ALLEN (INP): Wakaba Higuchi won the women’s title at Skate America, leading Rinka Watanabe in a Japanese one-two in the first figure skating grand prix event of the season.
American Isabeau Levito, leading after the short programme, had some errors, including a fall on a triple Lutz, and slipped to third, Higuchi climbing from fourth after the short programme.
Higuchi, a 2022 Olympic team silver medallist who missed the 2022-23 season recovering from a stress fracture, led the free skate to climb to the top with a total score of 196.93 points. She delivered an elegant, technically crisp routine to Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” to claim the first grand prix title of her career.
Watanabe was third in both the short programme and free skate but her total of 195.22 was enough for silver as world silver medallist Levito struggled with some of her jumps to finish third on 194.83. It was a big day for Japanese skaters as former world champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara claimed pairs gold.
The duo, who earned silver at the last worlds after winning gold in 2023, delivered a polished albeit not perfect free skate to post a total of 214.23 points. They had led by more than seven points after the short programme and had the best score in the free skate despite Miura falling on their triple throw loop.
Americans Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea finished second on 201.73 points and compatriots Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov were third on 191.51. Meanwhile, world champion Ilia Malinin shook off early season nerves to score 99.69 points in the short programme, just 15-hundredths of a point ahead of Japan’s Kao Miura, who was in second on 99.54.