I admire her for taking the risks, though. Until a year ago there was just not enough risk-taking among the top ladies. But now she has competition, with Asada and Yuna looking to push the envelope further.
I don't know the points well enough to know whether the jump layout described above would guarantee her more points, but I think if she wants to beat the likes of Asada/Yuna she DEFINITELY needs both 3-3's...and not only that, she needs to hit them both.
At SA she uncharacteristically made jump mistakes. She's usually a fairly solid jumper (save for 3-3 errors). I agree to some degree that Meissner's consistency gets a little blown out of proportion, but the only mistakes I recall her making last year were on the combos. However, at SA she made mistakes on single jumps. Anyway, this is only her first event; I'll cut her a little slack. The Tech was what she had going for her; if she loses that, goodbye US as a ladies' force...for the next couple years, anyway.
But points wise (and this is where I disagree with COP) she doesn't get a whole lot of benefits from hitting those triple/triples. The only benefit is that she gets to repeat an extra double axel......
However, guess what by doing the double axel/triple toe? Yu-na gets the exact same benefit. What I hate about COP is it really doesn't reward people from landing things in difficult combinations. That much.
While of course Kimmie's second combo is worth more, Yu-na gets to repeate probably the same triple elsewhere in her program, with a heck of a lot less risk. And guess what given that Kimmie doesn't get huge GOEs' for her triple/triples, Yu-na will probably get extra GOE's for her both her combo, and her single triple.
I remember reading somewhere, and I could be wrong that Yu-na once did a triple lutz/ triple toe. I'm quite sure if she hasn't that Yu-na's quite capable of doing this. But in this current system there's really no benefit for the added risk of doing the extra triple/triple for Yu-na as long as she can do the double axel/ triple toe. That's why that double axel/triple toe is so popular...
Honestly, the only way Kimmie beats Yu-na is if she lands more triples than Yu-na and Yu-na isn't clean. Given especially the GOE.
But Kimmie can't do this if she doesn't skate clean.. Putting half of your triples in two combinations, isn't a very smart thing to do unless your consistent with those triples.
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