READING, Pennsylvania, 26 October 2003 — Michael Weiss wasn’t perfect, but he was good enough on Friday to capture the men’s title at Skate America, the first event in the International Skating Union’s figure skating Grand Prix.
Weiss said he tailored his new free skate, which is skated to a medley of patriotic music, to the new judging system, including adding more transitions between elements. The system played a part in how he adapted his program during his skate.
Weiss earned a score of 133.09 for the free skate with a technical score of 55.69 and a program component score of 77.40. His cumulative score for the competition was 206.94.
Takeshi Honda of Japan pulled up from fourth place to win the silver with his free skate to the Warsaw Concerto by Addinsel. He won the free skate with a score of 136.62 giving him a cumulative score of 199.27.
Zhang Min of China held on to win the bronze medal. Sasha Cohen, who says she wants to have fun on the ice this season, was able to enjoy the outcome as well Friday as her short program to Malaguena put her in first place in the ladies’ competition.
Her routine earned her a total score of 66.46 with a technical score of 33.50 and a combined factored program component score of 33.96.
American coach Richard Callaghan ended up with two ladies in the top three with Shizuka Arakawa of Japan in second place and Jennifer Kirk of the United States third.
Skating to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg by Legrand, Arakawa earned a total score of 59.02.
Americans Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto grabbed the lead in ice dance with their jitterbug blues original dance.
They received a technical score of 20.30 for the program and a combined factored component score of 40.97 for a total of 61.27 for the original dance. Their cumulative score to this point is 101.29. France’s Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder were first in the original dance over Belbin and Agosto and moved into second place overall with cumulative score of 98.82.
Defending champions Elena Grushina and Ruslan Goncharov of Russia fell to third after Grushina stumbled and put her hand down during their midline step sequence.
