Is Skate Canada for Julia Lipnitskaya to win? | Page 2 | Golden Skate

Is Skate Canada for Julia Lipnitskaya to win?

koatcue

Medalist
Joined
Aug 31, 2011
Country
Russia
This. I also suspect that if Julia can put some clean programs out there, the PCS gap between these two will be closing. Julia has improved a lot this year, while Gold, if anything, has regressed. Unless she's majorly reworked her programs Julia's LP will be better received than Gracie's IMO. One thing not mentioned though is that if Gold hits the jumps, and judges are fair, she will get better GOEs on them than Julia on hers.
To be fair, Gracie was always the second best next to Julia. Its not a secret that she has won none competition against her. Golds best score was 125, while Julias - 124 at JW. She is a tough competitor who gets better with each year, while I cant say the same about Gold. That's why Ive created a thread about her being overhyped. She might get the bigger goe on her jumps, IF she jumps them and wont look rusty
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
To be fair, Gracie was always the second best next to Julia. Its not a secret that she has won none competition against her. Golds best score was 125, while Julias - 124 at JW. She is a tough competitor who gets better with each year, while I cant say the same about Gold. That's why Ive created a thread about her being overhyped. She might get the bigger goe on her jumps, IF she jumps them and wont look rusty

Julia actually had a less than ideal season last year with quite a few inconsistencies. I mean, she still made the GPF and her jumps are more reliable, but she still periodically made errors. Gold was also up and down, but Gold gets much better PCS than Julia (which she should).

Overhyped is a pretty silly thing to suggest. Gold came 6th in her first Worlds which is pretty decent. I mean, at best, she would have come 4th.
 

koatcue

Medalist
Joined
Aug 31, 2011
Country
Russia
Julia actually had a less than ideal season last year with quite a few inconsistencies. I mean, she still made the GPF and her jumps are more reliable, but she still periodically made errors. Gold was also up and down, but Gold gets much better PCS than Julia (which she should).

Overhyped is a pretty silly thing to suggest. Gold came 6th in her first Worlds which is pretty decent. I mean, at best, she would have come 4th.

Where was Gold at the age of 14? Nowhere. Julia had an injury, concussion, growth spurt last year. Golds pcs is 60-61. Julias - 59. Not such a big difference...
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
The big question at SC for Amelie Lacoste is whether she can finish higher than Veronik Mallet. Veronik scored 159.67 at Nebelhorn to Amelie's 147.88 at the US Classic. Amelie and Veronik are the two "Senior" senior Canadian ladies vying for the second Olympic spot. Amelie needs to show Skate Canada that she still has the drive and determination to succeed. She isn't going to medal, but she has to have a much better showing than she did at SLC.

I think Mallet stands a good chance of placing higher. She certainly had a solid showing at Nebelhorn with a PB total that was higher than Lacoste in her 2010 bronze at Skate Canada (and obviously Lacoste has regressed since then).
 

Jammers

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 4, 2010
Country
United-States
To be fair, Gracie was always the second best next to Julia. Its not a secret that she has won none competition against her. Golds best score was 125, while Julias - 124 at JW. She is a tough competitor who gets better with each year, while I cant say the same about Gold. That's why Ive created a thread about her being overhyped. She might get the bigger goe on her jumps, IF she jumps them and wont look rusty

Gracie has competed against Julia exactly one time and that was in early 2012 as a unproven inexperienced Junior. Things have changed since then. Last season for instance if they both skated clean Gracie would have won. By the end of the season Gracie was one of the top Senior Ladies in the world.
 

koatcue

Medalist
Joined
Aug 31, 2011
Country
Russia
Gracie has competed against Julia exactly one time and that was in early 2012 as a unproven inexperienced Junior. Things have changed since then. Last season for instance if they both skated clean Gracie would have won. By the end of the season Gracie was one of the top Senior Ladies in the world.

If both of them skated clean...We'll never know. No one was clean last year. Julia's score would have been huge if she had a clean skate...And Gold is still unproven this year. She is unstable. Not Like Sotnikova, but still. And Julia's pcs, believe me, will rise this year if she goes on like this :) She is a much better competitor than her. That's a fact.
 

chuckm

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 31, 2003
Country
United-States
It's easy to be a confident competitor at 14-15. As the years go on, growth and maturity make competition tougher and take a heavy toll on confidence. Ask Liza Tuk or Adelina Sot----or Mao Asada.
 

tulosai

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 21, 2011
It's easy to be a confident competitor at 14-15. As the years go on, growth and maturity make competition tougher and take a heavy toll on confidence. Ask Liza Tuk or Adelina Sot----or Mao Asada.

This generalization gets thrown around a lot. It's untrue and I don't like it. It assumes that:

1. Everyone has a crisis of confidence when they turn 16. Not true. Where was Michelle Kwan's crisis of confidence?
2. That it is actually a crisis of confidence, not puberty (of course, they can go together).

While it is true that younger girls are usually more 'fearless' than women, I refuse to buy into the idea that Julia L is bound to have a meltdown now that she's 15, 16, 17- pick a year. Some people are good, strong willed competitors, puberty or no (see Kwan, Kim, Flatt others I am too lazy to look back in my mind and think of).

Another issue though is we tend to equate 'can land all the jumps' with confidence. Some people who often blow jumps do so for reasons wholly unrelated to confidence ( I'd argue Mao is in that camp as is Flatt at the current moment).
 

wallylutz

Medalist
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
This generalization gets thrown around a lot. It's untrue and I don't like it. It assumes that:

1. Everyone has a crisis of confidence when they turn 16. Not true. Where was Michelle Kwan's crisis of confidence?

She had one at 17. The 1996-97 season, Michelle Kwan crashed at the U.S. Nationals, went on to lose Champion Series Final, fell at the Worlds SP and finish 2nd there.


2. That it is actually a crisis of confidence, not puberty (of course, they can go together).

Yes, even Michelle Kwan had one as she transitioned from a girl to a woman. Virtually all girls went through the same phase. Heck, even Yu Na Kim experienced similar symptoms too when she first moved to Canada. She was not happy with her sport and the injuries took a psychological toll on her. Is it a surprise many female Olympic Champions turned pro before they become adults, namely Baiul and Lipinski? No, absolutely not. There is also a reason why female gymnasts have age controversies at the Olympics.
 

chuckm

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 31, 2003
Country
United-States
It took Irina Slutskaya years to get over her growth spurt and become a champion again. Ditto for Miki Ando. Caroline Zhang never got the magic back, and Mirai Nagasu tries and tries, but hasn't managed to get past her growth spurt.

Luckily for Gracie Gold, she hit her growth spurt before she became a household name.
 

tulosai

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 21, 2011
It took Irina Slutskaya years to get over her growth spurt and become a champion again. Ditto for Miki Ando. Caroline Zhang never got the magic back, and Mirai Nagasu tries and tries, but hasn't managed to get past her growth spurt.

Luckily for Gracie Gold, she hit her growth spurt before she became a household name.

Yeah, but my main point is that growth spurt isn't the same as confidence. Once people lose their confidence they can get it back but it's harder. Kwan etc didn't crash during puberty because they were no longer fearless (or at least strong willed competitors)- they crashed because they now had breasts.

Sasha Cohen is one who didn't really have a puberty issue, at least as a senior, but had problems with landing all her jumps throughout her career. To me puberty just is not the same as losing confidence because you're older. It is wrong to conflate the two and that was my real point (perhaps poorly said).
 

blue dog

Trixie Schuba's biggest fan!
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 16, 2006
It took Irina Slutskaya years to get over her growth spurt and become a champion again. Ditto for Miki Ando. Caroline Zhang never got the magic back, and Mirai Nagasu tries and tries, but hasn't managed to get past her growth spurt.

Luckily for Gracie Gold, she hit her growth spurt before she became a household name.

Only one woman in the last thirty years besides Kwan managed her growth spurt: Katarina Witt. Then again, she didn't become dominant until she was 17, long past growth spurt age.
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
If Suzuki skates her very best then she should win. Otherwise, Lipnitskaya.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Where was Gold at the age of 14? Nowhere. Julia had an injury, concussion, growth spurt last year. Golds pcs is 60-61. Julias - 59. Not such a big difference...

To be honest, I don't think relative age should be considered when comparing skaters ability to each other. A good skater is a good skater, a bad skater is a bad skater, regardless of age. I just look at what they do on the ice and their seasons of progression. Shen and Zhao were superb at their age, Tara Lipinski was great at her age.

I hate it when people were like "When Skater A was 15, they were landing way more triples and were more of a household name than Skater B". Particularly when skaters start skating at different ages, go through puberty at varying ages, and even start accelerating their talent at different ages.

Even in terms of comparing their first junior season to another skater's first junior season, it's so pointless. I only really care about how the skaters are doing at this very moment. Not everyone will progress at the same rate or experience the same success or face the same level of competition or avoid injuries/puberty the same way. Like, who cares if Gold wasn't Julia's calibre at 14? Do people care that Takahashi wasn't Plushenko's calibre at 16?
 

Jammers

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 4, 2010
Country
United-States
Yeah lets see where all these tiny Russian girls are in about 3 years. It's a lot harder to rotate triple jumps when your not 4'8 and 70 lbs.
 

gmyers

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
Things are definitely looking up for Julia! She is almost guaranteed at least base value on all jumps and +2 or +3 on spins and was rock solid in finlandia. She can win SC possibly against clean Suzuki and gold.
 

gmyers

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
I think Skate Canada Int'l is wide open at this point. Osmond has merely toned down her content but if she skates clean SP, she will be in top 3.

Russian girls get hyped all the time. So far, none of them prove to last longer than a season, if at that. There is a reason why Russia only has 2 spots in ladies for Sochi, same as Canada. Yet, if we were to listen to the hypes from years ago, you'd believe Russian girls would be going to Sochi as Worlds 1-2-3 by now.

Russia only has two spots because Julia wasn't there! She is by far the best and didn't bomb all season and her jr worlds performance was amazing compared the extreme awful disasters of tuktamisheva and sotnikova at sr worlds. Now she's crushing tuktsmishva by 20 points and probably sotnikova by 30 or 40 because her team is completely clueless and totally ignorant about what jumps to give her.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
She can win SC possibly against clean Suzuki and gold.

I don't agree with this. If clean, Akiko will do 1 fewer triple than Julia in the LP and Gracie will do as many, and both would outscore Julia on GOE in the jumps and PCS. I really don't get the excitement about Julia, she still skates like a junior.
 

Selene

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 7, 2012
Julia's only strengths are flexibility and consistency. Her jumps are poor quality and do not merit much GOE. I think she could lose her jumps (at least her harder combos) when she starts to grow out. But she should be able to beat the other girls at Skate Canada based on her consistency. All of her competitors are prone to making mistakes.

Here is how I think it could go:
1) Julia - consistency will get her first place
2) Akiko - better PCS than Julia, but will make too many mistakes to beat her, like at Finlandia
3) Kaetlyn - home ice boost, her PCS will rise like crazy to make up for her errors
4) Courtney - poor PCS will hold her back, but amazing jumps
5) Gracie - a headcase who is guaranteed to bomb at least one program, due to not being able to control her nerves.

I think Akiko and Gracie could beat Julia if they skate their best, but I don't think that's likely to happen.
 

hippomoomin

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 30, 2012
Julia's only strengths are flexibility and consistency. Her jumps are poor quality and do not merit much GOE. I think she could lose her jumps (at least her harder combos) when she starts to grow out. But she should be able to beat the other girls at Skate Canada based on her consistency. All of her competitors are prone to making mistakes.

Here is how I think it could go:
1) Julia - consistency will get her first place
2) Akiko - better PCS than Julia, but will make too many mistakes to beat her, like at Finlandia
3) Kaetlyn - home ice boost, her PCS will rise like crazy to make up for her errors
4) Courtney - poor PCS will hold her back, but amazing jumps
5) Gracie - a headcase who is guaranteed to bomb at least one program, due to not being able to control her nerves.

I think Akiko and Gracie could beat Julia if they skate their best, but I don't think that's likely to happen.

I agree with you on Julia's strength and weakness. Unless her body changes dramatically in the past few weeks, I think for the moment she will probably win in SC.
 
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