Georgia\u2019s Metelkina and Berulava secured silver medal, while Canadians Laurin and Ethier claimed bronze
\nTokyo
\nJapan\u2019s world champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara won the Skate America pairs title on Saturday as short program leaders Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava crashed in the deciding free skate.
\nMiura and Kihara, whose world title in Boston in March was their second after a world triumph in 2023, claimed their second grand prix gold of the season after a victory at the Grand Prix France.
\nThe triumph in Lake Placid, New York, sends them into the Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan, next month and more importantly maintains their status as the pair to watch for the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in February.
\nThe Japanese duo were not perfect, struggling notably on their side-by-side jumps.
\nBut their sophisticated components and composure were enough to earn the top free skate score of 141.57 for a total of 215.99 points.
\nThat was plenty as the Georgian duo of Metelkina and Berulava, who had surprised the Japanese with a rousing short program, delivered a mistake-strewn free skate featurin a fall by her, a botched jump landing by him and the complete failure of one planned lift.
\nTheir fourth-place free skate score of 116.90 was still enough to give them silver with 195.73 points and with their Cup of China crown they, too, are qualified for the Grand Prix Final.
\nCanadians Kelly Ann Laurin and Loucas Ethier, second in the free skate with 121.85 points, took bronze with a total of 182.87.
\nEarlier Saturday, veteran US ice dance duo Madison Chock and Evan Bates topped the opening rhythm dance with a total of 84.77 points to position themselves for a record-equalling fifth Skate America title.
\nChock and Bates, who won Skate America titles in 2014, 2015, 2022 and 2023, built a 7.35-point lead over Canadians Marjorie LaJoie and Zachary Lagha.
\nThe three-time and reigning world champions are chasing a second grand prix title of the season after winning a Cup of China last month.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve made a lot of improvements since Cup of China,\u201d Chock said.
\n\u201cWe performed those really well today, and so I\u2019m just really proud of how we skated and how we enjoyed the moment together.\u201d
\nFrance\u2019s Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud are in third place going into Sunday\u2019s free dance.
\nTomono eyes gold
\nLater Saturday, Kazuki Tomono will try to give Japan another gold when he takes the lead into the men\u2019s free skate.
\nTomono was more than two points clear of France\u2019s Kevin Aymoz afer a polished short program on Friday that included a pair of quadruple jumps and earned 95.77 points.
\nWorld silver medallist Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan, who took bronze at Cup of China, was third behind Aymoz in the short program.
\nTomono, who is vying to land one of Japan\u2019s three men\u2019s Olympic team spots for the Winter Games, is hoping to improve on a fourth-place finish at Skate Canada, where he was second after the short program but was pipped for bronze by compatriot Kao Miura.
\nWomen\u2019s competition also gets underway Saturday with the short program, with world champion Alysa Liu headlining the field.
\nLiu, who claimed her surprise world title in March after taking a two-year break from the sport, is seeking a first grand prix title.
\nShe finished second behind compatriot Amber Glenn at Cup of China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Georgia\u2019s Metelkina and Berulava secured silver medal, while Canadians Laurin and Ethier claimed bronze Tokyo Japan\u2019s world champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara won the Skate America pairs title on Saturday as short program leaders Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava crashed in the deciding free skate. Miura and Kihara, whose world title in Boston in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":89698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89703,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89688\/revisions\/89703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}