Wow! What happened to Mira Leung?

[passion]

I'm really surprised at her standings this year. This is an all time low for her. Surely, she must be disappointed by the results. I think she jinxed herself by saying that she wanted to be on the podium. Hopefully she can get it together before nationals so she can go to Worlds. She has really got to take the scores seriously and not brush them off like they don't matter. Look what Joannie did. She looked at her low PCS scores and worked on them with positive results. I think it will be a tough race between Cynthia and Mira at nationals. What are your thoughts?

[chuckm]

Mira consistently underrotates jumps, and this season it has gotten far worse. In the CoC SP, she UR'd the lutz in the combo and the 2A. In the FS, she had five URs: solo lutz, solo 2A, 3S, 2A in combo, flip in combo. For the entire competition, she landed only 3 triples, and only one of those was clean.

Mira's new 'coach' seems to be just another stand-in for Mama Leung, so it doesn't appear as if there is going to be any hope of Mira improving. Apparently there is no work being done on either the URs or her presentation. Mira's PCS scores at CoC have hit a new low. Skaters are supposed to improve as they gain experience. Mira's skills are deteriorating rapidly.

Skate Canada cannot possibly be pleased with Mira's performances in the GP. I think there is every possibility that Mira will not be on the 2009 World team.

[fiercemao]

The PCS is also directly linked to URs. No judge will give her higher PCS after seeing massive downgrades from the technical controller.

Has she lost 3T as well? It's very strange to see her doing two 2As as 2A is her nemesis jump and there's 80% chance it would get downgraded.

[Kypma]

I think it will be a tough race between Cynthia and Mira at nationals. What are your thoughts?

I'm also surprised at Mira's standings this year, though maybe not as much as others. Over the years, she seems to have had frequent downgrades, and now they are increased in number, probably because she hasn't had a real coach in a while, and, frankly, when no one's correcting you, even the best technicians could lose some, and, in Mira's case, the "some" is perhaps the difference between full- and under-rotation.

As for Cynthia, she didn't look too great at HomeSense Skate Canada International this year, but last year, her long program was placed above Mira's, so there is hope that, if Cynthia stops popping jumps, especially in the SP, she could become n° 2. I really wish Lesley had stayed for just another year, this year she really could have made the world team! Well, that is, if her heart was in training. If it wasn't, she wouldn't have been happy and her skating might not have had the same joy...

-Kypma

[nadster]

Well what has happened so far has meant a lot of things.

1. Mira will no longer get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to underrotations at nationals. She has never been dinged for them at nationals in the past even though she gets dinged in international competition. With just about every jump being downgraded in China, SC will want to make sure she fully rotates those jumps to the point where there is no doubt.

2. It looks like Phaneuf and Diane Szmiett will compete for the silver and bronze medals. I think Phaneuf has a slight edge at the moment ( I don't know if SC wants to send Diane to both junior and senior worlds). Diane has been the most consistent of our female skaters not named Rochette, making the JGP final.

3. Even if Mira finishes 2nd at nationals, she probably won't get her ticket to worlds without a 4CC skateoff. Last season , Jeremy Ten got the ticket to junior worlds ahead of Ian Martinez even though Ian beat Jeremy at nationals. That was because Jeremy had the far superior results internationally.

4. For 2010 Canadians, Mira could be in even more trouble. Skaters like Rylie M-C and Najarro could trouble her by then as they most likely be competiting senior by then nationally.

[fumie_fumie]

nadster,

Excellent post. I'm sitting on the fence about the junior ladies in the point # 4, though. As Canadian fans, we've seen our share of promising junior ladies not materialising their potential, all but disappeared in the past.

Najarro only has 3S, 3T, although her consistency had so much improved over the last season. Rylie M-C, I believe, has 3S, 3T, 3R. I say skating in the shadow of Yuna Kim, she will obviously learn a lot from Kim. Honestly, I'm not holing my breadth for any of the junior ladies at this point except for Diane.

Myriane Samson, I started to believe that her inconsistency is actually caused by her technical flaws and the forward bend in the entry to jumps, not so much by her lack of competitive nerves. I won't expect her to be consistent and a contender even at Nationals.

I am curious to see how Lacoste would stack up against other ladies. However, chances are Skate Canada will be willing to put Phaneuf above Lacoste, mainly because Phaneuf's international experience and Skate Canada's long-standing preferential treatment of Phaneuf, even if Lacoste skates clean.

Mira Leung had so much fire and promise back in 2004. It shows how some of our junior ladies stop progressing after a certain point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nmcoy7n7Ig

[nadster]

Najarro only has 3S, 3T, although her consistency had so much improved over the last season. Rylie M-C, I believe, has 3S, 3T, 3R. I say skating in the shadow of Yuna Kim, she will obviously learn a lot from Kim. Honestly, I'm not holing my breadth for any of the junior ladies at this point except for Diane.

Myriane Samson, I started to believe that her inconsistency is actually caused by her technical flaws and the forward bend in the entry to jumps, not so much by her lack of competitive nerves. I won't expect her to be consistent and a contender even at Nationals.

I am curious to see how Lacoste would stack up against other ladies. However, chances are Skate Canada will be willing to put Phaneuf above Lacoste, mainly because Phaneuf's international experience and Skate Canada's long-standing preferential treatment of Phaneuf, even if Lacoste skates clean.

Mira Leung had so much fire and promise back in 2004. It shows how some of our junior ladies stop progressing after a certain point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nmcoy7n7Ig

Najarro has already scored over 130 internationally at a JGP and that is with her limited jump content. She always maxes out her levels and the judges give her a high PCS. Yes she must add to her jump arsenal to get her marks higher, but she has always been consistent from her pre-novice days. She did win pre-novice and novice in back to back years. Apparently she is landing loop and flip in practice now and hopefully she will add them next year. In fact Najarro's highest score this year was higher than Szmiett's ( who made the JGP final).

Rylie looks to be one of those junior ladies who will at least break out of the triple toe and triple salchow only club that so many of our junior ladies get stuck into. I think being alongside Yu-Na and Orser on a regular basis will help.her. Right now she is a little more powerful than Najarro but also a little more inconsistent. She has also landed triple lutzes in practice this summer so hopefully next year that jump would be there.

I really expect these girls to come into their stride after the Olympics but they just might beat Mira at 2010 nationals if current trends continue. That is not that difficult if Mira continues to get UR calls on every jump like she did in China. And SC judges starting now won't give her the benefit of the doubt at nationals.

Lacoste could be a dark horse that has been sadly forgotten as she has had a terrible run with injuries. This seams to be her first injury free season in a while. She really should have been given Nebelhorn to give Samson some serious competition early. If she did beat Samson there, Lacoste might have had Skate Canada and I am sure that she would have done better at Skate Canada than Samson did.

[chuckm]

So far, the only GP lady who's done worse than Myriane Samson's 112.74 at SC was Yueren Wang at CoC (95.68). Mira's 114.05 is only the 4th worse (after Tugba Karademir's 113.91).

[Blades of Passion]

I do feel a bit bad for Mira. She isn't a great skater, but some of her jumps don't deserve the downgrades and the whole system of grading underrotations simply must be fixed. Her PCS marks tend to be too low as well.

[feraina]

I think Amelie Lacoste has retired. She got sick and pulled out of a summer competition, and thought that it would be a good time to retire.

[fumie_fumie]

Lacoste competed in August 17 in Quebec Summer Championship. So, which competition did she pull out of?

[Wrlmy]

1. Mira will no longer get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to underrotations at nationals. She has never been dinged for them at nationals in the past even though she gets dinged in international competition. With just about every jump being downgraded in China, SC will want to make sure she fully rotates those jumps to the point where there is no doubt.

I'm afraid it's not going to happen. I think she will skate two seemingly clean programs and place ahead of Phaneuf and everyone else but Joannie. I doubt she would get dinged for ur at nationals. I'm afraid the same thing will continue to happen at US nationals as well. Anyone who skate 'clean' will be rewarded regardless of underrotation and flutzing and be sent to worlds. Of course, everyone will be in surprise when international judges rip them apart.

[nadster]

Lacoste competed in August 17 in Quebec Summer Championship. So, which competition did she pull out of?

Lacoste is competing at the Quebec senior ladies section this weekend and is leading after the short. She landed a clean triple loop - double toe combo and landed an underrotated triple lutz for a short program score of 47.10.

Last year was a recovery year from oodles of injuries and she still did not have all her jumps back.

[Joesitz]

I do feel a bit bad for Mira. She isn't a great skater, but some of her jumps don't deserve the downgrades and the whole system of grading underrotations simply must be fixed. Her PCS marks tend to be too low as well.

In my opinion, the only way to fix the whole system is to institute the jumps in slow motion on the Jumbothon. The Tech Panel will be aware that the fans are watching and be super careful.

[nadster]

I'm afraid it's not going to happen. I think she will skate two seemingly clean programs and place ahead of Phaneuf and everyone else but Joannie. I doubt she would get dinged for ur at nationals. I'm afraid the same thing will continue to happen at US nationals as well. Anyone who skate 'clean' will be rewarded regardless of underrotation and flutzing and be sent to worlds. Of course, everyone will be in surprise when international judges rip them apart.

The problem is that in the past Mira got dinged internationally for a few UR's ( mainly on the double axel). Now she is getting dinged on all the jumps. SC is not going to prefer a skater who won't get credit for any triples come worlds. It is not like Mira has been popping her jumps or even falling. She just isn't completing the rotations on any of her jumps.

What I do see is that Mira will have brand new programs come nationals. She always changes her programs at the last minute when she has bad results on the GP as her camp will say simply that the judges don't like her programs instead of addressing the UR calls. Mira always complains that the UR calls aren't fair. If she were falling or popping jumps, she probably would do more to fix them.

The other factor is that unlike past years, there are skaters ( Phaneuf , Szmiett, Lacoste ) who are likely to outskate her at Worlds this year.