Christina Gao, a six-time competitor at the U.S. Championships, has retired from figure skating to concentrate on her studies at Harvard, according to Icenetwork.com.
Gao, 21, finished fifth at the U.S. Championships as a 15-year-old in 2010, and also fifth at the next three U.S. Championships. She fell to eighth at the 2014 U.S. Championships, where she entered as a threat to make the U.S. Olympic team, and 11th at this past season’s Nationals.
Gao took second at 2012 Skate America, which helped her qualify for that season’s Grand Prix Final, where she finished sixth.
Gao’s retirement follows that of Samantha Cesario, who succeeded Gao as the fifth-place finisher at the 2014 and 2015 U.S. Championships.
Russian Olympic champions left out of Grand Prix assignments