Sarah Everhardt goes from scene stealer to spotlight at U.S. Figure Skating Champs

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Sarah Everhardt goes from scene stealer to spotlight at U.S. Figure Skating Champs

Sarah Everhardt’s expected role at last year’s Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships seemed to be like that of an extra on a movie set, there to fill out a scene … or, in this case, the field for a competition.

After all, it was Everhardt’s national debut at the senior level, and she had finished 13th and 11th at the junior level the previous seasons, and her results leading up to the 2024 event were unremarkable.

So who could have foreseen Everhardt turning into a bit of a scene stealer as she finished fourth overall and third in the free skate? She did it with two clean programs (no negative grades of execution) for the first time in her career, according to skatingscores.com.

“I know I have it in me,” Everhardt said via Zoom. “When I go to a competition, I know that I’m capable of skating clean, doing my best. So I always just try to use that confidence going in.”

After a solid international season this fall, with a first and second in two Challenger Series events, Everhardt goes into this week’s nationals in Wichita, Kansas as one of a half-dozen medal contenders in a competition that became even more wide open when reigning world silver medalist Isabeau Levito withdrew last week with a foot injury.

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How Alysa Liu rediscovered figure skating and came out of retirement

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How Alysa Liu rediscovered figure skating and came out of retirement

How did Alysa Liu get to this point, to where she is skating in this weekend’s Budapest Trophy in Hungary, her first real competition in two and a half years?

How and why did she return to the spotlight after purposefully retreating to the shadows, her break from being ALYSA LIU (drum roll) so complete that she also broke from social media, then began posting photos in which alysa liu (whisper) often turned her face from the camera or made it indistinct.

At age 13, Liu had stood the figure skating world on its head. At 16, soon after skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics and winning a bronze medal at the 2022 World Championships, Liu retired from the sport.

She did some post-Olympic shows and did not skate at all for nearly a year and a half. At 19, a sophomore at UCLA, she is competing again.

Talk about things turning upside down.

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At 5-2 and just 15 years old, Isabeau Levito becomes commanding presence

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At 5-2 and just 15 years old, Isabeau Levito becomes commanding presence

SAN JOSE, Calif. – With a calm command belying her age, Isabeau Levito has taken control of U.S. women’s skating at age 15.

Levito came here as the solid favorite to take her first national title, and she did it with a seemingly effortless grace, her balletic style producing solid winning performances in both Thursday’s short program and Friday’s free skate.

She was the last of 18 skaters in the free skate, following rivals who made mistakes big and small. Levito did not need perfection, but her skating approached it, even if the execution of some jumps could have been better.

Levito left no doubt of her superiority and burst into a wide smile even before the scores were announced. After a narrow win over Bradie Tennell (.02 points) in the short program, Levito (223.33) wound up 10.21 points ahead of the runner-up Tennell (213.12) in the final standings.

Amber Glenn was third at 207.44. She, Levito and Tennell will fill the three women’s places on the U.S. team for the March World Championships in Japan.

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Bold Isabeau Levito faces skating idol at Grand Prix Final

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Bold Isabeau Levito faces skating idol at Grand Prix Final

The highlight of Isabeau Levito’s season so far came at Skate America in October.

It wasn’t the silver medal Levito won there, in her debut on figure skating’s senior Grand Prix circuit.

It was meeting the reigning world champion – and 2022 Skate America winner – Kaori Sakamoto of Japan.

“She is one of my idols,” Levito said of Sakamoto, who is also the 2022 Olympic bronze medalist.  “Right before her long program at worlds, you could see she was determined and strong and fierce.  Her eyes would obliterate you.

“That look and that fierceness and determination. . .I admire it so much, and I hope to have it someday.”

At only 15, Levito already belies her delicacy of movement on the ice with such powerful determination to reach her aspirations that she gets to meet Sakamoto again this week at the Grand Prix Final in Torino, Italy, where the senior women’s event begins Friday.

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Figure skating champion Bradie Tennell, a competitive ‘shark,’ making comeback in new waters

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Figure skating champion Bradie Tennell, a competitive ‘shark,’ making comeback in new waters

A week after chronic foot pain forced Bradie Tennell to withdraw from the 2022 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the impact of that situation hit her full force.

Tennell was the defending national champion, a good bet to make the 2022 Olympic team had she been healthy. But she was lying in bed in her family home in the Chicago suburbs as nationals was going on in Nashville.

She had lost the chance to realize her dream of skating in another Olympic Games. She had lost an entire competitive season. Then she realized a fundamental part of her also had been lost when walking to the kitchen became so painful it was easier to stay hungry until someone could bring her food.

“In my core, I’m an athlete,” Tennell said via telephone in an interview last week. “I take so much pride in being able to demand pretty much anything of my body and being able to do it. If I want to go on a 10-mile hike, I can go on a 10-mile hike. This was like my identity as an athlete being so suddenly ripped away.”

This lengthy phone and text interview was the first time the two-time U.S. champion and 2018 Olympian had spoken at length about what she described as an “honestly traumatic experience.”

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