Las Vegas, USA

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American teenager Nathan Chen took the gold medal with a total of 299.09 points © International Skating Union

World Champion Nathan Chen (USA) scored a runaway victory on home ice, striking gold at Skate America with 45 points to spare as Skate America continued Saturday in Las Vegas. USA teammate Jason Brown moved up from fourth to earn the silver medal and the bronze went to Russia’s Dmitri Aliev.

Performing to Elton John’s ‘Rocketman”, Chen reeled off a quad flip, quad toe-Euler-double flip, quad Salchow as well as four triple jumps. He only popped another quad toe into a double. The two-time and reigning World Champion scored 196.38 points which added up to 299.09 points overall.

“I’m pretty happy with the performance today. This is the first Grand Prix of the season, the first real competition since the Worlds, so it’s nice to be able to put out both programs. I’m pretty happy with the score, but there are a lot of things to improve on. Overall it’s a good starting point,” Chen said.

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Jason Brown shone in the Free Skating to climb from fourth to second © International Skating Union

Brown’s emotional performance to ‘Schindler’s List’ featured a triple Axel-double toe, another triple Axel as well as five more clean triple jumps and exquisite spins. The American earned 171.64 points for his Free Skating and totaled 255.09 points.

“I’m super happy with the fight. I fought through bits and pieces of it, but I really felt happy that I was able to move past the mistakes from the short to make up for them in the long. It was great to debut both my programs here,” Brown said.

Aliev produced a quad toe-triple toe combination, another quad toe and five triple jumps in his program to ‘The Sound of Silence’. However, he singled the Axel and doubled a Lutz. The 2018 European silver medalist picked up 156.98 points and slipped from second to third on 253.55 points overall.

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Russia’s Dmitri Aliev skated to The Sound of Silence and took bronze © International Skating Union

“This is my first senior Grand Prix medal and obviously I am very pleased about it. This is a big medal for me and one of the most important ones in my life after the tough season I had last year,” the 20-year-old said.

Keegan Messing (CAN) dropped from third to fourth on 239.34 points and Kazuki Tomono (JPN) moved up from eighth to fifth (229.72 points).

For full entry lists and further information regarding the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series please visit: https://isu.org/GrandPrix. Follow the discussion on social media by using #FigureSkating #GPFigure.

Where to watch and follow the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating 2019?

Viewers will be able to watch the Series either via their national broadcaster / channel and for countries where there are no broadcasters, the ISU will offer a live stream on the Skating ISU YouTube Channel as of season 2019/20. You will find the full list in the Where to watch news here.

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