Double the fun for some ... but not Inoue and Baldwin
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CLEVELAND -- The crowd at Quicken Loans Arena booed the announcement of the results of the pairs competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the fans’ sympathies clearly resting with the clean performance of Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett over the flawed routine performed by defending champions Keauna McLaughin and Rockne Brubaker.
But the results were justified, and justifiable.
McLaughlin -- a Tarzana native who trains in Colorado Springs -- teamed with Brubaker to earn 117.64 points for their routine Saturday and 178.76 overall, to 114.76 and 176.27 for Denney and Barrett. They qualified for the world championships, to be held at Staples Center in March, and were expected to be named to the U.S. team late Saturday night.
Rena Inoue and John Baldwin of Santa Monica finished third, but the U.S. can send only two pairs to the world championships. They had qualified for the previous six world competitions but weren’t sharp here, and they knew it.
‘The outcome, I’m very satisfied with it,’ said Baldwin, who stumbled on several jumps and described the pair’s performance as satisfactory but not memorable.
‘I think the best two teams are going to the world championships and are going to represent us really well.’
McLaughlin and Brubaker, who were second after the short program, were rewarded Saturday for performing two difficult elements late in their program, when skaters are likely to be tired and unable to do tougher moves. McLaughlin and Brubaker also got higher program component scores, which rates their skating skills, transitions, performance, choreography and interpretation.
That compensated for points they lost when she fell on their side-by-side triple toe loop jumps and when both were out of sync on a spin.
Dalilah Sappenfield, one of the pair’s coaches, said she and choreographer Lea Ann Miller agreed that lifts and throws should be planned for when the music called for dramatic moves, and so distributed them throughout the duo’s ‘West Side Story’ routine. The world pair champions, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany, also do a throw late in their long program because it’s appropriate for their music.
Sappenfield said she wanted McLaughlin and Brubaker to ‘really skate the program as a story, and really the throw fit there best. It climaxed the program a little bit more. You just train for it.’
McLaughlin had difficulty training for anything this past week. Sappenfield said that McLaughlin was ill most of the week with a high fever and persistent cough to the point where Sappenfield wasn’t sure the 16-year-old could compete. Sappenfield said U.S. Figure Skating medical advisors made sure that the medicine McLaughlin took was permitted.
‘There came a point [Friday] where we questioned are we going to compete, are we not going to compete,’ Sappenfield said. ‘She was coughing and throwing up so badly.... She wanted to compete, wanted to fight through it, and I think that’s something they have to learn how to do anyway. It was not only defending the title but also the pressure of doing it when you’re not 100%’
McLaughlin did have an extra lucky charm. She was wearing a gold moon necklace given to her by Tai Babilonia, the former world pairs champion who has been a mentor to the couple.
Denney and Barrett, who train in Ellenton, Fla., and reunited last summer after being apart for more than two years, weren’t upset by their runner-up finish.
‘Second, wow, that’s like awesome,’ said Denney, 15.
Said Barrett: ‘We didn’t have any expectations coming into nationals. To skate two programs that we thought were very good and finish second, for us was fantastic.’
-- Helene Elliott