PORTLAND, Ore. -- With unmatched style and grace in the original dance, Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto collected more 6.0s Wednesday at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
The pair earned a 6.0 in the compulsory dance Tuesday, then added four more for presentation for their original dance routine.
Belbin, wearing a bright pink dress, and Agosto, in a tuxedo, were perfectly in unison for their side-by-side footwork, drawing cheers from the crowd at Portland's Rose Garden.
A stunning lift to the strains of Cabaret helped close out the polished program that kept the couple in first place heading into Friday's free skate.
"Again that 6.0 feels so great," Belbin said. "It's the ultimate recognition for all the hard work we've put in."
Their first 6.0 on Tuesday was the first perfect mark ever awarded at nationals in the compulsory dance. It will also be the last: the International Skating Union has already converted to a new, points-based system, and U.S. Figure Skating plans to follow in time for next year's nationals.
Perfect marks are rare at the nationals when it comes to ice dancing. Belbin and Agosto have five of the 21 6.0s ever awarded.
"Our goal today was to perform this program as far as it could go, and I think we achieved that," Belbin said.
Yet the talk afterward was all about where Belbin and Agosto probably won't be going -- the 2006 Olympics.
Belbin and Agosto are the best ice dance team the United States has had in decades, and are the best hope to win America's first Olympic medal in the discipline since 1976. But Belbin is Canadian, and while she has a green card, she doesn't expect to become a U.S. citizen until 2007.
"For us, we've really set our goals beyond the Olympics," Agosto said.
Last year's silver medalists, Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov, remained in second place after their original dance to music from Chicago. They earned six 5.7s for presentation.
Lydia Manon and Ryan O'Meara are third. Compulsory dance is worth 20 percent of the final score, with original dance accounting for 30 percent and the free skate worth 50 percent.
Belbin and Agosto have risen quickly in the rather staid realm of ice dancing. Internationally, they jumped from 13th at worlds in 2002 to fifth last year. At last month's Grand Prix final, they were second behind world champions Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov.
When Agosto was asked whether the pair had offered up their best performance to date in the original dance, Belbin interrupted his answer.
"It's the best," she said.
