Jason Brown reacts after his free skate at the 2018 Prudential U.S. Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center on Jan. 6, 2018 in San Jose, Calif.
Olympic figure skater Jason Brown was just out of podium position after the short program at the Four Continents Championships on Thursday, but an impassioned free skate earned a score big enough to claim the bronze medal in Taipei City on Saturday.
Going back to “The Scent of Love” from “The Piano” rather than “Inner Love” by Maxime Rodriguez, to which he performed his free skate most of this season, Brown executed his triples cleanly, including a triple Axel-triple toe, and showcased his trademark artistry with his spins and footwork to score a season’s-best 179.44 points. The bronze is his first ISU Championships medal.
China’s Jin Boyang, who withdrew from the Grand Prix Final and opened the door for Brown to compete, threw quad after quad to win gold in his Olympic warm-up while Shoma Uno of Japan won silver. Fellow American Max Aaron was just off the podium in fourth.
Brown, the 2015 national champion who won a team bronze medal at the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014, finished sixth at this year’s national championships and was named an alternate to the 2018 Olympic team.
“Nothing was easy about this year. I felt that I was chasing something — in this case it was kind of chasing the quad. That wasn’t who I am," Brown told the ISU. "I think by the end of the season I was done running, I was done chasing after that and I wanted to come to this event and strip out of that shell and be me, and be proud of what I am. This is what I did at this event. I was owning who I was and performing my heart out and trying to be the best version of myself that I possibly could be.”
The men’s competition wrapped up the annual event, which includes skaters from the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. With no 2018 U.S. Olympic Team members competing, Americans Tarah Kayne and Danny O’Shea won the pairs competition while Ashley Cain and Timothy Leduc were second on Friday. Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker took gold in ice dance the day before.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
