USA’s Madison Chock and Evan Bates were off to a strong start in their moving routine to “Imagine” which was highlighted by level 4 twizzles and lifts, however, both ice dancers when down on the entrance to their combination spin after their blades caught.
“No, not today,” said Chock when asked if her foot injury may have been a factor. “My foot’s been hurting, but I knew I’d be able to skate through it. The adrenaline would take me through. It would be fine.”
“It happened so quickly, honestly,” said Bates. “I don’t exactly know what happened. One second, we were skating fluidly and really well, and the next second, in a flash, I was scrambling to get to my feet. Those things can happen. Obviously, we wish we would have skated better. We were capable of doing so much more, but these things just happen sometimes.”
This fall resulted in zero points for the element as well as two-point deduction. They slipped from seventh to ninth overall (175.58).
“We were so close,” said Chock. “As soon as that happened, we knew there was no way. It was pretty hard, right away, to keep going. We owed it to ourselves and our choreographers and our team to keep going and put out the rest of the performance.”
“We’re pretty disappointed,” added Bates. “We know how critical it is to be mistake-free. It took us by surprise. It was really unfortunate.”
“I knew it was over,” said Chock. “I knew there was no shot. After working so hard all this season and going through so much and trying to stay healthy and then just losing it at a crucial moment, it was really, really heartbreaking.”
The team plans to re-collect themselves and continue to train for the upcoming World Championships next month.
:hap57: :gclap:
