Team USA athlete roster for 2022 Winter Olympics

By OlympicTalkFeb 4, 2022, 6:27 AM EST

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The U.S. Olympic team for the 2022 Winter Games, which open Feb. 4, is 224 athletes now that every national governing body announced its roster.

The oldest Team USA athlete is 40-year-old snowboarder Nick Baumgartner, who has a 17-year-old son, Landon, who is older than the youngest qualifier, 16-year-old figure skater Alysa Liu.

Four athletes qualified for their fifth Olympics: curler John Shuster, snowboarders Shaun White and Lindsey Jacobellis and skeleton slider Katie Uhlaender.

Every individual U.S. gold medalist from the previous Olympics will return for the first time since 1968: halfpipe skier David Wise, Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin and snowboarders Jamie Anderson, Chloe Kim, Red Gerard and White.

The U.S. has a “Summer” (luger Summer Britcher) and a “Winter” (aerials skier Winter Vinecki, the first Winter Olympian named “Winter,” according to Olympedia.org).

Here’s the full list of athletes named to the 2022 U.S. Olympic team:

Alpine Skiing (17)
Keely Cashman
Katie Hensien
A.J. Hurt
Breezy Johnson (injured)
Mo Lebel
Tricia Mangan
Paula Moltzan
Nina O’Brien
Mikaela Shiffrin
Jacqueline Wiles
Alix Wilkinson
Bella Wright
Bryce Bennett
Ryan Cochran-Siegle
Tommy Ford
Travis Ganong
River Radamus
Luke Winters

Biathlon (8)
Susan Dunklee
Clare Egan
Deedra Irwin
Joanne Reid
Jake Brown
Sean Doherty
Leif Nordgren
Paul Schommer

Bobsled (12)
Sylvia Hoffman
Kaillie Humphries
Kaysha Love
Elana Meyers Taylor
Hakeem Abdul Saboor
Hunter Church
Frank Del Duca
Kris Horn
Jimmy Reed
Carlo Valdes
Charlie Volker
Josh Williamson

Cross-Country Skiing (14)
Rosie Brennan
Jessie Diggins
Hannah Halvorsen
Julia Kern
Sophia Laukli
Novie McCabe
Caitlin Patterson
Hailey Swirbul
Kevin Bolger
Ben Ogden
Luke Jager
Scott Patterson
JC Schoonmaker
Gus Schumacher

Curling (11)
Becca Hamilton
Vicky Persinger
Tabitha Peterson
Tara Peterson
Nina Roth
Aileen Geving (alternate)
Matt Hamilton
John Landsteiner
Chris Plys
John Shuster
Colin Hufman (alternate)

Figure Skating (16)
Mariah Bell (Singles)
Karen Chen (Singles)
Alysa Liu (Singles)
Jason Brown (Singles)
Nathan Chen (Singles)
Vincent Zhou (Singles)
Ashley Cain-Gribble (Pairs)
Alexa Knierim (Pairs)
Brandon Frazier (Pairs)
Timothy LeDuc (Pairs)
Madison Chock (Ice Dance)
Kaitlin Hawayek (Ice Dance)
Madison Hubbell (Ice Dance)
Jean-Luc Baker (Ice Dance)
Evan Bates (Ice Dance)
Zachary Donohue (Ice Dance)

Freestyle Skiing (32)
Ashley Caldwell (Aerials)
Kaila Kuhn (Aerials)
Megan Nick (Aerials)
Winter Vinecki (Aerials)
Hanna Faulhaber (Halfpipe)
Devin Logan (Halfpipe)
Brita Sigourney (Halfpipe)
Carly Margulies (Halfpipe)
Olivia Giaccio (Moguls)
Jaelin Kauf (Moguls)
Kai Owens (Moguls)
Hannah Soar (Moguls)
Caroline Claire (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Marin Hamill (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Darian Stevens (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Maggie Voisin (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Chris Lillis (Aerials)
Eric Loughran (Aerials)
Justin Schoenefeld (Aerials)
Aaron Blunck (Halfpipe)
Alex Ferreira (Halfpipe)
Birk Irving (Halfpipe)
David Wise (Halfpipe)
Cole McDonald (Moguls)
Nick Page (Moguls)
Dylan Walczyk (Moguls)
Brad Wilson (Moguls)
Tyler Wallasch (Ski Cross)
Mac Forehand (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Nick Goepper (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Alex Hall (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Colby Stevenson (Slopestyle/Big Air)

Hockey (48)
Cayla Barnes
Megan Bozek
Hannah Brandt
Dani Cameranesi
Alex Carpenter
Alex Cavallini
Jesse Compher
Kendall Coyne Schofield
Brianna Decker
Jincy Dunne
Savannah Harmon
Caroline Harvey
Nicole Hensley
Megan Keller
Amanda Kessel
Hilary Knight
Abbey Murphy
Kelly Pannek
Maddie Rooney
Abby Roque
Hayley Scamurra
Lee Stecklein
Grace Zumwinkle
Nick Abruzzese
Kenny Agostino
Matty Beniers
Brendan Brisson
Noah Cates
Drew Commesso
Brian Cooper
Brock Faber
Sean Farrell
Drew Helleson
Sam Hentges
Steven Kampfer
Matthew Knies
Strauss Mann
Marc McLaughlin
Ben Meyers
Andy Miele
Pat Nagle
Aaron Ness
Brian O’Neill
Nick Perbix
Jake Sanderson
Nick Shore
Nathan Smith
David Warsofsky

Luge (8)
Summer Britcher (Singles)
Ashley Farquharson (Singles)
Emily Sweeney (Singles)
Jonny Gustafson (Singles)
Chris Mazdzer (Singles)
Tucker West (Singles)
Zack DiGregorio (Doubles)
Sean Hollander (Doubles)

Nordic Combined (5)
Taylor Fletcher
Jasper Good
Ben Loomis
Stephen Schumann
Jared Shumate

Short Track Speed Skating (7)
Maame Biney
Eunice Lee
Julie Letai
Kristen Santos
Corinne Stoddard
Andrew Heo
Ryan Pivirotto

Skeleton (3)
Kelly Curtis
Katie Uhlaender
Andrew Blaser

Ski Jumping (5)
Anna Hoffmann
Kevin Bickner
Erik Belshaw (declined spot)
Decker Dean
Patrick Gasienica
Casey Larson

Snowboarding (26)
Zoe Kalapos (Halfpipe)
Chloe Kim (Halfpipe)
Maddie Mastro (Halfpipe)
Tessa Maud (Halfpipe)
Jamie Anderson (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Hailey Langland (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Julia Marino (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Courtney Rummel (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Stacy Gaskill (Snowboard Cross)
Faye Gulini (Snowboard Cross)
Lindsey Jacobellis (Snowboard Cross)
Meghan Tierney (Snowboard Cross)
Lucas Foster (Halfpipe)
Taylor Gold (Halfpipe)
Chase Josey (Halfpipe)
Shaun White (Halfpipe)
Robby Burns (Parallel Giant Slalom)
Cody Winters (Parallel Giant Slalom)
Chris Corning (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Sean FitzSimons (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Red Gerard (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Dusty Henricksen (Slopestyle/Big Air)
Nick Baumgartner (Snowboard Cross)
Alex Deibold (Snowboard Cross) (injured)
Mick Dierdorff (Snowboard Cross)
Hagen Kearney (Snowboard Cross)
Jake Vedder (Snowboard Cross)

Speed Skating (12)
Giorgia Birkeland
Brittany Bowe
Kimi Goetz
Erin Jackson
Mia Manganello Kilburg
Ethan Cepuran
Casey Dawson
Austin Kleba
Emery Lehman
Joey Mantia
Ian Quinn
Jordan Stolz

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Ilia Malinin eyed new heights at figure skating worlds, but a jump to gold requires more

By Philip HershMar 25, 2023, 1:10 PM EDT

At 18 years old, Ilia Malinin already has reached immortality in figure skating for technical achievement, being the first to land a quadruple Axel jump in competition.

The self-styled “Quadg0d” already has shown the chutzpah (or hubris?) to go for the most technically difficult free skate program ever attempted at the world championships, including that quad Axel, the hardest jump anyone has tried.

It helped bring U.S. champion Malinin the world bronze medal Saturday in Saitama, Japan, where he made more history as the first to land the quad Axel at worlds.

But it already had him thinking that the way to reach the tops of both the worlds and Olympus might be to acknowledge his mortal limits.

Yes, if Malinin (288.44 points) had cleanly landed all six quads he did instead of going clean on just three of the six, it would have closed or even overcome the gap between him and repeat champion Shoma Uno of Japan (301.14) and surprise silver medalist Cha Jun-Hwan (296.03), the first South Korean man to win a world medal.

That’s a big if, as no one ever has done six clean quads in a free skate.

And the energy needed for those quads, physical and mental, hurts Malinin’s chances of closing another big gap with the world leaders: the difference in their “artistic” marks, known as component scores.

Malinin’s technical scores led the field in both the short program and free skate. But his component scores were lower than at last year’s worlds, when he finished ninth, and they ranked 10th in the short program and 11th in the free this time. Uno had an 18.44-point overall advantage over Malinin in PCS, Cha a 13.47 advantage.

FIGURE SKATING WORLDS: Chock, Bates, and a long road to gold | Results

As usual in figure skating, some of the PCS difference owes to the idea of paying your dues. After all, at his first world championships, eventual Olympic champion Nathan Chen had PCS scores only slightly better than Malinin’s, and Chen’s numbers improved substantially by the next season.

But credit Malinin for quickly grasping the reality that his current skating has a lot of rough edges on the performance side.

“I’ve noticed that it’s really hard to go for a lot of risks,” he said in answer to a press conference question about what he had learned from this competition. “Sometimes going for the risks you get really good rewards, but I think that maybe sometimes it’s OK to lower the risks and go for a lot cleaner skate. I think it will be beneficial next season to lower the standards a bit.”

So could it be “been-there, done-that” with the quad Axel? (and the talk of quints and quad-quad combinations?)

Saturday’s was his fourth clean quad Axel in seven attempts this season, but it got substantially the lowest grade of execution (0.36) of the four with positive marks. It was his opening jump in the four-minute free, and, after a stopped-in-your tracks landing, his next two quads, flip and Lutz, were both badly flawed.

And there were still some three minutes to go.

Malinin did not directly answer about letting the quad Axel go now that he has definitively proved he can do it. What he did say could be seen as hinting at it.

“With the whole components factor … it’s probably because you know, after doing a lot of these jumps, (which) are difficult jumps, it’s really hard to try to perform for the audience,” he said.

“Even though some people might enjoy jumping, and it’s one of the things I enjoy, but I also like to perform to the audience. So I think next season, I would really want to focus on this performing side.”

Chen had told me essentially the same thing for a 2017 Ice Network story (reposted last year by NBCOlympics.com) about his several years of ballet training. He regretted not being able to show that training more because of the program-consuming athletic demands that come with being an elite figure skater.

“When I watch my skating when I was younger, I definitely see all this balletic movement and this artistry come through,” Chen said then. “When I watch my artistry now, it’s like, ‘Yes, it’s still there,’ but at the same time, I’m so focused on the jumps, it takes away from it.”

The artistry can still be developed and displayed, as Chen showed and as prolific and proficient quad jumpers like Uno and the now retired two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan have proved.

For another perspective on how hard it is to combine both, look at the difficulty it posed for the consummate performer, Jason Brown, who had the highest PCS scores while finishing a strong fifth (280.84).

Since Brown dropped his Sisyphean attempts to do a clean quad after 26 tries (20 in a free skate), the last at the 2022 U.S. Championships, he has received the two highest international free skate scores of his career, at the 2022 Olympics and this world meet.

It meant Brown’s coming to terms with his limitations and the fact that in the sport’s current iteration, his lack of quads gives him little chance of winning a global championship medal. What he did instead was give people the chance to see the beauty of his blade work, his striking movement, his expressiveness.

He has, at 28, become an audience favorite more than ever. And the judges Saturday gave Brown six maximum PCS scores (10.0.)

“I’m so happy about today’s performance,” Brown told media in the mixed zone. “I did my best to go out there and skate my skate. And that’s what I did.”

The quadg0d is realizing that he, too, must accept limitations if he wants to achieve his goals. Ilia Malinin can’t simply jump his way onto the highest steps of the most prized podiums.

Philip Hersh, who has covered figure skating at the last 12 Winter Olympics, is a special contributor to NBCSports.com.

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Shoma Uno repeats as world figure skating champion; Ilia Malinin tries 6 quads for bronze

By OlympicTalkMar 25, 2023, 10:47 AM EDT

Japan’s Shoma Uno repeated as world figure skating champion, performing the total package of jumps and artistry immediately after 18-year-old American Ilia Malinin attempted a record-tying six quadruple jumps in his free skate to earn the bronze medal.

Uno, 25 and the leader after Thursday’s short program, prevailed with five quad attempts (one under-rotated) in Saturday’s free skate.

He finished, fell backward and lay on home ice in Saitama, soaking in a standing ovation amid a sea of Japanese flags. Japan won three of the four gold medals this week, and Uno capped it off with guts coming off a reported ankle injury.

He is the face of Japanese men’s skating after two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu retired in July and Olympic silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama missed most of this season with leg and ankle injuries.

“There were many shaky jumps today, but I’m happy I was able to get a good result despite not being in a good condition these past two weeks,” Uno said, according to the International Skating Union (ISU). “I know I caused a lot of concerns to everyone around me, but I was able to pay them back and show my gratitude with my performance today.”

Silver medalist Cha Jun-Hwan became the first South Korean man to win a world championships medal. Cha, a 21-year-old who was fifth at the Olympics, had to change out broken skate boots before traveling to Japan, one year after withdrawing from worlds after a 17th-place short program, citing a broken skate boot.

FIGURE SKATING WORLDS: Results

Malinin, ninth in his senior worlds debut last year, planned the most difficult program of jumps in figure skating history — six quads, including a quad Axel. Malinin is the only person to land a quad Axel in competition and did so again Saturday. He still finished 12.7 points behind Uno and 7.59 behind Cha.

Malinin had the top technical score (jumps, spins, step sequences) in both programs, despite an under-rotation and two other negatively graded jumps among his seven jumping passes in the free skate.

His nemesis was the artistic score, placing 10th and 11th in that category in the two programs (18.44 points behind Uno). Unsurprising for the only teen in the top 13, who is still working on that facet of his skating, much like a young Nathan Chen several years ago.

“After doing a lot of these jumps — hard, difficult jumps — it’s really hard to try to perform for the audience,” said Malinin, who entered worlds ranked second in the field by best score this season behind Uno.

Chen, who is unlikely to compete again after winning last year’s Olympics, remains the lone skater to land six fully rotated quads in one program (though not all clean). Malinin became the youngest U.S. male singles skater to win a world medal since Scott Allen in 1965. He was proud of his performance, upping the ante after previously trying five quads in free skates this season, but afterward weighed whether the risk was worth it.

“Sometimes going for the risk, you get really good rewards, but I think that maybe sometimes it’s OK to lower the risks and try not to take as much risk and go for a lot cleaner skate,” he said. “I think that’ll be beneficial to do next season is to lower the standards a bit.”

Malinin was followed by Frenchman Kévin Aymoz, who before the pandemic was the world’s third-ranked skater behind Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu, then placed ninth, 11th and 12th at the last three global championships.

Jason Brown, a two-time U.S. Olympian, was fifth in his first international competition since last year’s Olympics. He was the lone man in the top 15 to not attempt a quad, a testament to his incredible artistic skills for which he received the most points between the two programs.

“I didn’t think at the beginning of the year that I even would be competing this year, so I’m really touched to be here,” the 28-year-old said, according to the ISU. “I still want to keep going [competing] a little longer, but we’ll see. I won’t do promises.”

Earlier Saturday, Madison Chock and Evan Bates became the oldest couple to win an ice dance world title and the second set of Americans to do so. More on that here.

World championships highlights air Saturday from 8-10 p.m. ET on NBC, NBCSports.com/live and the NBC Sports app.

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