Last January I was fortunate enough to be in San Jose taking photos for Outword Newsmagazine at the Prudential U.S. National Figure Skating Championships men’s competition.
By the end of this competition, the organization had chosen three men to represent the U.S. at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. It was an exciting time!
Adam Rippon is the only openly gay male skating at this level. He’s 28, at the top of his game, and despite his fourth-place finish, managed win one of the berths based on his excellent international record. For more photos, check out my blog at Rippon
At the conclusion of the short program, Adam had placed second to Chen, narrowly edging out Jason Brown. All three skaters put on great shows, and the crowd was electrified. The long program was more problematic for Rippon and Brown, who ended up losing his possible seat to Vincent Zhou.
Here are some images of the top three men from the Short Program, as well as some shots of Jimmy Ma, who gained a ton of social media presence for his hip hop routine. I’ve also included a couple of the dance qualifiers, the”Shib Sibs,” Maia and Alex Shibutani, as well as several of the pairs team of Christopher and Alexa Scimeca Knerim. Due to the nature of my media credential, these editorial images are only available for purchase as such on my Chris Allan Shutterstock Portfolio.