Emily Hughes second at North Atlantics, continues on road to Nationals

October 20, 9:08 PMFigure Skating ExaminerJackie Wong

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Emily Hughes
Photo: David W. Carmichael

While the Grand Prix series began with a bang last week, smaller competitions were happening around the United States with skaters who are looking to qualify for the U.S. Nationals in January. One of the skaters going through the qualification process is 2007 U.S. silver medalist Emily Hughes, who missed most of last season due to injury.

Hughes competed at the North Atlantic Regional Championships, winning the short program and finishing second in the free skate. She narrowly missed the gold medal by 0.07 to Samantha Cesario, who was sixth last year at Nationals in the junior event. 

Her performances were a bit of a mixed bag – having her triple flip being downgraded in both programs, but also being credited with her triple lutz in the short and three clean triples in the free skate. Her Program Component Scores (PCS), averaging in the upper 5s and low 6s, were not up to usual Emily Hughes standards. 

Her score of 52.12 in the short is good, especially considering that her flip was downgraded. But her score of 87.19 in the free skate leaves a lot of room for improvement. She will need to be scoring in the 100s to 110s in the free skate to be competitive with the top ladies at Nationals. But this is her first competition back from an ankle injury last season and it is a promising start. 

Hughes will be looking to improve on both the rotation of her more difficult jumps and her PCS at her next event toward Nationals, the Eastern Sectional Championships in November.