The rest of the top 12 ladies and the Olympics....

[FlattFan]

Li is a doll, but her PCS is too high for what she did. Her skating skill is far below the other girls in her tier. Her stroking doesn't have any power. I wouldn't give her more than 6 for what she did.
Gracie has stronger SS, but not very polished. It feels jerky and requires some effort. I think a low 7 is more appropriate for her.
Julia is a joke. Her SS should never go higher than 5. Everything about her programs, her costume, her IN, her P/E should be 4 max. IN should be 2, and I'm very generous.

 

[AlexRus]

She cannot in a million years land on the podium until she gets +GOE on her jumps.

Did you forget that at 2011/2012 season Julia had scores about the same as Kostner, who was at that season the best of Senor Ladies?

 

[AlexRus]

That said, how exactly DOES Russia choose its Olympic team? Is the national champion guaranteed a spot, or is that a condition unique to the US?

It is very complicated process.

First, no doubt leaders like Volosozhar/Trankov may have Olympics spot when they miss Nats and/or Euro, for example if they need to heal after minor injury.

Second, spots to Euro are distributed by scheme - two first age-eligible from Nats and one by Federation choice (almost always - third at Nats, but may be other).

Third, if the same persons/couples are the best both at Nats and Euro (with good skating) - they have spots. If no - Fed looks to results of GP Events and Final, previous seasons, test skating (which is often unofficial, committee of Fed visits skating rink and asks pretenders to skate a program). On all of this Fed makes its choice.

The same is about Worlds spots in non-Olympics season.

 

[silverlake22]

Agree that Li has a "better" draw at CoC, but there are still 3 ladies there who can beat her -- two (Kostner and Murakami) who will almost certainly beat her. A clean Radionova CAN beat Li (not sure she will), but not Gold.

Gold is certainly capable of being beat by Osmond, Suzuki, Lipnitskaia, Korpi, or Gao, but not LIKELY to be beat by any but Suzuki. I have a hunch that we won't be seeing sloppy/shaky Gold on the GP -- the second half of this season was a good confidence-booster for her, and she knows that Olympic spots are on the line this time around. Even decent, Gold is ahead of all of the above (except Suzuki, of course); she wasn't anywhere close to her full ability at 2012 SC or 2013 4CC.

As I said, the fight between Gold and Suzuki will come down to whether Gold's TES is enough to surpass Suzuki's PCS. It could go either way, since neither of them are exceptionally consistent.

Yeah keep dreaming. Gold could beat all those girls but all of them could also very feasibly beat her as well. Korpi's PCS are huge when she just manages to stand up, Osmond and Gao can give her a run for her money too, totally clean, Gracie should beat those two, but all it would take would be a few mistakes from Gracie and a couple of very strong skates from one or both of those girls for Gold to be overtaken. The same goes for Lipnitskaya. Last season, all of Osmond, Gao, and Lipnitskaya were more consistent than Gold, so even though Gold gets better GOE when she lands her jumps cleanly, she doesn't have much if any of a PCS cushion on any of these girls that her GOE margin can easily be eaten up with a few mistakes, which puts her in vulnerable territory considering those 3 (or at least 2 - Osmond is a toss-up) are a lot less error-prone than she is.

 

[silverlake22]

She cannot in a million years land on the podium until she gets +GOE on her jumps.

Her scores in 11-12 season in juniors were huge. She rotates her jumps and the GOE though not much is usually not negative, that is most important. She picks up big GOE on all her spins which helps, too, and again, if she's landing 7 rotated triples in her FS and 0s and 1s for GOE on them, does 3 level 4 spins with 2s and 3s for GOE, and has decent-ish PCS of near or around 60ish (possible, she's gotten such marks before on the GP and Finlandia when she wasn't even perfect), then she will put up a big score, 130ish or at least close to that. In the SP last season she was getting comfortably over 60 points, usually around 63-64, so together that's 190+ and that should definitely be enough to contend for the podium. Julia's jumps are better than Adelina's anyways - I know they are smaller, but her jumps are so much neater and tidier.

 

[silverlake22]

In a parallel universe where Liza and Adelina's PB's aren't ten and fifteen points higher, respectively, than Julia's.

Their PERSONAL BESTS, however, are only one and six points higher, though, and Julia's PB is from a junior competition where there's no spiral sequence, something she gets +3s on, so really, that's not a good argument. Her scores weren't as high last season because she was injured and only competed a few times the entire season. I bet Julia comes back better than ever this season.

 

[ForeverFish]

Their PERSONAL BESTS, however, are only one and six points higher, though, and Julia's PB is from a junior competition where there's no spiral sequence, something she gets +3s on, so really, that's not a good argument. Her scores weren't as high last season because she was injured and only competed a few times the entire season. I bet Julia comes back better than ever this season.

I was referring to Julia's senior PB, which is around 175; junior scores mean very little due to the discrepancy in judging, so it's a pretty poor argument to compare junior scores to senior scores (Julia dropped more than ten points between Jr. Worlds and the Cup of China). Liza's PB is 188+ and Adelina's is 193+ (both from Euros).

 

[ffionhanathomas]

I'd love to see Adelina and Liza place in the top 8 at least in Sochi, but I think their year, along with Julia is likely to be 2018, or even 2022.

 

[gmyers]

Scores being irrelevent and placement being irrelevent the Russian lady skating the best at the end of the last season was Julia and maybe that'll continue! That could lead to Julia dominating next season!

 

[gmyers]

What?! In what universe do you imagine that happening?

Liza was 14th in the sp at 2013 worlds! Now that was safely in the qualifying zone for the fs but really horrible and one jump mistake more and it's possible she could miss a lp with her sp disasters. I mean when someone has as many sp disasters as Liza it may lead to not getting to a fs!

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

Did you forget that at 2011/2012 season Julia had scores about the same as Kostner, who was at that season the best of Senor Ladies?

Julai's personal bests are 64 and 123, while Carolina's best from 2011/12 were 69 and 132, so I'm not sure how that is "about the same." Furthermore, Julai's jumps are much weaker now then they were in 2011/12, so I'm not sure why you think marks from two seasons ago are a better reflection of her form than her marks from last season.

 

[gmyers]

Julias 2a/3t/2t got +3 from some judges in 2013 jr worlds. Her jumps are not weaker. From 2012 jr worlds to 2013 jr worlds judges gave her goe for that combo!

 

[Jammers]

I'm sorry but Julia right now doesn't stack up against the Senior ladies at all. She pales compared to the top Senior Ladies in almost all aspects.

 

[kwanatic]

I don't think using Julia's scores from any of her junior events (from 2011-2012 or even this year) is an accurate measuring stick for how she will do on the senior level against skaters who can outmatch her in just about everything. Don't forget, Julia's scores in those competitions reflect her competition: a bunch of 11 and 12 year olds who don't have the higher level polish she has for a 14 year old, so naturally her scores will be higher all around. But next to the top senior ladies...no comparison.

Julia's jumps are typically landed well but when you compare her speed, coverage, height and riding edge to some of the other senior ladies it's easy to see how much she's lacking. Her overall skating doesn't leave nearly as big of an impression as it needs to...and her cold mechanical way of skating really doesn't help anything either.

I do think Julia is a threat to make the team. She's pretty steady and that's something both Liza and Adelina seem to lack. Liza has the firepower but she lacks the extras (presentation, line, mostly PCS stuff). Adelina has the necessary difficulty and presentation points but she's too shaky when it comes to standing up on her jumps. She has the potential to be electrifying (especially her SP from last year) but her ability to sustain that kind of skating over the course of the 4 minute FS is where my confidence in her starts to fade.

If by chance Adelina were to hit on all of her jumps (highly improbable but not impossible) she'd have a great chance of sneaking into the top 5, possibly the podium if one of the Big 3 have a meltdown. Adelina can max out levels in her spins (and steps too I believe) she often plans 7 triple programs w/ 3-3 and 2a-3t and most importantly her overall skating is very nice (good speed, gorgeous lines, nice edges, good amount of performance and projection)...that's where she trumps both Julia and Liza and if she were to deliver a clean-ish program I do think her PCS would receive a nice boost, especially in Sochi. Not by too much but they'd be higher. I could see Adelina sneaking onto the podium in a skate-of-her-life kind of scenario but would be based on others' mistakes.

Still a clean or semi-clean performance from her should be enough for top 6 or 7...which is really good when you bump off Kim, Kostner and Asada heading into worlds that year...

 

[gmyers]

I'm sorry but Julia right now doesn't stack up against the Senior ladies at all. She pales compared to the top Senior Ladies in almost all aspects.

I can not disagree really but she can beat all the other Russians and get to Sochi!

 

[gmyers]

I don't think using Julia's scores from any of her junior events (from 2011-2012 or even this year) is an accurate measuring stick for how she will do on the senior level against skaters who can outmatch her in just about everything. Don't forget, Julia's scores in those competitions reflect her competition: a bunch of 11 and 12 year olds who don't have the higher level polish she has for a 14 year old, so naturally her scores will be higher all around. But next to the top senior ladies...no comparison.

Julia's jumps are typically landed well but when you compare her speed, coverage, height and riding edge to some of the other senior ladies it's easy to see how much she's lacking. Her overall skating doesn't leave nearly as big of an impression as it needs to...and her cold mechanical way of skating really doesn't help anything either.

I do think Julia is a threat to make the team. She's pretty steady and that's something both Liza and Adelina seem to lack. Liza has the firepower but she lacks the extras (presentation, line, mostly PCS stuff). Adelina has the necessary difficulty and presentation points but she's too shaky when it comes to standing up on her jumps. She has the potential to be electrifying (especially her SP from last year) but her ability to sustain that kind of skating over the course of the 4 minute FS is where my confidence in her starts to fade.

If by chance Adelina were to hit on all of her jumps (highly improbable but not impossible) she'd have a great chance of sneaking into the top 5, possibly the podium if one of the Big 3 have a meltdown. Adelina can max out levels in her spins (and steps too I believe) she often plans 7 triple programs w/ 3-3 and 2a-3t and most importantly her overall skating is very nice (good speed, gorgeous lines, nice edges, good amount of performance and projection)...that's where she trumps both Julia and Liza and if she were to deliver a clean-ish program I do think her PCS would receive a nice boost, especially in Sochi. Not by too much but they'd be higher. I could see Adelina sneaking onto the podium in a skate-of-her-life kind of scenario but would be based on others' mistakes.

Still a clean or semi-clean performance from her should be enough for top 6 or 7...which is really good when you bump off Kim, Kostner and Asada heading into worlds that year...

This is MOSTLY exactly it! Julia could get to Sochi and be clean and place 15th or something? I don't know. She could do better but it's doubtful any Russian could really do better than around 10th. Even the mythical and never seen clean Sotnikova LOL! So it's all a matter of if you are doing a top 12 Julia probably will be there and maybe be 15th totally clean! I don't know.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

If by chance Adelina were to hit on all of her jumps (highly improbable but not impossible) she'd have a great chance of sneaking into the top 5, possibly the podium if one of the Big 3 have a meltdown. Adelina can max out levels in her spins (and steps too I believe) she often plans 7 triple programs w/ 3-3 and 2a-3t and most importantly her overall skating is very nice (good speed, gorgeous lines, nice edges, good amount of performance and projection)...that's where she trumps both Julia and Liza and if she were to deliver a clean-ish program I do think her PCS would receive a nice boost, especially in Sochi. Not by too much but they'd be higher. I could see Adelina sneaking onto the podium in a skate-of-her-life kind of scenario but would be based on others' mistakes.

My biggest concern for Adelina is that I am not sure Tatiana Tarasova is the right choreographer to give Sotnikova winning programs. Mao's 2010 programs were a disaster and far too heavy for an airy skater like Mao. Adelina's SP was good, but her LP was awful last year and I think it cost her a Euros title. As far as her jumps, I think Adelina is always going to be hit-or-miss as long as she has a problem losing focus during her programs.

 

[gmyers]

My biggest concern for Adelina is that I am not sure Tatiana Tarasova is the right choreographer to give Sotnikova winning programs. Mao's 2010 programs were a disaster and far too heavy for an airy skater like Mao. Adelina's SP was good, but her LP was awful last year and I think it cost her a Euros title. As far as her jumps, I think Adelina is always going to be hit-or-miss as long as she has a problem losing focus during her programs.

Obviously 2 flips is mentally destructive for Sotnikova. So while going to a lutz would mean to flutzes its probably better for her! She needs to stop doing to 2 flips in the FS. The main thing for Sotnikova success will be one flip in the LP probably. When she skates for the first time next season the main thing to look for is how many flips Tarasova has given her to do in the LP.

 

[Moment]

Adelina should add another 3Lo in her free.

 

[silverlake22]

Adelina should not do a flip in her short program either. If she wants to do 3lz-3t, she can do 3lo as her solo jump, and if she is doing 3t-3t, then she could do 3lz as her solo jump (or 3lo considering it's now worth essentially the same amount of points as 3f). The flutz is maybe a little costly but it's more consistent than her flip and 3lo is actually one of her better jumps, she gets so much height on it and usually the landing is more solid compared to her toe jumps so I really think she should just avoid the flip in the SP and just do one in the FS and then maybe she can do better. Also her 2a is so unstable, it's downright scary the way she comes out of that jump 75% of the time, I think she'd be better off trying two 3-3s, or just one and backloading more (say by putting 4 jumping passes in the 2nd half including 2 combos and one of them the 3-jump combo), and forego the 2a-3t, I actually think the pressure of going for the 2a-3t may be contributing to her botching the landing of her 2a so much, maybe if she planned to do her axels on their own, she would land them better..