Mariah Bell Wins U.S. Figure Skating Title and a Spot in Beijing

NASHVILLE — Mariah Bell, a newly minted national champion, needed a reminder that she had been around figure skating for a long time, somehow, someway outlasting battalions of teenagers in a sport that skews so young.

“Have I been a senior for nine years?” she asked a room of reporters late Friday night, looking incredulous and referring to the senior level of skating, which is the top level of the sport.

A sea of heads nodded back at her.

After years of surviving in a demanding sport with her mental and physical toughness, and after years of watching other top skaters come and go, Bell, 25, won her first U.S. national championship on Friday, becoming the oldest female national singles champion in 95 years.

Her victory solidified her spot on the U.S. team for the Winter Olympics next month in Beijing, where the Russian women will be heavy favorites in singles and could perhaps sweep the medals. Bell will be the oldest American woman to compete in Olympic singles skating since 1928.

U.S. Figure Skating named Bell, Karen Chen and Alysa Liu to the Olympic team on Saturday after considering their body of work over the past year or so. Chen, a 2018 Olympian, finished second to Bell on Friday. Liu, a two-time national champion and the top-ranked American skater this fall, withdrew from nationals on Friday after testing positive for the coronavirus.

With an Olympic berth finally in hand, and after a stressful and chaotic week, Bell savored her victory and exhaled long and hard.

The top American skaters have been on edge at nationals, and not only because Olympic berths are at stake. They have been practicing and competing in Nashville as the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus has swept around the world just weeks before the Beijing Games.

Competitors are aware that testing positive for the virus could keep them out of the Olympics and ruin their lifelong dream.

At least six skaters tested positive this week and withdrew from nationals, including Liu, who was considered a favorite to make the Olympic team because of her strong showing this past season on the international circuit. Liu, 16, won her first senior national championship at 13 in 2019, and she won again in 2020. (Bradie Tennell, the winner in 2018 and 2021, withdrew from this year’s competition with a foot injury.)

Amber Glenn, who was among the top skaters being considered for the Olympic team, also tested positive on Friday, the day of the free skate. On social media, she said she had felt ill for a few days but had thought it was just nerves, or maybe allergies.

On Wednesday, Brandon Frazier, who skates with Alexa Knierim in pairs, tested positive after waking up with symptoms. Frazier and Knierim are the top-ranked pairs team in the United States.

And on Saturday morning, three more competitors at nationals — one men’s singles skater and an ice dancing team — tested positive, but none were realistically in contention for the Olympic team.

Fortunately for those skaters who had to withdraw from this last big competition before Beijing, the national championship is not an Olympic trial event, as it is in some other sports, where the top finishers earn automatic berths on the U.S. Olympic team.

That distinction helped Liu, who watched Friday’s free skate from her hotel room while in isolation, and could also save the Olympic dreams of Frazier and Knierim. The championship skates for pairs, ice dancing and men’s singles were scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.

It remains unclear, though, how long it will take potential Olympians battling the virus to feel better or to begin testing negative, only adding to their stress.

Many competitors are planning to leave for China in just over two weeks, and they must follow strict rules, including testing negative for the virus, to be allowed into the country. In some cases, people who have contracted the virus have continued to test positive for weeks.

After being named to the team on Saturday, Liu appeared on the big screen at Bridgestone Arena and waved to the cheering fans. On social media on Friday, she said she was feeling good mentally and physically. Earlier in the week, Frazier said he was feeling awful, with severe symptoms.

The positive tests shook the top female skaters. Chen, the 2017 national champion and 2018 Olympian from Fremont, Calif., said she had to take a moment to address her worries after realizing that Liu, who was scheduled to skate in the final group with her on Friday, wasn’t at the rink.

“The news was very, very shocking, and it’s super unfortunate to hear,” said Chen, who has placed fourth at two world championships. “I gave myself like 10 minutes to just full-on freak out about it. I told myself, OK, you can think about this for 10 minutes, and after that, you’ve got to focus on your skating.”

The technique worked.

Chen, 22, skated with the flair and confidence of an Olympic veteran on Friday. Winning the silver medal at nationals was a thrill, she said, laughing, because she had won a gold at nationals once before and had also won the bronze three times. The silver medal was the only medal she was missing. Now she has a complete set.

But the level of skating Chen and Bell showed on Friday fell short of the standard set by the world’s best female skaters, from countries like Russia, Japan and South Korea, evidence that their medal hopes in Beijing will be slim.

Neither American skater performed a quadruple jump or a triple axel, which were unthinkable combinations of elements even four years ago but have since become almost necessary to win on the world stage. And neither skater, in her free skate, even executed a triple-triple jump combination, a foundation for medal contenders at international events, though each did one of those triple-triples in the short program.

Isabeau Levito, from Mount Holly, N.J., did land a triple-triple in the free skate on her way to finishing third with a performance that received a standing ovation. Yet it didn’t help her chances of making the Olympic team. At 14, Levito does not meet the age requirements to compete in a Winter Games, but she didn’t seem down about it.

Performing so well at nationals, she said, made her feel a “great sense of light, warmth and happiness to see that people like what I’m doing.”

Bell, who is from Westminster, Colo., can remember the days when she was a young teenager. Several times, she wanted to quit the sport.

Once, she recalled, her parents had bought her a package of skating lessons, and she told them that she didn’t want to take lessons anymore. Her parents said, “That’s fine.” They never pushed her into the sport, and that actually nurtured her love for it, she said.

On Friday, that love for skating permeated Bell’s performance. During her elegant and ethereal free skate to K.D. Lang’s version of “Hallelujah,” she smiled and glowed, making even the most challenging elements seem simple. In her sparkly burgundy dress, she looked like a prima ballerina spinning and floating above the ice, landing six triple jumps softly, as if she were weightless.

Later, Bell acknowledged that she was indeed “ancient” by the standards of women’s figure skating. But the important thing, she said, is that she doesn’t feel old. Why should there be an expiration date for skaters if they are still having fun?

“I want it to be a known fact that skating doesn’t end at a certain age,” she said.