Keauna MCLAUGHLIN / Rockne BRUBAKER
I hope she gets her act together, I like them very much as a pair. But worst case scenario: is there somewhere in the US a small female pair skater who could skate with him, in case she doesn't get her act together?
They have great style, good speed (though somewhat frantic stroking), there is something lively about them that I often miss with younger Russian or Chinese pairs. His jumps look big and solid - hers unfortunately don't. Their lifts seem to have somehow regressed since last season, but that could very well be explained as early-in-the-season-problems.
Okay, I apologize in advance for writing a long-winded post defending this pair, but I cannot help it. Your post was harsh. Someone has to defend them! I think M/B are wonderful, and have several qualities that cannot be taught. Some of their technical elements need tweaks, but that stuff can be taught to a team of this caliber. They are relatively inexperienced, young team that has a lot to work on, which is normal. At the same time, they are already quite good, and it's great that they are winning medals on the GP circuit on a regular basis.
I'm going to defend Keauna on this one. Obviously it's not a contest which partner can land more jumps and it doesn't matter, but in reply to your post, I will mention that she landed more SBS jumps cleanly in competition than Rockne did last season. Given this fact, I found it slightly amusing when the focus for some people this season was how she was going to jump. I, personally, was kind of interested to see how both of them would jump! I mean, sure, she's not yet jumping as consistently as, say, Savchenko or Volosozhar (even they have their moments), but generally for a pair girl, she's jumped decently in competition thus far. Whatever consistency she lacks right now, she makes up for a lot of that in other areas anyway.
The 3S Keauna landed in the SP here was very good. The LP one, not so much, but it's not really alarming. Two years ago, when M/B inserted SBS 3S into their programs for the first time, she messed up nearly all of them. Since that year, she has landed cleanly nearly all of them. Pair guys almost always have bigger and perhaps more consistent jumps than pair girls, so I don't see anything alarming here at all. I just thought it was good to see that Rockne's 3S at this competition looked much better than most of the 3S he did in competition last year. They are a team... It's normal if sometimes one partner struggles and sometimes the other struggles.
The only thing I found unusually inconsistent about M/B this week at COR were their throws. Even in the warmups, they looked more off than usual. Last year, they had a very consistent throw 3S in competition- they didn't miss any all season. The one they did today looked like it had too much rotation (the 3L looked the opposite, maybe not enough rotation). I, personally, have never done a throw in my life and may have zero idea what I am talking about, but I would guess it's just a matter of building more muscle memory to get them back to normal. M/B have been quite good at throws. They just have to get back in the groove, and it probably just takes a few adjustments.
As for the lifts, I, for one, would much rather watch Keauna's beautifully extended star lift than any lift Qing Pang ever does. (I appreciate P/T's good qualities, but lifts aren't one of them.)
One additional/unrelated note about M/B at COR. They looked SO serious when they came out onto the ice. I don't know if they were told to be serious when they came out onto the ice or what, but I think they should go back to smiling. Maybe it would help them relax more before their programs.
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