01/09/26 08:21:00
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01/09 20:19 CST Efimova and Mitrofanov defend pairs title but face nervous
citizenship wait for Olympic spot
Efimova and Mitrofanov defend pairs title but face nervous citizenship wait for
Olympic spot
By DAVE SKRETTA
AP Sports Writer
ST. LOUIS (AP) --- Alisha Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov defended their pairs
title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Friday night, and now have a
nervous wait to see whether her citizenship will be approved in time to compete
at the Milan Cortina Olympics.
While he is a U.S. citizen, born in Wisconsin and raised in Texas, the
26-year-old Efimova was born in Finland and has competed for Germany and Russia
along with her native country. Only citizens of the country they represent are
eligible for the Olympics, though, and while Mitrofanov and Efimova are married
and she has a green card, she has not received an American passport yet.
The Skating Club of Boston, where the couple trains, and U.S. Figure Skating
have been working to get the typical three-year waiting period for citizenship
expedited. But time is running out before Sunday's deadline to announce the
Olympic team.
Despite a couple of errors on their jumps, including a scary moment when
Mitrofanov was nearly clipped by Efimova's skate, the pair finished with 207.71
points, easily outdistancing Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea for their second
straight national championship.
Kam and O'Shea finished with 197.12 points and Katie McBeath and Daniil Parkman
were third with 187.45.
The women's title will be decided Friday night in what amounts to a showdown
between two-time defending champion Amber Glenn and reigning world champ Alysa
Liu, who finished second at nationals a year ago by the slimmest of margins.
Glenn led after breaking the record for a women's short program at the U.S.
championships with 83.05 points, while Liu was second with 81.11 points.
Isabeau Levito was third, Sarah Everhardt fourth and Bradie Tennell fifth.
The Americans have qualified the maximum three women's spots on the Olympic
team.
They only have two spots in pairs.
Efimova and Mitrofanov would get one, should her citizenship get approved at
the last minute. Kam and O'Shea are near locks to make their first Olympic
team, while McBeath and Parkman are unable to go because he likewise does not
have U.S. citizenship.
That could leave U.S. Figure Skating to make a judgment call on the second
pairs team it sends to the Milan Cortina Games.
Emily Chan and Spencer Howe rallied from eighth after a difficult short program
to finish fourth with 186.52 points Friday night, while the up-and-coming team
of Audrey Shin and Balazs Nagy were less than two points behind in fifth place.
Yet ahead of them all were Efimova and Mitrofanov, the clear-cut best of
American pairs skating.
Their free skate, set to "Where Do I Begin?" from the 1970 Arthur Hiller
romantic drama "Love Story," was intended to be a tribute to two-time Olympic
champions Katia Gordeeva and Sergey Grinkov, who was just 28 when he died of a
heart attack in 1995.
Efimova and Mitrofanov opened with a beautiful triple twist, but then a
sequence went awry after their triple salchow when he fell during a double
axel, and Efimova nearly wiped his forehead with her skate blade. She also
struggled on their side-by-side triple toe loops later in the program, but a
strong finishing sequence left no doubt that they would repeat as champions.
Kam and O'Shea, the 2024 national champions, gave it their best shot at getting
back to the top of the podium.
But they likewise had just enough mistakes during their free skate, set to
music from the Eurythmics, The Beatles and Tears for Fear, to keep them in
second place. Kam put her hand down on their triple toe loops, she made a
mistake after their triple salchow during an intended sequence of jumps, and
she later fell on their throw triple lutz.
Still, the 21-year-old Kam and the 34-year-old Shea did enough to likely lock
up a spot for the Winter Games.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
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