Ladies JGP Courchevel

[feraina]

The other thing I noticed was that the 3lo is the only jump she repeats in her LP, so I'm wondering if she's working toward having that first 2a be a 2a-3t combination. Her 2a-2t was effortless even with her hands by her side on the second jump so I do think she could probably do that combination. Further, 3t is her best jump, so I can't think of why else she wouldn't repeat it in her FS unless the plan is to repeat it in combination with the 2a. Maybe she just didn't try it here where she fell on her flip and didn't get full credit for her 3t-3t in the SP? If she does attempt either a 2a-3t or 3t-3t in her FS later this season I will be very impressed.

Yes, I agree with you about her already having a "big girl"'s figure. She looks almost the same age as Caroline & Mirai, who are four years older! It's pretty crazy. I actually commented on this already in one of summer comp threads where she was dismissed by some as hopeless, and I said well she's so young and she's already so grown up physically, this might mean an easier journey through puberty than most girls.

On the one hand, you hear Russian and Chinese coaches say that girls have to master as much technical difficulty as possible before hitting puberty, so that during/after puberty, they can just work on maintain their technical difficulty (since improving on it after puberty seems really hard). On the other hand, what makes learning new elements hard at a later age is not only because of the more womanly figure, but also because of aging. Sad but true -- but in late teens the brain is already not as plastic as pre-teens or early teens, plus a certain self-consciousness and fear set in, so that learning a complex, dangerous motor skill becomes that much harder. Maybe someone like Nina has the best possible scenario: go through puberty really early so that she will not have undergo much bodily change during her teenage years, AND still be young enough to have the neural plasticity and youthful fearlessness to master new technical skills. I really hope so anyway! Because to be competitive on the international scene, she will definitely need to up her technical difficulty significantly.

I actually cannot really think of many female skaters who had so much of their growth done by 13 -- I mean, it's possible that she will grow 5 more inches and fill out a lot more, but it seems unlikely.

And I agree with you that 2A-3T could certainly be part of her game plan. Her 2A is so secure. If she can do 3T-3T in the SP, then she can certainly go for 2A-3T in the LP. The 3T-3T looked pretty effortless ; 2A-3T has got to be even easier for her.