Golden West Championships (Aug. 28-31, Culver City, CA)

Mods, feel free to move this thread to the Nationals Events (Worldwide) forum.

ChrisH said:

The Golden West Championships have finished and the results are being posted:
http://www.allyearfsc.com/events/2008GWindexresults.html
http://web.icenetwork.com/events/detail.jsp?id=53100

Caroline Zhang skated well but Mirai Nagasu withdrew. Also, four of the JPG alternates for the USA ladies participated with varying success. A few others impressed enough to warrant JGP participation. I'd like to see the results posted for the senior ladies before saying more.

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SENIOR LADIES Final Unofficial results (21 skated in FS):
181.00 Caroline Zhang 116.59 in FS
151.43 Karen Zhou 96.32
151.06 Laney Diggs 95.14
146.72 Angelyn Nguyen 95.89
143.18 Anna Malkova 85.20
127.70 Danielle Kahle 81.22
122.46 Sophia Adams 74.63
119.52 Tashe Smith (don't have her SP score)
113.49 Tenile Victorsen 67.91
102.98 Victoria Muniz (PUR) 56.77
101.83 Dallas Daniel (CAN)
12th-21st: Nina Lam, Karina Thimester, Erin Reed, Kristy Evans, Olivia Olsen, Alexandra Simon (CAN), Priscella Chan, Kaylin Stuckel (CAN), Stacey Rude (CAN), Julia Mitchell.
WD from FS: Jessica Houston, Stephanie Dal Porto

SENIOR LADIES SP unofficial results (top 10):
C Zhang 64.41 (-1 ded. but not on a fall)
A Malkova 57.98
L Diggs 55.92
K Zhou 55.11
A Nguyen 50.83
S Adams 47.83
D Kahle 46.48
V Muniz (PUR) 46.21
T Victorsen 45.58
J Houston 38.86
(23 competed; WD: K Kang (CAN), A Madorsky, L Merrell, M Nagasu, T Yu)

SENIOR MEN Unofficial Final standings and SP/FS results:
1 Kevin Reynolds (CAN) 216.85 / 139.94 (1st in FS) / 76.91 (1st in SP)
2 Jeremy Ten (CAN) 186.28 / 122.42 (3rd in FS) / 63.86 (2nd in SP)
3 Scott Smith 185.71 / 123.39 (2nd in FS) / 62.36 (3rd in SP)
4 Douglas Razzano 170.71 / 110.87 (4th in FS) / 59.84 (4th in SP)
5 Dennis Phan 160.13 / 102.70 (5th in FS) / 57.43 (6th in SP)
6 Craig Finney (CAN) 149.34 / 96.26 (6th in FS) / 53.08 (7th in SP)
7 Brandon Prete (CAN) 132.42 / 85.61 (7th in FS) / 46.81 (8th in SP)
8 Peter Lindstrom 117.21 / 78.59 (8th in FS) / 38.62 (9th in SP)
WD from FS: Igor Matsipura (SVK) 58.32 (5th in SP)

SENIOR PAIRS Unofficial Final standings and FS results:
1 Vise/Trent 156.93 (100.46, 1st in FS)
2 Nam/Leftheris 140.11 (83.35, 2nd in FS)
3 Sunyoto/Sulindro [also known as Yang/Yang (TPE)] 117.90 (71.32, 5th in FS)
4 Brunn/D. Baldwin 113.12 (78.53, 4th in FS)
5 Davis/Merritt 112.72 (80.17, 3rd in FS)
6 Guillen/Curzon 96.73 (6th in FS)

Pretty solid numbers for Caroline!

Thanks for joining us, LKR772. Post often, post long!

I love Golden West, because I train in the area almost every group has a skater I know competing. I would be there if it wasn't for school...

Anyway, glad to hear Caroline skated well. I wonder what the deduction was for... maybe she went overtime. I think she will have a great season.

I wonder why Marai withdrew. I hope it is just a matter of being ready and not an injury.

Seems like Nam/Lefttheris as well as Vise/Trent skated pretty well.

Personally I am very surprised that Danielle Kahle is skating this season. She had that one season where she placed surprisingly well at nationals (was it 2007?) but really has been struggling with her jumps and skating does not seem to be her top priority anymore. I think she is going to college in the Valley, so seeing her competing is rather a surprise.

I had the great fortune and joy to watch some of this competition.

The highlight for me was definitely Caroline Zhang. She had a more
mature look to her skating now, she still had pink and blue dresses for her SP & LP,
but they were several shades darker and more mature-looking than her
baby pink/blue dresses in the past, and VERY sparkly. Her music, while
still classical and balletic, were also more dramatic and exciting than
in the past. The SP (La Bayedere) was especially great music, and
well-choreographed, it had purpose and excitement throughout, and her sl
step sequence is much improved in speed and style -- it ended in this
surprising dip down to a little sit spin, followed by a series of wicked
fast twizzles, it was quite exciting and drew lots of applause. There
were some nice transition moves sprinkled throughout, too, including a
leap and a backward shooting-the-duck (I think). She also looks taller,
maybe 5'1, but still slender, though not scarily thin like some of the
other skaters (like Karen Zhou, whose stick-like arms I couldn't help
gaping at after she did a spin in which her arms stuck out particularly
jarringly. Someone please feed this girl!). Her LP music started out
dramatic with the jump combos, then was pretty and cute during the spins
and footwork sequence, but then got lost for a while, before finding a
dramatic ending (with her beautiful layback spin). On the whole,
Caroline seems to be sticking with the kind of classic, balletic music
she feels comfortable with, but at the same time, her performance seems
to be growing in maturity and confidence. Watching her skate her SP
definitely reminded me of Michelle Kwan at 15 skating her transformative
Salome.

Caroline's general strategy wrt jumps is to replace the pesky 3Z with
the 3R in both the SP and the LP, and that strategy seems to be working
-- she beat both her SP & LP personal best here. GW scores in the last
two seasons have been spot-on in predicting her international scores.
Her SP jumps: 3F-3T, 3R, 2A. LP jumps: 3F-3T, 3Z-2T, 2A, 3R, 3F,
3R-2R-2T, 3S. I was happy to see that her 3S had decent height and a
relatively clean landing, it's a jump she's been struggling with.
Unfortunately, she still skids into her 2A take-off, and kicks high for
the 3F, both of which, besides being visually jarring, also slows her
significantly. However, her consistency with her jumps really is
impressive, and it doesn't seem to have been affected by her growth
spurt so far. Her spins were awesome as usual, I never saw her
practicing them even once during the warm-up, I'm sure she can do them
perfectly in her sleep.

She had a sizeable fan following even at this club competition, there
were lots of little girls chanting "Go Caroline", especially just before
her LP, and there were people lining up to have their photos taken with
her after her LP (ok, I have to admit that I contributed to the queue).

Among the other senior ladies, Anna Malkova, whom I've never seen
before, skated a very good SP (58! That's really amazing!). She looked
strong in the LP too, but had a bit more trouble with her jumps.

Laney Diggs skated both a good SP & LP. Some 2-footing on the harder
jumps, but overall good jumps and presentation, too. I love her
abundant smiles throughout her programs.

Karen Zhou had good jumps in her LP, and good spins too. I just
couldn't really enjoy her programs because her extreme skinniness was so
distracting for me.

Danielle Kahle made one major mistake (fall) in each of her programs,
but skated pretty well otherwise. She was very happy after her LP. Her
coach is Charlene Wong -- does anyone know if that's a new thing?

Karen Kwan was quite busy at the competition, she arrived with Caroline
Zhang at the SP (she co-coreographed Caroline's SP last season, maybe
she's helping out again this season?), and she also coached both Anna
Malkova and Karen Zhou, both in the last group in the LP.

Naomi Nari Nam watched both of the senior ladies' events (SP & LP), and
cheered Caroline especially loudly (ringing out "Come on, Caroline, nail
it!" just before Caroline's SP, it was cute). She and Leftheris looked
good in their LP, she looked so polished and strong -- but she stumbled
on a side-by-side triple (3T?), doubled a throw jump, and fell on the
straight-line sequence, after which she seemed to completely fall apart,
and barely survived the pair spin at the end. It was kinda shocking,
because they began looking so good together. Leftheris looks like he
maybe lost some weight? Anyway, he looked good.

I didn't see too much of the senior men, just the last couple of skaters
in the LP. Douglas Razzano, last to go, looked quite good. He has great
posture, extension, musicality, and he had good music/choreography, just
his jumps weren't all there.

Sylvia said:

SENIOR MEN Unofficial Final standings and FS results:
1 Kevin Reynolds (CAN) 216.85 / 139.94 (1st in FS)

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What did Kevin Reynolds do? Even if this was a bit overscored and not an official ISU competition - he still smashed his personal best for the free skate by more than 12 points and his overall personal best by 30 points. The score would have given him 6th place at the last senior worlds and the 6th best freeskate. So anybody know what he skated (= how many cool quads did he land and did he have a consistent performance for once?)?

Oh, I heard that Mirai Nagasu withdrew because of a recurrent right ankle injury. I hope it's not too serious! I was sad not to see her skate, I was looking forward to it.

I'm so happy Caroline landed salchow! Is this her first 7-triple skate? Sounds like she is ready for the season. She could even win either of her GPs with skate like that.
I'm nervous for Mirai..

Medusa said:

What did Kevin Reynolds do? Even if this was a bit overscored and not an official ISU competition - he still smashed his personal best for the free skate by more than 12 points and his overall personal best by 30 points. The score would have given him 6th place at the last senior worlds and the 6th best freeskate. So anybody know what he skated (= how many cool quads did he land and did he have a consistent performance for once?)?

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Over 200 is a double WOW score this early in the season. I'm sure Kevin skated well and deserved his win but fans have the tendency to use the last scores as his expected score throughout the season. He does have the content of program for lots of tech points.

Ten and Smith also highs of over 185. can they maintain that during GPs?

Razzano trails with 170 but he gets better as the season moves on.

THANK YOU SO MUCH feraina!!!

Great post. I can't wait to see Caroline. Karen Kwan coaches at Caroline's rink, so she may be one of her coaches. Naomi and her partner train there as well, so they probably know Caroline well.

Yes, Danillie's swich is big news. She has been Frank's (Caroll) for many years... am i knew that she was not happy last year... a lot of fights, not showing up to practice, just a lot of conflicts. I figured that she would retire from skating, but I hope that this swich will help her. Charlene is a great coach and such a wonderful person.

Wrlmy said:

I'm so happy Caroline landed salchow! Is this her first 7-triple skate? Sounds like she is ready for the season. She could even win either of her GPs with skate like that.
I'm nervous for Mirai..

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Well, she attempted 7 triples at SA last year, but she flipped out of the 3S, which was downgraded (and she replaced the 3S with a 2A for the rest of the season, so she never attempted the 7-triple program again until now). Her score of 116.59 doesn't actually feel that high for a 7-triple program, so maybe she got a downgrade somewhere. On the other hand, the LP choreography didn't look completely comfortable for her yet, so maybe it's just the PCS being relatively new. I'd be very interested to see the full detailed results.

She got her PB SP score last season at JW, where she was forced by junior rules to have a 3R instead of a 3Lz. Maybe that made her realize that it was actually better for her point-wise to replace 3flz with 3R's (as long as she can fully rotate them!).

Here are detailed results for senior events at Golden West:
http://www.allyearfsc.com/events/GOLDEN_WEST/2008results/Senior/index.htm

Caroline's TES (and PCS) at GW are comparable to her best LP results so far, at GPF last season,
http://www.isufs.org/results/gpf0708/SEG004.HTM
where she under-rotated the 3Z, fell, and had an edge call. That makes me think that probably she had one jump downgraded in her GW LP, possibly the 3S. It wasn't a bad attempt at all, though. It looked close to fully rotated (or at least no more than 1/4 turn under). If she can fix her under-rotation, she will probably gain 3 extra points, plus she can easily get 1 point more in the SP if she doesn't finish behind the music, bringing the total to 185. Only Mao & Yu-na consistently score that high or higher, so this is really promising.

We should be seeing higher scores, since the base mark has gone up for 3A's and quads.

Thanks for your posts, feraina!

review

Thanks for the review. Anybody tape recorded this event?

Glad to hear that Caroline has not been affected by her growth spurt. really look forward to seeing her programs this season.

Thank you Sylvia.

Beatrisa Liang was also absent from this competition. All in all though, the participation level among the ladies looked strong.

Going over the ladies scores from the last two years, Golden West's scores don't appear to be heavily inflated. No more than other national scores. Rather, the senior ladies exceeded expectations.

Sylvia said:

181.00 Caroline Zhang 116.59 in FS
151.43 Karen Zhou 96.32
151.06 Laney Diggs 95.14
146.72 Angelyn Nguyen 95.89
143.18 Anna Malkova 85.20

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All 5 ladies improved from last year, with Karen, Angelyn, and Anna making the biggest improvements. I'll get to Caroline later. I imagine that Karen is now the 1st alternate for the JGP and a strong one at that. Laney is still age 15 (Karen recently turned 17) and so looks to be an even better alternate than Karen, but she seems to be destined for an international B assignment. Recall that Laney recently beat Mira at the BC/Y Summerskate. Angelyn and Anna moved up from juniors and outperformed three of the current JGP alternates.

feraina said:

... Anna Malkova, whom I've never seen before, skated a very good SP (58! That's really amazing!). She looked strong in the LP too, but had a bit more trouble with her jumps.

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Anna and Caroline, 2nd and 1st after the SP, were behaving like close friends before the LP. I wonder which part of the saying "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" Anna fell in.

Karen Kwan was quite busy at the competition, she arrived with Caroline Zhang at the SP (she co-coreographed Caroline's SP last season, maybe she's helping out again this season?), and she also coached both Anna Malkova and Karen Zhou, both in the last group in the LP.

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Then she had a very successful competition.


I was sorry to see Tenile Victorsen struggle with her jumps. She looked to be in fantastic shape. And she is beginning to rival Kiira Korpi in beauty.

The junior ladies were a bit of a disappointment. The exception was Vanessa Lam, who was hugely improved. Ellie Kawamura's 125.91 was good enough to win and she topped Marisa Secundy's 114.01 at Liberty, but it probably won't be enough to get her a JGP assignment. Mirai Nagasu scored 146.87 in this event in 2006 (she was age 13) and she still didn't get a JGP assignment.

ChrisH said:

Mirai Nagasu scored 146.87 in this event in 2006 (she was age 13) and she still didn't get a JGP assignment.

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That's because Mirai didn't make it to Nationals 2006: she placed 5th at 2006 Novice Regionals. The USFS places primary importance on Nationals performance when it comes to JGP assignments.

feraina said:

The highlight for me was definitely Caroline Zhang. She had a more mature look to her skating now, she still had pink and blue dresses for her SP & LP, but they were several shades darker and more mature-looking than her baby pink/blue dresses in the past, and VERY sparkly.

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I thought that her LP dress was violet. Yes, it was more mature looking but not as regal IMO.

She also looks taller, maybe 5'1, but still slender, though not scarily thin like some of the other skaters ...

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Her latest bio update at the icenetwork lists her as 5'2". I agree, Caroline looks slightly less lithe. Between Mao and YuNa in thinness. The growth of her thighs (in thickness) seemed to slightly outpace her height or so I imagine. Did her jumps look any higher? I didn't notice a difference but I wasn't seated at ice level.

Her LP music started out dramatic with the jump combos, then was pretty and cute during the spins and footwork sequence, but then got lost for a while, before finding a dramatic ending (with her beautiful layback spin).

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You seemed to like her SP better than her LP, which is good as her LP looked too similar to her Ave Maria program for my liking. Hopefully, Caroline worked on her SP first and is still working on her LP.

GW scores in the last two seasons have been spot-on in predicting her international scores.

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To be specific:
2006 GW score 173.30 => avg. 161.93 in her other competitions including Nationals
2007 GW score 169.29 => avg. 166.23 in her other competitions including Nationals
2008 GW score 181.00

That 181.00 is her personal best. Obviously a great start. Caroline's GW scores also suggest that she is steady throughout the year and doesn't have a hard peak like some others.

Caroline's general strategy wrt jumps is to replace the pesky 3Z with the 3R in both the SP and the LP, and that strategy seems to be working -- she beat both her SP & LP personal best here.

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Her SP jumps: 3F-3T, 3R, 2A. LP jumps: 3F-3T, 3Z-2T, 2A, 3R, 3F, 3R-2R-2T, 3S. I was happy to see that her 3S had decent height and a relatively clean landing, it's a jump she's been struggling with.

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Thanks. I wasn't sure if she did two 3Rs and a 3S and I was wondering if she went with the 3Z or 3R in the SP.

Unfortunately, she still skids into her 2A take-off, and kicks high for the 3F, both of which, besides being visually jarring, also slows her significantly.

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She got zero distance on her 2A. Probably neglecting to practice it in order to work on her 3S. (I wonder if that bonus for 5 different triples was rumor or fact.)

However, her consistency with her jumps really is impressive, and it doesn't seem to have been affected by her growth spurt so far. Her spins were awesome as usual, I never saw her practicing them even once during the warm-up, I'm sure she can do them perfectly in her sleep.

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The only jump Caroline has popped in the past two seasons was a 2T into a 1T.

Naomi Nari Nam ... and Leftheris looked good in their LP, she looked so polished and strong -- but she stumbled on a side-by-side triple (3T?), doubled a throw jump, and fell on the straight-line sequence, after which she seemed to completely fall apart, and barely survived the pair spin at the end. It was kinda shocking, because they began looking so good together.

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The new programs debutted by Vise/Trent didn't catch your attention?


---

feraina said:

Caroline's TES (and PCS) at GW are comparable to her best LP results so far, at GPF last season, where she under-rotated the 3Z, fell, and had an edge call. That makes me think that probably she had one jump downgraded in her GW LP, possibly the 3S.

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Don't forget that a (combination) spin has been eliminated from the LP.