Gracie goes to Frank Carroll full time as her coach. http://www.usfsa.org/Story.asp?id=49513&type=media
Gracie should not worry about making the GPF at this point. Nationals and making the Olympic team should be her sole goal now.
... You may find Phil tedious for tweeting every little detail or providing frequent updates, but it's his way of letting readers know that he's on it and is making sure that he's staying on top of this issue and he's making a point of confirming what he DOES know is true at a given point in time. I say in this case, he's doing his job too.
He doesn't just copy and paste (other than say, Gracie Gold's most recent text). He chases leads and checks his sources and gets official statements and reports it in a story. That's not something that many others are doing. He does offer information that others don't.
I am not advocating for TSL or Hersh, but Hersh and I began covering figure skating at about the same time, so I know that he has spent those years developing and honing his connections with the top officials, coaches, skaters in the sport as the Olympic reporter for the Tribune papers. His information generally comes from very reliable sources. And because he has been at it a long time, his opinion pieces are worth reading, even if some of the rest of us don’t always agree with his position. I respect him as a journalist.
What I don't like about Hersh is that ....
3. His tweets in my opinion are very obnoxious. They are very familiar and make it sound like he has an intimate relationship with the skaters when I suspect that in reality he texts them begging for an update and then sometimes they give one (and become one of his chosen few). I disliked this most recent tweet because to me it is stirring the pot with more speculation. Now if Gracie had made an announcement to him 'Frank is now my coach!' and he shared that, that would be one thing. IMO this is another. Gossipy and attention mongering.
I think it means he texted her and she answered him, whereas the IceNetwork people and NBC Olympic (laughable btw, I doubt NBC Olympics could care less) are not texting her asking for an update. I could be wrong and admit it but it's most likely she was not looking to hand an update out to anyone, but instead that Hersh was simply the one who asked.