Getting a skate up

 The newest darlings of United States ice dancing took a big step toward knocking off the king and queen of the American figure skating discipline and securing their first berth to the Olympics.

Meryl Davis and Charlie White remained in first overall in original dance, scoring 68.11 points and boosting their total to 113.53 on Friday at the 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships before a Spokane Arena crowd of 7,898.

Five-time national champs Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto remained in a solid second with 66.89 and 111.91 overall.

Barring major disaster, it appears Michigan natives Davis and White will defend their national title and earn a berth to the Winter Olympics next month in Vancouver.

“We really wanted to go out there and connect with the audience and the judges because that’s what so much of our Indian program is about – that’s part of the draw,” said White of their program to the theme from the “Devdas” soundtrack. “I think we got that part down tonight. The judges were looking at us and the crowd was roaring.”

The final of three dances, the free skate, begins this morning at 11:40. Belbin and Agosto will go first in the final group and Davis and White will be next to last, about 16 minutes after their friendly rivals.

The tug of war for third, and perhaps the final berth on the Olympic team, has gone from four to two teams. Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates, who went into the OD trailing Kimberly Navarro and Brent Bommentre by .24 points, leapfrogged into third with 59.60 points (96.96). Navarro and Bommentre (57.60/95.20) will need one of their best free dance performances to trade spots.

Madison Chock and Greg Zuerlein (54.87/88.99) and the brother-sister team of Madison and Keiffer Hubbell (54.16/88.49) are too far back to challenge for third.

Davis and White, who last month became the first Americans to win the prestigious Grand Prix Final in Tokyo, got the crowd into their dance from the get-go.

As they were executing their second set of twizzles, it appeared Davis had a slight bobble. It didn’t appear to affect their score, though.

“Our elements weren’t the most solid that they’ve ever been nor are they as solid as they will be in the next couple of weeks,” Davis said. “But overall it felt like a really good performance.”

“One slight misstep, but it didn’t really cost us that much,” White said.

They were asked what they thought about leading through two dances.

“It’s a slight confidence boost but nothing we’re really going to think about,” White said. “We know what we have to do in the free dance to stay focused and perform one element at a time to make sure that it’s perfect. That’s really all we’re going to worry about.”

The pair was told about the approach Belbin and Agosto seem to be taking at nationals – that it’s nothing more than a warmup for the Olympics. They were asked if that’s belittling to them.

The question caused White to laugh briefly.

“No, they have a lot of experience, especially at the Olympics,” White said. “For them it might be sort of a gear-up. For us it’s very important to go into the Olympics as the top team. We’re looking at this as real competition. This is by no means practice.”

Belbin and Agosto, the 2006 Olympic silver medalist, skated a Moldavian folk dance. Belbin slipped during warmups doing a twizzle and an Arena worker was called out to patch up the rough area where she fell before the program.

“After the wobbly warmup that I had, it was really nice to be able to do what I know I should be doing,” Belbin said. “I think I was just a little overexcited. This program has a lot of playful interaction with the audience, which I got a little bit carried away with.”

Belbin called nationals their final practice before the Olympics.

“I don’t feel like we’ve come here to prove ourselves …” she said. “We don’t need that to feel confident in what we’re doing because we know what we’re doing is good, is strong and that we will hold our own with the top contenders at the Olympics regardless of the outcome here.”

Like the day before, the crowd applauded warmly for Samuelson and Bates.

“There were little places where we need to make adjustments and we did that,” Bates said. “The performance was definitely as good as it’s been all year.”

Navarro and Bommentre thought they skated as well as possible.

“There may have been one or two little stumbles in it, but I thought we were putting out so much energy and I thought the crowd responded and gave it back to us,” Bommentre said. “That could have been the best OD we’ve ever skated.”

Junior ladies

Agnes Zawadzki cruised to the championship, more than doubling up a first-day lead after the short program.

A 15-year-old from Colorado Springs, Colo., Zawadzki finished with 171.87 points, easily outdistancing runner-up Yasmin Siraj (151.05) of Brookline, Mass.

Zawadzki finished fourth as a Novice last year.

Lindsay Davis of Rialto, Calif., took third (133.97). Kiri Baga, a 14-year-old from Bloomington, Minn., fell from second after the short program to fourth.