OMG I'm finally caught up to speed. This thread will probably make more sense now reading it backwards :D
Personal preference - I'd like to see clean programmes from Yu-Na, Mirai, Racheal and Carolina.
On a side note, can't believe how nail-bitingly close and exciting this world championship's has been in all disciplines.
I think Mao is going to be loaded for bear, so forgive my skepticism about Caro placing higher. My take on Carolina is that she's a great frontrunner (eg Euros, where she was still the marquee name), but has trouble breaking to the front from the middle of the pack.
Like the "$peedy"; it's almost like an ideogram![]()
Ok. This thread is going into interesting directions..........
In my opinion, I think if Carolina manages to finally skate to her potential, she may just challenge for the gold. She has the speed to rival Yuna and the judges love her as they are always generous with her PCS no matter how much she bombs. She was 2nd in 2008 with less than perfect performances, so I wonder how far she will go if she actually do skate clean for once. And plus, she does have hometown advantage.![]()
I think if she skates well, she might end up in a Jeremy Abbott situation. Her PCS this season have been high enough, but where she keeps bombing I think she has to really prove herself in order to get top PCS marks. If she is perfectly clean, then yeah, most likely she'll medal, but if she performs like she did at Euros (not a meltdown, but not that great) she'll likely be in the top 10 but off the podium.
I agree, she may redeem herself after the Olympics, but where so much went wrong 3 weeks ago, and has been going wrong all season excpet for Euros, which she only won because of PCS and it was a splatfest, I tend to think her issues are kind of deep rooted and will be hard to overcome all of a sudden. She's also likely tired, which could be good or bad.
I think at this time, top ten would be a realistic and actually better goal for Caro. Just take one step at a time.
But can Carolina accept that and skate within herself to reach that goal? As miki88 mentioned, this is her hometown competition, her pride is in tatters after Olys, and her standing as the dean of European skaters is in jeopardy. Will she have the inner grit to use this negative energy to bounce back in a systematic way like Mao did earlier this year? My own view is that she is not that emotionally disciplined, and is likely to be impulsive, set extremely high expectations for herself (want to get all the way back in one go, no intermediate steps required, visions of gold hanging around her neck while giving interviews to RAI), and then crumble under the self-imposed pressure.
Stock brokers went on strike and Diana collapsed the market there with her win at Olys. Can you imagine that? It just shows you how idiotic and superficial it is! South Korea wants to demonstrate to the western world koreans can beat westerns at their own game by showcasing Kim's supremacy. In reality, it just shows how insecure and inferior they feel at world stage. I doubt a healthy and confident society would go nuts over a figure skater to that kind of magnitude.
It's just figure skating!! Doing a 3+3 is not going to save people in starvation.
Last edited by watchvancouver; 03-25-2010 at 09:35 PM.
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