Is Mirai the favorite heading into junior worlds?

Mirai won all of her junior GP events this season as well as handliy taking the senior national title. Last year she was the junior nats champ, but Caroline was the clear favorite. We know that Caroline can beat her, athough she has yet to do it this season. Rachel has beaten Caroline, never Mirai, so I would say that Marai is the favorite heading into junior worlds. So the question is this, if Caroline skates a perfect SP, no downgrades, do fallouts...like she did at the GPF and Mirai is also clean, who will the judges favor? In my opinion, Mirai's SP is cute, but nowhere near Caroline's very sophisticated Spanish Gypsy. But she does not seem to be getting those PCS scores.

If all three Americans do a 3/3 with no downgrades in the SP, it will be:

Nagasu
Zhang
Flatt

Nagasu and Zhang have L4 spins across the board and L4 spirals each. Nagasu also has L3 footwork (Zhang got L2 called twice this season, I believe in the SP). Flatt's layback is L3 at it's best and her spiral sequence was called L1 at Nationals. Nagasu will be less likely to take an "e" deduction than Zhang on the Lutz which will give her the possibility of + GOE on the combo. Nagasu also has SPEED no matter how "sophisticated" Zhang's program appears to you which will boost all of the PCS marks for Nagasu. She had +0.75 differential on the SS mark alone over Zhang in the LP at Nationals and didn't even skate her best.

Mirai is underfeated this season so she I beleive she has what it takes to win.
More impotantly, can she handle the pressure? OR, can Zhang handle the pressure of repeating as champion? OR, will Racheal win it all with no pressure?

Unless there are some Canadian or Asian Ladies that are senior good, I think the three entrants by the USFS are may well make the podium. The only thing preventing them is the slippery stuff.

Joe

The thing to remember is that national and ISU competitions seem to be very different. It's almost a different sport. I'm not sure why, but that's the way it is. If we just concentrate on international ISU comps for a moment, we get the following numbers.

skater ........................ Flatt ............... Nagasu ............. Zhang

best short score ------- 52.11 ----------- 59.35 ------------- 61.82
best long score ------- 107.55 ---------- 106.62 ----------- 114.66
best total score ------ 159.66 ----------- 163.84 ----------- 176.48
total ISU golds ------------ 3 ----------------- 3 ------------------ 4

So yes, a pattern does seem to emerge.

PolymerBob said:

The thing to remember is that national and ISU competitions seem to be very different. It's almost a different sport. I'm not sure why, but that's the way it is. If we just concentrate on international ISU comps for a moment, we get the following numbers.

skater ........................ Flatt ............... Nagasu ............. Zhang

best short score ------- 52.11 ----------- 59.35 ------------- 61.82
best long score ------- 107.55 ---------- 106.62 ----------- 114.66
best total score ------ 159.66 ----------- 163.84 ----------- 176.48
total ISU golds ------------ 3 ----------------- 3 ------------------ 4

So yes, a pattern does seem to emerge.

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Nice job on that compilation.

Now in how many of these best scores were the three competing against each other?

Joe

Don't forget, though, that the loop was the required jump this year for Juniors and Zhang's been doing the 3Lz as her jump out of steps as a Senior this year. Last year, I believe the F was the required jump out of steps which has a higher base score than the Lo if that is Zhang's SP score as a Junior from last year.

Also, if that is a score from a Zhang Senior LP, it's got an extra spin counted.

mskater93 said:

Don't forget, though, that the loop was the required jump this year for Juniors and Zhang's been doing the 3Lz as her jump out of steps as a Senior this year..

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Caroline has hit all of her loop jumps this year (and probably last year too). She doesn't get any wrong edge deductions for them. They could be a bit more rotated, but IIRC her loop jumps usually get positive GoEs. Advantage Caroline.

Also, if that is a score from a Zhang Senior LP, it's got an extra spin counted

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And there are 30 more seconds in the senior LP, which should result in slightly higher PCS scores (for the same level of presentation skills). Mirai should've had a lower PCS at US senior nationals for her juniorish choreography, but that shouldn't be an issue at junior worlds. OTOH, some of us believe that the techical panels have been tougher at the senior level (internationally). Advantage Mirai.

Looking at the rankings, Caroline is 11th in the ISU world standings, Mirai 26th, and Flatt 55th. At the icenetwork, Caroline is ranked 8th, Mirai 13th, and Rachael is outside of the top 20. The rankings indicate that Caroline has been slightly stronger than Mirai internationally this year and far stronger than Mirai over the previous three years. Mirai was eliminated in the Pacific regionals in 2006, which prevented her from participating in the JGP later that year.

Regardless, since Yu-Na's injury has resurfaced, I think that both Caroline and Mirai could use a little bit more core (lower back, abdominals, upper hips) strength/bulk. All that jumping, twisting, and turning doesn't favor an hourglass figure.

Tinymavy15 said:

... but nowhere near Caroline's very sophisticated Spanish Gypsy.

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For me, that has been the most frustrating part of Caroline's skating this year. Her Spanish Gypsy presentation improved from the Counter Match to Skate America but not much since then. She's such a beautiful and natural performer. Whatever other problems she might be having shouldn't affect her artistry so much.

I wouldn't take much stock in the rankings. Does the fact that Caroline skated on the JGP last year while Mirai and Rachael did not mean anything regarding their current skating? No, not really.

While using the loop instead of the flutz in the short will probably help Caroline's scores, both she and Mirai will need to watch out for underrotation calls on their combos. And while you may find Mirai's presentation "junior-ish", as someone who has actually played the entire Coppelia suite I think she portrays the theme of Coppelia brilliantly in the long and her short just exudes energy - something I find lacking in all of Caroline's skating.

So I think they're pretty much even all over. If they hit everything the jump GOE's may push Mirai over Caroline, but Mirai's been the one more prone to downgrading this season.

I think based on their performances (not their score) at the most recent competition, National's, Mirai should be the favorite over Caroline. Rachael is a dark horse. With perfectly clean programs from Mirai & Caroline, I think Rachael will be third. But Mirai & Caroline are both prone to downgrades, and against Rachael they cannot afford even one downgrade.

But one thing I've found interesting is that Mirai has typically faltered whenever she's been perceived to be the favorite. Throughout their lives, Mirai had come second to Caroline in regional and club competitions, and therefore had rarely had the spotlight or expectation focused on her. After beating Caroline at National's last year, she had a messy exhibition skate, and then skated a less stellar LP at Junior Worlds (than at National's) to second place. This year, she skated a brilliant SP at National's, and then had a tight and mistake-strewn LP.

I think for these young skaters, a good deal of competitive maturation has to do with learning to deal with the pressure of expectations, both internal and external.

Rachael has not been in the position of a favorite for a while now. She didn't place first in the SP in any of her competitions this year, but often she staged a comeback in the LP and won that portion. It would be interesting to see how she copes with the pressure if she does turn out to be in the lead after the SP.

Even for Caroline, who won all the junior international competitions last year, and did well on the senior GP this year, we saw how she collapsed a little under the pressure in the National's SP -- this was probably the first competition for her this season that there was high expectation on her to win. It was only after it became apparent that she could ONLY aim to skate her best, and not to win the whole thing, that she came back to skate a beautiful LP.

In any case, I do expect these three to sweep, unless someone withdraws or gets injured.

ChrisH said:

Looking at the rankings, Caroline is 11th in the ISU world standings, Mirai 26th, and Flatt 55th. At the icenetwork, Caroline is ranked 8th, Mirai 13th, and Rachael is outside of the top 20. The rankings indicate that Caroline has been slightly stronger than Mirai internationally this year and far stronger than Mirai over the previous three years. Mirai was eliminated in the Pacific regionals in 2006, which prevented her from participating in the JGP later that year.

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Well, duh, Caroline competed in the JGP last season, won the JGPF and 2007 Junior Worlds, and competed in the GP this season, making the GPF. It's no wonder she is much higher in the standings than Mirai and Rachael! GP and GPF get MUCH higher points than the JGP/JGPF.

Mirai won silver at 2007 Junior Worlds, but hadn't competed in the JGP until this season. That JW silver medal gave her 644 points over Rachael, who competed only in the International Challenge Cup in 2007, and received no ISU points for that.

It's no wonder Caroline has many more ISU ranking points than Mirai and Rachael, and why Mirai has more points and a higher ranking than Rachael.

But the judges don't consult the ISU Ranking list when judging competitions. They look at what the skaters are doing on the ice.

I also think that unless they make big mistakes the USA girls will sweep the podium. But I think Caroline will most likely not defend her titel if Rachel and Mirai skate clean.

More interesting at this point for me is who will be places 4 to 10

I think we’re close to a consensus here. Let’s say Mirai is the favorite going in, followed by Rachael. And we will all be surprised when Caroline wins.

chuckm said:

But the judges don't consult the ISU Ranking list when judging competitions. They look at what the skaters are doing on the ice.

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One would hope so. I do expect the scoring to be much better at junior Worlds than it was at US nationals and that will help Caroline a lot and hurt Rachael a lot.

If you don't like the rolling rankings, which factor in consistency, look at the ISU ladies highest scores:
176.48 Caroline Zhang 2007 GPF
169.43 Caroline Zhang 2007 World Juniors
163.84 Mirai Nagasu 2007 World Juniors
162.68 Caroline Zhang 2006 JGPF
162.43 Caroline Zhang 2006 JGP Mexico
162.42 Caroline Zhang 2006 JGP China (Taiwan)
162.09 Mirai Nagasu 2007 JGPF
159.66 Rachael Flatt 2007 JGPF
...
http://www.isufs.org/isujsstat/o100lto.htm

If Caroline skates her best, she will win.

PolymerBob said:

I think we’re close to a consensus here. Let’s say Mirai is the favorite going in, followed by Rachael. And we will all be surprised when Caroline wins.

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I like your thinking.

Rachael has been racking up big scores in her FSs, so I don't think she is a pushover for any of the other competitors. Certainly Mirai doesn't think Rachael is easily beaten (Rachael has beaten her in the FS in their last two meetings).

ChrisH said:

If Caroline skates her best, she will win.

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Or not. Because those scores were before the edge deductions were implemented. Caroline's received an edge deduction (and deservedly so) for every single one of her lutzes in international competiton this season, while Mirai hasn't. IMO, if both Mirai and Caroline go clean, with similar technical content, Mirai will win (and if Rachael Flatt skates clean also, she might beat Caroline as well). Caroline's technical flaws are very real and obvious. Mirai's basics and speed are much better, and presentation wise they're about equal (again, this is imo). Mirai, if she fully rotates her jumps, will receive higher GOEs. Also, as seen in the US Nationals, she's also capable of high level elements. Her non-jump elements were rated higher than Caroline's. She also tends to get higher levels in her step sequences, IIRC.

Of course, Rachael cannot be counted out.

The three gals will battle it out, but are there any other Ladies that could make the podium?

Joe

If the three US girls falter, I think the other top two Junior ladies are Jenni Vähämaa (FIN) and Yuki Nishino (JPN). Elena Glebova is competing as well, and she has a solid triple toe-triple toe and all the triples.

I'm going to take a guess and say that the top ten at JW ladies will be Nagasu, Flatt, Zhang (all USA), Jenni Vähämaa (FIN), Sarah Hecken (GER), Elena Glebova and Svetlana Issakova (EST), Yuki Nishino and Rumi Suizu (JPN) and a Russian lady (either Gerbolt or Leonova), in some order.