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SCREEN CAPTURE / NBC
The Shibutani siblings, Maia and Alex, stumbled at the Nationals but still made the Olympic team. |
ASIAN/AMERICANS continued to make their presence felt in U.S. National Figure Skating Championships.
It’s being called “the most decorated, and impressive group of ice dance teams the U.S. has ever fielded for an Olympics,” but that’s little consolation for the Shib Sibs, Maia and Alex Shibutani.
The brother sister team lead by three points and had won two straight national championships going into Sundays competition.
The pair fell to Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue by just 0.19 of a point to settle for the silver.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates, the 2015 national champions, took the bronze. Chock is Chinese and Hawaiian on her father’s side and German, English, Irish, French, and Dutch on her mother’s side.
All three teams will represent the U.S. at the Pyongchang Olympics next month.
“We had a mistake in the diagonal that was unfortunate,” Maia said to TeamUSA.org. “We’re going to keep working hard. We have time to keep pushing ourselves.”
The Mercury News reports the Shibutanis had the best score in the short program and Chock and Bates took the long program, but Hubbell and Donahue were the most consistent placing second in each and coming away with the best overall score.
“The last two competitions were very intense, and we all know that whoever skates the best on those days is going to be ones who win,” Hubbell said. ‘We’re going to go home to keep working, keep fighting to widen the gap, but we know that our competitors are doing the same. So who knows what will happen in Pyeongchang.”
Bates said He and Chock were pleased with their skate.
“We’re really proud of how we skated today and just in general the way we’ve been fighting and will continue to fight,” Bates said. “The results haven’t gone our way, particularly this week, we would have loved a different result.”
“We’re really proud of how we skated today and just in general the way we’ve been fighting and will continue to fight,” Bates said. “The results haven’t gone our way, particularly this week, we would have loved a different result.”
In total, eight Asian/Americans made the U.S. figure skating team that will compete in the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea next month. They include:
Mens' Individual:
- Nathan Chen
- Vincent Zhou;
Women's Individual:
- Mirai Nagasu
- Karen Chen
Dance Team
- Alex and Maia Shibutani
- Madison Chock (partners with Evan Bates)
(Views From the Edge contributed to this report.)
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