Veteran Pair Knierim, Frazier Are Taking It All In At This Year’s Nationals

(L-R) Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier compete during the pairs dance program at the 2023 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Jan. 27, 2023 in San Jose, Calif.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — After nailing their short program Thursday at the Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier rose from their final pose and embraced, for just a few seconds longer, and with a lot more feeling, than usual.
The Olympic pair and reigning world champions had just delivered a near-perfect routine to Journey’s “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” from “Stranger Things,” igniting the crowd and dazzling the judges, who awarded them 81.96 points, a new U.S. Championships record.
“I wanted to take a little bit longer when the music ended to kind of absorb that moment, because I’ve learned throughout this long career that I’ve had that the most special times are usually the ones that go by too fast,” Knierim, 31, said. 
“And I just want to continue moving forward and being totally immersed, and embrace the present moment, and just be grateful that I’m able to do this. … I don’t know what the future holds,” she added.
Her partner’s emotions were in sync with her own, just as their steps and movements had melded so seamlessly on the ice.  
“Once we got done, and you feel like you put out a great performance that you and your partner both shared, that you gave everything you had, you just want to take every second because they do go by fast,” Frazier, 30, said. 
The dazzling display put Knierim and Frazier some 15 points ahead of Emily Chan and Spencer Akira Howe, who sit second with 66.86. They will almost certainly win their second U.S. title on Saturday, the third of four days of skating in San Jose, when they take the ice for their free skate to Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times.”
It may be the final crown for Knierim and Frazier, who teamed up in May 2020 after long careers with other partners. Knierim won three U.S. titles and the 2018 Olympic team bronze medal with her husband, Chris Knierim, while Frazier is the 2016 U.S. champion with Haven Denney.
Since coming together, Alexa Knierim and Frazier have become the country’s preeminent pair, winning an Olympic team silver medal together last year before claiming the world title a few weeks later, in the process becoming the first U.S. pair in 43 years to do so.
Chris Knierim, who works as a coach at Great Park Ice in Irvine, California, has accepted a position as skating director of Oakton Ice Arena in Park Ridge, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. He starts there next week, and he and Alexa purchased a home in the area.
“It is not an indicator of Brandon and I’s plans moving forward (as relates) to the competition side of things,” Alexa said. “Right now, we are staying the course, based in Irvine, through the world championships. Then, we are going full throttle into the Stars on Ice tour.”
“I would hate to jump ahead too far into the future and say yes or no to next season,” she added.
It is possible the skaters will move their training base to Chicago and continue their career. Early in his Frazier trained in the Windy City for two seasons with his previous partner.
Todd Sand and Jenni Meno, who coach the pair in Irvine, hope the skaters will continue competing. 
“They’ve taken a huge step forward this year,” Sand, a three-time U.S. pair champion in the 1990s and two-time Olympian with Meno, said. “They are just gelling as a pair team, every arm, finger. The toes are pointed. They have (increased) speed and flow. Even their twist has gotten better over the past few months, we’ve made some changes on that.”
“I’ve never met two people that never waste a minute,” Meno said. “If you look back four or five years ago, at each of them individually, they have both improved so much. The sky is the limit for them.”

(L-R) Spencer Howe and Emily Chan compete during the pairs free skate at the 2023 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Jan. 28, 2023 in San Jose, Calif.

It is no surprise that Chan and Howe, who qualified for this season’s Grand Prix Final, sit second behind Knierim and Frazier heading into the pairs free skate. But Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea, who notched 65.75 in the short program for third place, are defying the odds.
The Colorado Springs, Colorado-based skaters teamed up in mid-September, giving them a scant four months to train for San Jose. O’Shea, who will be 32 next month, won the 2016 U.S. title with Tarah Kayne; last season, he trained in Irvine and skated with Chelsea Liu. Kam, 18, competed in the junior ranks with Ian Meyh.
“This is Ellie’s first senior nationals, and I’m very proud of the work we’ve put together in a short time,” O’Shea said. “There’s a lot of opportunity for growth still there.”
“It’s all been crazy exciting, and we get to be here at senior nationals, my very first one, and I get to experience it with a great new friend,” Kam said. “I’m super blessed for this opportunity.”
The skaters train at World Arena Skating Academy — “WASA Pairs” — under Drew Meekins, the 2006 junior world pairs champion, and Natalia Mishkutionok, who won the 1992 Olympic pairs gold medal with partner Artur Dmitriev while representing the Unified Team. WASA brought three other teams to San Jose, including two medal-winning junior pairs as well as seniors Nica Digerness and Mark Sadusky.
“My dream is really to take pairs skating into the next century, so to speak,” Meekins said. “I’m very inspired by what’s happened with U.S. ice dancing, the way it has grown and changed over the last two decades has been so wonderful to watch. I think pairs skating is ready for something similar.”
O’Shea’s dream is to continue his competitive career, and in Kam, he thinks he has found the right partner.
“When I was done last season in California, I moved back to Colorado Springs, where I have a home,” O’Shea said. “I spoke with Drew, and he gave me the opportunity to help out with his amazing pairs program there. I was working with a lot of the girls who didn’t have partners, helping out a little with the pair teams, keeping myself in shape. The opportunity to skate with Ellie came and we jumped on it.”
The team debuted at a small international event in Graz, Austria, in early November, and went on to win silver at Golden Spin in Zagreb, Croatia, last month.
“I feel like all of the experiences and competitions we’ve done together, have been amazing learning experiences,” Cam said. 
“There is a lot of passion for me to show what I still have left for this sport,” O’Shea said. “With Elie, I have the opportunity to do that, and I’m very excited.”

(L-R) Valentina Plazas and Maximiliano Fernandez compete during the pairs short program at the 2023 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Jan. 26, 2023 in San Jose, Calif.

(L-R) Madison Chock and Evan Bates celebrate in the "kiss and cry" after the ice dance at the 2023 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Jan. 28, 2023 in San Jose, Calif.

Madison Chock and Evan Bates’ storied career — three Olympic Games, three world championships medals and a string of 10 consecutive U.S. medals, three of them gold — began in earnest in San Jose, where the couple made their U.S. Championships’ debut in 2012.
It’s fitting, then, that the ice dancers, who stepped out to a 15-point lead over Caroline Green and Michael Parsons with a sizzling samba and rhumba rhythm dance on Friday, are now in position to win their fourth U.S. crown in the same city on Saturday.
“(2012) seems like a whole lifetime ago. We’ve gone through so much change and evolution, personally and in our careers,” Chock, 30, said. “It’s been truly an incredible journey. I feel so grateful that we’ve been able to have this longevity and go through so many of these experiences that I will cherish for the rest of my life. It’s really been so special.”
The skaters’ “incredible journey” includes its share of storybook moments, but Chock and Bates had to fight all the way. After winning back-to-back world championships medals in 2015 and 2016, they didn’t regain the world podium until last season. Their first U.S. title, and their second, happened five years apart. An ankle injury, which required surgery, plagued Chock during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons.
‘We’re still here because we love it,” Bates, 33, said. “Obviously, we’re a couple off the ice, and that has forged us together in a really special and unique way. As a couple that’s been together (romantically) for six years, it feels like we’ve been together for a lifetime. We’ve gone through a lifetime of experiences together, many of (them) because of figure skating, and the fact that it’s still an ongoing story for us is something that we cherish.”
They can also cherish their short dance here. The polished, sophisticated routine, set to a remix of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” included crisp, perfectly synchronized twizzles (series of fast turns) as well as a glorious lift. It earned 91.90 points.
It also proved that, despite delayed preparation for the season due to heavy touring commitments last summer, the Montreal-based couple has regained the form they need to fight for the world title in Saitama, Japan, in March.
“I’d say we’re right on track,” Chock said. “We’re exactly where we need to be going into the second half of the season, we’ve put in a lot of great work back home between the final and now and still have a good stretch of time before worlds and to make some more gains.”