State of American Ladies: 2013-14 Season | Page 49 | Golden Skate

State of American Ladies: 2013-14 Season

skatingcoach

Spectator
Joined
Aug 25, 2010
Saw Caroline Zhang did a run through of her short and long program. beautiful long program. I think she is going to surprise a lot of people this year..... she upped her technical content too ...
 

Binthere

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 28, 2008
Saw Caroline Zhang did a run through of her short and long program. beautiful long program. I think she is going to surprise a lot of people this year..... she upped her technical content too ...

It's great timing for her to be delivering strong run throughs - just weeks before her Grand Prix, Skate America.

Content wise, has she planned any triple triple combinations? In the past, she has had Loop/Loop. Her history with this in competition, has included completions of the combination but under-rotation calls, which have been somewhat questioned by her coach, Peter Oppegard, during post event interviews.

Any color on how her 3-3s are progressing?
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Her technical content, as far as what she plans to do, was never a problem. She isn't going to get many more points for harder jumps if her execution of the triples hasn't improved.
 

Jammers

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 4, 2010
Country
United-States
Caroline's problem is her speed and skating skills. It was never more apparent then last year at Skate Canada when she skated right after Kaetlyn Osmond and Gracie. Those 2 girls were flying all over the ice and made Caroline look like she was skating in molasses.
 

FSGMT

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
Saw Caroline Zhang did a run through of her short and long program. beautiful long program. I think she is going to surprise a lot of people this year..... she upped her technical content too ...
What does "upped her technical content" exactly mean? Is she planning at least a 6-triples FS? (And, does she perform her beautiful layback again as she used to??)
Her technical content, as far as what she plans to do, was never a problem. She isn't going to get many more points for harder jumps if her execution of the triples hasn't improved.
Well, I was always quite surprised that she actually planned a 5-triples FS with two 2As (one of her ugliest jumps) without 3T and 3S, which are the easiest triples... I know that the salchow isn't a good jump for her, but she could have a higher BV putting a solo 3T instead of one of the axels for example, so this alone would mean "upping her technical content"
 

icellist

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 16, 2011
Per mirai being tagged in fb, she competed in a club competition in San Diego and won. Anyone know of it, her score, how she did, or videos? Sophia Adams was a medalist

ETA 2013 West Coast Championship. cant find protocols
 

mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
Per mirai being tagged in fb, she competed in a club competition in San Diego and won. Anyone know of it, her score, how she did, or videos? Sophia Adams was a medalist

ETA 2013 West Coast Championship. cant find protocols

Saw there were 4 skaters in the event, but results aren't posted yet.
 

Celine

On the Ice
Joined
Jun 30, 2013
Caroline's problem is her speed and skating skills. It was never more apparent then last year at Skate Canada when she skated right after Kaetlyn Osmond and Gracie. Those 2 girls were flying all over the ice and made Caroline look like she was skating in molasses.

Double axel take off has historically always been cautious. Hope she is looking strong this year.
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
another Zawadzki promotion :rolleye:

LOL, your eyes must get a lot of exercise if you roll them every time you see a feature story out there about any of the other skaters (from any discipline) as well.
Each such article is promoting the skater(s) in question. :yes:

I for one always am pleased when the spotlight shines on a significant skater who does not receive much media attention.

BTW, I wish that Gao had been at the recent media summit. I hope that the only reason for her absence was her trip to Nepela. She had been included in the spring media summit in LA. (Ditto for Miner.)

It took me a while to remember, but that's Ashley's exhibition costume from 2012-2013.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msTf9PXyqQI

Thx for answering my question, brightphoton. :)
 

nam57

Rinkside
Joined
Sep 5, 2013
I am still hoping for Gao, but her last outing was sad. Angela Wang almost got herself in the mix after SP for me. Watching Finlandia...maybe Mirai!! But Vanessa Lam would not be able to handle the big stage, she has had her chance.
 

tulosai

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 21, 2011
I am still hoping for Gao, but her last outing was sad. Angela Wang almost got herself in the mix after SP for me. Watching Finlandia...maybe Mirai!! But Vanessa Lam would not be able to handle the big stage, she has had her chance.

Mirai would probably have it if she could fix the URs. I am losing hope about that though :/ Does anyone know how hard this would be to fix/if it can be fixed? I used to think she could/would fix it but this is season 3 with no sign of improvement- in fact I think it's getting worse.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Mirai would probably have it if she could fix the URs. I am losing hope about that though :/ Does anyone know how hard this would be to fix/if it can be fixed? I used to think she could/would fix it but this is season 3 with no sign of improvement- in fact I think it's getting worse.

It's frustrating because we know she is able to rotate them, and it's not a conditioning issue because she will UR jumps at the beginning of the program sometimes but rotate them at the end. She now has a reputation of URing such that the callers don't give her the credit in marginal cases, when other skaters might get credit. Hopefully at Nationals she can tell herself to go for it and be willing to fall on the jumps as long as she attacks.
 

chuckm

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 31, 2003
Country
United-States
Mirai would probably have it if she could fix the URs. I am losing hope about that though :/ Does anyone know how hard this would be to fix/if it can be fixed? I used to think she could/would fix it but this is season 3 with no sign of improvement- in fact I think it's getting worse.

Here's what Mirai did at Finlandia:

SP: 3f<+3t<<, 3lo<, 2a
FS: 3f+2t+2t, 2a+3t<, 3z<, 3lo+2t<, 3f<<, 3lo, 2a

She scored 110.50 in the FS, but international Bs tend to score much higher than GPs, JGPs and ISU Championships for the same technical content.
 

Icey

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 28, 2012
Mirai would probably have it if she could fix the URs. I am losing hope about that though :/ Does anyone know how hard this would be to fix/if it can be fixed? I used to think she could/would fix it but this is season 3 with no sign of improvement- in fact I think it's getting worse.

Yes, it does seem to be getting worse. At Finlandia this week-end she got 3 and a downgrade in her FP.
 

silverlake22

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
It's frustrating because we know she is able to rotate them, and it's not a conditioning issue because she will UR jumps at the beginning of the program sometimes but rotate them at the end. She now has a reputation of URing such that the callers don't give her the credit in marginal cases, when other skaters might get credit. Hopefully at Nationals she can tell herself to go for it and be willing to fall on the jumps as long as she attacks.

I don't know if Mirai can consistently fully rotate her triples though. They have ALWAYS been questionable due to the hooked landing technique she has, and had the panels been stricter then, she'd probably have gotten a fair number of URs even as a junior when she was like 70 lbs. Mirai cleaned up her jumps in time for the Olympics in 2010 but had been struggling with them earlier that season and the season before right after she had her big growth spurt. Since 2010, Mirai has filled out a lot. Right now, she looks to be in great shape physically, but even so, she is much sturdier build wise than she was in 2010. In 2010, if she was just barely getting the jumps around, which was the case and even then she wasn't always getting full credit for the triples, she just happened to at the Olympics where she really made a statement, and she was skating with more speed then and had a very thin body frame due to having just gone through puberty, why do you think she can suddenly get full credit for all her jumps now?

The root of her issue is her jump technique and I don't think losing weight would even help because she'd have to lose it in the form of muscle which would detract from her power and further, her bones, frame, and weight distribution are no longer the same as they were in 2010, so even if she got to that weight, the jump dynamics would be different and it would be unlikely to resolve the issue. Her reputation for URs is not helping her scores but really, I think if Mirai wanted to have a shot to hang with the big guns she needed to make a big change to her technique years ago...
 
Top