Armin Mahbanoozadeh Finishes Up With Novice Men's Gold
by Troy Schwindt
 (1/22/07) - The first question from a reporter after Armin Mahbanoozadeh secured the novice men’s title at the State Farm U.S. Championships Monday afternoon had nothing to do with his electric free skate.
But it was a predictable one: “how do you pronounce your last name?”
“It’s Mah-ban-ooz-za-deh,” he said. “It’s pretty phonetic actually.”
In front of an appreciative crowd of 6,808 at Spokane Arena, Mahbanoozadeh put his name on the U.S. Figure Skating map. Performing last in the 12-man field, he reeled off a series of triples en route to the second-best free skate and novice crown. He finished seventh last year at the novice level.
His only miscue occurred near the end of his technically challenging performance to “Symphony No. 5” by Tchaikovsky when he fell attempting a triple toe. Mahbanoozadeh, however, regrouped with a level 4 combination spin to finish strong, scoring 138.77.
Alexander Johnson, 16, of Minnetonka, Minn., also showed dramatic improvement from last year – he placed ninth in the novice class – and earned the silver medal with a score of 135.90. Anchorage, Alaska’s Keegan Messing, who turns 15 on Tuesday, grabbed the bronze with a score of 135.01. He won the free skate thanks to superior technical marks.
Mahbanoozadeh, 15, of Fairfacx, Va., has spent countless hours at the rink to improve since last year.
“I’ve been practicing hard all year,” he said. “I’ve made a lot of my triples consistent, and at sectionals I had a really good skate and posted the highest score in the nation. So, I felt confident going into here.”
Mahbanoozadeh led after the short program and that put his mind more at ease during his free skate, he said.
“The short was probably my biggest hurdle, what I was most nervous about,” he said. “So once I got through that, I knew anything was possible.”
When asked about his fall, Mahbanoozadeh said he knew the moment he took off that landing the triple toe wasn’t in the cards.
“I think I might have been too in the moment to get to really focus on the toe,” he said.
Mahbanoozadeh also had a triple Lutz-triple toe planned as his first element but earned marks for a triple Lutz-double toe.
“The Lutz was a bit shaky on the warm-up so I really went for it in the program. It was sort of shaky on the landing, so I settled for the double toe because I knew I had a whole program left to go and didn’t want to risk it,” he said.
Mahbanoozadeh hopes to land assignments next season on the Junior Grand Prix circuit.
Johnson, skating to “Autumn” from “The Seasons” by Glazunov, took the lead from Messing late in the competition despite having a few miscues along the way.
He put his hand down on his triple toe-double toe-double loop, and instead of landing his last triple Salchow-double toe he did double Salchow-double toe.
“For me that was really good, and it was a personal best so I’m happy,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he worked hard following last year’s U.S. Championships to fine tune his loop, flip and Lutz, and it paid dividends in Spokane.
He said last year’s experience at the U.S. Championships in St. Louis served him well this week.
“I learned how to deal with the pressure there,” Johnson said. “Even though I didn’t place as well as I wanted to last year, I learned how to deal and feel the audience and emote to them, and it was a great experience.”
Messing, skating to the “Pirates of the Caribbean” soundtrack, ignited the crowd early in his performance. He hit a triple Lutz-double toe followed by a triple Axel in which he put his hand on the ice. A level four combination spin followed and Messing cruised from there.
He finished with the best free skate and highest technical marks. But his seventh-place short program finish only allowed him to move up to third.
“I really like that music and it’s easy to perform,” Messing said.
Scott Dyer was fourth in the free skate and fourth overall.
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