News
February 4, 2008
Rizo nabs junior bronze
Although elegant and mature during her dazzling performances, Brittney Rizo was reduced to "giggling young girl" while standing on the podium receiving her bronze medal. The 16-year old Rizo could not quite believe that Nationals was over and she was standing with America's top junior ladies skaters.
"I did two solid programs here and that's all I could ask for," Rizo sighed. But her excitement was palpable as the announcer proclaimed, "Ladies and gentleman, your 2008 Junior Ladies Champions of the United States."
Being a gracious medallist is the easy part; Rizo had to face a talented field first and land numerous triple jumps, contort her body into high value spins, and stay on her feet.
For the first leg of this journey Rizo took the ice for her short program to "The Giving" with flowing hair and soft yellow dress. Her required elements netted all positive GOE and included triple loop, triple toe-triple toe and double Axel. But it was her skating quality that was most memorable about this performance, earning her the highest component scores of the round. Her total score of 54.59 left her just 0.36 points out of the lead.
In sharp contrast to the style of her short, Rizo's free skate to Malaguena featured a powerful and gutsy approach with good attack and lots of speed. In all she completed five triple jumps and was awarded level 4 for her spiral sequence and two of her spins. But the doubling of a planned triple flip shaved valuable points, putting her in fourth place in a contest where just tenths of a point separated second, third, and fourth. With two strong performances, however, Rizo's total score of 95.01 was enough to take third overall.
At the conclusion of the junior men's short program, 17-year-old Curran Oi found himself in second place following a dramatic performance set to Phantom of the Opera. Completing all required elements without deductions, his well-executed triple flip-triple toe earned a 10.07 making it the highest scoring single element of the event. The judges seemed to appreciate the speed and quality of Oi's overall skating, with many awarding GOE scores as high as 2.
In the free skate, Oi opened his Freedom program with a spectacular triple loop but then had difficulty stabilizing the landing on the following triple Axel. This set the stage for what was to become a rough skate. Though Oi landed a total of six triples in all, the mistakes and deductions for two falls proved too costly in the end. A tenth place finish in the free skate put Oi in sixth overall.
"Although it wasn't the skate I had had hoped to bring to Nationals," said a stoic Oi, "I am glad that I went for the triple Axel and didn't back off any of my elements."
In junior pairs, the brother and sister duo of Molly and Christopher Schleicher placed thirteenth in the short program and twelfth in the free skate, for a final placement of thirteenth overall.
Chris Schleicher, who is also a sophomore at Harvard, said, "It was a great experience to earn a trip to Nationals to compete at this level."
