Chock and Bates of US win ice dance gold at Skate America
By DAVE SKRETTA
AP Sports Writer
Madison Chock and Evan Bates scored 202.80 points on Sunday to hold off Kaitlin Hawayak and Jean-Luc Baker and win the ice dance event at Skate America. Hawayak and Baker finished with 202.07 points, while the Canadian duo of Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain le Gac were a distant third with 178.30 points in the opening event of the Grand Prix season. In the women’s event, world champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan performed brilliantly to hold off 15-year-old American star Isabeau Levito, who made a sublime Grand Prix debut to finish second. Amber Glenn of the U.S. was third.