USA & Other Countries JGP Nominees announced

[nadster]

Doesn't he have to meet the published benchmarks at a summer competition before having a confirmed JGP assignment?

Skaters who have met the benchmark score (150 international, 155 domestic, total TES 78) the previous season may be considered for an early assignment but must compete and show readiness 30 days prior to keep the assignment".

Here are Woods' scores from last season:
Total Score , Total TES, Event
110.89, 67.12, Junior Nationals
102.14, 61.50, Eastern Challenge

Clearly, Wood did not come close to meeting the benchmark scores last season. So far, he has not competed at any of the Summer competitions and he is not scheduled to be at Skate Detroit, Wild Rose, Thornhill or Quebec. The JGP event at Courchevel starts on August 27.

It looks as if the Skate Canada Selection Process is just another paper qualifier without any real teeth.

chuckm , if SC's criteria were used to select the men for the JGP then only Balde ( 2008 Cdn junior champion with a score of 165.26) has made those standards.

Poirier at least has scored 150.78 domestically at Cdn junior nationals and that is the closest we have to someone else meeting the criteria.

Canada has 16 slots for JGP. I don't think that Skate Canada is stupid enough to leave all those spots blank.

Also it would be almost impossible for skaters to meet that standard during a summer competition when the new programs aren't that well polished yet. This would especially be true for top novices moving up to junior for the first time..

I don't expect that our junior men will do so well on the JGP circuit this year. Jeremy Ten and Ian Martinez have both aged out and Balde is our top JGP bound guy by some distance and he nearly didn't get to skate the free program at junior worlds. He beat Poirier ( 2nd place juniors ) by 15 points.

IOW, the published Canadian standards are totally unrealistic for the skaters we have got now.

[chuckm]

IOW, the published Canadian standards are totally unrealistic for the skaters we have got now.

I agree with you completely. I just don't understand why Skate Canada goes through this charade year after year. Last year, the 'standards' they set for the JGP wouldn't have been met by some of the top US ladies!

[chuckm]

I just found the roster for the Minto competition (July 31-Aug 3), and Jackson Wood is on it (Junior Men, pages 50-52).

http://www.mintoskatingclub.com/Mint...hts%202008.pdf

So it looks like Skate Canada is at least paying lip service to the JGP Selection Process---even if Minto is less than 30 days before the start of the JGP Courchevel event.

However, I don't think Jackson Wood's scores from last year are going to improve by 40 points. Paul Parkinson, who is also competing at Minto, competed at Broadmoor (119.82) and Liberty (127.76). He did improve drastically since Canadian Juniors (81.76), but he is still far short of the benchmark 150 "required" for the JGP.

[Sandra_persch]

However, I don't think Jackson Wood's scores from last year are going to improve by 40 points. Paul Parkinson, who is also competing at Minto, competed at Broadmoor (119.82) and Liberty (127.76). He did improve drastically since Canadian Juniors (81.76), but he is still far short of the benchmark 150 "required" for the JGP.

I think those requirements are rubbish anyways 150 would have won a medall at the JGP in USA last year. Why i understand that is the ultimate goal for the federation, i do think they need realistic expectations. Not every JGP first time will medall. If they make the Top 8 it is a great achievement, especially if they skate clean programms.

Jackson is the Novice Champion and if Canada has enough spots and not enough man to fill them, let them give the Novice Champions a chance. How can they get international experience if the don't compete internationally, and sorry to me US summer competitions aren't the same as ISU competitions like Gardena, Triglav and co with USFSA used all the time.

[nadster]

Actually Skate Canada's standard says that the standards are set at the junior level so that one can realistically finish in the top 8 of a junior grand prix event. Obviously their stated minimum scores are way above that standard and would eliminate everyone that Canada could send except Balde. If a realistic chance at top 8 is a standard a better standard is to take the lowest 8th place score on the Grand Prix and use that as a minimum international score. The minimum domestic score could then be 5 points above the lowest 8th place Here I am sticking with Skate Canada's standard of setting a minimum domestic score 5 points higher than minimum international score.

Note I am trying to be consistent with Skate Canada's policy while coming up with a more realistic target. These are not my own personal standards. These new standards are based on Skate Canada's own statements.

With novices moving up, domestic scores from the novice scores last season could be calculated by applying the junior PCS multipliers to the component scores, removing jump bonuses, and increasing the fall deduction from 0.5 to 1. This adjusted score would give a rough idea of a skater's ability in a junior competition. These adjusted novice scores are likely to be higher than their early summer scores in junior skating new junior programs and a better barometer of their true ability. In the ladies the PCS multipliers are 14% higher in junior than novice. I don't know about the men yet.

So I looked at the 8th best scores at all the junior grand prixs and here is a list of the 8th place scores. I will note Canadian men who still can go to JGP who finished in the top 8 at each event and will note any Canadian men who would have finished in the top 8 had they been in another event.

Lake Placid : 128,56
Andrei Rogozine ( 5th juniors at nationals ) finished 8th here.

Romania:134.68
Andrew Lum ( 4th in juniors at nationals ) finished 7th here with a score of 141.45
Legare finished 8th but he has aged out.

Austria: 151.27
Jeremy Ten ( aged out ) finished 8th here. Andrei Rogozine finished 14th with 131.96 ( better than his higher placing Lake Placid score)

Estonia:: 146.53
Ian Martinez ( aged out) finished 5th with 153.49. Ronald Lam finished 15th with 120.78.

Croatia: 138.00
Dave Ferland finished 7th with a score of 138.79. Patrick Wong finished 14th scoring 122.68

Bulgaria:146.41
Andrew Lum finished 12th here with a score of 133,08. That would have put him in the top 8 in Lake Placid.

Germany: 152,05
Balde finished 14th here with a score of 132,73. Again high enough for top 8 in Lake Placid

Great Britain: 150,46
Balde finished 7th here with a score of 151.30

Using the lowest top 8 score of 128.56 a more realistic target for a domestic standard is 133.56. Based on that the top 8 junior men at nationals all made the standard. Others made have made it at other competitions. Of those 8 ,6 of them can go on JGP for sure, One ( Sirois ) has aged out and I don't know about Wolfe's age status ( finished 8th at nationals). As far as novices go I have yet to recalculate any top novice scores to get a more junior feel so far.

IOW, my new realistic standard is 133.56 domestic , 128.56 international.

Face it, unless something really strange happens , Reynolds and Balde will make up the junior World team ( Canada has 2 slots at JW this year). Reynolds will be needed to maintain the 16 JGP slots because there it is unlikely Balde will.

[nadster]

I just found the roster for the Minto competition (July 31-Aug 3), and Jackson Wood is on it (Junior Men, pages 50-52).


However, I don't think Jackson Wood's scores from last year are going to improve by 40 points. Paul Parkinson, who is also competing at Minto, competed at Broadmoor (119.82) and Liberty (127.76). He did improve drastically since Canadian Juniors (81.76), but he is still far short of the benchmark 150 "required" for the JGP.

Good for Parkinson because that score ( 127.76) is higher than Ronald Lam's national junior score and Lam got 125.02 Note that Lam received a JGP last year.

Keep in mind in the Western Challenge Lam scored 148.46 so Lam just had a really bad skate at nationals. So Lam would therefore meet my revised targets ( see my post earlier).

[nadster]

chuckm

It is interesting to do an adjustment of Jackson Wood's national novice score to see what a rough idea of his junior score is like. I am using the junior PCS multipliers here. The raw data domes from his performance at novice nationals. There will be a huge increase in TCS scores from novice men to junior men. One component has a factor of 0.5 for novices in the short program. That same component has a factor of 1 for juniors in the short. The other four component factors have a smaller difference in multipliers but there still is a difference.

Short program:

Original TES - 28.30
Original TCS - 13.70
TCS adjusted with junior multipliers 19.52
Novice bonuses - 1.00 ( for the triple lutz) - I won't add bonuses to adjusted junior score
Falls - None

Original novice short program score - 43.00
Adjusted "junior" short program score - 47.82

Long Program:

Orginal TES - 38.83
Original TCS - 27.07
TCS - adjusted - 38.60
Novice bonuses - 2.00 ( for loop and flip ) again not added to junior score.
Falls - none
Original novice long program score - 67.89
Adjusted "junior" long program score - 77.43

Original total novice score - 110.89
Adjusted "junior" score - 125.25

Between his 2 programs he landed a triple triple ( salchow-toe combo) in the long and has loop , flip and lutz( in the short) as well. He did pop the lutz in the long to a single and he popped one of his double axel attempts in the long. Given his long program errors on jumps he clearly had in the short, the data suggests that he probably could hit the mid to high 130's with 2 strong programs.

Based on this data, he clearly has the stuff deserving of a JGP assignment.

Obviously these adjustments are not an exact science. But it gives you an idea of just how much the marks can increase given different PCS multipliers ( the main reason for the increase in marks).

[dwiggin3]

I was happy to see South Africa get a JGP event. Obviously, there are not many skaters south of the equator but it would be nice for those that do skate to compete at that event. For US and any other northern hemisphere team, it think its a great opportunity. Frankly, a lot of the fun of these events is the chance to travel to places you would not normally visit and South Africa is one of them. Even with the extra travel time, I think the potential benefits of learning to travel long distances, adjusting your schedule, new atmosphere/food ect. is part of the learning experience. It's not just about the skating at this level, is how well you compete.

[chuckm]

I like your idea of realistic target---one that Junior men HAVE met in the past and can meet again.

I agree that the goal should be to get the younger skaters into international competition so that they know what it takes to make it on the world stage.

I also believe that Skate Canada ought not to 'punish' skaters who don't make the top 4 in their first event. Sometimes a JGP event has unusually tough competition where the scores at the top are higher than usual. It seems wrong to me to give skaters a sense of failure because they couldn't 'shape up' at first asking. Perhaps the rule for a second assignment should be that the skater met the benchmark at the first competition, rather than arbitrarily demanding a high placement from relatively inexperienced skaters.

What about the ladies? How would you recalculate their 'benchmark'? The current mark for the JGP is 115 International and 120 Domestic.

Here are some Canadian ladies' scores from the 2008 Championships:

Seniors
119.49 Diane Szmiett
117.87 Erika Tisluck
110.79 Kathryn Kang
108.45 Dana Zhalko-Tytarenko
103.24 Devon Neuls

Juniors
120.85 Kelsey McNeil
119.80 Vanessa Grenier
117.33 Amanda Velenosi
116.92 Rebecca Addison
116.70 Vanessa Juteau
113.59 Kirsten Moore-Towers
111.79 Cecylia Witkowski
110.05 Jessica-Amy Sergeant
109.77 Megan Ure
108.36 McKenzie Crawford

Novice
103.04 Alexandra Najarro
100.24 Melissa Briggs


Results from recent summer competitions (total scores only, as TES is not available):

Ann Arbor (5/15)
Seniors
113.96 Marianne Laporte
SP only:
38.76 Kirsten Moore-Towers
38.08 Kyra Moscovitch
28.17 Stefanie Marotta
25.77 Monique Lizon

Juniors
88.49 Kirsten Jensen
SP only:
35.87 Brooke Paulin

Liberty 7/16-19
Seniors
98.34 Dana Zhalko-Tytarenko
96.18 Rachel Gendron
85.85 Marie-Christine Cloutier

Juniors
88.00 Annie-Pierre Ricard
84.94 Megan Ure
77.91 Jacinthe Brodeur
76.40 Breanne Frankish
66.57 Shannon Edling
59.24 Stephanie Tran

[nadster]

I like your idea of realistic target---one that Junior men HAVE met in the past and can meet again.

What about the ladies? How would you recalculate their 'benchmark'? The current mark for the JGP is 115 International and 120 Domestic.

Well the lowest 8th place score last year was at the JGP in Lake Placid with a high score of 98.15

So based on my rules for the men, one must achieve 98.15 internationally or 103.15 domestically to qualify.

Several ladies would easily make this, even the top novice ladies moving up. The top novice ladies would have their national scores recalculated with junior PCS multipliers ( similar to the example with Wood in an earlier post). That will broaden the pool of younger talent to be chosen.

Now for selection ( since there will be more ladies that make this benchmark than spots) as Canada does not have any worldbeaters among the ladies, I would focus my attention on the youngest skaters that have made that target.

Those in their last or 2nd last year of being able to do JGP would be very unlikely to get picked unless they have the potential of making the JGPF. What is the point of picking them when they will disappear internationally off the face of the earth and age out. Better to give it to a young skater who can build up a ranking to eventually get to the GP.

This means I would not be picking the likes of Szmiett and Kang ( 2 skaters who have had several JGP events over the last 3 seasons and have shown no improvement and are near the end of the JGP line).

I also did recalculate Najarro's novice challenge score ( which was a point lower than her nationals score ) and found her adjusted "junior" score was only 2 points behind Kang's senior score at nationals. Given that Kang had an extra spin available to her, Najarro would likely have beaten Kang had she skated senior.

[chuckm]

I agree that Skate Canada should send the younger ladies to the JGP instead of the older ones who have failed time after time to make any impact.

I'd pick those 16 and under who have shown some ability in the past: Megan Ure (who made the FSF at Liberty in her group), Dana Zhalko-Tytarenko, Vanessa Grenier, Kelsey McNeil (who looks promising), McKenzie Crawford, and the top two Novices. I'd also give Rika Inoda another chance. She is only 15, and may have been going through a bout with the puberty monster in the past year.

[nadster]

I agree that Skate Canada should send the younger ladies to the JGP instead of the older ones who have failed time after time to make any impact.

I'd pick those 16 and under who have shown some ability in the past: Megan Ure (who made the FSF at Liberty in her group), Dana Zhalko-Tytarenko, Vanessa Grenier, Kelsey McNeil (who looks promising), McKenzie Crawford, and the top two Novices. I'd also give Rika Inoda another chance. She is only 15, and may have been going through a bout with the puberty monster in the past year.

Another novice I would consider is Rylie McCulloch-Casara who is 14 years old. No she did not have her best nationals.but she did win the Western Challenge with a score ( novice) over 100. She was invited to the national development camp and was landing triple lutzes. This is great news considering that traditionally that the Canadian ladies have had problems adding jumps to the arsenal after the novice level. She is due to compete in Thornhill.

There is also Velenosi and Kirsten-Moore Towers to consider but as they both JGP bound for pairs ( in the case of Velenosi the senior GP as well ) I don't think it is too wise to select them to overload the plate. Kirsten-Moore-Towers is one of 4 ladies to meet the current Skate Canada standard and the only one to do it internationally ( She did it at the Merano cup, a junior b event).

The other ladies that make Skate Canada's standard are:

Diane Szmiett - most recently at the last Challenge ( senior level)

Erika Tisluk - most recently at the last Challenge ( senior level)

Kelsey McNeil - Junior nationals 2008

It is funny how more women meet the Skate Canada standard than men at this point.

.I do agree with your choices chuckm. I just had a few other good names to consider.

[chuckm]

Kelsey McNeil was one of my picks.

As for Szmiett and Tisluck, they are a pair who have consistently disappointed internationally. I'd rather see the younger ladies get the chance to establish themselves than see those two 17 year-olds occupy two JGP slots this year and next, and still not deliver.

[Joesitz]

I was happy to see South Africa get a JGP event. Obviously, there are not many skaters south of the equator but it would be nice for those that do skate to compete at that event. For US and any other northern hemisphere team, it think its a great opportunity. Frankly, a lot of the fun of these events is the chance to travel to places you would not normally visit and South Africa is one of them. Even with the extra travel time, I think the potential benefits of learning to travel long distances, adjusting your schedule, new atmosphere/food ect. is part of the learning experience. It's not just about the skating at this level, is how well you compete.

ITA. The skating will be good and you will have that most talked about city to want to stay further. There is much to do in Capetown.

[nadster]

Kelsey McNeil was one of my picks.

As for Szmiett and Tisluck, they are a pair who have consistently disappointed internationally. I'd rather see the younger ladies get the chance to establish themselves than see those two 17 year-olds occupy two JGP slots this year and next, and still not deliver.

I wouldn't pick Szmiett and Tisluck either for the reasons you state. Unfortunately since they meet Skate Canada criteria and the vast majority of the younger ones don't, they are likely to be picked again.

Skate Canada has normally been reluctant to "drop" a non-performing skater. They sent skaters like Ashton Tessier again and again even though she never had any good results. It is only when SC loses JGP slots that skaters get "dropped".