The 2014 U.S. Novice and Junior Challenge Skate will take place from Wednesday, September 10 through Sunday, September 14 at the Salt Lake City Sports Complex in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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Recap articles (5):
Junior Men/Pairs FS & Junior/Novice FD
Serafini rallies to win junior title at Challenge Skate; U.S. novice champion Le takes silver medal; Bronze for Rydberg
Posted 9/14/14 by Lynn Rutherford, special to icenetwork (text copied out below)
When Olivia Serafini is having a tough practice session, she knows where to turn for words of encouragement: Ashley Wagner and Adam Rippon.
The 17-year-old upstate New York native, who placed eighth in junior at the 2014 U.S. Championships, moved to Southern California in mid-April with her mom and older sister to train under Rafael Arutunian and his wife, Vera, at Artesia’s East West Ice Palace.
Since then, she’s been hard at work perfecting her jumps and working on the components side of her skating with choreographer Karen Kwan-Oppegard.
“Ashley and Adam are both really good to train with,” Serafini said. “I’ve never really had skaters I could look up to before. They both wished me great luck and told me I’m with a really great team, and it just takes time to get used to changes, but it will all work out.”
Wagner and Rippon were right: Serafini climbed from sixth after the short program to win the junior title at the 2014 U.S. Novice and Junior Challenge Skate in Salt Lake City on Sunday by a point.
Skating her program, which was choreographed by Kwan-Oppegard, to a piano medley that included selections from The Piano and The Lord of the Rings, Serafini opened with three combinations, including triple flip-double toe and double Axel-triple toe. The program included five more triples, and although she had a few step-outs and a downgrade, her 91.07 points easily won the free skate. She took gold with 137.21 points.
“We’ve been working really hard this summer, trying to control my jumps more and make them more consistent,” Serafini said. “I started out pretty strong with my opening jump, and for the rest I wanted to go for everything and have no regrets when I finished.”
“She did a very clean first part of the program, and even though it was difficult with the altitude, she tried to be strong to the end and did all of her jumps,” Vera Arutunian said.
Kwan-Oppegard is also pleased with Serafini’s efforts.
“She has grown so tremendously in her technical aspect, we want to grow her artistic side,” Kwan-Oppegard said. “She is in a great environment; we have a great team motivation everywhere you look.”
U.S. novice champion Vivian Le, who led after the short, won silver with a program that opened with a solid, fully rotated attempt at a triple Lutz-triple toe that had a step-out at the end. She fell on two normally reliable jumps, her triple Lutz and triple toe, but her speed and spins were fine as ever, and she closed with a stunning layback combination.
Le placed second in the free and second overall with 136.17 points.
“It was an OK skate, I’m glad I went for my triple-triple,” the 14-year-old said. “I work on it a lot and I really want to land it.”
The teen trains with Aleksey Letov and Olga Ganicheva, who have built a successful competitive program at the Dr. Pepper Star Center in Plano, Texas, near Dallas. Last season, the couple brought four skaters to the U.S. championships in Boston.
Several of Le’s training mates competed at the Challenge Skate, including Emily Chan (seventh in juniors) and Riley Shin (fourth in novice). Riley’s big sister, Ashley, was seventh at the U.S. International Figure Skating Classic.
“We have a lot of strong skaters at each level, and they compete against each other every day, two sessions a day,” Ganicheva said. “We provide training in the world-level style, with ballet classes, off-ice training and stroking and components’ classes.
“We have nine learn-to-skate classes each week, and our goal is to develop skaters from our learn-to-skate classes, right up to the senior level.”
Bronze medalist Paige Rydberg skated her most ambitious free to date, landing a double Axel-triple toe combination as well as a triple loop in her stylish program to a Latin medley, choreographed by Scott Brown and Mary Beth Marley. She was third in the free and earned 135.34 points overall.
“It’s a new program for me. We just added the triple loop and Axel-toe, so I’m happy I got those accomplished,” Rydberg, 14, said.
“Every competition this season, we’ve taken the program up a notch, and at this competition, we took it up a big notch,” said Rydberg’s coach, Mary Alice Antensteiner, who trains the skater at the Darien Sportsplex in Darien, Illinois.
“We will be working on refining all the little details in the program — the landing positions, the spins, the step sequences, the edge on the Lutz — to prepare for the qualifying season starting in a couple of weeks.”
Junior Ladies/Men/Pairs/Dance Short & Novice PD
Novice Men/Ladies/Pairs FS
Novice Short Programs
Below is the roster as published on Sept. 2nd and updated on Sept. 9th with 2014 National (J=Junior, N=Novice, I=Intermediate) or Sectional (E=Eastern, M=Midwestern, P=Pacific Coast) placements added.
JUNIOR LADIES (18)
Elena Taylor J5, Amy Lin J6, Olivia Serafini J8, Elizabeth Nguyen J9, Megan Wessenberg J10, Vivian Le N1, Paige Rydberg N2, Rebecca Peng N3, Carly Berrios N4, Elise Romola N5, Hina Ueno N6, Cheyenne Taylor N7, Emily Chan N8, Daniela Dryden N11, Brynne McIsaac E-J6, Morgan Flood M-J7, Alice Qiao E-N7, Lauren Ellison M-N8 (added in 9/9 update).
JUNIOR MEN (7)
Evan Bender J12, Daniel Kulenkamp J13, Anthony Boucher N5, Sean Conlon N7, Spencer Simon M-J5, Timothy Boore P-J5, Ikaika Miyata P-N5 [Spencer Howe J8 (removed in 9/9 update)].
JUNIOR PAIRS (6 teams)
Alyssa McDougal/Paul Schatz J10
Ai Setoyama/David Botero N1
Joy Weinberg/Michael Lueck N5
Gabriella Marvaldi/Cody Dolkiewicz N8
Linde LaChance/Kenneth Anderson N10
Olivia Allan/Austin Hale (new; JGP EST)
JUNIOR DANCE (2 teams)
Maeve Pascoe/Micah Jaffe N5, Karina Manta N10/Joseph Johnson J12 (new)
NOVICE LADIES (12)
Riley Shin N8, Runa Maeda N-wd, Tessa Hong I1, Alexia Paganini I2, Lily Sun I3, Jessica Cai I4, Lindsay Rosenberg I5, Tamia Ellison I7, Taylor Morris I8, Alice Yang I9, Pooja Kalyan I10, Julia Budnick I11.
NOVICE MEN (12)
Eric Sjoberg N2, Micah Tang N10, Colton Johnson N11, Justin Ly N12, Kellen Johnson I1, Justin Wichmann I3, Kendrick Weston I7, Benjamin Shou I8, Patrick Frohling I11, Mitchell Friess P-N6, Mathew Graham P-N7, Thomas Schwappach M-N8 (added in 9/9 update; replaced William Hubbart I9).
NOVICE PAIRS (6 teams)
Alexandria Yao/Connor Fleming N12
Jacqui Green/Rique Newby-Estrella N9 (new)
Megan Griffin/Andrew Civiello I1
Remington Bennett/Jacob Nussle I6
Kate Finster I8/Eric Hartley I7 (new)
Darbie Burke/Griffin Schwab E-N5
NOVICE DANCE (8 teams)
Rebecca Lustig/Zachary Milestone N9
Alexis Middleton/Michael Valdez N11
Caroline Green/Gordon Green I1
Eleanor Babaev/Scott Wenner I4
Sophia Elder/Christopher Elder I5
Cassidy Klopstock P-I2/Logan Leonesio I7 (new)
Elizabeth Addas/Jonathan Schultz P-I2 (new)
Kimberly Wei/Ilias Fourati E-I5
UNSEEN SKATERS ONLINE 