Michael Phelps, Lindsey Vonn among Team USA Hall of Fame inductees

Michael Phelps, Lindsey Vonn, Natalie Coughlin, Mia Hamm and Michelle Kwan headline the 2022 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame class.

The first class to be inducted since 2019 also includes an Olympic team (the 1976 U.S. women’s swimming 4x100m freestyle relay), a coach (Pat Summitt), two legends (Alpine skier Gretchen Fraser and hurdler Roger Kingdom) and a special contributor (Billie Jean King).

The Paralympians in the class: swimmer Trischa Zorn-Hudson, the all-time leader with 55 medals, including 41 golds, plus Alpine skier and cyclist Muffy Davis and David Kiley, who played basketball and raced in Alpine skiing and track and field. The Paralympic team selected is the 2002 sled hockey team.

The inductees were chosen by voting from the public, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic family, including athletes, and media.

The Hall of Fame will induct classes every two years moving forward. Previously, there were annual classes from 1983-92 and biennial classes from 2004-12 before it was revived for a 2019 class and now 2022.

Though Phelps retired in 2016 with Olympic records for medals (28) and gold medals (23), he was not part of the 2019 class that included John Carlos, Tommie Smith, Lisa Leslie, Nastia Liukin, Misty May-Treanor, Apolo Anton Ohno and Dara Torres (all of whom retired years before Phelps did).

Vonn, who retired in 2019, is the lone American woman to win an Olympic downhill title. She also holds the female Alpine skiing record of 82 World Cup victories. She is the fourth Olympic Alpine skier to be inducted after Andrea Mead Lawrence, Picabo Street and Phil Mahre.

Coughlin, who retired from international competition in 2016, shares a unique Olympic record. She won a medal in all 12 Olympic events that she entered, matching Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi and German dressage rider Isabell Werth.

Hamm, the face of U.S. soccer in the late 1990s and early 2000s, is the second soccer player to make the Hall of Fame after teammate Kristine Lilly. Hamm and Lilly were also part of the 1996 U.S. Olympic women’s soccer team that was previously inducted.

Kwan, an Olympic silver and bronze medalist and five-time world champion, is the eighth figure skater to make the hall, joining a group that includes Olympic gold medalists Dick Button, Dorothy Hamill and Peggy Fleming.

Other finalists who did not make the induction class included Summer Olympic champions Kristin Armstrong (cycling), Kayla Harrison (judo) and John Smith (wrestling) and Winter Olympic champions Shani Davis (speed skating), Cammi Granato (hockey) and Bode Miller (Alpine skiing).

An induction ceremony is scheduled for Jan. 24 in Colorado Springs, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic base.

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Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier haven’t decided if they’ll compete beyond this season, so Saturday may have been their farewell to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

If so, they went out as dominant winners, the first pair in their 30s to win nationals in more than 50 years.

Knierim, 31, and Frazier, 30, took their second U.S. title together, totaling 227.97 points to prevail by 31.11 over Emily Chan and Spencer Howe. They led by a gaping 15.1 points after Thursday’s short.

Knierim and Frazier were solid after errors on their opening jumping combination in Saturday’s free skate. They broke their own pairs’ margin of victory record from the 2021 U.S. Championships under a scoring system implemented in 2006. Knierim appeared to wipe away tears backstage.

“As I get older, the longer I’m in this sport, the more gratitude I have for it,” Knierim, the oldest woman to win a U.S. figure skating title since 1995 (Renée Roca), said on USA Network. “After that music ended, I’m just thankful that Brandon’s by my side and I’m able to do what I love.”

Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea bagged bronze to likely round out the three-pair team for March’s world championships.

FIGURE SKATING NATIONALS: Full Scores | Broadcast Schedule

Knierim and Frazier considered retiring after last season, after they missed nationals due to Frazier’s COVID-19, petitioned onto the Olympic team and posted the best Olympic finish for a U.S. pair (sixth) in 20 years.

They then became the first U.S. pair to win a world title since 1979, beating a field that didn’t include any of the top five from the Olympics.

They returned in part to compete as world champions and rank second in the world this season (during which the top Olympic pairs also haven’t competed). They will likely go into March’s worlds in Japan as underdogs to Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, who won their lone head-to-head this past fall at the Grand Prix Final.

Back in October, Knierim said this will probably be their last season competing together, though the pair also thought they were done last spring. They don’t expect to make a final decision until after a Stars on Ice tour this spring.

“This U.S. Championships for us was extra special because you’re just reflecting on the journey, and you know that there’s a good chance that this will be your last one,” Frazier said.

Knierim won her fifth U.S. title, tying the record for a pairs’ skater since World War II, joining Kyoka Ina, Tai Babilonia, Randy Gardner, Karol Kennedy and Peter Kennedy. Knierim’s first three titles, and her first Olympics in 2018, were with husband Chris, who retired in 2020.

Silver medalists Chan and Howe continued their recent surge. After placing fourth at last season’s nationals, they rank sixth in the world this season. That’s despite summer injuries that left them unable to practice lifts (his shoulder) and throws (her foot) for a while.

Kam, 18, and O’Shea, 31, made the podium four months after becoming a pair and less than two months after a car Kim was riding in was hit by a drunk driver while crossing an intersection. The car was totaled, but Kim and O’Shea still competed days later in Croatia.

O’Shea won the 2016 U.S. title with Tarah Kayne, retired after they split in late 2020, then came back in 2021 with Chelsea Liu. They ranked sixth in the U.S. going into 2022 Nationals, but withdrew beforehand due to concussions both suffered in a November competition fall, according to Figure Skaters Online.

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Full scores and results from the 2023 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose …

Women
Gold: Isabeau Levito — 223.33
Silver: Bradie Tennell — 213.12
Bronze: Amber Glenn — 207.444. Starr Andrews — 188.245. Josephine Lee — 187.686. Lindsay Thorngren — 187.197. Clare Seo — 175.608. Gracie Gold — 173.989. Ava Ziegler — 167.7010. Sonja Hilmer — 166.4911. Gabriella Izzo — 166.4012. Ting Cui — 161.2713. Audrey Shin — 161.1214. Lindsay Wang — 154.9115. Michelle Lee — 145.2816. Elsa Cheng — 138.1317. Alexa Gasparotto — 129.41