Gracie Gold - a dark horse for the Olympics medal | Golden Skate

Gracie Gold - a dark horse for the Olympics medal

koatcue

Medalist
Joined
Aug 31, 2011
Country
Russia
Her score was huge for the sp. Usually the score gets higher throughout the year, so I guess she could give the favorites a run for their money and, of course, she has all the potential to beat Ashley at this point. What do you think?
 

sky_fly20

Match Penalty
Joined
Nov 20, 2011
definitely she can sneak in bronze or even a silver
lets hope Gracie will be able to handle being US No.1

by the time Sochi rolls in Gracie will be No.1 US lady heading to the Olympics
not the old and worn out Wagner with a two footed 3-3
 

Jammers

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 4, 2010
Country
United-States
People are getting ahead of themselves. She needs to skate a good LP today to show that she's among the elite. Just a few weeks ago people were burying this girl. Things can change even in just a few short hours. She now needs to show she can finish the job.
 

Robeye

Final Flight
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
People are getting ahead of themselves. She needs to skate a good LP today to show that she's among the elite. Just a few weeks ago people were burying this girl. Things can change even in just a few short hours. She now needs to show she can finish the job.
Skating forums are hazardous to your health. You can suffer whiplash just watching the buzz on Gracie rise and fall. ;)
 

sarahspins

Rinkside
Joined
Mar 30, 2011
I hope she'll have a strong LP today - it was nice seeing some changes to her SP, it definitely seemed less "busy" with the small changes in choreo, and she seemed much more relaxed than I think we had seen her skate a SP all of last season. I still saw lots of room for improvement too.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
I think what we're seeing is that the judges aren't going to give the top 3 and insurmountable edge in PCS, which to me is a great thing. I'd hate to see Carolina fall twice or Mao do three triples and beat clean programs from Gracie or Ashley.
 

mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
I hope she'll have a strong LP today - it was nice seeing some changes to her SP, it definitely seemed less "busy" with the small changes in choreo, and she seemed much more relaxed than I think we had seen her skate a SP all of last season. I still saw lots of room for improvement too.

She looked HAPPY as she took her spot and throughout the program, and not just because she nailed everything. As she took her opening spot, she seemed to be thinking about something and then a smile broke across her face and the gleam came to her eye. :) Whatever that was, she needs to KEEP it or whatever FrankC has put in her mind needs to STAY there.
 

Jammers

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 4, 2010
Country
United-States
Only thing i wonder about is her jumps don't seem as big. Not sure if she's intentionally slowing herself down a bit to calm herself and so doesn't have as much power going into her jumps. But if she is doing that it's working.
 

sky_fly20

Match Penalty
Joined
Nov 20, 2011
Only thing i wonder about is her jumps don't seem as big. Not sure if she's intentionally slowing herself down a bit to calm herself and so doesn't have as much power going into her jumps. But if she is doing that it's working.

yes, her jumps have gotten a bit smaller especially her 3lz-3t
but its working, she is landing her jumps
because Gracie uses too much speed and power on her jumps going into the next that she pops most of it

I'm sure this is just temporary to calm her
once she gets use to it , she will have the same attack as before on her jumps
 

Jammers

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 4, 2010
Country
United-States
I didn't see the scared look in her face that we've seen in the past when she took the ice yesterday. Now the test is if she misses a jump in her LP how she reacts. Usually it just starts to snowball from there and she struggles.
 

tulosai

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 21, 2011
I didn't see the scared look in her face that we've seen in the past when she took the ice yesterday. Now the test is if she misses a jump in her LP how she reacts. Usually it just starts to snowball from there and she struggles.

Yeah my whole feeling on this at this point is good for her, wonderful short. However, she's usually done fine when the pressure is off. Going into this competition almost everyone of any knowledge level out there expected her to be third at best, behind Akiko and Julia. She'd also been flying under the radar for a few weeks. To me, the real question is what she can do now that she's in the lead.
 

Robeye

Final Flight
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
Yeah my whole feeling on this at this point is good for her, wonderful short. However, she's usually done fine when the pressure is off. Going into this competition almost everyone of any knowledge level out there expected her to be third at best, behind Akiko and Julia. She'd also been flying under the radar for a few weeks. To me, the real question is what she can do now that she's in the lead.
If you want to be considered a great champion, one of the questions you have to answer is: can you win when you're expected to?

If the only time you won is when you crept up out of the blue, then there is uncertainty as to whether you are the genuine article, or simply a fluke.

This LP will be a nice initial test for Gracie.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Yeah my whole feeling on this at this point is good for her, wonderful short. However, she's usually done fine when the pressure is off. Going into this competition almost everyone of any knowledge level out there expected her to be third at best, behind Akiko and Julia. She'd also been flying under the radar for a few weeks. To me, the real question is what she can do now that she's in the lead.

I don't think she ever expected to be behind Julia or Akiko, so I don't think the pressure was off. She had a legitimate reason for her subpar early season performances but seems to have made some adjustments to improve her consistency. Pressure or not, she hasn't skated many good shorts so this was a real triumph for her.
 

Li'Kitsu

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
drivingmissdaisy said:
I think what we're seeing is that the judges aren't going to give the top 3 and insurmountable edge in PCS, which to me is a great thing. I'd hate to see Carolina fall twice or Mao do three triples and beat clean programs from Gracie or Ashley.

I'm pretty sure if Mao/Caro skated so badly, Gracie wouldn't need to be overscored in PCS to beat them. And while it's good and nice knowing the jugdes would actually score after performance and not name, I don't think Gracies SP marks are any sign of it (because of the inflated PCS, that is).

Additionally, I take it the 3-triples comment shows you're talking about LPs too, and Gracie didn't even skate hers yet. She did really well in the SP, but just assuming she'll repeat that in the LP is premature.
 

TontoK

Hot Tonto
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Country
United-States
I'm pretty sure if Mao/Caro skated so badly, Gracie wouldn't need to be overscored in PCS to beat them. And while it's good and nice knowing the jugdes would actually score after performance and not name, I don't think Gracies SP marks are any sign of it (because of the inflated PCS, that is).

Additionally, I take it the 3-triples comment shows you're talking about LPs too, and Gracie didn't even skate hers yet. She did really well in the SP, but just assuming she'll repeat that in the LP is premature.

I'll have to go back and look, but my recollection is that her PCS for this short program were in the 7's and low 8's. They didn't seem wildly inappropriate to the performance.

It's not as though she were scoring in the 9's. I'm not sure your comments regarding inflation are on point here.
 

Li'Kitsu

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
TontoK said:
I'll have to go back and look, but my recollection is that her PCS for this short program were in the 7's and low 8's. They didn't seem wildly inappropriate to the performance.

It's not as though she were scoring in the 9's. I'm not sure your comments regarding inflation are on point here.

And even if it's 'just' high 7's, that can still be too high (it's fine for SS, but CH and IN? No). Her In mark isn't even 0.5 off of Akikos. Sorry, for all the quality Gracie has in the TES department, she (and her choreography) leave a lot to be desired in other aspects.

And again for the 'just high 7's'-part: we're talking about the ladies here. How often do they break 9's anyway? It happens with men, dance and pairs, true, but far more seldomly for the ladies. PCS of 30+ are actually pretty high.
 

Krislite

Medalist
Joined
Sep 22, 2010
And even if it's 'just' high 7's, that can still be too high (it's fine for SS, but CH and IN? No). Her In mark isn't even 0.5 off of Akikos. Sorry, for all the quality Gracie has in the TES department, she (and her choreography) leave a lot to be desired in other aspects.

And again for the 'just high 7's'-part: we're talking about the ladies here. How often do they break 9's anyway? It happens with men, dance and pairs, true, but far more seldomly for the ladies. PCS of 30+ are actually pretty high.

Not often, but Mao, Carolina and Yuna have received 9's on their better days.
 

Selene

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 7, 2012
She will have to beat Julia Lipnitskaia and Akiki Suzuki first! I'm not expecting much of Gracie if she makes the Olympic team. She doesn't skate well under pressure. She comes undone and makes many mistakes, like she did in her subpar long program at Skate Canada.
 

koatcue

Medalist
Joined
Aug 31, 2011
Country
Russia
On the good note, Gracie's PCS with all her mistakes is really great! It means the judges love her and appreciate her skating, If only she was more consistent =( But that's just the start of the season! She is still better than Adelina, Liza and so on..
 

Jammers

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 4, 2010
Country
United-States
She will have to beat Julia Lipnitskaia and Akiki Suzuki first! I'm not expecting much of Gracie if she makes the Olympic team. She doesn't skate well under pressure. She comes undone and makes many mistakes, like she did in her subpar long program at Skate Canada.

Sadly Gracie skates like Mirai used to whenever she had a lead. You knew she wasn't going to seal the deal and usually gave it up. Until Gracie shows that she can hold a lead i'll keep feeling this way. Bad programs or not if she had skated clean she still would have won. She let a big one slip away.
 
Top