I really want Yukina Ota to win a place among the 3, after a long hiatus from figure skating! For me she is one of the best and well-rounded figure skaters from Japan!
But with the intense field i doubt it if the Japanese Figure Skating Federation would allow another skater in the golden podium with the likes of Mao Asada, Miki Ando and Fumie Suguri!
Not a good competition injury-wise, Kozuka injured himself in a warm-up and bombed both programs. Oda is suffering from a pain in the right knee and his jumps are getting unstable (he had problems with 3A and 3F in SP and 3-3-2 combo in LP, plus he fell on his second 3A). I'm worried about his policy of "If something goes wrong, I'll just practice harder". The pain has started at NHK and his jumps are becoming steadily worse ever since.
It could be Nobunari is going into a slump which all athletes and teams do during their eligible and even professional careers. Oda is a beautiful skater and when he snaps out of the slump, he will be a gold contender again.
He may have had the second highest score in history, but he has the highest score for the freeskating only...plush had 167.67......dai had 170.53 or sumthin like that
Miki Ando seems to have injured herself during the performance and had to stop performing. She's still second overall, though.
Yukari Nakano went for the 3A, but fell.
Mao Asada skated perfectly clean.
Fumie Suguri had some problems with jumps at the end of the program, she doubled the flip and stepped out of it and underrotated & 2-footed her 3S.
... and I hope Miki will be okay. Watching her SP, she seemed to be holding her arm/shoulder as she got off the ice ... maybe she injured it again in the LP. She needs to be in top form for Worlds!
And congrats to Mao ... looks like she put out two great programs here!
No real surprises but without Fumie it just wont be a World Championship. Hope Yukara fixed that wrapped free leg. It's not illegal but for me, esthetically it doesn't work.
Oh no! What mess. The Japanese always seemed to use an overall approach to naming the team. What has happened this year? Fumie has done much better all season than Nakano and made the GPF. Now she's off the team. Nakano has no chance of medaling.
And they let Ando go to the Olympics last year placing 6th at Nationals.. mmphmm
It's because the overall approach failed last year this year the JSF decided to change the qualification process. Now it's based on Nationals result (plus the highest placing GPF medalist would receive an recommendation - meaning, even if Asada would place 4th in Nationals she would still have a chance to make the team).