Jr Dance Predictions? Poirier and Crone anyone?

I'm pulling for Canada's Junior Dance Champions Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier to medal at Jr World's. What a stunning dance team with great potential. The samba is definitely their dance - and their freedance is breathtaking.

I personally think that Weaver and Poje will finish ahead of Crone and Poirier. I think Weaver and Poje have a legitimate shot of a top five placement where I don't see them same for Crone and Poirier or Lenko and Islam. The dance field at junior worlds is deep remember with 2 strong Russian teams, 2 strong American teams, plus an Italian couple and a French couple who were in the Junior GP Final. There's also an Estonian couple who train with Shpilband and Shpilband has the politics.

Dance Predictions:

1.Bobrova/Soloviev
2.Hubbell/Hubbell
3.Samuelson/Bates
4.Gorshkova/Butikov
5.Weaver/Poje
6.Grunberg/Rand

For some reason, I believe B/S will have revenge for finishing 3rd at the JGPF.
But Samuelson/Bates could take an early lead in the CD.
Should be close between the top 3.

Don't forget the new team of Monko/Tkachenko. They finished 2nd at Russian Jr. Nationals, beating (Kristina) Gorshkova/Butikov. Ilya Tkachenko used to skate with Anastasia Gorshkov; they finished 7th at 2006 Junior Worlds, and the top 6 teams from 2006 JW have all moved up to Seniors this year.

Crone/Poirier finished 13th on the JGP, with one bronze medal and a 5th place. I think they will place behind Weaver/Poje and Lenko/Islam, both of whom were on the alternate list for the JGPF.

chuckm said:

Crone/Poirier finished 13th on the JGP, with one bronze medal and a 5th place. I think they will place behind Weaver/Poje and Lenko/Islam, both of whom were on the alternate list for the JGPF.

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Crone/Poirier did beat Lenko/Islam at nationals. And in the JGP where Crone/Poirier won the bronze, they did win the free dance portion against more experienced opposition.

I think both Crone/Poirier and Lenko/Islam can finish in the top 10 but there is no way that one can say Lenko/Islam is cleary ahead ( or behind for that matter) of Crone/Poirier.

Having watched US Nats, the Junior Dance Teams were quite exciting and close in scores. I think this will carry them through the Worlds with the innevitable cometition among themselves.

Joe

I expect four of the top 5 to be two Russian and two US teams, in some order, and wouldn't be at all surprised to see the top 5 all Russian and US teams.

The judges for Jr. Worlds Ice Dance are:
CD/OD: Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine, USA
FD: Germany, Italy plus 8 judges selected at random from the CD judges.
Alternates: If any of the selected judges withdraw, these are the alternates (in substitution order): Slovak Republic, Serbia, Latvia, Israel.

chuckm said:

I expect four of the top 5 to be two Russian and two US teams, in some order, and wouldn't be at all surprised to see the top 5 all Russian and US teams.

The judges for Jr. Worlds Ice Dance are:
CD/OD: Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine, USA
FD: Germany, Italy plus 8 judges selected at random from the CD judges.
Alternates: If any of the selected judges withdraw, these are the alternates (in substitution order): Slovak Republic, Serbia, Latvia, Israel.

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Good grief. They really should do something about all these Russian judges. It will be a Russian sweep not dervingly but what the majority of judges will act on.
Well.........

Joe

What do you mean with "all these Russian judges"? I see only one. Or would you argue that Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Ukraine are provinces of Russia? This seems like a fair representation of "eastern" and "western" countries to me. Especially for the FD.

I also think chances of a Russian sweep are pretty small, because the majority of the top contenders are Canadian and American.

My podium would be:

1. Hubbell/Hubbell (was pretty impressed with them in The Hague)
2. Gruenberg/Rand
3. Samuelson/Bates

The fact is that some judges from the former SSRs tend to back the Russian teams. If you check the protocols for the JGPF, you will see there was one Russian judge, and judges from Georgia, Ukraine and Estonia.

Of these four, only the Estonian judge did not consistently place the #1 Russian team on top (in PCS scores). And that may have been because with 3 teams in the Final, the Russian judge would be disinclined to back the Estonian team above any of the Russian teams.

The Bulgarian and German judges also tended to place the #1 Russian team on top (they did not have any team in the Final). The French judge seemed to be rabidly anti-Russian (maybe DelShoes getting zapped at CoR had something to do with that).

Overall, I'd say the panel for Jr. Worlds is pretty good---it's not heavily Eastern-European loaded for a change. It's definitely a better panel than the one for Senior Worlds. That one is a scandal!

aphrodite_xl said:

What do you mean with "all these Russian judges"? I see only one. Or would you argue that Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Ukraine are provinces of Russia? This seems like a fair representation of "eastern" and "western" countries to me. Especially for the FD.

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Regardless of the present nationalities, a Russian will favor a Russian in whatever country he resides as an immigrant. I strongly suspect we will have Russian judges in the US. in due course. JMO.

Joe

Weaver and Poje!

I am really intrigued with Weaver and Poje @ this competition. They shaocked the world at Nationals, don't be surprised if they do it again here. People thought going into Nationals they were a fringe top 5 team there too!

rinkmaster said:

I am really intrigued with Weaver and Poje @ this competition. They shaocked the world at Nationals, don't be surprised if they do it again here. People thought going into Nationals they were a fringe top 5 team there too!

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A clean skate from S&G and L&M may have had different results for 3 - 5.

rinkmaster said:

I am really intrigued with Weaver and Poje @ this competition. They shaocked the world at Nationals, don't be surprised if they do it again here. People thought going into Nationals they were a fringe top 5 team there too!

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I looked up Weaver/Poje's Nationals results as well as their GP results, and here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. The Senior FD contains 8 elements, while the Junior contains only 6.
2. Nationals results tend to be inflated.

Here are W/J's OD and FD marks at their JGP events compared with their Nationals marks. I am also including the JGP marks for the top 3 teams for comparison, as they are the probable favorites at JW.

ETA: Since others have mentioned Crone/Poirier and Lenko/Islam, I am including their scores as well. Since their Nationals results are at the Junior level, there was no need to edit out elements.

In case anyone is wondering about the JGP and Nationals results of the JGPF medalists, in the interests of fairness I am including them here as well. Note that I do not have a score breakdown for the Russian Junior Nationals.

Original Dance [Total, TES, PCS (PCS range)]
Notes: The OD elements were the same for both Junior and Senior events. The Twizzle sequence was rated Level4 at the GP events, Level3 at Nationals. I don't know if that is because it was changed for Nationals. The DiSt was rated higher (level3) at Nationals than it was at both of the GP events (level2).

46.12, 25.80, 20.32 (5.18-5.43) JGP TPE, Weaver/Poje
47.30, 27.01, 20.29 (5.22-5.41) JGP CZE, W/P
49.84, 27.25, 22.59 (5.80-6.10) Nationals, W/P

46.34, 25.28, 21.96 (5.50-5.68) JGP HUN, Lenko/Islam
44.42, 24.17, 20.25 (5.28-5.41) JGP NED, L/I
44.87, 24.40, 20.47 (5.29-5.46) Nationals, L/I

43.99, 22.56, 21.43 (5.53-5.78) JGP NOR, Crone/Poirier
45.13, 26.20, 18.93 (4.86-5.11) JGP TPE, C/P
47.43, 26.52, 20.91 (5.46-5.54) Nationals, C/P

49.41, 25.89, 23.52 (6.00-6.32) JGP FRA, Hubbell/Hubbell
49.52, 27.07, 22.45 (5.84-5.95) JGP NED, H/H
50.61, 27.19, 23.42 (6.03-6.31) JGPF, H/H
54.00, 29.50, 24.50 (6.32-6.43) Nationals, H/H

52.32, 29.34, 22.98 (5.92-6.25) JGP MEX, Samuelson/Bates
51.38, 28.79, 22.59 (5.86-6.04) JGP TPE, S/B
50.11, 27.18, 22.93 (5.91-6.09) JGPF, S/B
50.63, 27.50 (-2.00), 25.13 (6.32-6.43) Nationals, S/B

50.76, 26.59, 24.17 (6.14-6.43) JGP FRA, Bobrova/Soloviev
52.79, 28.65, 24.14 (6.29-6.46) JGP HUN, B/S
49.79, 26.04, 23.75 (6.09-6.34) JGPF, B/S
50.39 Jr. Nationals, B/S

Free Dance [Total, TES, PCS (PCS Range)]
Notes: Before comparing W/P's JGP to Nationals FD scores, the Nationals elements (combination lift and twizzles) not in the JGP FD were subtracted out of the TES: TES = 46.53 -(6.17 Combo lift) -(4.25 STw4) = 36.10. Also, Circular and Midline step sequences were level3 at Nationals, but only level2 at both JGP events. Nationals elements received higher GOE than the JGP elements did: 1.58 (TPE) and 2.63 (CZE) vs. 3.16 at Nationals (with the GOE from the extra elements subtracted).

64.62, 32.48 (-1.00), 33.14 (5.32-5.64) JGP TPE, Weaver/Poje
67.58, 33.53, 34.05 (5.05-5.81) JGP CZE, W/J
73.31, 36.10, 37.21 (6.04-6.38) Nationals, W/J

65.48, 32.93 (-1.00), 33.55 (5.50-5.68) JGP HUN, Lenko/Islam
64.37, 30.95, 33.42 (5.50-5.66) JGP NED, L/I
70.15, 34.97, 35.18 (5.71-6.08) Nationals, L/I

64.28, 30.37, 33.91 (5.56-5.75) JGP NOR, Crone/Poirier
60.10, 30.31, 29.79 (4.89-5.07) JGP TPE, C/P
68.43, 33.70, 34.73 (5.75-5.88) Nationals, C/P

73.10, 35.12, 37.98 (6.14-6.46) JGP FRA, Hubbell/Hubbell
71.12, 34.39, 36.73 (6.06-6.19) JGP NED, H/H
72.15, 33.60, 38.55 (6.34-6.50) JGPF, H/H
78.86, 37.36, 41.50 (6.86-6.96) Nationals, H/H

71.10, 34.16, 36.94 (5.92-6.58) JGP MEX, Samuelson/Bates
72.00, 35.96, 36.04 (5.89-6.11) JGP TPE, S/B
70.63, 33.44, 37.19 (6.06-6.31) JGPF, S/B
81.27, 39.38, 41.89 (6.89-7.14) Nationals, S/B

72.01, 34.10 (-1.00), 38.91 (6.36-6.57) JGP FRA, Bobrova/Soloviev
73.54, 35.78 (-1.00), 38.76 (6.36-6.57) JGP HUN, B/S
68.34, 31.31, 37.03 (6.03-6.31) JGPF, B/S
72.67 Nationals, B/S

I am sure that Weaver/Poje, Lenko/Islam and Crone/Poirier have improved since their JGP events, and even since Nationals, but OTOH, likely the US and Russian teams have also worked hard on their ODs and FDs and have improved as well. I am sure that Bobrova/Soloviev are smarting from their third place in the JGPF and are looking to redeem themselves at Junior Worlds, and that the Hubbells want to place above Samuelson/Bates, who beat them at Nationals.

Just one thing: the Russian teams tend to get very high PCS marks, all well into the sixes. The only other team of the six summarized above to get marks anywhere close to Bobrova/Soloviev were the Hubbells.

Wow thanks for doing all that research! Puts things into a different perspective. W/P are not that far ahead of C/P or L/I and the wunderchilds of senior dance might get a good run for their money.

If for each team I analyzed above, you averaged the OD and FD results then added them together, and added in the CD (Bobrova/Soloviev, Lenko/Islam, Crone Poirier and Weaver/Poje all did the SS in a GP; I took the Hubbells' and Samuelson/Bates' CD scores from the Lake Placid summer competition), here's how it comes out:

158.33 Samuelson/Bates
155.55 Bobrova/Soloviev
154.85 Hubbell/Hubbell
143.59 Weaver/Poje
141.75 Lenko/Islam
139.47 Crone/Poirier.

This is NOT to suggest this is how JW ice dance will turn out. It just suggests ballpark estimates of where these teams stood in respect to one another prior to JW. I also believe there will be other teams mixed in there, such as Gorshkova/Butikov, Monko/Tkachenko, and Grunberg/Rand.

Chukum - That was quite a bit of work to average out all those scores. It'll be interesting to see (if there are no accidental falls) how the system would work for a prediction.

Would you factor in the Judges' nationalities to have an affect on the results?

Joe

Actually, I misread the ISU communication about the panels. Here is the correction:

The judges for Jr. Worlds Ice Dance are:
CD: Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine, USA
OD/FD: All of the above, plus Germany and Italy
Alternates (in substitution order): Slovak Republic, Serbia, Latvia, Israel.

The CD panel is evenly split between Eastern European/SSR and Western judges so I don't see a problem there. With Germany and Italy added for the OD/FD, the balance slightly shifts to the West. It's really not that bad. But you never know what deals have been struck, do you?

OTOH, if two or more Western judges don't show up and some of those alternates are in, that could shift the balance back the other way.

The Referee and Tech Team for Ice Dance:
Referee: Alexander GORSHKOV (RUS)
Technical Controller: Ingrid Charlotte WOLTER (GER)
Technical Specialist: Sylvia NOWAK-TREBACKA (POL)
Assistant Technical Specialist: Francesca FERMI (ITA)

A couple of positive notes:
The Estonian judge is Anne Saraskin, who did not vote lockstep with the Russian and Ukrainian judges at the JGPF.
The Ukrainian judge is not Yuri Balkov.