Flatt's current status

Whats the scoop or the guess-does anyone think Rach will retire this spring? After her sucess, does she really want to be in these 2nd tier finishes? I don't see an answer but she skated her heart out in the LP an people love her. What should she do? Just skate for the love of it and be happy she can do nationals? I feel bad she can't do it all. I think a retirement announcment is coming. I hope she is happy with whatever. Still love this kid. Good effort Miss Flatt.

skateluvr said:

Whats the scoop or the guess-does anyone think Rach will retire this spring? After her sucess, does she really want to be in these 2nd tier finishes? I don't see an answer but she skated her heart out in the LP an people love her. What should she do? Just skate for the love of it and be happy she can do nationals? I feel bad she can't do it all. I think a retirement announcment is coming. I hope she is happy with whatever. Still love this kid. Good effort Miss Flatt.

Click to expand...

It's hard to say. I sincerely wish her well either way. I will say she seems to genuinely love skating but I don't see her giving up Stanford and I think for lots of reasons it is in her best interest now to choose one or the other. I suspect if she does choose it will be Stanford.

I think if she retires, despite her placement she went out on the highest note possible. She is a very talented young lady, I am sure life has a lot of good in store for her.

i honestly don't know, i've been thinking about that a lot myself. being that i enjoy her skating, i would be sad to see her retire, but can see her reasoning for doing so if that's what she chooses. she is very gifted both athletically and academically. if she does choose to retire, it would be on a great note after this nationals. but i know she loves skating very much, so i don't know. i think IMHO she would be very sad to give up competitive skating. she does have a very big descision to make between skating and school...which one, i have no idea. if she puts off skating for stanford (if she plans to return at some point) it would be much, much harder to come back than to put off stanford and give her all to skating. education doesn't necessarily have to come first. but if she does want to stick with skating, she needs to work her *** off to get where she needs to be.

Is Rachael eligible for spot on the Grand Prix next season? She has a longer off-season now, including spring and summer breaks from school, and it seems she has already taken the time to reworked her transportation situation to be more favorable to training. Maybe her federation may send her to a senior B. At the very least she would easily qualify for nationals.

After her free skate at Nationals, I do not want to see her retire. Her joy was infectious. She truly loves what she does. It is very nice to see that.

There are supposed to be one or more Senior B's in the US this coming season. If Rachael decides to go to one, I'm sure she could.

Rachael was so cute in the K&C with her red Stanford cap on. She looked very happy and satisfied. Her FS was full of energy and passion
and she skated with a lot of heart.

It was obvious to me that she is really loving school as much as skating. Whatever she decides to do I will be rooting for her.

demarinis5 said:

Rachael was so cute in the K&C with her red Stanford cap on. She looked very happy and satisfied. Her FS was full of energy and passion
and she skated with a lot of heart.

It was obvious to me that she is really loving school as much as skating. Whatever she decides to do I will be rooting for her.

Click to expand...

me too. She was so joyous and really put it all out there! good for her.

ghislaine said:

Is Rachael eligible for spot on the Grand Prix next season? She has a longer off-season now, including spring and summer breaks from school, and it seems she has already taken the time to reworked her transportation situation to be more favorable to training. Maybe her federation may send her to a senior B. At the very least she would easily qualify for nationals.

After her free skate at Nationals, I do not want to see her retire. Her joy was infectious. She truly loves what she does. It is very nice to see that.

Click to expand...

Despite not earning any World Ranking points this season, she is still ranked No. 13 in the standings. Typically the top 24 ranked in the World are invited to at least one event. And there's an outside chance she could get two if she's invited as a host pick to Skate America and another federation ops to invite her to the other events.

And depending on when those events are, Rachael could get a bye to nationals this way.

Anyway, I wish Rachael luck in whatever she chooses to do.

I predict she will retire and go to school full time. Her very strong LP at Nationals is a perfect note to go out on (especialy as it could only net her 6th place which is already a message in itself).

pangtongfan said:

I predict she will retire and go to school full time. Her very strong LP at Nationals is a perfect note to go out on (especialy as it could only net her 6th place which is already a message in itself).

Click to expand...

While it was her best LP for this season — and an inspirational at that —  by no means was that her strongest LP or an 100 percent capacity skate. She still left points on the table both in her SP and her LP. She would have done better than sixth overall if she hit the levels on her spins/steps in her SP. She easily could have gained a few points with better levels (she is capable and has done so in the past) + the Double Axel (which got -3 GOE for not meeting the requirement) and been in the 56-57 range and been in that final group in the LP and finish higher.

The Rachael we have seen this season (and for part of the 2010-2011) is an injured one. The LP, I think was the best she could do considering all her challenges, but I don't think it's what's she's most capable of doing. I think she made 100 percent effort, but I think she's not back to the full form we saw during the Grand Prix last season.

That said, I agree with you that if she chooses to retire now, she will leave on a high note; I disagree that if she chooses to keep competing that she won't do any better than what we saw this year, especially if the injury heals and she figures out an ideal training situation. (I get the impression she is making progress on that front).

My husband said that he thinks it's reasonable for Rachael to perhaps be a "competitive hobby skater," that is, be fit enough to place in the top six (top five would be better for getting that bye) while she goes to Stanford. The fact she placed 6th while she was probably at 70-80 percent capacity speaks well of her.

Of course, if she wants to be in the top two and go to Worlds that's a whole other story....

I predict we haven't seen the last of her. Next year, she'll come in 4th or maybe 3rd, then I can see her tabling Stanford for a while and training full time for the Olympics. Whether she'll make it, I don't know. But if the three spots are back (out of my fingers and into God's ears, LOL), I can see her going as skater #3.

I also see her dropping the science, as do most famous collegians, like one-time future doctors Chelsea Clinton and Sarah Hughes, who wound up getting degrees in social studies, iirc. (The exception to this would be Debi Thomas, of course)

If Rachael makes the Olympic team again it says a lot about skating in the US right now.

I think she'll take classes again next year to complete her sophomore year and then take a break to make an attempt at the Olympics. She knows Debi Thomas was able to get there....if the US Ladies manage to get 3 spots for 2014, then it improves her chances of getting on the team.....

I guess we'll wait and see....

I don't see Rachael dropping science, but she may not take such heavy class loads in the future as she had her freshman year.

While alot can change in 2 years looking ahead to Sochi it seems right now the 4 favorites for the 3 spots (if the U.S even has 3 spots) would be Gracie Gold, Wagner, Czisny, and Agnes. The second tier contenders with a lesser shot of sneaking and making it would be Nagasu, Zhang, and possibly a couple of the current top juniors. Flatt I would put behind even that group, maybe on par with someone like Christina Gao, but even Gao is far more likely to improve between now and then. Frankly I think her making the team for Sochi if she continued would be a miracle, especialy as it would take a 110% effort on her part to even get back up with a fighting chance and I cant see her giving that now.

Also note IF the U.S has 3 spots all that means means their top women are finally doing well (which they werent while a much stronger Flatt was one of the their top 2 or 3), which doesnt make it any more likely a past her prime Flatt who is no longer a USFSA favorite could even hope to make it.

As for saying she could have skated better this year at Nationals, well yeah but that goes for almost anyone. Czisny made more mistakes and left out as many things as she did and finished 2nd. Agnes bombed the long badly and won the bronze. Nagasu was about 40% of her potential, had I think 1 clean triple in the long, (discounting the end of a combination where she fell on a double) and nearly tied Rachel. Wagner even made one major mistake and alot of minor ones in the long program. It is not like she had a worse competition than most. As only a part time skater the long is about the best you will see from her anyway. I dont think you will see 6 or 7 triple long programs unless she is giving it 110% again, which would likely mean dropping school for awhile, and that isnt going to happen.

Flatt btw is NOT Debi Thomas. Debi Thomas was an incredible natural talent so was able to get by with less total dediction than others. Flatt is not, her strength was always her determination, mental toughness, and hard work. Debi Thomas was also one of the very elite of her sport at the time. Flatt never was. Not to mention those years were Thomas's physical prime and skating peak years, kind of like what 2008-2010 were for Flatt. I would bet money that Thomas wouldnt have made the 92 Olympic team (the hypothetical equivalent for her of Flatt in 2014) as a part time student, and that despite that she is a far stronger and more gifted skater than Flatt, who had never fallen out of favor of the USFSA.

My point is that what we have seen as of late (or really since last year's Nationals) is a Rachael not at 100 percent, at least physically. Mentally, I think she is 100 percent there as far as competitive spirit. That is what helped her pull the finish she did despite the challenges. I agree she had a nice comeback in the LP to rise several spots, but by no means is that is all of what she is capable of. I'd like to see a healthy Rachael before making more of a judgement regarding her future in the sport.

I agree that she probably doesn't have the USFSA favoritism that she has had in past years, but she does have the potential of strong TES scores. In fact in the FS Saturday, she posted the third highest TES score, behind Angela Wang and Ashley. (Though Caroline was a very close 4th and Alissa a close 5th). She is capable of posting a few extra points in there if she is 100 percent healthy and training well.

I realize these are all IFs, but given the state of U.S. Ladies skating, I don't think the IFs I'm offering here are any more extreme than others.

I love rooting for for people who can dig deep and do wonders. I believe Rachael still has it in her — Saturday's LP was a great example of that.

I hope she continues to skate. The US needs a steady skater like Rachel in the mix to challenge the other ladies to skate better. We saw far too many falls and pops, and these skaters need to realize that work ethic and focus is just as important as raw talent in achieving good competitive results.

If she keeps competing I hope she keeps her long for next year and gets a new short.. that program still has a lot of potential and she could really skate it awesome next year. tweaks in the choreography, a little more fire to the firebird (no pun intended). sharper more explosive movements.

macy said:

If she keeps competing I hope she keeps her long for next year and gets a new short.. that program still has a lot of potential and she could really skate it awesome next year. tweaks in the choreography, a little more fire to the firebird (no pun intended). sharper more explosive movements.

Click to expand...

I agree, I think she should keep Firebird for next season as she really only got to compete it 3 times. Nationals was a step in the right direction in terms of committing to the choreography and I think she's really only scratched the surface in that regard. I'd love to see her skate some summer competitions to get the kinks worked out and hopefully a Senior B, maybe Nebelhorn, O Nepela, or possibly the Senior B in the US. I think that finishing the season on a high note, but not making 4Cs or Worlds, is actually a good thing because it gives her more time to self-evaluate and figure out where she wants to go with her skating.

Rachael's stock dropped a bit. Her PCS was lower than Christina Gao's of all people. I thought with that kind of performance, she would be at least 2nd or 3rd in PCS. They are putting her in the second tier group now.
If she comes back leaner and faster, she would be a contender again. She left quite a few points on the table, the double axel in the short program, replace the 2A with a 3T in the long program, rotate her 3F instead of doubled it, her spins could improve a lot. It was average compare to the other girls. I said average instead of bad because she was spinning in one spot, most girls travel a lot in their spins. Mirai's 3 spins in the SP, 2 were traveling all over the place. The only one who had great spins and didn't travel at all are Czisny and Lam and Ashley.