For Madison Chock, Evan Bates, an ice dance to seize, at long last, at figure skating worlds

0 Comments

When an 18-year-old Madison Chock went looking for a new ice dance partner in 2011, she already had a résumé that attracted plenty of candidates. She had won the 2009 World junior title and 2011 senior U.S. Championships bronze medal with Greg Zuerlein, who retired after the 2010-11 season.

Chock, speaking last week, remembered the names of several men with whom she tried out or who reached out to gauge her availability. Chock rattled off the list while sitting next to her fiancé, Evan Bates.

Weeks after Chock went partner-less in 2011, Bates and his 2010 Olympic teammate, Emily Samuelson, ended their partnership. They were unable to get back into a groove after he sat out the entire 2010-11 season after his Achilles tendon was severed by Samuelson’s skate blade in a freak training accident.

Samuelson and Bates announced their split on June 23, 2011. Chock tried out Bates, who was already a friend, and remembers “smiling ear to ear” the whole time. Chock and Bates were first reported to form a couple that June 29.

“Looking back on it, I can’t believe she picked me to skate together,” said Bates, who hadn’t tried out with anybody else. “I’m sure I would have kept skating [if Chock chose somebody else] because I loved it, but it worked out this way, gratefully.”

Nearly 12 years later, Chock and Bates went into this week’s world figure skating championships as the world’s top-ranked dance couple. In a sport where the elite often avoid stressing results (publicly, at least), they have not been shy about their goal all season — to win their first global title.

They delivered with the world’s best score this season in Friday’s rhythm dance and go into Saturday’s free dance in gold-medal position.

In 12 prior appearances between the Olympics and world championships, they finished in every place from second through ninth, including three previous world silver or bronze medals. They also competed at six Grand Prix Finals and won four medals — all silver.

Now they are in Japan on the brink of what could be a career-defining moment, coming off the best performances of a challenge-filled partnership. They can become, collectively, the oldest couple to win a world title at least since ice dance was added to the Olympic program in 1976 and possibly ever.

“All of our years of training and knowledge are kind of coming together and blending together seamlessly,” Chock said.

FIGURE SKATING WORLDS: Results | Broadcast Schedule

Chock and Bates are one of the headliners at these world championships that carry emotional stories across the four disciplines.

The leading men’s singles skaters are Japan’s Shoma Uno and 18-year-old American Ilia Malinin, the first person to land a quadruple Axel in competition. The fight for another place on the podium could come down to a pair of beloved veterans — 31-year-old Canadian Keegan Messing in his final season and 28-year-old American Jason Brown in what could be his final competition.

In the women’s event, Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto is the alpha. There is also 16-year-old American Isabeau Levito. The crowd will no doubt root for Japan’s Mai Mihara, who won December’s Grand Prix Final, the biggest victory of her career, one which could have ended while she was hospitalized seven years ago.

A Japanese pair won a world title for the first time (Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara). Americans Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier, last year’s champs, took silver in what may be their final worlds. They are likely to retire after this season. They also competed three weeks after Todd Sand, one of their coaches, suffered a heart attack. A team that just missed the medals included a 2000 World junior medalist in singles who came out of a 15-year retirement.

Chock and Bates look to join 2014 Olympic champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White as the lone Americans to win a senior world title in ice dance. In 2011, when they first partnered, Chock and Bates joined a training group that included all of the reigning world medalists, led by the reigning champions Davis and White.

“We were skating with people like Meryl and Charlie and [2010 and 2018 Olympic champs] Scott [Moir] and Tessa [Virtue] and the Shibutanis [Maia and Alex], who skated together since the dawn of time,” joked Bates, who at 6 feet, 1 inch, is listed 11 inches taller than Chock. “And we’re, like, kind of figuring it out, height difference and all this stuff.

“It was just a different feel, but the chemistry was there. The enjoyment was there. That was sort of the foundation of, I think, what brought us together, and that’s still a huge part of our relationship on and off the ice.”

Ice dance is often a wait-your-turn discipline. But, by their second season together, Chock and Bates displaced the Shibutanis as the No. 2 U.S. dance couple behind Davis and White. After Davis and White left competitive skating following their Olympic title, Chock and Bates ascended from eighth at the February 2014 Olympics to fifth at the March 2014 World Championships.

Then they led the 2015 World Championships after the short dance (now called the rhythm dance). Two days later, Chock and Bates delivered their best free dance score of the season and went into the lead over Canadians Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, to that point the only couple to beat them all season.

About 10 minutes later came the global arrival of Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, a French couple that finished 13th at the previous year’s worlds and was fourth after the short dance.

Papadakis and Cizeron overtook Chock and Bates with the world’s highest-scoring free dance of the season, becoming the youngest world champions in ice dance in 40 years and earning the first of their five world titles.

With silver, Chock and Bates met their season goal of a world championships medal.

“I was like, OK, well, there’s only one way to go from here. It’s just one more step [to first place on the podium],” Chock recalled last week. “At that time, it seems a bit naive to just think it’s one step when it’s actually hundreds, thousands of little steps.”

Over the next seven years, Papadakis and Cizeron and Virtue and Moir, who had a comeback from 2016-18, were unbeatable. Chock and Bates, meanwhile, were passed domestically by the Shibutanis and then Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue.

At the 2018 Olympics, Chock aggravated an ankle injury in the short dance warm-up, getting her blade caught in the ice while practicing a lift. Then in the free dance, both fell on their combination spin. They finished ninth, and then Chock underwent ankle surgery.

“It felt like maybe the end of the road for us,” Bates said.

They changed coaches and moved from Michigan to Montreal. Chock said their signature has been an ability to reinvent themselves.

“I’ve been incredibly impressed with how they’ve been able to do that time after time, and yet they still are able to keep the best of what they are,” 2006 Olympic silver medalist Ben Agosto said.

Stick with anything too long, especially in dance, and programs and reputations can become stale. Chock and Bates performed as a snake and a snake charmer, an alien and an astronaut and now fire and air. They’ve danced to Chopin and Gershwin and Elvis Presley and Daft Punk.

At the 2022 Olympics, they placed fourth, missing a medal by 3.35 points. They will have a medal, at some point, from the team event, be it gold or silver pending the resolution of Russian Kamila Valiyeva‘s doping case.

Chock and Bates were the top returning couple this season. Olympic gold medalists Papadakis and Cizeron are on an indefinite, perhaps permanent, break from competition. Silver medalists Viktoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov are banned until further notice, along with all other Russians, due to the war in Ukraine. Bronze medalists Hubbell and Donohue retired.

After an offseason filled with 40 skating shows, Chock and Bates didn’t have the start to this season that they wanted. They won October’s Skate America but were outscored in the free dance by Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker for the first time in 45 career head-to-head programs.

They improved with every competition in the fall, then won January’s U.S. Championships by the largest margin under a 13-year-old scoring system with what Bates called probably the best skating of their partnership.

Two weeks later, they won the Four Continents Championships in the stamina-sapping altitude of Colorado Springs with the world’s best total score this season.

Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, the top couple in the fall Grand Prix Series, went into worlds having not competed since Gilles’ appendectomy in December. (Chock said that Gilles’ older brother, Todd, and Poirier reached out to her during her 2011 partner search, but neither worked out.)

In Agosto’s mind, the favorites are clear.

“Madi and Evan have the best free dance, I think they’re the best performers, and what they have this year is really special,” he said before worlds.

Chock, 30, and Bates, 34, have not decided whether they will continue competing next season. How they perform this week will factor into it, among many things. The fact that the 2024 World Championships are in their training base of Montreal is enticing.

They’re also planning a summer 2024 wedding and the rest of their lives together.

“As you get older and the goals get higher and higher, it takes more of you to even just maintain what you have, let alone to improve,” Bates said. “We’ve had to put so much into the season to get to where we are now, skating the way we are now with these programs. I think we just have to decide, are we still willing to pay that price to continue on?”

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

Ryan Crouser breaks world record in shot put at Los Angeles Grand Prix

0 Comments

Two-time Olympic champion Ryan Crouser registered one of the greatest performances in track and field history, breaking his world record and throwing three of the six farthest shot puts of all time at the Los Angeles Grand Prix on Saturday.

Crouser unleashed throws of 23.56 meters, 23.31 and 23.23 at UCLA’s Drake Stadium. His previous world record from the Tokyo Olympic Trials was 23.37. He now owns the top four throws in history, and the 23.23 is tied for the fifth-best throw in history.

“The best thing is I’m still on high volume [training], heavy throws in the ring and heavy weights in the weight room, so we’re just starting to work in some speed,” the 6-foot-7 Crouser, who is perfecting a new technique coined the “Crouser slide,” told Lewis Johnson on NBC.

Sha’Carri Richardson won her 100m heat in 10.90 seconds into a slight headwind, then did not start the final about 90 minutes later due to cramping, Johnson said. Richardson is ranked No. 1 in the world in the 100m in 2023 (10.76) and No. 2 in the 200m (22.07).

Jamaican Ackeem Blake won the men’s 100m in a personal best 9.89 seconds. He now ranks third in the world this year behind Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala and American Fred Kerley, who meet in the Diamond League in Rabat, Morocco on Sunday (2-4 p.m. ET, CNBC, NBCSports.com/live, the NBC Sports app and Peacock).

The next major meet is the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in early July, when the top three in most individual events qualify for August’s world championships.

Richardson will bid to make her first global championships team, two years after having her Olympic Trials win stripped for testing positive for marijuana and one year after being eliminated in the first round of the 100m at USATF Outdoors.

LA GRAND PRIX: Full Results

Also Saturday, Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico won the 100m hurdles in 12.31, the fastest time ever this early in a year. Nigerian Tobi Amusan, who at last July’s worlds lowered the world record to 12.12, was eighth in the eight-woman field in 12.69.

Maggie Ewen upset world champion Chase Ealey in the shot put by throwing 20.45 meters, upping her personal best by more than three feet. Ewen went from 12th-best in American history to third behind 2016 Olympic champion Michelle Carter and Ealey.

Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic ran the fastest women’s 400m since the Tokyo Olympics, clocking 48.98 seconds. Paulino is the Olympic and world silver medalist. Olympic and world champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas is on a maternity break.

Rio Olympic bronze medalist Clayton Murphy won the 800m in 1:44.75, beating a field that included most of the top Americans in the event. Notably absent was 2019 World champion Donovan Brazier, who hasn’t raced since July 20 of last year amid foot problems.

CJ Allen won the 400m hurdles in a personal best 47.91, consolidating his argument as the second-best American in the event behind Olympic and world silver medalist Rai Benjamin, who withdrew from the meet earlier this week.

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

Primoz Roglic set to win Giro d’Italia over Geraint Thomas

106th Giro d'Italia 2023 - Stage 20
Getty Images
0 Comments

Primož Roglič all but secured the Giro d’Italia title on Saturday by overtaking leader Geraint Thomas on the penultimate stage despite having a mechanical problem on the mountain time trial.

Roglič started the stage 26 seconds behind Thomas — who was trying to become the oldest Giro champion in history — but finished the route 40 seconds quicker than the British cyclist after the demanding climb of the Monte Lussari.

That saw Roglič move into the leader’s pink jersey, 14 seconds ahead of Thomas going into the race’s mainly ceremonial final stage.

Roglič was cheered on all the way by thousands of fans from just across the border to his native Slovenia. They packed the slopes of the brutal ascent up Monte Lussari, which had an elevation of more than 3,000 feet and gradients of up to 22%.

The 33-year-old Roglič celebrated at the end with his wife and son, who was wearing a replica of the pink jersey.

“Just something amazing, eh? It’s not at the end about the win itself, but about the people, and the energy here, so incredible, really moments to live and to remember,” said Roglič, who had tears in his eyes during the post-stage television interview, which he did with his son in his arms.

It will be a fourth Grand Tour victory for Roglič, who won the Spanish Vuelta three years in a row from 2019-2021

Roglič also almost won the Tour de France in 2020, when he was leading going into another mountain time trial on the penultimate stage. But that time it was Roglič who lost time and the race to compatriot Tadej Pogačar in one of the most memorable upsets in a Grand Tour in recent years.

It appeared as if the Jumbo-Visma cyclist’s hopes were evaporating again when he rode over a pothole about halfway through the brutal climb up Monte Lussari and his chain came off, meaning he had to quickly change bicycles.

His teammates and staff had their hands over their heads in disbelief.

Despite that setback, Roglič — who had been 16 seconds ahead of Thomas at the previous intermediate time check — went on to increase his advantage.

“I dropped the chain, I mean it’s part of it,” he said. “But I got started again and I just went … I had the legs, the people gave me extra (energy).”

The 33-year-old Roglič won the stage ahead of Thomas. Joao Almeida was third, 42 seconds slower.

For Thomas, his bad luck at the Giro continued. In 2017, he was involved in a crash caused by a police motorbike, and three years later he fractured his hip after a drinks bottle became lodged under his wheel – being forced to abandon both times.

Thomas turned 37 on Thursday. The Ineos Grenadiers cyclist had seemed poised to become the oldest Giro winner in history — beating the record of Fiorenzo Magni, who was 34 when he won in 1955.

“I could feel my legs going about a kilometer and a half from the top. I just didn’t feel I had that real grunt,” Thomas said. “I guess it’s nice to lose by that much rather than a second or two, because that would be worse I think.

“At least he smashed me and to be honest Primoz deserves that. He had a mechanical as well, still put 40 seconds into me so chapeau to him. If you’d told me this back in (February), March, I would have bit your hand off but now I’m devastated.”

Thomas and Roglič exchanged fist bumps as they waited their turn to ride down the ramp at the start of the 11.6-mile time trial.

The Giro will finish in Rome on Sunday, with 10 laps of a seven-mile circuit through the streets of the capital, taking in many of its historic sites.

“One more day to go, one more focus, because I think the lap is quite hard, technical. So it’s not over til it’s finished,” Roglič said. “But looks good, voila.”

The route will pass by places such as the Altare della Patria, the Capitoline Hill, the Circus Maximus and finish at the Imperial Forums, in the shadow of the Colosseum.

The Tour de France starts July 1, airing on NBC Sports and Peacock.

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!