Mariah Bell knows how important the next couple of months are for an athlete-- after all, she has been in this position twice before. With a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team on the line, the 25-year-old heads into the 2022 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January with Beijing on her mind.
Throughout her career, the 2020 U.S. silver medalist has felt the rush of victory but has also had to learn how to come back after difficult performances. It is all that experience that Bell hopes to harness to craft a new storyline that culminates with her skating at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in February.
Last season seemed to be a turning point in Bell's career—after a successful but abbreviated fall season, she was building momentum as the 2021 U.S. Championships drew near. In Las Vegas, however, Bell's free skate removed all hope of a first U.S. title, and she finished in fifth place missing the World Championships for the first time in four years.
"I felt like everything leading up to the U.S. Championships was great," she said. "My short program was OK, and obviously the free skate was not what I was capable of. Unfortunately, that one program kind of put a cloudy view on the whole season, but it really wasn't."
With her season over, Bell took a break and headed to Dallas to be with her family for a short time, but then headed right back into the rink continue working with Rafael Arutunian, Adam Rippon and choreographer Shae-Lynn Bourne to prepare for the Olympic season.
"I work with Raf every day and with Adam one- or two-times week," she explained. "Adam and I do a lot of planning on the phone because he is so busy, but we still connect in person every week. I am fortunate that Shae now lives in the area so I can work with her a couple times a week, which has really elevated my skating."
Over the summer Bell spent considerable time working to add a triple Axel to her resume, but it is not something that she is currently training to put into her programs this season.
"There was a lot of trial and error, and it's something that I definitely believe that I am capable of doing," she said. "I think that training has made me physically stronger and has contributed to making my edge jumps a lot better. I typically don't love the edge jumps much, so this has made me much more confident with them."
Bell kicked off her season in August at the Cranberry Cup in Norwood, Massachusetts, where she finished with the bronze medal. There she debuted two new programs —a Lady Gaga-themed short program choreographed by her part time coach Adam Rippon and Cordero Zuckerman, a former ice dancer who competed on Season 13 of
RuPaul's Drag Race, and an introspective free skate to Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne.
After receiving feedback, Bell decided to shelve the Lady Gaga program and selected the piano piece "River Flows in You" by South Korean pianist and composer Yiruma. The new program was choreographed by Rippon and former ladies competitor Molly Oberstar.
Just before Champs Camp at the end of August, Bell also decided set aside her new free skate to revive her signature "Hallelujah" program from the truncated 2019-20 season.
"I loved the program, but I felt like it didn't really build the way that 'Hallelujah' did," Bell said. "After skating 'Hallelujah' so well at the U.S. Championships, I thought that I would never skate it again when the World Championships were canceled. To be able to see it all the way through this year was the right thing to do."
Acknowledging that there are few choreographic changes in the program, Bell realizes that recycling a program comes with the risk of it becoming stale. In this case, however, she sees the opportunity to further explore the emotional side of the program which she believes will make it new again.
"I'm a different person than I was two years ago," Bell shared. "The world has been through a lot of heavy emotions, and I think because of that I can interpret this program with a deeper meaning. I have almost a new gratitude for it, and I am even more excited to share that with people."
Once she settled on programs for the season, Bell had three months to drill them in advance of her Grand Prix season's debut last week at Internationaux de France. After a tough short program, she rallied with a fourth-place free skate to finish the competition in sixth place. This week she travels to Sochi, Russia, to compete in the final stop of the Series, Rostelecom Cup.
"Back in 2019 I had one week between my Grand Prix assignments, and it was difficult to know how to train during the off week," Bell admitted. "This year my events are back-to-back, and I think it will be easier somehow. Nathan Chen competed in consecutive weeks this year and said it was actually great to be able to get right back into it."
Bell is currently scheduled to compete at the Golden Spin of Zagreb in early December and will then shift her focus on preparing for the U.S. Championships in January.
"I'll try to maximize my time on and off the ice and will make sure that I am focusing on proper recovery and nutrition," she explained. "Four years ago, I think that I got a little too much into the chatter of the Olympic season, and I learned a lot from that. I am focusing on what I can control and less on those things that I cannot. It has definitely made competing much more enjoyable."
Fans can watch Team USA this week at Rostelecom Cup live and on-demand on
Peacock Premium. Check out the
Grand Prix Series Competition Central page to follow Team USA throughout the season.
