In the ladies competition, Bradie Tennell led the way for the United States with a 68.76-point, seventh-place short program. Her “Taeguki” short program was clean in her World Championships debut.
“This is my first World Championships so to go out there and put out a program like that, I’m very proud of myself,” Tennell said.
Mirai Nagasu earned 65.21 points in her opening skate at the competition, placing her in ninth heading into Friday’s free skate.
“It’s just been a very long season,” Nagasu said. “I’m just happy to be here at the World Championships. I know I’ve had a very long career, but I haven’t been to many World Championships because it’s hard as a U.S. athlete to stay on top for so long. I wanted to skate to the best of my ability and I was really able to focus on the performance aspect and my components were really awarded today. I had a great time out there.”
Mariah Bell, who was added to the Worlds roster just last week, is in 17th place with 59.15 points.
“That wasn’t the skate that I wanted,” Bell said. “This is another learning experience for me. I’m going to learn what I can and move on.”
Italy’s Carolina Kostner leads after the short program, followed by Russia’s Alina Zagitova and Japan’s Satoko Miyahara.
Alexa Scimeca-Knierim and Chris Knierim are the top American team after the pairs short program. Skating to “Come What May,” the duo earned 69.55 points and are 11th heading into Thursday’s free skate.
“We’re very proud of it,” Scimeca-Knierim said. “We’re happy that we did our hard elements. There’s G.O.E. (Grades of Execution) that we can improve on. We’re happy to be here, but we wish we could have broken 70 (points). We were so close. That was a goal of ours.”
Deanna Stellato and Nathan Bartholomay earned a season’s best 61.48 points, but finished 17th and did not qualify for the free skate. The pair skated third in the short program. The top-16 teams from the short program qualify to skate in the free skate.
“We feel great. That’s the bottom line,” Bartholomay said. “We got a season’s best. We missed a couple levels but yesterday we just had the worst luck. [Being in the first group], there are so many good teams skating after it and we were pretty dejected from that yesterday. So to bounce back and have a clean warm up and a clean practice and a season’s best, we’re over the moon.”
Germany's Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot lead after the pairs short program, with Russia's Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov in second and Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres of France in third.
On Thursday, the men’s short program begins the day and is followed by the pairs free skate. Full results for the event can be found here.
