An all-double FS is a decent showing?
My understanding though of skating cycle call her performance as decent or not it takes time to get back triples and time is lacking.
In late August-early September, according to her coach, Czisny had all the triples except the loop. But in early October, just a month later, she wasn't able to land any triples in a program. What happened?
Alissa didn't make the Olympic team in 2010 with more than two triple jumps.
Given her precarious physical condition, Alissa may be incapable of "really attacking a performance". She is not Laura Lepisto or Carolina Kostner. She is a 26-year-old skater who has had two surgeries in the past year for a very serious hip condition and her recovery hasn't progressed as well as she and her coach had hoped.
If she had any shot at all of making the Olympic team, that shot is getting smaller every day.
I find irony in a thread about whether Gracie is overhyped that there hasn't been any mention of Gracie in a few posts now...
Well, maybe that answers the question then?
Actually, I think she went from having far too high expectations placed on her (Ashley - watch out! - people even assuming that Ashley'd lost the Nr 1 US ladies' spot to Gracie already) to - DOOOOOOMED!!!! (Well, a lot of the ladies were Doomed - so at last I started to think it was a question of who was the Least Doomed, rather than who was the best... ) Now, hopefully, she'll have some peace & quiet to sort herself out.
Laura Lepisto has better programs, better skating skills. Basically superior in every quantifiable qualities.
Laura Lepisto also did 3x3 in the SP. Had a lot of help in 2010 where Mirai bombed, Miki bombed, Caro being Caro, etc...
It's ridiculous to even compare the two.
One mini-observation re Gracie Gold:
Disson's "Tribute to American Legends of the Ice" will air on NBC on Feb 1, which is the Saturday before the Olympics start. (The show is being taped in December.)
Along with its large cast of skating legends, the show will feature also a number of Sochi hopefuls, such as Wagner and Zawadzki. (In effect, the hopefuls are paying tribute to the legends, I suppose.)
Gold was not included when the cast originally was announced in mid-September -- and her name still does not appear on the event page on Disson's own website.
But ... it seems that Gold has joined the cast more recently. She is listed in the Oct 4 press release that was posted on IN and elsewhere.
And she is included on the event page of the website of the venue (the Izod Center in NJ).
The point is that "someone" must have decided that the presence of Gold was desirable and/or "necessary" -- as an addition to the originally-announced participation of Wagner and Zawadzki (who remain in the more recent press release too).
The question is who the "someone" is. :think:
I'm going to that show...I wouldn't mind seeing her there, but she is not on the official cast list. Besides, who's performing and who isn't?
I have seen Alissa skate live on many occasions and I was not overwhelmed by the quality of her overall skating. Her spins were lovely, yes, and sometimes her footwork was above average, when it wasn't done at a snail's pace. But she was so darned slow that much of her skating was underwhelming, and her jumps were well below par. Given that there are 7 jump elements in a free skate and only 3 spins, the odds are stacked against her now that she is struggling with her recovery. I think that you are expecting far too much from her, Blades of Passion. It may be way too much more than she can give with her failing body.