I was curious and looked at
Skate America with international fields, starting in 1979, which, according to
@SkateGuard 's
blog was the Norton Skate, and with a missing 1984, there was never a US podium sweep, but there were podiums wit two US Teams:
- The last before the 2020's was 18 seasons ago: 2006 (Hartford): Inoue/Baldwin (1) and Nam/Lefteris (2)
Champions Series:
- 1996 (Springfield, MA): Lyon/Wells (2) and Stiegler/Zimmerman (3)
Pre-Champions Series. I'm not sure how the skaters were invited/selected.
- 1993 (Dallas): Ina/Dungjen (2), Courtland/Reynolds (3)
- 1985 (St. Paul): Watson/Oppegard (1) and Wachsman/Wagoner (3)
- 1983 (Rochester): Carruthers/Carruthers (1) and Watson/Lancon (2)
- 1979 (Lake Placid): Carruthers/Carruthers (2) and Heasley/Wagenhoffer (3)
For the other GP's, it's never happened during the Grand Prix, but that could also be a factor of the number, if any, US Pairs who were selected. It happened once during the Champions Series, in 1996 at NHK (gold-Meno/Sand, bronze-Ina/Zimmerman) and a few times when NHK was a stand-alone.
At Worlds, it happened once, in 1949: Kennedy/Kennedy (2) and Davies/Hoffner (3)
Yeah, 4CC's, maybe:
- 2022: Lu/Mitrofanov (1) and Chan/Howe (2)
- 2018: Kayne/O'Shea (1) and Cain/LeDuc (2)
- 2014: Kayne/O'Shea (2) and Scimeca/Knierim (3)
- 2012: Denney/Coughlin (2) and Marley/Brubaker (3)
- 2000: Ina/Zimmerman (2) and Scott/Dulebohn (3)
Except for 2012, a home 4C's in Colorado Springs, there's a distinct pattern (
coughOlympicYearcough) here. Sui/Han, who won, competed in 2012 and 2014. Pang/Tong, the highest ranked Chinese team at 2000 4C's, were on their way up. In 2012, it was Duhamel/Radford's second season. While there were a few standouts in competition, it was mostly against other countries' B-teams as well. The US tends to be solid in that second echelon, but a too high percentage of our teams fall into it.