{"id":59289,"date":"2026-09-13T16:09:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T20:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/?p=59289"},"modified":"2026-09-13T16:09:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T20:09:57","slug":"recap-2026-john-nicks-pairs-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/2026\/09\/13\/recap-2026-john-nicks-pairs-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Recap: 2026 John Nicks Pairs Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Kat Cornetta, Team FSO contributing writer
\nPhotos by Robin Ritoss<\/p>\n

After several years where the amount of competitive pairs teams in the United States was at a worrisome low, it now feels the opposite.<\/p>\n

That was on display at the John Nicks Pairs Challenge hosted by The Skating Club of New York in conjunction with The Skating Club of Boston this weekend. Two new U.S. pairs partnerships \u2014 Audrey Shin and Spencer Akira Howe, and Katie McBeath and Balazs Nagy -- were two of six U.S. teams at the event, and finished the competition in second and third, behind winners, individual neutral athletes Aleksandra Boikova and Dmitrii Kozlovskii.<\/p>\n

Boikova and Kozlovskii used a high amount of technical merit to earn a second ISU Challenger Series win in two weeks time (they also won the Kinoshita Group Cup in Japan.) Their Saturday free skate to a techno-backed Carmen opened with side-by-side triple Salchows-double Axel sequence, followed by a throw quadruple Salchow (though it was deemed under-rotated.)<\/p>\n

A large contingent of Russian-Americans were in the crowd for the free skate, showing their support by chanting, \u201cGood for you!\u201d in Russian after their performance. When the event organizers could not get the neutral athlete anthem working, the crowd took up chanting again, which left Boikova and Kozlovskii beaming.<\/p>\n

The team's short program on Friday also earned first, though it was slower-than-usual and had a few miscues, including a bobble in the step sequence. However, the confidence they demonstrated through many of their elements in both programs was superb, showing a security in pairs moves that few current teams can.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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However, the story much of the crowd was watching the showdown between Shin and Howe and McBeath and Nagy. The two teams brought plenty of entangled histories to the event.<\/p>\n

Howe went to the 2026 Olympics with former partner Emily Chan. Their partnership was marred by injuries, including severe shoulder injuries on his part.<\/p>\n

Shin and Nagy were together for two seasons, and were considered a team to watch for a potential Olympic team spot last year before they struggled at U.S. Nationals and subsequently split.<\/p>\n

McBeath was paired with Daniil Parkman until this May. They finished on the podium twice at the U.S. Championships, but Parkman\u2019s lack of U.S. citizenship stopped their Olympic hopes in their tracks.<\/p>\n

The game of musical pairs took place this summer, with Shin moving to Boston and teaming up with Howe, and McBeath joining forces with Nagy. (Parkman is now with singles-turned-pairs skater Starr Andrews.)<\/p>\n

The John Nicks Pairs Challenge was the first competitive meeting of former partners Shin and Nagy. Howe and McBeath\u2019s former partners weren\u2019t competing, but were close by as Andrews and Parkman were reportedly being monitored in an adjacent rink, and Emily Chan is still coaching and skating at The Skating Club of Boston, sans a partner at the moment.<\/p>\n

In Friday\u2019s short program, Shin and Howe looked like a pair who had been together for three years, not three months. A squirrelly landing on their throw triple Salchow was the only miscue, and they finished third in the segment with a 67.25.<\/p>\n

McBeath and Nagy\u2019s Carmen<\/i> short program gave McBeath a chance to show a strong character, and she relished the opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was vibing with this program from the beginning,\u201d said McBeath after the short program. \u201cI have a little sassy side to me and I think this program brings that out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their only problem was McBeath\u2019s hand-down on side-by-side triple toe loops. A 67.17 put them in fourth heading into the free.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was feeling the excitement,\u201d said McBeath. \u201cI had that nervous excitement, but I was so thrilled after all of the work that we put into skating together and learning our elements together as a team to finally get to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Saturday\u2019s free skate, McBeath and Nagy skated first in the final group. They laid down a gauntlet, with a free skate to \"Experience\" by Einaudi. The only issues were downgrading the second side-by-side jumps to a double Salchow and a negative GOE on their back outside death spiral. They put up a free skate score of 113.78 to take the lead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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HThen Shin and Howe took the ice to a loud home rink crowd. Their Romeo and Juliet<\/i> free skate, choreographed by their coach Olga Ganicheva, suits their burgeoning style well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly love this program,\u201d said Shin afterwards. \u201cI think this is my favorite pairs program so far. It's very easy for us to perform too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shin received negative points on both throws \u2014 loop and Salchow \u2014 but the pairs\u2019 PCS was nearly three points higher than McBeath and Nagy, and they took the overall lead with a free skate score of 116.56.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we can't really ask for much more,\u201d said Howe after the medal ceremony. \u201cIt\u2019s been such a short time that Audrey and I have partnered. It's really only been three months. To put together a short program, a long program and just develop our elements like we have, we're just off the moon that we could be able to deliver two pretty strong programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karina Akopova and Nikita Rakhmanin of Armenia were second after the short program. They have a fun free skate to a song-packed ABBA medley, but technical miscues marred the day for them, and they dropped to fourth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kat Cornetta, Team FSO contributing writer Photos by Robin Ritoss After several years where the amount of competitive pairs teams in the United States was at a worrisome low, it now feels the opposite. That was on display at the John Nicks Pairs Challenge hosted by The Skating Club of New York in conjunction…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,593,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-challenger-series","category-event-reports","category-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59289","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=59289"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59296,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59289\/revisions\/59296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}