The Pairs
There was barely a murmur about which pairs teams were not in Montpellier, but there were endless discussions about who was, and which teams could be in the running to claim a step on the podium.
That any one of a handful of teams could claim the title, most certainly added to the excitement of this competition.
Two U.S. duos, Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier and Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc, and Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara were at the top of most people’s lists.
Knierim and Frazier, skating 11th in a field of 14 in the short program, were on top of their game performing to “The House of the Rising Sun” by Heavy Young Heathens.
The California-based team opened with a Level 3 triple twist, side-by-side triple toes and a throw triple flip. As at the Games a month earlier, they earned Level 4s for the death spiral, side-by-side spin, step sequence and the lift.
Knierim and Frazier were rewarded with higher technical and program component marks than what was
