South Jersey figure skater and U.S. champion Isabeau Levito aims to defend her title this week in Ohio

U.S. champion Isabeau Levito is back on national ice this week in Columbus, Ohio, to defend her title at the 2024 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

Levito, 16, who is from Mount Holly and trains in Mount Laurel, has an excellent chance to succeed.

She is ranked third in the world by the International Skating Union, which determines placements based on Worlds and Olympics results, the Grand Prix Final, and other international competitions for the last three years.

But she also has had ups and downs this season. In October, she earned the silver medal at Skate America, a Grand Prix event in Allen, Texas.

» READ MORE: South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito lands just off the podium, finishes fourth at World Figure Skating Championships

She followed that up in November by winning the Grand Prix de France in Angers, becoming the first American woman to win a Grand Prix competition in seven years. It also was her first major senior international win. She won the World Junior Figure Skating Championships in 2022.

In December, though, at the Grand Prix Final in Beijing, Levito had a rough short program. She doubled a lutz when a triple was required. That was considered a missed element and she received a zero for it. Both of her other jumping passes were rocky, landing her in sixth, or last, place at the end of the day. She pulled it together, though, placing third in the long program. But it wasn’t enough, and she wound up in fifth place overall.

Levito, who had won the silver medal at that event last year and placed fourth at the 2023 World Figure Skating Championships, had been so consistent for so long. Now, she seemed vulnerable.

Still, out of a field of 18 women at Nationals this week, Levito has only two likely rivals for the title, both of whom she knows well.

Amber Glenn, who, at 24, is the second-oldest competitor in the event, also has an excellent chance of winning. Glenn, from Plano, Texas, is strong and fast while Levito is delicate and balletic. At Skate America, Glenn became the sixth U.S. woman to land a triple axel in international competition, and more recent videos have shown that jump looking solid. But Glenn, who placed third last year at the U.S. championships, often struggles to complete two clean programs.

» READ MORE: South Jersey teenager Isabeau Levito is already a U.S. figure skating champion. Next up, the world?

Levito’s other big competitor is Lindsay Thorngren, 18, from Montclair, N.J. Levito and Thorngren have competed against each other for their entire skating careers. Levito has had a comfortable lead in this rivalry lately, but that may be changing. Thorngren, a graceful and technically precise skater, won a Grand Prix medal of her own this season, the silver in November at the NHK Trophy in Japan. (Levito did not compete there.)

Glenn is ranked 16th and Thorngren 18th in the ISU world rankings.

Levito will skate 18th, or last, in the short program, so she will know how Thorngren (who skates 16th) and Glenn (skating 17th) have done. The long program order will be determined by the results of the short program, but Levito most likely will skate near the end of that event, too.

Bradie Tennell, an Olympian and two-time U.S. champion, was considered a contender for the title earlier this season. But a broken ankle in November ended her season.

Ava Marie Ziegler started the season strong and won the NHK Trophy. But she withdrew from the U.S. Championship to focus on preparation for the Four Continents championship, which is Jan. 30-Feb. 4 in Shanghai. Fans were surprised this was an acceptable move.

So what does Levito have to do to retain her title? She needs to skate cleanly. This means not only attempting and landing all of her jumps but taking off from the correct edge and completing full rotations.

Both are common mistakes, but especially the edge call. Skaters call it a “flutz” when one intends to jump a lutz but just before takeoff leans on the inside rather than outside edge. So it is a combination of a lutz (outside edge) and a flip (inside edge) and is given a lower grade of execution and, therefore, fewer points than the skater hoped for.

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As for rotations, a “cheated” jump means the blade lands at least a quarter turn short of rotation. That also results in a deduction, or sometimes even a downgrade, meaning an intended triple jump is called a double. When you see snow kicked up at the end of a jump, that often is an indicator that a jump is under-rotated. But sometimes it can only be seen on playback, and the judges can review jumps.

Aesthetics also are considered. Some object to Levito’s jump technique, particularly the way she leans over going into toe jumps. But it seems to bother fans more than judges.

Few disagree that Levito’s spins and footwork are beautiful and difficult. She uncharacteristically fell out of a spin at the Grand Prix de France but most likely lost focus at the end of her program.

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That said, if Glenn lands her triple axel and skates two clean programs, she likely will have enough to win.

U.S. Figure Skating has a lot of leeway in which skaters it sends to Worlds. As a consistent international competitor, Levito most likely will be named to the two-woman team going to the World Figure Skating Championships March 24-28 in Montreal, whether or not she wins Nationals.

Four of the 18 competitors in Columbus also are too young to make the Worlds team, which requires skaters to have turned 16 by July 1, 2023. The minimum age was raised several times following the doping scandal involving Russian skater Kamila Valieva at the 2022 Winter Olympics. (That case is pending, but the International Court of Arbitration for Sport said it expects the case to be resolved by the end of January.) The minimum age limit will raise one final time, to 17, in 2025.

The U.S. championships also will crown winners in men’s, pairs, and ice dance.

In men’s, 2022 champion Ilia Malinin likely is unbeatable. He is the only skater in the world to complete a quadruple axel, and he has done it in both the short and long program. Two-time Olympian Jason Brown will be back and is a strong contender for silver.

The pairs competition is more up in the air. The 2023 champions, Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier, have unofficially retired. Silver medalists Emily Chan and Spencer Howe were the next likely champions but have dealt with injuries this season. They are expected to compete.

In ice dance, Madison Chock and Evan Bates likely are unbeatable. The 2023 world champions, 2023-24 Grand Prix Final champions, and four-time U.S. champions competed in three Olympics together, and Bates competed in a fourth with a previous partner. The other two medalists likely will be Caroline Green and Michael Parsons and Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko. Olympians Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker were expected to return following injuries, but they recently announced they would not be back this season.

Championship women’s short program: 8-10 p.m. Thursday on USA Network or 7:15-10 p.m. on Peacock.

Championship women’s free skate: 8-11 p.m. Friday on NBC or 7:45-11 p.m. on Peacock.