Skate America 2025 Day 2 Recap

A full day of skating saw a couple of not surprising leaders in dance and women's singles, and a some surprises as medals were handed out for pairs and the men.

Let me preface this by saying I’m exhausted, but it’s the best kind of exhausted. The kind from having an incredibly enjoyable day meeting all sorts of amazing people and watching a sport I truly love.

Also, before I get to the skating, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate the show of solidarity and support for trans skaters that happened between the two sessions. As you might have heard, U.S. Figure Skating recently announced a change in policy that would limit competition in women’s categories to people who were assigned female at birth, excluding trans women from competitions. Anna Keller of AnythingGOEs has done a wonderful job reporting on this story and organized a group photo at Skate America.

(Related, I’ve been waving that trans flag from my first-row seat during warmups, and apparently it’s been seen on the broadcast, so thank you everyone who has posted kind comments on social media.)

Hopefully USFS will reconsider its policy decision, but in the meantime we’ll keep waving our flags and speaking out.

Now, onto Saturday’s events, starting at the beginning with ice dance.

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Ice Dance Rhythm Dance

Coming into this week, this felt like Madison Chock and Evan Bates’ event to lose, and it doesn’t look like they’re interested in losing it. Their Lenny Kravitz-themed rhythm dance earned them an 84.77, edging their score at Cup of China to be a season’s best.

Just behind them are Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha of Canada, whose costumes certainly don’t seem to be popular on social media — but I adore them. I would 100% buy Lajoie and Lagha jerseys if Skate Canada wanted to sell them.

Canada has three spots for ice dance in the Olympics, and with a bronze at Skate Canada already in their possession, LaLa seem poised to secure one of those spots. A silver here could also vault them into the Grand Prix final, so how they do Sunday will be worth watching. They’re less than a point ahead of Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud of France, who also won bronze in their earlier GP assignment at Cup of China.

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Pairs Free Skate

I don’t technically believe in curses, but if I did, I’d believe that someone had cursed this event. How cursed was it? My phone decided to glitch out and not record most of the program for Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kiraha of Japan, who went on to win the gold medal. So, my apologies, but you only get the last 1:50 of it.

Why did they win gold? Well, they skated wonderfully on Saturday, but the team that was in the lead after Friday’s programs, Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava of Georgia, had a disastrous performance in the free skate. They ended up with the fourth-best score of the day, but their lead was big enough that they held on for silver, ahead of Canada’s Kelly Ann Laurin and Loucas Éthier, who took home the bronze.

It was the first GP medal for Laurin and Éthier since also winning bronze at Skate America back in 2022. Their 121.58 in the free skate, second-best of the day, was not only a career high, it vaulted them all the way from sixth after the short program onto the podium.

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Women’s short program

If not for the exhilarating finish to the men’s program (we’ll get there shortly) this would have been the best event of the day. As anticipated, Wakaba Higuchi of Japan brought the crowd to tears with her “My Way” program, as did reigning world champion Alysa Liu with the revival of “Promise.” Hana Yoshida of Japan was supremely entertaining with her Kill Bill program, and Italy’s Lara Naki Gutmann posted a career high short program score of 69.69 (nice) to put herself in position to win what would be her second career Grand Prix medal.

But they’re all looking up at Japan’s Rinka Watanabe, last year’s silver medalist in this event.

Watanabe has never finished higher than sixth at Japanese Nationals, but a gold medal here would put her into the Grand Prix final (along with country mates Kaori Sakamoto and Ami Nakai), potentially shaking up the Olympic picture for the Japanese women.

Starr Andrews is probably not a contender for an Olympic spot for the United States, and has announced that this will be her last year in singles before switching to pairs next season. But her program Saturday was an absolute crowd pleaser, and she performed strong enough to end up in the final group on Sunday.

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Men’s Free Skate

I have to be honest, I’m still kind of recovering from what happened in this, the last event of the night. Partially because it took so long due to a lengthy delay after Corey Circelli of Italy was the first skater to perform. The scoring system went down, forcing Circelli to sit in the kiss and cry for what felt like forever. And poor Daiwei Dai of China was on the ice that entire time.

Stupidly, I made the mistake of pointing out on Bluesky that in the first group, there had been no “menning.” Everyone was in the same order in the overall standings as they’d been after the short program. That, of course, immediately ended with Tatsuya Tsuboi of Japan, who fell from sixth in the short program to eighth overall. He was followed by Jason Brown, who moved in the opposite direction.

Brown was in the lead after his free skate, which ended up being the third-best score of the night. For a brief moment, it seemed as if he might make the podium, especially after Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan fell twice in his program. But Shaidorov still posted a strong enough score — the best of the night, actually — to stay near the top. The leader after Friday’s skate, Japan’s Kazuki Tomono, also had a difficult skate, falling from first to third overall, with a free skate that ranked just eighth on the day.

That meant France’s Kevin Aymoz came away with his first career Grand Prix gold medal, in his ninth season skating in Grand Prix events. Coming off a 10th place finish a couple weeks ago at Skate Canada, this was a completely shocking outcome, even after Aymoz landed in second place following Friday’s action.

Aymoz’s winning score of 253.53 was the lowest for men on the Grand Prix circuit this season, and the lowest since Adam Siao Him Fa won last season’s Grand Prix de France with a 246.58. Shaidorov’s silver was enough to secure him a spot in the Grand Prix final for the second consecutive season.

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The action resumes Sunday afternoon in Lake Placid starting at 2:16 p.m. ET with the free dance and continuing at 4:05 p.m. ET with the women’s free skate. Be sure to follow me on Instagram for live updates!