Amber Glenn triumphed over a neck discomfort to outperform her U.S. teammate, Alysa Liu, and secure victory at the figure skating Cup of China in Chongqing for the second consecutive year on Saturday. The U.S. national champion, Glenn, visibly showed signs of neck discomfort after completing her free skate routine, where she managed to recover from a slightly unsteady landing on a triple toeloop early in her performance. Initially standing in third place after the short program on Friday, Glenn had to await Liu and Japan’s Rinka Watanabe to finish their free skates before knowing her final ranking.
Liu slipped to second place with a total score of 212.07 points, while Glenn clinched the top spot with 214.78 points after Liu’s unsteady landing on a triple flip. Watanabe managed to hold onto the podium, albeit dropping to third place as she received the fifth-highest score in the free skate round.
Expressing her elation, Glenn described her feelings as “incredible” and expressed her excitement about her and her teammate securing the top two positions on the podium. Despite being a two-time world championship medalist, this was Liu’s first time standing on the podium in a Grand Prix event.
In the men’s event, Japan’s Shun Sato claimed victory at the Cup of China for the second consecutive year, executing three quadruple jumps flawlessly in his free skate routine, amassing a total score of 278.12 points and maintaining the lead over Italy’s Daniel Grassl, who scored 269.43. Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov finished third with a score of 262.67 after a fall during his last jump.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates, the world champions in ice dance, secured their first Cup of China victory in their sixth attempt, scoring a total of 208.25 points to outperform their U.S. counterparts Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik, who scored 202.27. The third spot was claimed by Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud of France with a score of 196.60.
Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava claimed the pairs gold with a score of 217.24, followed by Italy’s Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii in second place and China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, the 2022 Olympic champions who recently returned from retirement, in third place.
The Cup of China serves as the second out of six regular season Grand Prix events leading up to the final in December and acts as a crucial test for skaters aiming for medals at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in February. The next stop for the ISU Grand Prix series is Saskatoon for the Skate Canada International, commencing on October 31.