{"id":10616,"date":"2018-01-08T19:44:15","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T00:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/?p=10616"},"modified":"2018-02-11T13:08:29","modified_gmt":"2018-02-11T18:08:29","slug":"madison-hubbell-and-zachary-donohue-win-first-u-s-title-and-named-to-first-olympic-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/2018\/01\/08\/madison-hubbell-and-zachary-donohue-win-first-u-s-title-and-named-to-first-olympic-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue win first U.S. title and named to first Olympic team"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maura Sullivan Hill, staff writer<\/span><\/p>\n


\nThe last time the U.S. Championships were in San Jose, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue made their debut as an ice dance team and earned the first of four bronze medals.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nSix years and a lot of hard work later, Hubbell and Donohue stood on top of the podium as national champions, in the same arena where their rise to prominence started.<\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt feels really cool to be here in San Jose six years later \u2014 it\u2019s where we first did a blues free dance,\u201d Hubbell said in the post-even press conference. \u201cWe always kind of knew that for the Olympic season we wanted to go back to where we felt most connected to each other, and that was with blues.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n


\nGoing into this event, Donohue said that they wouldn\u2019t be content with another third place finish, and they backed up his proclamation with superb, confident skating in both segments of the competition. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A small bobble by Donohue on the twizzle sequence in the short dance had them in second place, but they attacked their free dance to earn a new U.S. personal best of 118.02.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal today was being present,\u201d Hubbell said. \u201cAs soon as we hit the four minute and 15 second mark and the music stopped and there was no way we could give away points, that was the moment that we could let everything in. We were proud from the moment we finished, winning is just a bonus.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Two-time and defending champions Maia and Alex Shibutani built up a three-point lead after the short dance, but settled for second place overall. An uncharacteristic stumble by Maia in the diagonal step sequence significantly affected their score. The element received a level three and only 0.47 for GOE.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cToday we had a mistake in the diagonal, which was unfortunate, but we had each other\u2019s backs out there,\u201d Maia Shibutani said. \u201cThere were a lot of things about the program that I\u2019m proud of, and it really felt like the audience reacted so well, so we\u2019re going to keep working hard and we have time to keep pushing ourselves.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Their free dance, set to \u201cParadise\u201d by Coldplay, had some major changes since their last outing at the Grand Prix Final, including a longer sample from the song, \u201cFix You,\u201d the emotional, crowd-favorite free dance that brought them their first U.S. title in 2016 and the 2016 World silver medal.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Madison Chock and Evan Bates won the free dance with a smooth, emotional performance of their \u201cImagine\u201d free dance, but it wasn\u2019t enough to move up from their third place position after the short dance. They earned the bronze with 196.60 points.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re proud of how we skated today. The message we\u2019re conveying on the ice [in the free dance] seems to be connecting with people and that\u2019s the most validating thing, even moreso than the result,\u201d Bates said. \u201cThe free dance the past two competitions has been good and the result has been good, but the short dance, I think, is where we\u2019re putting ourselves at a deficit and it was too much to overcome today.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After two disastrous falls in the free dance at this event last year, Kaitlin Hawayak and Jean-Luc Baker were searching for redemption with a repeat of their \u201cLiebestraum\u201d free dance. And find it they did, performing with east and elegance to earn level four on all of their elements.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hawayek and Baker finished in fourth place, more than 10 points ahead of the fifth place finishers, siblings Rachel and Michael Parsons. The Parsons were making their senior debut after winning both the U.S. and World Junior titles last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

U.S. Figure Skating named the top three teams to the Olympic team, with Hawayek and Baker as first alternates.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maura Sullivan Hill, staff writer The last time the U.S. Championships were in San Jose, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue made their debut as an ice dance team and earned the first of four bronze medals. Six years and a lot of hard work later, Hubbell and Donohue stood on top of the podium…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10617,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10616\/revisions\/10617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}