline recovered from an illness, and it wasn’t clear how they’d look when they returned. Fortunately for them and for the U.S. team at Junior Worlds, they looked like they hadn’t missed a day of practice. The Green siblings have always been a crisp, consistent team, but they’ve had trouble finding ways to show an emotional connection without letting things get creepy. This free dance gives them a story to tell while letting them act like a brother and sister, and I’ve never seen them so comfortable in their own skin.
Jocelyn Haines & James Koszuta, Pacs, Junior Free Dance
The United States always has a dance team like Haines and Koszuta: a hardworking long-term partnership who are never at the top of the rankings but always good enough to receive international assignments and USFSA’s favor. That’s far from a death sentence – it’s how I would have described Hubbell and Donohue, circa 2014 – but it means a team has to cut through a lot of noise to get noticed. This free dance, which won the segment and put them within a hair’s breadth of gold at Pacs after some trouble in the rhythm dance set them back, is a step in the right direction. Their explosive twizzles are their greatest technical advantage, but their performance quality might be key in a junior field where many teams chemistry is, for lack of a better word, juniors-y. When Haines and Koszuta make eye contact, they look like they care about each other, and that ability to convey a relationship makes their storytelling natural and approachable.
Senior Ladies
Julia Biechler, Easterns, Free Skate
I gave Biechler a heavy, long-distance side-eye when she announced that she planned to focus on singles after dissolving her ice dance partnership with Damian Dodge. I love it when an athlete proves my skepticism wrong, as Biechler did when she busted out a beautiful triple lutz on her way to a bronze medal. Her technical content isn’t yet on par with the top American ladies’, but there’s a unique pleasure in watching a former ice dancer perform step sequences and interpret her music.
Ting Cui, Easterns, Free Skate
Cui has a lot in common with Alina Zagitova. Both won high-pressure competitions last weekend. Their free skates feature the same two opening jump passes: an easy double Axel followed by a triple lutz-triple toe loop combination. The difference this time was that Cui earned higher grades of execution for both elements. Setting aside the apples-to-oranges problem of comparing a national qualifier to a Grand Prix event (contrary to assumptions about scoring inflation at domestic events, the judges at all three Sectionals were generally stingier than those at the Rostelecom Cup), Cui will have to work hard on both her technical difficulty and her skating fundamentals to catch up with the reigning Olympic champion. But there’s no question that Cui is emerging as a world-class talent.
Amber Glenn, mids, Short Program
The senior ladies’ competition at Mids looked like it would be the most fiercely contested senior event at any Sectionals, with seven athletes in the field who could have taken the title on their best day. Lower down in the rankings, it was as brutal as expected, but there was no contest for gold – Amber Glenn wrapped that up in the short program. Nuanced and challenging choreography helps her show off her expressive range, and her triple flip-triple toe loop combination, consistent throughout the week, is strong enough to make her a dark horse candidate for a medal at Nationals.
Hanna Harrell, Mids, Free Skate
Hanna Harrell and sassy Latin themes go together like peanut butter and jelly, and her tango free skate is fierce, crisp, and charismatic enough to get me past my tango fatigue. Harrell left out the triple lutz-triple toe loop that’s her most formidable weapon, but she more than made up for it with a perfect set of level 4’s on her non-jump elements, and by staying on her feet while her rivals struggled.
Rena Ikenishi, Easterns, Short Program
Ikenishi kicked off a hotly contested ladies’ event at Easterns with one of the most fitting music selections for a Skating Club of New York member. Her heartfelt, hopeful interpretation of “Empire State of Mind Part II” seemed to infuse her with confidence in her jumps, and she earned the third-highest technical elements score in the field. Ikenishi’s unfortunate draw – she had to skate first – and less accomplished resume held down her PCS in the short program. She got her due in the free skate, though, earning a pewter medal and her first trip to Nationals.
Alysa Liu, Pacs, Short Program and Free Skate
What is there even to say about real life American superhero Alysa Liu? She’s too young to compete at even Junior Worlds this year, but that won’t stop her from posing a major medal threat at her first senior Nationals, which she earned with a pair of gold-medal performances whose scores left most American men’s season’s bests in the dust. Many of those points come from her signature triple Axel, which manages to look graceful even as she flings her tiny body into the air. But that’s unfair to the massive triple lutz-triple toe loop that she saves for the second half of both programs, and the exceptional flexibility and centering of her spins. Her free skate music is too heavy for her small and feisty presence. Her short program, however, reveals that her secret weapon isn’t the quadruple lutz she plans to compete someday soon, but the way the right music makes her personality shine. Her sunny rendition of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” evokes Sasha Cohen in all the right ways, while also showcasing a middle-schooler with a precocious sense of who she is on the ice.
Livvy Shilling, Pacs, Short Program
It takes some serious diva energy to pull off “One Night Only” from Dreamgirls, and Shilling has plenty. It helps that her short program ramps up to a showy finish: a powerful triple loop out from a difficult entrance, followed by two fast, intricate spins that she infuses with disco spirit. Shilling’s emotional reaction to the scores for her clean and energetic performance made for the most memorable kiss and cry moment of Sectionals week. It’s a testament to the strength of the ladies’ field at Pacs that the numbers were only enough for 4th in the segment, and that Shilling ended in 5th place overall, just out of range for a spot at Nationals.
Junior Ladies
Gabriella Izzo, easterns, short program
Izzo came to Easterns as the favorite for gold, having showed off bold upgrades and tremendous confidence at her two Junior Grand Prix assignments in the fall. She delivered, especially in her short program, which was almost flawless. Izzo is training a triple-triple combination, but she opted for easier jumps and a clean skate here, putting her performance quality on center stage. In a field where most of her competitors focused more on landing their jumps than connecting to their music, Izzo’s long-limbed, sultry “Summertime” stood out.
Wren warne-Jacobsen, Mids, Free Skate
Of all the segments that I wish I’d been able to watch live, the junior ladies’ free skate from Mids tops the list. Not because of the quality of the skating – it was a messy and devastating afternoon for most of the competitors – but because of the suspense. Warne-Jacobsen got saddled with a lousy draw and skated fifth in a field of thirteen, setting off a full hour of wondering whether anyone could knock her out of the top spot. Nobody did. Warne-Jacobsen’s jump repertoire tops out at a triple loop, but her technique on those easier jumps is excellent, and more importantly, she was the only lady out there with steel nerves. She interpreted her Nutcracker program with the confidence of a prima ballerina, and finished it out like she was there to shut the whole place down.
emily Zhang, Easterns, Free Skate
Emily Zhang has a triple salchow-triple loop combination, and she knows how to use it. The difficult jumping pass is still a work in progress – she wobbled on the landing in her short program, and received an underrotation call in her free skate – but it’s close enough to separate her from the pack. It’s rare to see a skater put so much emphasis on edge jumps (Zhang also competes a triple toe loop-half loop-triple salchow), and it’s great to see an athlete who’s encouraged to tailor her jump content to her strengths. That strategy translates to an overall confidence that brought life to her free skate performance.
Men
Lucas Altieri, easterns, Junior Short Program
Up against several men who were eager to test drive their triple Axels, Altieri didn’t have much of a shot of rising to the top of the podium at Easterns. But he does have a leg up on his competitors, one that could push him ahead of them in the long run. It’s rare to see a skater with such a naturally commanding presence, or such a full-body sense of his relationship with his music – a rarity that’s all the more apparent after a week of watching mid-level athletes who are trying to move up. Altieri will have to add difficulty to his transitions and depth to his edges to rise to the next level, but he has great potential to become the next generation of Program Components wizard.
Timothy Dolensky, Easterns, Senior Free Skate
Most skaters operate under the false assumption that they need to show range in their musical genre, but Dolensky’s commitment to sensitive folk rock has given him a signature style that highlights his personality and gives him ample opportunities to show off his dramatic transitional moves. Dolensky has a lot to work on before Nationals in a season when the door is especially open for a steady, determined dark horse. If he hits a triple Axel-triple toe loop combo as explosive as this one, he has a shot: the judges, conservative with GOEs through most of the event, heaped a well-deserved 3.20 bonus on the near-perfect jumping pass.
William Hubbart, Pacs, Senior Short Program
The irony of “Mr. Cellophane” is that it’s a song about being unremarkable and invisible, but you have to be a captivating triple-threat performer to pull it off. William Hubbart finds that combination of self-deprecation and charisma more astutely than most men on Broadway. In his short program at Pacs, he also brought the technical content to back it up, most notably a big, confident triple lutz near the end of the program. Without a triple Axel, he’ll have a hard time keeping up at Nationals, but he’s too winning a performer to disappear into the crowd.
Joey Millet, Mids, Senior Short Program
Not all heroes have triple Axels. Some of them show up in full-on T’Challa cosplay and skate to the Black Panther soundtrack. Nobody at Mids looked like they were having a better time than Joey Millet, and nobody deserves to go viral more than he does.
Sebastien Payannet, Pacs, Senior Free Skate
Payannet used to seem thrilled just to make it to Nationals – a feat he’s achieved every year since 2015 – but he’s stepped up his content, both technically and artistically, in a way that suggests that he’s aiming higher this season. The triple Axel that he struggled with last season is very close to becoming the real deal, and it looks like he’s figured out how to train for much greater stamina and consistency. His real achievements this year are in beefing up his second mark, though. His free skate is full of dramatic moves that flatter his edge quality and full-body control, and he brings out the highs and lows of his music with remarkable grace.
Sean Rabbitt, Pacs, Senior Short Program
I’ll admit that I sometimes rag on programs that feel like cover versions of iconic programs from skating’s past. But a good cover version – one that makes you see the original in a new way – is a gift. Rabbitt’s choreography quotes Michelle Kwan from top to bottom, but his physicality is so different from hers that the tribute feels fresh and clever. Rabbitt would have been the chalk pick to win Pacs even with technical issues, but the clean execution gives him much-needed momentum into Nationals, as does the Kwan-esque smile that lights up this performance.
Emmanuel Savary, Mids, Senior Free Skate
Savary has tremendous jumping talent, but problems with well-roundedness and consistency have made him the kind of skater who has to qualify through to Nationals year after year. He’s made strides toward raising his components marks, adding spread eagles and Ina Bauers that demonstrate greatly improved edge quality, and a lovely flying camel spin hints at a skilled spinner lurking within. Nonetheless, the unrivaled highlight of this free skate was his opening quad salchow, executed with both power and control, and absolutely breathtaking.
Dinh Tran, Pacs, Junior Short Program
An EDM remix of David Bowie should be a trainwreck music choice, but Tran has a natural swagger that makes him look like the only guy in the club you’d want to dance with. He also has a gorgeous triple Axel, the kind that can convey a huge advantage, especially in the wide-open junior field he’ll enter as a front-runner at Nationals. He took silver last year, and his performance at Sectionals makes a convincing case that he’ll upgrade to gold this season – not only because of his strong jumps, but also because he’s clearly worked hard to develop his ability to connect with an audience.
Next on The Finer Sports: Soothing my turkey hangover with the Internationaux de France and panicking silently about how soon the Grand Prix Final is.