The 2002

Skate America Skate America is an international, senior-level figure skating competition held as part of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series. It is hosted by U.S. Figure Skating. The location changes yearly. Medals are awarded in four disciplines: men ...

was the first event of six in the 2002–03 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating, a senior-level international invitational competition series. It was held at the

Spokane Arena Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena (Spokane Arena) is a multi-purpose arena in the northwestern United States, located in Spokane, Washington. Opened in 1995, it is home to the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League. Facility Construction W ...

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Cana ...

on October 23–27. Medals were awarded in the disciplines of men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and

ice dancing Ice dance (sometimes referred to as ice dancing) is a discipline of figure skating that historically draws from ballroom dancing. It joined the World Figure Skating Championships in 1952, and became a Winter Olympic Games medal sport in 1976. A ...

. Skaters earned points toward qualifying for the 2002–03 Grand Prix Final. The

compulsory dance The compulsory dance (CD), now called the pattern dance, is a part of the figure skating segment of ice dance competitions in which all the competing couples perform the same standardized steps and holds to the music of a specified tempo and gen ...

was the Austrian Waltz.

Results

Men

Reigning Olympic champion Alexei Yagudin withdrew with injury after the short program in what became the final competition of his amateur career. Brian Joubert went on to win the event for his first international title.

Ladies

Yukari Nakano is a Japanese former competitive figure skater. She is the 2006 Four Continents silver medalist, the 2003 Four Continents bronze medalist, the 2005–06 Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, the 2007 Asian Winter Games champion, and a three-time ...

and Ludmila Nelidina both landed a triple Axel in their free skating, together becoming the first female skaters to perform the jump in international competition since

Midori Ito is a Japanese former figure skater. She is the 1989 World champion and the 1992 Olympic silver medalist. She is the first woman to land a triple-triple jump combination and a triple Axel in competition. At the 1988 Calgary Olympics, she bec ...

landed it at the

1992 Winter Olympics ) , nations = 64 , athletes = 1,801 (1313 men, 488 women) , events = 57 in 6 sports (12 disciplines) , opening = 8 February 1992 , closing = 23 February 1992 , opened_by = President François Mitterrand , cauldron ...

. Nakano landed it first and Nelidina, who skated after her, also performed it successfully.

Pairs

Ice dancing

References

External links

2002 Smart Ones Skate America
{{2002–03 in figure skating Skate America, 2002 Skate America