By DAVE SKRETTA, AP Sports Writer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Like most young skaters, Brandon Frazier had developed in his mind a carefully crafted image of what it would be like to learn that he has finally made his Olympic dreams come true.

The reality was very different.

There were no kissing family members. No tearful celebration with friends. Only a Facetime call with his couple’s partner, Alexa Knierim, while Frazier waited for negative COVID-19 tests that would finally free him from his hotel quarantine.

“I never imagined it like it really happened last night,” Frazier said on Sunday, four days after his positive test forced the pair to withdraw from the U.S. figure skating championships and apply for a up to the Winter Games.

“But that’s when I knew it meant the absolute world to me,” Frazier said, “because it meant so much to me.”

New American champions Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc will join Knierim and Frazier in Beijing.

Gain-Gribble said she heard the news after she finished “a huge pizza and cookie dough, so I was feeling pretty good.” LeDuc, the first non-binary Olympic athlete, got the call just as he arrived at his family’s Airbnb rental.

As for Frazier, sitting alone in his hotel room?

“I squeezed the shit out of that pillow,” he said with a Cheshire cat-like smile.

The women’s team of US champion Mariah Bell, silver medalist Karen Chen and Alysa Liu was announced on Saturday, while Nathan Chen and Vincent Zhou are expected to lead the three men chosen for Beijing later on Sunday.

There was no drama in the three dance teams chosen for Beijing: Madison Chock and Evan Bates will carry the momentum of a record-breaking national championship victory to their third Olympics; finalists Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue will look to improve on their fourth place finish at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang; and Kaitlin Hawayek and Jen-Luc Baker offer the Americans a third team that could step onto the podium next month.

Their selection for the Olympic team was also confirmed on Sunday, shortly before the men’s free skate at the national championships.

“It’s the honor of a lifetime. It’s the greatest honor we can get in our sport, ”said Bates, who will be making his fourth Olympic trip after going there in 2010 with his former partner Emily Samuelson. “We’re lucky to go back for the third or fourth time, but it never gets old, it’s always special every time.

Unlike their teammates, Hawayek and Baker will experience the Olympics for the first time. It has been a long and difficult road for both men, who both returned from concussions, including Hawayek’s last summer.

“Clearly, I had no idea what the development of the injury would look like as we entered the Olympic season. There was a lot of doubt as to whether we would be able to come back to a place ready for competition, ”she said. “I think we’ve prepared ourselves to continue to grow over the winter. “

The three American teams, friends as well as rivals and training partners, work under the watchful eye of Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon and Romain Haguenauer at the Gadbois Center in Montreal.

The 2018 Olympic silver medalists Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron also train there, the French ice dancers who had the top scorer of the Grand Prix season and probably their biggest competition in Beijing.

The three American teams plan to spend the next three weeks in Montreal, in preparation for the final job for Beijing. But the bigger goal isn’t so much to refine their midstroke sequence, tighten their synchronized twizzles, or work on their lifts. It’s about making sure they stay healthy with the rampant COVID-19.

“We’re in our bubble, doing what we can control, and right now the # 1 concern for all of us over the next 20 days is being healthy,” Hubbell said. “We all have to travel and be on a plane and be around people, and COVID is definitely our # 1 concern. It’s the next thing that can stand in the way of all of our dreams. We’re going to be as diligent as possible to do this. to our best and represent the United States with honor.

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