COLUMBUS – Amber Glenn won her first U.S. figure skating title on Friday night when defending champion Isabeau Levito fell three times during her own free skate.
That dropped the 16-year-old all the way to third place and allowed Glenn to win the gold medal after mistakes in her own program.
Glenn finished with a score of 210.46, while Josephine Lee jumped into second place and Levito was third.
In the men’s competition, the “Quad God” Ilia Malinin scored 108.57 points to take the biggest lead after a short program under the current scoring system in nationals history.
Max Naumov was a distant second with 89.72 points and Jason Brown was third.
Chock & Bates, Kam & O’Shea Saturday winners
Madison Chock and Evan Bates won their fifth U.S. figure skating title in the ice dance despite an illness that began to set in two days earlier.
Chock and Bates scored 215.92 points after their free skate to easily outpace Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko for their third consecutive gold medal.
In the pairs competition, Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea edged Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov for the gold medal.
Kam and O’Shea struggled on both of their throw elements and finished with 187.86 points, while Efimova and Mitrofanov jumped from fifth after their short program to second with the highest-scoring free skate and wound up with 186.91 points.