2021 U.S. Figure Skating Championships

2021 U.S. Figure Skating Championships
Type:	National championship
Date:	January 11 – 21
Season:	2020–21
Location:	Las Vegas, Nevada
Host:	U.S. Figure Skating
Venue:	Orleans Arena
Champions
Men's singles: Nathan Chen (Senior) Eric Prober (Junior)
Women's singles: Bradie Tennell (Senior) Isabeau Levito (Junior)
Pairs: Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Brandon Frazier (Senior) Anastasiia Smirnova and Danil Siianytsia (Junior)
Ice dance: Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue (Senior) Katarina Wolfkostin and Jeffrey Chen (Junior)
Navigation
Previous: 2020 U.S. Championships
Next: 2022 U.S. Championships

The 2021 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships were held from January 11–21, 2021, at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.^[1] Medals were awarded in men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance at the senior and junior levels. The results were part of the U.S. selection criteria for the 2021 World Championships. It would also have been part of the selection criteria for the 2021 World Junior Championships and the 2021 Four Continents Championship, but both events were cancelled.

San Jose, which previously hosted the event in 1996, 2012, and 2018, was announced as the original host in October 2019.^[2] On November 9, 2020, U.S. Figure Skating announced that, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the event would be moved to Las Vegas, Nevada.^[3] After the success of 2020 Skate America's bubble environment in the same arena, USFSA implemented the same structure for the 2021 U.S. Championships. Las Vegas had never hosted the event prior to this year. San Jose was awarded the right to host the 2023 U.S. Championships.

No audience was allowed to be present at the event.^[3]

U.S. Figure Skating announced a new qualifying structure, the U.S. Figure Skating Championship Series, to replace Regionals and Sectionals due to skaters' delayed training times resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Championship Series consists of eight events held in November and December 2020. Skaters can select up to two competitions and will then be advanced to Nationals or the High Performance Development Team based on their highest score, rather than their placement. A list of the skaters who qualified for either will be made available on December 7.

On November 2, 2020, USFSA moved the Championship Series to a virtual format.^[4] The following changes occurred as a result of the shift:

1. Senior and junior athletes registered for the Series and not previously qualified for the 2021 U.S. Championships were offered the opportunity to compete in a virtual qualifying competition for the remaining entry positions without needing to earn a minimum technical element score.
2. Novice, intermediate and juvenile competitors registered for the Series were offered the opportunity to participate in high-level competitive program to identify the National High Performance Development Team. The program will offer a variety of virtual and in-person opportunities January through May, as conditions allow.

The Championship Series was scheduled to comprise the following competitions:

Over the month of September, USFSA held the virtual ISP (International Selection Pool) Points Challenge to allow skaters to be judged by ISU-level judges. Skaters also competed for $200,000 in prize money. The competition was used to give senior skaters byes to Nationals and was used in the selection of future international assignments, as conditions allowed.^[5]

Athletes and teams receiving a bye were required to register for the Championship Series. Although senior-level skaters were eligible to earn byes from the ISP Points Challenge, it did not award byes for junior-level skaters. Consideration for additional byes based on international-type events will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.^[6] As of November 2, the Championships Series was replaced by a virtual qualifying competition, resulting in changes to the qualification structure.^[4]

On November 9, it was announced only Junior and Senior events were to be skated, with Juvenile, Intermediate, and Novice skaters in either the High Performance Development Camp or the International Selection Pool allowed to skate up. No Senior Ice Dance event would be held in the series due to a lack of entries. Only 12 Entries in the Junior Singles event would move forward to Nationals, along with 8 Junior Pairs and 10 Junior Ice Dance entries. Skaters already with byes were told not to enter, and they would receive more information. There will be no minimum score this year. Senior entries in the Singles events qualifying for Nationals remain the same - 9, but Pairs was lowered to 5.

The results will be posted by December 21. Video submissions to the series will be available on public format, including the US Figure Skating Fan Zone and Peacock Premium.^[7][8]

Singles skaters advanced to Nationals in the following ways:

1. Placing in the Top 5 in the previous year's Nationals
2. Top 4 scores from the ISP Points Challenge (excluding the top 5 byes)
3. Top 9 scores from the Championship Series

Pairs teams advanced to Nationals in the following ways:

1. Placing in the Top 5 in the previous year's Nationals
2. Top 4 scores from the ISP Points Challenge (excluding the top 5 byes)
3. Top 5 scores in the Championship Series (A sixth spot was opened after the split of Kayne/O'Shea.)

Ice dance teams advanced to Nationals in the following ways:

1. Placing in the Top 5 in the previous year's Nationals
2. Top 4 scores from the ISP Points Challenge (excluding the top 5 byes)
3. Due to the number of entries, there was no senior ice dance event during the Championship Series.

There will be no alternates to the senior events.^[8]

Junior singles skaters advance to Nationals in the following ways:

• Top 12 scores in the Championship Series

Junior pairs skaters advance to Nationals in the following ways:

• Top 8 scores in the Championship Series

Junior ice dance skaters advance to Nationals in the following ways:

• Top 10 scores in the Championship Series.

The next two ranked skaters in each discipline will be alternates to the events.^[8]

U.S. Figure Skating published a list of entries on December 22, 2020.^[9] Skaters either earned a bye based on their placement at the 2020 U.S. Championships or the ISP Points Challenge or qualified through the Championship Series.

Due to the bubble environment, the Orleans Arena hosted all practices and competitions. Senior events were held from January 12–17 and junior events from January 19–21.^[20] Additionally, due to the bubble environment, there were specific entry and departure dates for each of the senior disciplines, with all junior-level skaters arriving on January 18.^[21]

Men's results^[22]

Rank	Skater	Total	SP		FS
	Nathan Chen	322.28	1	113.92	1	208.36
	Vincent Zhou	291.38	2	107.79	2	183.59
	Jason Brown	276.92	3	100.92	4	176.00
4	Yaroslav Paniot	266.97	4	83.74	3	183.23
5	Maxim Naumov	244.20	5	83.53	5	160.67
6	Jimmy Ma	230.78	6	82.30	8	148.48
7	Tomoki Hiwatashi	230.14	9	75.51	6	154.63
8	Camden Pulkinen	220.10	8	80.08	9	140.02
9	Eric Sjoberg	213.39	11	74.01	10	139.38
10	Dinh Tran	210.79	10	74.03	11	136.76
11	Alexei Krasnozhon	206.76	16	54.53	7	152.23
12	Joseph Kang	203.45	7	79.30	14	124.15
13	Joonsoo Kim	197.12	13	69.04	12	128.08
14	Ryan Dunk	192.66	14	65.60	13	127.06
15	Jordan Moeller	191.33	12	71.09	15	120.24
16	Peter Liu	171.18	15	56.92	16	114.26
17	Mitchell Friess	163.07	17	48.88	17	114.19

Women's results^[23]

Rank	Skater	Total	SP		FS
	Bradie Tennell	232.61	1	79.40	1	153.21
	Amber Glenn	215.33	5	70.83	2	144.50
	Karen Chen	214.98	4	70.99	3	143.99
4	Alysa Liu	213.39	2	76.36	4	137.03
5	Mariah Bell	199.95	3	72.37	5	127.58
6	Lindsay Thorngren	178.89	6	62.54	7	116.35
7	Audrey Shin	176.82	10	57.74	6	119.08
8	Gabriella Izzo	171.76	7	62.32	9	109.44
9	Rena Ikenishi	169.89	8	60.14	8	109.75
10	Pooja Kalyan	157.46	9	58.29	12	99.17
11	Finley Hawk	152.84	14	52.08	11	100.76
12	Starr Andrews	152.13	17	45.93	10	106.20
13	Gracie Gold	149.05	12	53.88	13	95.17
14	Emilia Murdock	138.80	15	51.25	14	87.55
15	Violeta Ushakova	136.26	16	49.76	15	86.50
16	Heidi Munger	136.05	13	52.11	16	83.94
17	Hanna Harrell	130.72	11	56.93	17	73.79

Pairs' results^[24]

Rank	Team	Total	SP		FS
	Alexa Scimeca Knierim Brandon Frazier	228.10	1	77.46	1	150.64
	Jessica Calalang Brian Johnson	205.29	2	71.30	3	133.99
	Ashley Cain-Gribble Timothy LeDuc	200.52	4	65.81	2	134.71
4	Audrey Lu Misha Mitrofanov	197.97	3	69.56	4	128.41
5	Emily Chan Spencer Akira Howe	177.06	5	60.41	5	116.65
6	Olivia Serafini Mervin Tran	169.88	6	59.23	6	110.65
7	Katie McBeath Nathan Bartholomay	163.73	7	58.23	7	105.50
8	Laiken Lockley Keenan Prochnow	145.24	9	45.34	8	99.90
9	Evelyn Grace Hanns Jim Garbutt	140.93	8	47.98	9	92.95

Ice dance results^[25]

Rank	Team	Total	RD		FD
	Madison Hubbell Zachary Donohue	224.56	2	89.66	1	134.90
	Madison Chock Evan Bates	222.93	1	90.10	2	132.83
	Kaitlin Hawayek Jean-Luc Baker	212.55	3	85.28	3	127.27
4	Caroline Green Michael Parsons	192.39	4	80.10	4	112.29
5	Molly Cesanek Yehor Yehorov	177.40	5	71.11	5	106.29
6	Lorraine McNamara Anton Spiridonov	162.86	6	65.87	6	96.99
7	Eva Pate Logan Bye	154.93	7	64.37	7	90.56
8	Livvy Shilling Alexander Petrov	131.10	8	53.81	8	77.29
9	Hilary Asher Ryan O'Donnell	122.68	9	51.38	9	71.30
10	Breelie Taylor Tyler Vollmer	100.76	10	39.40	10	61.36
11	Cara Murphy Joshua Levitt	96.91	11	36.62	11	60.29

Men's results^[26]

Rank	Skater	Total	SP		FS
	Eric Prober	192.83	3	65.04	1	127.79
	Joseph Klein	187.30	4	63.60	2	123.70
	Samuel Mindra	181.49	8	60.37	3	121.12
4	Jacob Sanchez	177.55	1	66.91	6	110.64
5	Daniel Martynov	176.45	6	62.06	5	114.39
6	Lucas Broussard	175.49	12	55.06	4	120.43
7	Matthew Nielsen	172.30	5	62.31	7	109.99
8	Michael Xie	163.84	11	57.89	8	105.95
9	Liam Kapeikis	162.89	9	58.37	9	104.52
10	Robert Yampolsky	160.85	7	61.60	10	99.25
11	Nicholas Hsieh	152.99	10	57.93	11	95.06
12	Maxim Zharkov	141.27	2	65.51	12	75.76

Women's results^[27]

Rank	Skater	Total	SP		FS
	Isabeau Levito	187.48	1	65.66	2	121.82
	Kanon Smith	185.88	2	62.52	1	123.36
	Clare Seo	173.51	3	60.27	3	113.24
4	Ava Marie Ziegler	160.77	8	53.73	4	107.04
5	Elsa Cheng	158.85	7	53.75	5	105.10
6	Kate Wang	158.01	4	58.28	6	99.73
7	Adele Zheng	149.89	6	55.83	10	94.06
8	Mia Kalin	149.65	10	51.92	8	97.73
9	Jessica Lin	147.57	11	51.55	9	96.02
10	Abigail Ross	143.89	9	53.35	11	90.54
11	Tamnhi Huynh	140.17	5	57.94	12	82.23
12	Maryn Pierce	138.92	12	41.05	7	97.87

Pairs' results^[28]

Rank	Team	Total	SP		FS
	Anastasiia Smirnova Danil Siianytsia	169.85	1	59.07	1	110.78
	Isabelle Martins Ryan Bedard	148.02	2	52.14	2	95.88
	Valentina Plazas Maximiliano Fernandez	137.29	4	47.07	3	90.22
4	Catherine Rivers Timmy Chapman	134.01	5	45.97	4	88.04
5	Sydney Cooke Keyton Bearinger	131.39	3	48.61	5	82.78
6	Aleksandra Prudsky Daniel Tioumentsev	119.38	6	43.31	6	76.07
7	Haley Conrad Kristofer Ogren	97.32	8	34.54	7	62.78
8	Juliette Reed Jordan Gillette	94.74	7	35.17	8	59.57

Ice dance results^[29]

Rank	Team	Total	RD		FD
	Katarina Wolfkostin Jeffrey Chen	167.22	1	68.81	1	98.41
	Oona Brown Gage Brown	162.91	2	66.20	2	96.71
	Katarina DelCamp Ian Somerville	147.30	3	60.26	3	87.04
4	Isabella Flores Dimitry Tsarevski	146.40	4	59.98	4	86.42
5	Angela Ling Caleb Wein	140.47	5	56.27	5	84.20
6	Leah Neset Artem Markelov	128.02	6	50.76	6	77.26
7	Elizabeth Tkachenko Alexei Kiliakov	124.55	7	48.33	7	76.22
8	Elliana Peal Ethan Peal	109.73	9	43.71	8	66.02
9	Vanessa Pham Jonathan Rogers	109.66	8	44.58	9	65.08
10	Gracie Vainik Daniel Brykalov	104.07	10	40.99	10	63.08

U.S. Figure Skating maintained strict COVID-19 protocols within the bubble, including asking skaters to don a mask immediately after leaving the ice, but appeared to apply inconsistent requirements to skaters who had come into contact with positive cases prior to the event. After three senior pairs teams training under the same coach came into contact with a COVID-positive case, they voluntarily chose to withdraw out of precaution, whereas senior ice dance team Christina Carreira / Anthony Ponomarenko appeared to be asked to withdraw by the federation.^[16] However, Carreira/Ponomarenko's rinkmates and coaches were able to attend the competition, despite Carreira/Ponomarenko having come into contact with the positive case at their training rink. In addition, coach Tom Zakrajsek was unable to travel to the event due to contracting COVID-19 in early January and one of his students, Paige Rydberg, also tested positive upon arrival in Las Vegas; despite this, no contact tracing protocols were enacted, with the remaining athletes from Zakrajsek's training group and rink being allowed to compete.^[30]

The World Championships were held from March 22–28 in Stockholm, Sweden. U.S. Figure Skating announced the women's team on January 16 and the men's, pairs, and ice dance teams on January 17.^[31][32]

Alternates

The 2021 Four Continents Championships, originally scheduled to be held from February 9–14 in Sydney, Australia, were cancelled.^[33]

The 2021 World Junior Championships were scheduled to be held from March 1–7 in Harbin, China, but were cancelled.^[34]

• Official website Archived 2020-09-19 at the Wayback Machine