- Joined
- Apr 2, 2014
Ashley could have beaten a flawed Julia, but not with 3 jumps with -GOE.
So her path to world and Olympic medals involves being pristine while others falter. So you see the issue with that?
Ashley could have beaten a flawed Julia, but not with 3 jumps with -GOE.
At the time, Ashley had lost to Gracie once, was the only American woman who medaled at the GPF and won a GP event this season, and placed 4th and 5th in the last two Worlds. Based on her record, it was reasonable to think she could win a bronze if multiple skaters melted down and she skated perfectly.
Ashley could have beaten a flawed Julia, but not with 3 jumps with -GOE.
The point is, for Gold to have had a relevant chance, she needed to have showed capability to skate a clean competition SP + LP, and depended on 5 top skaters making huge errors.
She couldn't have, because she physically was not able to do a fully-rotated 3Flip+3Toe, which the scoring system over-punishes her for, and she was simply not going to get the necessary PCS buffer because she didn't have momentum/politics in her favor. It's all ridiculous, but there it is.
I feel Ashley is dealing with a major case of "you're damned if you do/you're damned if you're not." Last season (2012-2013) people here was railing on her for not putting in the 3-3 for much of the season and now people are saying how Ashley took too big of a risk.
As far as I'm concerned, I think it's good she got it out there. She knows what it's like to do it in competition and probably what she needs to do to nail it for next season. I don't see her giving it up.
Sure fans are giving the damned if you do/damned if you don't, but if she didn't put the 3-3 in and done a clean 3-2, would she have placed any better? Her artistry is not enough to overcome a 3-3.
She probably would have placed better, but again I am of the mind that it was better for her to get the jump out there.
Okay, if you're going to characterize Gold as having a significant shot at the OGM due to political backing and having done a single clean FS - which didn't even clear 130 points, mind you - and depending on all of 5 top skaters to skate poorer than usual on skating's biggest stage... well, everyone's entitled to their opinion.
Sure fans are giving the damned if you do/damned if you don't, but if she didn't put the 3-3 in and done a clean 3-2, would she have placed any better? Her artistry is not enough to overcome a 3-3.
I think some people disagree just so they can debate more. Cause I cannot believe this thread has turned into another "let's discuss Gracie Gold" fiasco when the point made was pretty obvious, correct, an didn't really require this amount of in depth discussion.
1. Gracie had a high chance to medal, because her PCS was being rated decently and she has World-Class technical ability in that she has great jumps, all the require technical combinations that the judges are expecting from a champion-level skater, can easily hit her spin levels, and GOEs well across all of her elements, barring mistakes.
2. Gracie at least had A CHANCE to win the Olympic Gold Medal, due to the above. No one said she was a FAVORITE, only that she had a chance. A chance that Wagner didn't. The amount of help she needed to get there was minimal compared to Wagner, who actually got a lot of help (all JPN ladies basically imploding in the SP, Lipnitskaya's Falls) and still couldn't muster a better placement with one of the best FS's she did all season.
Wagner had literally no chance to medal, and a Gold Medal should not have been on her radar, or sonar, or whatever... Period. She simply isn't good enough and she's exhausted almost all of the upward momentum the judges were willing to give her. 2012's weak World Championship field was Wagner's best chance to grab a World of Olympic Medal. I don't think she will ever get back to 4th place unless we witness what would be perhaps the worst Ladies competition ever seen - a splatfest to epitomize the word itself.
But Gold isn't known for skating cleanly all the time... When was the last time she skated cleanly?
She had a chance, but it rested on the aforementioned five making huge errors while she did not. Chances are, even when Kostner or Asada bombed, Gold wouldn't be clean either (she, in fact, did end up falling in the LP).
Ah, you still really don't get it. Her clean FS would have scored in the 140's had the judges wanted it to (and they would have if she was the only one to fully deliver at the Olympics). We already saw how her PCS went up 7 points between the team event and the individual event, even though her team performance was better. She didn't need all of the other 5 to skate "poorer than usual" either. Kostner, Asada, and Sotnikova all have big consistency issues. Yu-Na and Lipnitskaia were the only people seen as having a high chance of skating clean and neither were considered locks. That is not just my opinion, it's what pretty much everyone was thinking. Statistically, Gracie factually had a chance. Just because it was a lower chance doesn't mean it was discountable. Anything that is at least a 5% chance in statistics is considered relevant.
Unless she magically managed to temporarily switch to the Russian team (which could have been the case given how her PCS was boosted to pro-Russian levels of craziness in the FS).