Figure skating: Denney and Barrett shock field to win US Pairs – AFP News : Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics
Spokane (AFP) – Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett continued their meteoric rise Saturday, capturing the pairs competition at the US Figure Skating Championships Saturday to qualify for the upcoming Olympic Winter Games.
Denney and Barrett were easy winners in the free skate programme over the second-place pairing of Amanda Evora and Mark Ladwig.
“Our free skate today was one of the best programmes we have ever done,” Denney said. “It was just so much fun and I will remember that forever.”
The winners also placed first in the short programme Friday for a combined score of 190.30. Well back in second was Evora and Ladwig who finished with 173.78 points.
That put Denney and Barrett a the US team for next month’s Winter Games while the other Olympic spot went to Evora and Ladwig.
Two-time reigning national champions Keanua McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker were the favourites going in but they stumbled to a disappointing fifth overall and missed out on the Olympic Games.
They got off to a horrific start with a seventh in the short programme and then followed it with a fifth in the free skate after three key errors.
“Sometimes things don’t work out the way you would like them to,” Brubaker said.
Rena Inoue and John Baldwin were runner up in the free skate and placed third overall. Inoue and Baldwin competed for the US at the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games.
Caitlin Yankowskas and John Coughlin finished second in the short program, but ended up a distant sixth in the free skate Saturday to finish sixth overall.
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