Plus Lake Placid, NY, is a pain in the neck to get to from everywhere, even from Vermont the next door state. If you were going to avoid sending competitors somewhere, IMO, Lake Placid would be one of the ones to consider.
It is not a great problem for foreign skaters - International Airport of New York, about 300-400 miles to north to Adirondack Regional Airport, 16 miles to Lake Placid. Or even faster if charter flight to Lake Placid Airport.Plus Lake Placid, NY, is a pain in the neck to get to from everywhere, even from Vermont the next door state.
some feds prefer to send weaker reps to a particular event for other reasons ( stronger home court advantange or travel cost expenses ? ), also China hasn't send anyone on Lake Placid ? though I agree anything can happen here as no one is really a clear frontrunner maybe Miyahara, I am more interested how Hicks will be doing coming from her injury.
For what it's worth, here was Hicks most recent competition at Glacier Falls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7yNw-fc90Y&feature=plcp
Judging from this video, I honestly do not think that Hicks will make the top 3. Her posture and form seems to have declined even further after her injury. Additionally, her jumps are not nearly as stable, and without her jumps, she's basically a sitting duck.
I would go out on a limb and say Wang for 3rd, followed by Park in 2nd, and Miyahara in 1st. But judging from the most recent results, I don't know if Wang can overcome that deficit... I hope so.
Wang hasn't done what we expect from her. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu5F1b2whQ4
I loved Angela's program choreography-wise. Everything was right to the music, the theme was clearly recognizable, there was a lot of style-appropriate transitions and she had good speed and nice, deep edges. I don't see how she scored lower on TR, IN and CH than Evgenia, whose program was a bit of hot mess as far as choreo and music cut are concerned.
So Young (lovely twizzles and turns) and Kako were also quite enjoyable to watch. Courtney has nice spins and great speed, but I'm not fond of the spastic, flail-y choreo. ^^'
I'm still waiting for Kiri's and Satoko's SP to be uploaded...
Satoko still has her Poor Technique :disapp:
BENT KNEES and Delay rotation is A grave cause for Under rotations