What Happened In Las Vegas Actually Happened

BY KENT MCDILL | Photos by Melanie Heaney

Nathan Chen coached by Rafael Arutyunyan

There can be no underselling or soft-pedaling of the reaction to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships held in Las Vegas Jan 11-21, 2021: They were considered triumphant in both substance and style.

The substance was the skating, which, in the eyes of all who attended, was as skillful and artistic as any that had come before.

The style was unique due to the cautions surrounding the existence of the coronavirus, but, in the eyes of those who were allowed to attend, the event went off without a hitch.

Alexa Knierim / Brandon Frazier coached by Todd Sand, Jenni Meno, Christine Fowler-Binder

PSA interviewed half a dozen participants, from officials to coaches, to describe what turned out to be an event so successfully conducted it created within those in attendance the belief that figure skating can and will proceed in 2021 in the new-normal environment the coronavirus demands.

SUBSTANCE The figure skating

Participants were selected through a series of virtual qualifying events, as coaches turned in video presentations of their skaters’ long programs, and those videos were judged by officials viewing them at the same time. Although the process did not allow for skaters to present short programs, it did bring together in Las Vegas a field of skaters similar to those who gathered for the U.S. Championships in Greensboro, N.C in early 2020, before the effects of the COVID-19 virus were known.

Amber Glenn coached by Darlene Cain and Peter Cain

This year, conducted in the New Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, which hosted a SkateAmerica event in late 2020, and with no actual audience in attendance to cheer them on, the skating performances and the level of competition matched the expectations of all the participants.

“I honestly think it was the same (as other years),” said coach Derrick Delmore. “When you are an athlete of a certain caliber, at the top of your discipline, especially in your country’s competition, I think you come to a competition prepared to win. I don’t think the presence of an audience matters because you are so well-trained and your preparation process does not take into consideration who is sitting there watching you, other than the judges. I think that part of the event this year was irrelevant. Those skaters came to skate their best possible performances and they did so irrespective of whether there was an audience or not. I don’t think their performances were impacted by the lack of an audience.”

Bradie Tennell coached by Tom Zakrajsek

Some coaches felt that the physical part of the skating was equal to the skating in other years, but that the lack of audience still played a role in the performances. Audience reaction, it turns out, matters to the skaters and the coaches, if not to the judges.

“I definitely think it played a psychological role in all of the skaters,” said coach Mari Malama. “The audience makes a big difference when you are performing. You can feel it.

Coach Rafael Arutyunyan with Mariah Bell

“My athlete was somewhat worried about that, because he loves to perform and loves to interact with the audience when he is performing,” she said. “But, when we were done, he still felt he had a lot of support from the people who were there. It may have been distracting for some, but knowing ahead of time they were not going to have spectators, the skaters were preparing as much as possible for that. I think everybody was ready.”

Coach Tammy Gambill with Karen Chen

“I do think performance would have been better (with an audience),” said coach Laura Pizzelanti. “My student won and did a clean program and he was pumping his fist at the end. There is the fake cheering and everything, but he would have had a standing ovation. I think, at the end of his program, he would have skated it out more with that live enthusiasm. But, we really can’t complain.”

Competition organizers did have recorded audience reaction audio pumped into the stadium and played at appropriate times, which provided a form of audience reaction which skaters expect. It wasn’t the same, but it was… something. There were also cardboard cutouts of spectators in the first few rows, scattered throughout the seating area, that gave a sense that someone was watching.

Coach Alexei Kiliakov wiht Lorraine McNamara and Anton Spiridonov

“Even though they were cardboard cutouts, it did seem like there were people there,” said coach Joel Dear. “During practices, they had five rows of fake audience, so it actually did not feel so empty.

“I think there is an argument on both sides about the benefits of an audience,” he said. “It depends on the competitor. Some people do better in a more relaxed environment. There was the pressure of it being a nationals, but in a lot of ways, it felt a lot calmer. With an audience, it is challenging because there is a frenetic energy of the audience, which can be a blessing or a curse. You don’t always know what it is going to be until you are in front of that audience.”

Coaches Jenni Meno-Sand and Todd Sand with Katie McBeath and Nathan Bartholomay

While a live audience can celebrate a superior performance in a way a recorded audience cannot, a live audience can also serve to provide support when a skater stumbles.

“The very last skater had a very rough time, and if he had someone cheering him on, it would have turned him around a little bit,” Pizzelanti said.

From a purely skating performance, there was general agreement that the substance of the event met the standards the American figure skating community demands.

Coach Derrick Delmore with Starr Andrews

STYLE Hosting an event amid COVID-19 restrictions

Create a suggestion box, and somebody will offer a suggestion. But, when given the chance to offer their viewpoint on the way the U.S. Championship was run from a safety standpoint, the suggestion box was empty.

As successful as the skating was at the U.S. Championships, the preparations and precautions put in place to protect the skaters, coaches, officials, and organizers were beyond reproach.

Coach Pasquale Camerlengo with Breeley Taylor and Tyler Vollmer

Over the two-week period, participants in the Championships arrived in Las Vegas, got tested immediately, were placed in a hotel room in the Orleans Hotel until the results of their initial test were known, and were not allowed out of the bubble that included the hotel, the arena, and the small plaza that separated the two. Everyone who was in attendance for the full two weeks got tested three more times.

If one assumes the tests were accurate and effective, and no one violated the rules of the bubble environment, the U.S. Figure Skating Championships were the cleanest and safest event possible.

Madison Hubbell / Zachary Donohue coached by Steffany Hanlen

And everyone said so.

“I felt very safe once I was tested and quarantined and tested a second time,” said Sam Auxier, one of the event officials. “I kept my mask on. I was always aware of how disciplined everyone was about wearing their masks.”

“I thought it was as best as we could have expected, and maybe even better,” said PSA representative Heidi Thibert.

Coach Aleksey Letov with Jimmy Ma

“It was very well organized,” said Malama. “I felt very safe the entire time I was there. U.S. Figure Skating did a very good job making sure everything was going to run very smoothly.”

Due to the changed atmosphere inside and outside the arena, no one could ever completely forget that the coronavirus was having an impact on the event. But the efficiency and the efficacy of the safety protocols within the bubble created a calming effect among everyone in attendance.

Several specific aspects about the safety protocols were lauded as well.

Coach Rockne Brubaker with Laiken Lockley and Keenan Prohnow

“Any questions we had, everyone was on the same page with their answers,” Dear said. “I didn’t feel we ever got conflicting answers. I was completely blown away and impressed.”

It is wrong to think the participants were not wary of what they were about to encounter, either.

“The team I worked with, we were prepared for everything,” Dear said. “With seniors going first, we were prepared for the option that, depending on how it went with the seniors that first week, the juniors might be canceled. We were open to everything.”

Besides the audience, there was one other key aspect of the event that was missing, and which could not really be duplicated by cardboard cutouts or piped-in audio responses.

Coach Tracy Wilson with Jason Brown

“There wasn’t much socialization like at a typical Nationals,” Auxier said. “At the end of the day, you go to the bar and talk to other coaches and officials and catch up with the people you have not seen in a year. All of that socialization was not entirely gone, but was pretty limited.”

There was also limited involvement of the media. There were no complaints about that absence.

THE FUTURE Now, there is one

For many of the participants, the completion of a successful U.S. Championships in the time of necessarily tight health and safety protocols proved that the 2021 skating season can go on. Most are OK with the idea that the U.S. Championships were an indication of how events in 2021 are going to be run.

“I do think events will return and will return in a more efficient way,” Thibert said. “We found out that we can do a lot more virtually to prepare, and to plan, and to execute. I think we are going to be more efficient, our communications will be better, our review will be better. I think we developed skills that are going to help us in the future. And I don’t think we will ever go back to the way it was before the virus. We are always going to have some mechanism to make sure people don’t show up sick.”

Coach Peter Johansson with Heidi Munger

“At least from an official’s standpoint and a coach’s standpoint, I think everyone assumes this is going to be the standard for quite a while,” Auxier said. “Until everyone is vaccinated and there is a very low incidence of COVID infection, this is the way it is going to be.”

While the coaches interviewed disagree as to whether the pandemic will ever end, they agreed that for the immediate future, they can live with events being conducted the way the U.S. Championships were conducted.

Coach Julia Lautowa with Lindsey Thorngren

“Having live competitions is really necessary for maintaining momentum,” Dear said. “If this is how competitions have to be for a while, with a pared down approach and virtual qualifications, I still think it is very helpful. It is important to keep pushing through to keep the emergency behind the training.”

“We will figure it out as we go along,” said Malama. “I have been telling my athletes that resilience is your biggest weapon at times like these, because you cannot predict what is going to happen. We didn’t even know where we were going to be skating from week to week because of restrictions. But this event left me very optimistic about what is possible going forward. I think vaccinations and testing protocols are going to be mandatory until COVID is under control.”