GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Alexa Scimeca couldn’t do anything but laugh.
She fell on her side-by-side triple salchow with Christopher Knierim in four or five straight competitions — the streak was dragging on so long she couldn’t remember exactly the last time she landed it cleanly. So she sent out a light-hearted tweet in November that she was saving the successful jump for the U.S. Championships.
Sure enough, Scimeca was perfect on it Thursday, and she and Knierim lead the pairs competition after the short program.
They scored 74.01 points, a record for the event, to lead Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier by 5.63.
“Chris and I skate best when we’re joking around,” Scimeca said of Knierim, who’s her fiance. “When it gets too serious, that’s when skating gets harder.”
They were the runner-ups at their first U.S. Championships together in 2013. Then Scimeca and Knierim were fourth a year ago with an Olympic berth at stake.
But the three teams that finished ahead of them aren’t competing this time.
Two-time defending U.S. champions Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir split in the spring. Castelli was in third place Thursday with new partner Mervin Tran with 64.24 points. Shnapir, who skated next with DeeDee Leng, was eighth.
Nathan Bartholomay, who earned the Americans’ other Olympic spot with Felicia Zhang last year, was fifth with Gretchen Donlan after the short program.
Scimeca and Knierim have skated together for nearly three years, an eternity by the current standards of American pairs skating. After another spill at Trophee Bompard to wrap up their fall season, they tweaked their practice routines to try to fix the jump.
It was all about attempting the salchow when they were “a little uncomfortable,” Knierim said. Sometimes that meant simply doing the jumps on a different part of the ice than usual. They also sought to simulate the competition environment, doing a warmup then sitting around before running through the program.
It worked Thursday. Scimeca and Knierim were a bit off on their combination spins, but the energy of their tango more than made up for it. Scimeca capped it with a huge throw triple flip, then yelled and pumped both fists when it was over.
Denney and Frazier skated cleanly but couldn’t match their speed and power.
Castelli and Shnapir had skated together for eight years, capitalizing on that longevity to top American pairs skating. They won a bronze medal in the team competition at the Sochi Olympics and finished ninth in pairs.
But they always acknowledged that their personalities sometimes clashed, and Castelli described their partnership Thursday as “like a business.” She and Tran were already friends and immediately meshed at a tryout. The problem was that Tran is Canadian. He won’t be eligible to compete with Castelli internationally until this summer, and he may not be able to become an American citizen in time for the 2018 Olympics.
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