Canadian Keegan Messing earns bronze at Skate America in Vegas, Chen wins gold

LAS VEGAS — Despite being the lone Canadian in the field, Keegan Messing welcomed the pressure bestowed upon him. Fortunately for him, he did not leave this weekend’s Skate America event empty handed.

Messing won a bronze medal at Skate America in Las Vegas Saturday with a total of 266.42 points following his free program skate in the first event of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating season. It’s an improvement on his 2019 performance where he finished fourth, just outside the podium.

He finished behind American and two-time world champion Nathan Chen who finished first, and fellow American Vincent Zhou who captured second place. 

“I am absolutely stoked to come here, put those performances out there and leave with a medal,” Messing said. “I’m on top of the world right now.”

Messing was the only Canadian skater to be given an ISU Grand Prix assignment for the season. A handful of Canadians were slated to participate in the 2020 Skate Canada International in Ottawa later this month, but it was cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns.

“Just before I took my starting position today, I said to myself ‘this is for you guys,’” Messing said. “It was for my teammates who have to stay home. Today, I had something to fight for. I was skating for my team.

“This is a shared medal. With my team, with all of Canada. The Canadian fans have been so incredible to me. I am so proud to have that flag on my back and to win an international medal for Canada.”

Chen landed five quadruple jumps over two programs in his first competition in nine months, easily out-distancing Vincent Zhou and the rest of the field to win his record-tying fourth straight Skate America.

It also kept intact a streak of victories for Chen that dates to his fifth-place finish at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.

“I made quite a few big mistakes in that program, things that I shouldn’t have made mistakes on,” said Chen, whose soaring personal standards left him shrugging at his latest performance. “It is what it is. I’ll learn from it and move forward.”

Chen, a two-time world champion, built a big lead in his short program Friday night before a shaky free skate, where he had to double a planned quad Salchow and missed a triple axel. But it was still enough for Chen to win the free skate with 187.98 points and give him 299.15 total, while Zhou’s two second-place programs gave him 275.10 and the silver medal. Messing finished with 266.42 points.

The high-flying Chen, who has taken leave from his studies at Yale to focus on the 2022 Beijing Games, is on a run of titles that includes a victory over two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu. His latest title at Skate America, one of the only Grand Prix events still going on amid the COVID-19 pandemic, matches the record shared by Michelle Kwan, Todd Eldredge and former Olympic champion ice dancers Meryl Davis and Charlie White.

In the women’s event, Mariah Bell edged 2018 national champion Bradie Tennell to win arguably the biggest title of her career. The 24-year-old fell on a triple lutz to finish her program Saturday, and her score of 136.25 was only the fourth-best of the free skates. But her sterling short program gave her 212.73 points total — just 1.66 points ahead of Tennell, who won the free skate with a solid program that began with a triple axel-triple toe combination.

“I try not to look at outcomes, more how I feel,” Bell said. “I’m walking away from this performance a little disappointed, and I look back at nationals and that’s a program I was really proud of. I want to feel really great about what I did.”

16-year-old American skater Audrey Shin won the bronze medal, while the pairs and ice dance competitions conclude later Saturday night in the mostly empty Orleans Arena.

“This is everyone’s first major competition this season and we all had time off the ice,” said Shin, who was making her Grand Prix debut, “but I felt like during those time I really focused on what I really love to do, and that’s skating. And coming back and training, I felt more motivated to improve. This was my time to perform and that was my goal here.”

–With files from The Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2020.

The Canadian Press