SAN JOSE – After three straight third-place finishes at nationals, ice dancers Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue vowed not to leave the 2018 U.S. Figure Skating Championships with another bronze medal.
They didn’t just escape third place Sunday at the SAP Center. They also knocked off the two-time defending champions, siblings Maia and Alex Shibutani, to win their first U.S. title.
Performing a bluesy, sultry program to a combination of Across the Sky by Rag’n’Bone Man and Caught Out in the Rain by Beth Hart, Hubbell and Donohue posted a total score of 197.12, edging out the Shibutanis (196.93) and 2015 U.S. champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates (196.60).
“I think everyone can tell by my red cheeks that I’m pretty excited,” Hubbell said an hour after completing the upset. “It only makes this more enjoyable to know that the competition is so intense.”
Sunday’s performance served as redemption for Donohue, who fell late in the free dance during the 2017 world championships when the pair seemed to be in line for a medal.
“We had a goal of staying focused and not letting ourselves getting distracted by making mistakes, like we have in the past,” Hubbell said. “And I think that we’ve shown how much that we’ve grown that we didn’t have two perfect skates but we were able to finally attain what our fellow competitors have already accomplished in their careers.”
The three top finishers are all expected to go to the Pyeongchang Games next month in South Korea when the U.S. ice dancing representatives are announced later Sunday.
If Sunday was supposed to be an indication of who would be the successors to reigning Olympic gold medalists Meryl Davis and Charlie White as the next great American ice dance team, the results didn’t provide much clarity.
Only 0.52 points separated the three top teams – an even closer margin than the 2017 Grand Prix final, when the difference was 0.85 points. The Shibutanis had the best score in the short dance and Chock and Bates had the best score in the long dance, but Hubbell and Donohue had the second-best score both nights and came out on top.
“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.”
Hubbell and Donohue train in Montreal with the world’s two best ice dancing duos, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France and Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada.
In San Jose, it was the Shibutanis who stumbled. Holding a 3.23-point lead after the short dance, Maia Shibutani hit her heel on the ice and lost her balance during a diagonal on Sunday. She did well to recover and avoid a bigger deduction, but the disappointment in her face was obvious as she skated off the ice after the performance.
Nineteen-year-old Elliana Pogrebinsky of Campbell and her partner Alex Benoit, 22, finished seventh with a score 167.98. The pair finished fourth at the U.S. championships last year in their first senior season.
“We’re just going to keep growing on as the seasons go on,” Pogrebinsky said. “And in four years see if we can reach the next goal of the Olympics.”
