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Sports

Young Skaters Shine at National Championships

Palo Altan VIncent Zhou, 11, brought home a remarkable first-place win at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose.

Forget green tech and Stanford—the next big thing from Palo Alto may well be a champion figure skater. Vincent Zhou, the youngest skater in the 250-person competition at the age of 11, took home first place at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose.  finished placed 12th.

The two competed in the novice men's division of the competition, and both skaters finished with personal best scores, receiving standing ovations from their hometown crowd.

Zhou skated two perfect programs—a shorter, military-inspired routine on Sunday and a longer, martial arts-filled program on Monday.

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"The main factor to my doing well here is Tammy," Zhou said, looking at coach Tammy Gambill. "Tammy and I are a perfect match."

Gambill, who coaches many of the nations top skaters, had nothing but good things to say about her 4-foot-8 powerhouse and sees great potential for him in the future.

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"It's hard holding this little guy back," Gambill said.

Zhou was the youngest among 250 skaters competing in the 12 divisions at U.S. Championships.

Ji, the junior who had just finished taking his first-semester finals, was a bit shaky on Sunday in the short program, but redeemed himself with a strong long program. 

Ji used this competition as a learning experience.

“My [goal was] to just have fun,” Ji said in an earlier interview. “I mean, how many people can actually say they skated at Nationals?”

Ji will remain in the novice level next year so he can hopefully return to the championships next year with a more developed repertoire of jumps and a better chance of placing.

"It's a marathon sport," Ji's coach, Jeff Crandall, said.

In the novice ladies division, another local skater, Fremont’s Karen Chen came out on top.

“I feel very happy that my points were higher than last time and I know I’ve improved from my last competition,” Chen said of her gold-medal winning performance. “I’m very happy thinking of that.”

The competition, held at HP Pavilion in San Jose, runs until Jan. 29. Full results and a schedule of the upcoming events can be found here

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