If his LP was a yawn-fest, then Miner's was a coma-fest. Farris was better but still on a significantly lower level than Abbott in that regard.
I don't think the USFSA should be in the business of "supporting " one skater and holding another one back. That never seems to work. Just run a fair contest at Nationals and let the chips fall as they may.
Well, first of all, using one competition as the sole benchmark for who gets to go to Worlds is not a good idea. If someone gets sick the day before Nationals, when they are the highest ranked skater in the country internationally, do they deserve to have their career completely thwarted because of it? Not to mention that a lot of skaters can do well on home turf, Nationals is like classmates competing against each other in front of familiar crowds, but then get overwhelmed when skating abroad.
I think 2nd through 4th places could have been shuffled around in any order with a valid argument for any of those three guys finishing in whichever order. And while I do think either Abbott or Farris would have finished higher than 14th at Worlds, the chances of either holding off Takahashi for 6th (or higher) and getting 3 spots would have been slim to none. So in the end it would not have made a difference.
I don't think the USFSA should be in the business of "supporting " one skater and holding another one back. That never seems to work. Just run a fair contest at Nationals and let the chips fall as they may.
This is the typical Monday morning QB call, though. Who would have thought that Worlds would have been that poorly skated by the top men contenders? If someone sticks their hand up and says "Oh, I did!" I cry BS.
USFSA has made a mistake in not supporting Abbott all the way through this quadrennial. He should have been sent to Worlds in 2011, with Dornbush being sent to Junior Worlds instead, and he should have been sent this year over Miner. This lack of support has hurt him a lot, both in confidence and experience in getting to compete at Worlds. If they actually supported him in 2011 and he had that Worlds under his belt, then maybe he would have had a better showing at 2012 Worlds. He was capable of getting on the podium; his performances at Nationals would have been enough to do it. If he managed to do that at 2012 Worlds, then perhaps it would have carried over to this season and he could have made the podium again, or at least done well enough to secure 3 Olympic spots for the Men.
I think the more you try to guess who is going to do the best at worlds, the more you just end up outsmarting yourself. I think it is far better to decide things by a competition rather than by the opinion of a committee as to what they think might happen if they send this person or that.
As for the case of the skater who does well in the Grand Prix, but then flubs Nationals -- well, like TontoK, I hate to be mean, but that's sports. Is it fair that a really, really good team wins a lot of games during the season but then loses the semi-finals and doesn't get to play in the Super Bowl?
Here is a flaw in your "logic": Jeremy Abbott was a headcase at Vancouver and ever since and has received a rather large amount of support and favouritism from his fed ever since.
Ross earned the spot. Jeremy didn't. Abbott fans need to get over the fact that he is a headcase, headcased at Nationals, and stop taking it out on Ross and Max. Ross and Max delivered. Your boy didn't. End of story.
There are a lot of outside factors to take into consideration. Do you think skaters like Michelle Kwan, Belbin&Agosto, and Virtue&Moir never should have been sent to Worlds/Olympics in the years where they got byes? What difference is there in someone not competing at Nationals at all, and getting a bye to Worlds because of their previous accomplishments, and someone competing at Nationals and not doing well because they are ill/still recovering or have a boot/skate that needs to be replaced?
Anyway, it's not about choosing by committee really, but rather just factoring recent results. A formula that combines international season best scores with Nationals results could be used to determine teams. When you have a skater like Abbott in 2011 who was 5th at the World Championships the previous year and had the highest scoring potential out of all the U.S. Men, it's a huge disservice to not send that skater to Worlds just because they had one bad performance.