Amber Glenn triumphed over neck discomfort to outperform her fellow U.S. world champion, Alysa Liu, securing the figure skating Cup of China title for the second consecutive year in Chongqing on Saturday. The U.S. national champion, Glenn, visibly held her neck post her free skate routine, overcoming a shaky triple toeloop landing early on. Initially placing third after Friday’s short program, Glenn had to await Liu and Japan’s Rinka Watanabe’s performances to determine her final position.
Liu slipped to second place with a total score of 212.07 points, while Glenn clinched the top spot with 214.78 points after Liu stumbled on a triple flip. Watanabe managed to hold onto the podium, securing third place despite delivering the fifth-best score in the free skate segment.
Expressing her elation, Glenn described her feelings as “incredible” and expressed excitement for both herself and her teammate’s podium success. Although Liu, a two-time world championship medalist, had never previously stood on a Grand Prix event podium until now.
In the men’s event, Japan’s Shun Sato defended his Cup of China title for the second year in a row, executing three quadruple jumps flawlessly in his free skate, accumulating a total of 278.12 points. Sato maintained the lead over Italy’s Daniel Grassl, who scored 269.43, and Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov, who fell on his final jump and finished with 262.67 points.
World champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates secured their maiden Cup of China title after six attempts in ice dance, scoring a total of 208.25 points to outshine their U.S. counterparts Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik, who scored 202.27. The third spot went to France’s Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud with a total score of 196.60.
Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava claimed the pairs gold with a score of 217.24, followed by Italy’s Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii in second place and China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, the 2022 Olympic champions who recently returned from retirement, in third place.
The Cup of China marks the second event of the six-part Grand Prix series leading up to the final in December, serving as a critical evaluation for skaters eyeing success at the upcoming Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in February. The next stop for the ISU Grand Prix series will be in Saskatoon for the Skate Canada International starting on October 31.