Rockne brubaker amanda evora biography

Thursday, January 26th – HP Pavilion – San Jose, Calif.

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How to Follow the 2012 U.S. Championships

11:07 p.m. – Ladies and Pairs Highlight the First Day of Senior Competition

Agnes Zawadzki brought the fans at HP Pavilion to their feet with a first-place short program performance which earned 66.24 points at the 2012 Prudential U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Zawadzki earned 9.80 points for the triple toe-triple toe that opened her skate and received positive grades of execution throughout. Alissa Czisny, the 2011 U.S. champion, finished second with a score of 63.14 with Ashley Wagner, Caroline Zhang and Mirai Nagasu close behind. The ladies will perform their free skate on Saturday at 4 p.m. PT.

In the senior pairs competition, Mary Beth Marley & Rockne Brubaker earned the top spot following the short program. Marley and Brubaker, competing in their second U.S. championships together, earned 65.80 points to lead reigning silver medalists Amanda Evora & Mark Ladwig and Caydee Denney & John Coughlin heading into the free skate on Sunday.

On Friday at the 2012 U.S. Championships, reigning U.S. and World champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White and Maia and Alex Shibutani highlight a strong field of ice dance competitors who will perform their short dance at beginning at 2:30 p.m. PT. At night, Jeremy Abbott, Richard Dornbush and Adam Rippon highlight a strong field of men who will take to the ice in their short program beginning at 7 p.m. PT.

For full event coverage, including results and staring orders, stories, photo galleries and more, please visit icenetwork.com.

1:38 p.m. – Junior ladies quotes

The performances of both Ashley Cain and Gracie Gold made the 2012 junior ladies a competition to remember. Click

Grim body language and a dour face made it impossible for Mark Ladwig to mask his disappointment Saturday after he and partner Amanda Evora finished fifth in the pairs final of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at the Xcel Energy Center.

Vying for their first national medal and a spot on the world team, the veteran tandem endured a rough long program that left them pondering what might have been.

Early in the program, Evora slipped landing a split triple twist, and Ladwig went down with her, which was their costliest mistake.

Ladwig, who is from Moorhead, Minn., and who trains with Evora outside Tampa, Fla., said the free skate normally is their stronger of the two disciplines and that he took responsibility for disrupting the performance.

“The gloves were off, and I went for it. I just didn’t get all the punches I wanted,” he said. “I just caught an edge when I stepped forward and stumbled. Amanda tried holding me up, but …”

The pair entered the finals in fourth place, less than two points from a medal position, and finished with 158.94 points. Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker won gold.

Evora and Ladwig were named second alternates to the world team behind silver medalists Rena Inoue and John Baldwin and bronze winners Brooke Castile and Ben Okolski.

“We have to keep positive,” Evora said. “Every time you’re out there it’s another experience. It’s not about the competition as much as it is the journey.”

An offer he couldn’t refuse: Ryan Bradley, defending national senior men’s silver medalist, is more Heartland than Hollywood, though his skating is scripted to the cinema.

His free program tonight is choreographed to “Charlie Chaplin,” a tribute to the brilliant and troubled silent-film icon. In his short program Friday, Bradley portrayed Michael Corleone while skating to the theme from “The Godfather.”

“The whole focus on

SPOKANE, Wash. - A few months back, Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett were doing a simulated competition with training partners Amanda Evora and Mark Ladwig and the other pairs teams in their rink, the Ellenton Ice and Sports Complex in Manatee County.

"There was just one moment when they were on ice and I thought, 'You know, if we keep this up, we could get two Florida teams at the Olympics,'" Evora said Saturday. "And here we are now."

On their way to Vancouver.

Florida natives Denney and Barrett continued their meteoric rise, winning the U.S. title 18 months after they began skating together with a high-energy, action-packed Sheherazade program that overwhelmed the competition. Evora, a USF student, and Ladwig weren't as impressive but were solid enough to finish second overall and claim the other Olympic spot when the U.S. Figure Skating Association announced its picks afterward.

When Denney, born in Ocala and living in Wesley Chapel, and Barrett, born in Sarasota and living in Venice, finished, she crossed herself and punched the air, smiling broadly. Coach Jim Peterson, overcome with emotion, buried his head in fellow coach Alison Smith's shoulder. "Our free skate (Saturday) was one of the best programs we've ever done," Denney said. "It was just so much fun, and I will remember that forever."

Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker won't forget this day for a long time, either, but for different reasons. The former prodigies, considered a lock for Vancouver after winning the national title in 2008 and '09, produced perhaps the biggest surprise at nationals, taking themselves out of contention with another flawed performance. They finished fifth. "It's like a sucker punch in the stomach," McLaughlin said of their skating.

Denney, 16, and Barrett, 25, skated together briefly in the summer of 2006 before Denney moved to Colorado with her mom and sister. But they missed Denney's father, who had stayed in Flori

SPOKANE, Wash. -- So how would you pick an Olympic team?

Would you pick the athletes who performed best for their country over the past couple of years, whose track record indicates they're the best in the nation? Or do you pick the athletes who perform the best on a particular weekend?

That's the choice figure skating's Olympic selection committee faced Saturday when picking the two pairs squads for Vancouver. Other sports, such as swimming and track, pick the team based solely on performances at the Olympic trials. Perform under-par there, and it doesn't matter what you've accomplished in the past, you'll spend the Olympics at home. Figure skating, however, bases its Olympic team on how skaters perform at the U.S. championships along with how they've done at major events over the past year.

So more than an hour after the U.S. national pairs competition ended Saturday, four couples were still anxiously waiting to see which two would go to Vancouver. In the end, the committee chose Florida skaters Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett, who easily won Saturday's championship with an electrifying performance, along with their rinkmates, Amanda Evora and Mark Ladwig, who finished second just ahead of veterans Rena Inoue and John Baldwin.

It didn't figure to be this way. Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker entered this weekend as the two-time reigning U.S. champions and also won the U.S. juniors championship and junior worlds three years ago. They were the heavy favorites to win and go to Vancouver. But they skated poorly under pressure in both the short and long programs, finishing a distant fifth. McLaughlin said not winning felt "like getting sucker-punched in the stomach."

"I think they know that we're one of the most competitive pairs