Jade Hom & Franz-Peter Jerosh Take the Novice Pairs Title

The team of Jade Hom & Franz-Peter Jerosh won the Novice Pairs gold at the 2018 U.S. Championships. The pair continued their lead in the short program to take the title with a total score of 126.99 points.

Hom & Jerosh skated a beautiful short program to an instrumental version of “The Story of My Life,” showing great speed and flow in their movements. They nailed a solid double twist, throw double loop, and performed nice lifts, all of which gained positive GOEs. The only error of the program was on the side-by-side double Lutz, where Jerosh made a minor error of stepping out of the jump. Hom and Jerosh earned 46.67 points for the segment.

They continued their success into the free skate, where they performed a lovely program to “Pocahontas.” The team’s performance was messier than in the short, popping an intended throw double Axel and struggling with the landing of their side-by-side combination jumps. Nonetheless, their beautifully choreographed performance and strong lifts gave them a winning free skate score of 80.32 points.

Jade Hom is relatively new to pairs skating, and was battling sickness going to the event. It was great to see her overcome these obstacles and win the title. I think this team has huge potential, and I hope to see them prosper in the future.

The sibling team of Joanna Hubbart & William Hubbart pulled up from seventh in the short to win the silver medal. Their free program, skated to “Exogenesis”, featured a solid side-by-side double flip and big throw double loop. The Hubbarts struggled on one lift, which was scored a Level Basic, as well as their side-by-side double Axel sequence. Despite these errors, the team scored the highest technical score of the event with 38.70 points. They finished with a total score of 118.31 points.

While their program was choreographed well and enjoyable to watch, I am not quite sold on them as a team. I think they would have more success in their lifts and twists if they found more suitable partners for each other.

Finishing third was anther sibling duo. Masha Mohkova & Ivan Mokhov finished their free program segment with a score of 72.94 points. It was a rough skate for this team, who received no credit for their death spiral and suffered a fall on the throw double Salchow. The team had a few shining moments in their performance to “Chipolino”, including a massive opening double twist, which earned straight 2s and 3s in GOE. They placed fifth in the segment, which was enough for a total score of 116.64 and kept them in third overall.

Mokhova & Mokhov skate well together as a team, and have massive throws and twists. If they can work on their consistency, I see them as being a strong team in the future. The siblings are the 2017 U.S. Intermediate Pairs Champions.

Eight after short, Elle McClellan & Jim Garbutt skated a decent free program to place fourth overall. They concluded the event with a free skate score of 73.80 points, and a total score of 113.84 points.