Married couple and pairs team Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Chris Knierim were selected as the pair to represent the United States at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, U.S. Figure Skating announced on Sunday. The U.S. only had a single pairs quota spot at the Games, its fewest spots since the first Winter Olympics in 1924 in Chamonix, France.
The Knierims are the first married U.S. pair to make an Olympics in 20 years, since Jenni Meno and Todd Sand at the 1998 Nagano Games.
Scimeca Knierim and Knierim won the national title in 2015 and 2018, but the years in between weren’t an easy ride. Starting in April 2016, Scimeca Knierim began suffering from a debilitating stomach illness. She was even throwing up the night before her wedding to Knierim in June 2016. They missed most of the season, returning to competitive ice at the 2017 Four Continents Championships. Incidentally, that event took place inside the same venue that will host 2018 Olympic figure skating.
“This proves that everything I went through was so worth it,” Scimeca Knierim said in a press conference. “I’ll never forget how hard we had to work to get back to the place that we are now.”
The pair has been the U.S.’ strongest, partly due to their high-flying signature element, the quad twist. They are the first U.S. pair to execute the element in competition, doing so en route to their first national title in 2015. They brought it back for 2018 nationals, when Scimeca Knierim’s stomach had healed enough to start training the element in earnest.
At the past three world championships, the Knierims have been the top placing U.S. team:
- 2017: 10th
- 2016: 9th
- 2015: 7th
As the only pair team for the U.S. in South Korea, the Knierims will be responsible for the team event competition short program and free skate on top of the pairs event short program and free skate in the span of about a week. Scimeca Knierim said because they train at altitude in Colorado Springs, Colorado, their bodies would hold up. Plus, she said, she has a spirit that would compete forever; at their first Olympics, they’re seeing this extra responsibility as an honor.
The Knierims join the singles skaters named to the team earlier: Nathan Chen, Adam Rippon, and Vincent Zhou for the men, plus Bradie Tennell, Mirai Nagasu, and Karen Chen (no relation to Nathan).
Tarah Kayne and Danny O’Shea, the 2016 U.S. champions and this year’s silver medalists, were named as the alternate team. Kayne suffered a concussion in the 2017 nationals short program and had to withdraw, then recovered from an unrelated knee surgery for much of this season. Kayne and O’Shea only returned to competition in December.
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