Kemp and King put Skate America fall to bed in Sheffield

By Chris Cottrell, Sportsbeat, in Sheffield

STACEY Kemp and David King insisted they had put their Skate America nightmare to bed after returning to form at the British Ice Skating Championships.

BACK ON THEIR FEET: Stacey Kemp and David King put their Skate America fall behind them with a confident short program at the National Ice Skating Championships in Sheffield (www.kempandking.com)

The couple have enjoyed their best season to date, but a disastrous death spiral to finish their short program at the Skate America Grand Prix earlier this month saw Kemp crash to the Lake Placid ice.

But Kemp and King, who are already confirmed as NISA's nomination for the Olympic spot, made no such errors in Sheffield as they put one hand on their fifth consecutive title, scoring 45.13 to race into the lead.

But the duo insisted their Skate America fall hadn't dented their confidence and they were skating as well as they've ever done ahead of Vancouver.

"It felt great out there today and I feel like we've been skating really well all season," said Kemp.

"After Skate America, it was nice to come through that one unscathed and without any problems.

"The Olympic season can be quite political, so it's important to be completely comfortable on the ice. The moves don't matter as much as feeling good.

"But saying that, we feel like we've come on a long way already this season. We have not been rushing things and we've made steady progress."

It should have been 46.13 for the national champions after a technical element score of 22.77 and program component score of 17.1 but a point penalty for a time violation brought their score down.

Meanwhlie, the only other pair in the competition Erica Risseeuw and Robert Paxton are just under seven points behind after recording 38.47 for their short program.

The duo are ineligible to compete at the Olympics as a result of Risseeuw's Canadian nationality but they outperformed Kemp and King at January's European Championships in Helsinki and will be keen to cut down the difference in Saturday's free skate.