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Madison Chock, Evan Bates win sixth U.S. ice dance title, tie record

World champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates won a record-tying sixth U.S. ice dance championship — a decade after their first title.

Chock, 32, and Bates, 35, topped Friday’s rhythm dance and Saturday’s free dance for 223.52 total points.

Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko, silver medalists for a second consecutive year, were 12.73 points back.

Chock and Bates now share the U.S. record for ice dance titles with Meryl Davis and Charlie White, the only American couple to win Olympic gold (2014).

U.S. CHAMPIONSHIPS: Results | Broadcast Schedule

"(Davis and White) really knocked the doors down and set the path for us as the next generation, to show us what’s possible,” Bates said. “We were able to train alongside them. I was able to live with Charlie for a couple years in college. They were the ones who showed us what it takes to become the best team in the world, how hard they trained on the ice, how dedicated they were off the ice, how graceful they were.”

Chock and Bates made their Olympic debut as a couple in 2014 and have placed eighth, ninth and fourth at the Winter Games, plus won team event gold in 2022.

All of the 2022 Olympic ice dance medalist couples have since stopped competing.

Chock and Bates ascended to become the oldest world champions in ice dance in 2023, then repeated in 2024. At this March’s worlds in Boston, they can become the first couple to win three consecutive world titles in 28 years.

Chock and Bates are joined on the world team by Carreira and Ponomarenko, who were 10th and seventh at the last two worlds, and Caroline Green and Michael Parsons, who edged Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik for third place at nationals by 1.2 points. Green and Parsons were sixth at the 2023 Worlds.

Later Saturday, Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov won their first U.S. pairs’ title, overtaking defending champions Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea, who led after the short and ended up third. Katie McBeath and Daniil Parkman were runners-up.

“I feel I just gave everything on the ice,” Efimova said on NBC Sports. “I had no emotions left, but then I realized I still had some emotions left, and they all went into this little scream in my hands.”

Efimova, 25, and Mitrofanov, 27, are very likely heading to their first world championships as a pair, but Efimova still needs to get citizenship for the team to become Olympic eligible.

She previously competed for her native Finland in singles, then pairs for Russia and Germany before uniting with Mitrofanov two years ago.

Kam and O’Shea had two falls in their fifth-place free skate — one by Kam on a jump and then both of them on their final lift.

They could still make the two-pair team for worlds based on their body of work. This past fall, they became the fourth different U.S. pair to qualify for the Grand Prix Final in the last 15 editions. The Grand Prix Final takes the world’s top six pairs from the Grand Prix Series.

The Prevagen U.S. Championships conclude Sunday with the men’s free skate (4 p.m. ET, NBC and Peacock).

Madison Chock and Evan Bates, ice dance partners for 12 years and three Olympics, can win a first global title at the world figure skating championships.