You know, I don’t know whether it is because of my Mum being in hospital, or me being dosed rotten with the cold, but I just couldn’t get into making predictions this time around.
So, my predictions for most of the categories pretty much follow the following pattern – first 6 or 7 are largely in the order that I already had in my head, and the rest are ordered purely by absolute PB.
One thing I will say, thank goodness for Curran Oi!

If it hadn’t been for him and his Stats On Ice database, I would have been lost!
In the Ladies, I pretty much knew who I was going to put as my Top 7, and the order I was going to put them in. But, the number crunching did produce some changes.
For the fight between Ashley and Gracie, it was tough to choose. Gracie is 2 places ahead of Ashley in the ISU World Standings, but Ashley is 1 place ahead of Gracie in the ISU Season’s World Rankings. Gracie is 3 points ahead on their ISU PB’s, but that score was from the 2014 Olympics whereas Ashley’s ISU PB was from this season’s Skate Canada. But, if you go by their absolute PB’s, Ashley’s score from the 2015 Nationals is a full 10.5 points ahead of Gracie’s score from the 2014 Nationals.
So, since absolute PB’s was the only way you could really separate them, I went with that and put Ashley on top.
Of course, I would love to see the Russian win, but let’s be blunt: Polina E. isn’t having a great season. She may be 11th in the ISU World Standings, but the fact that she is down in 32nd place in the ISU Season’s World Rankings should tell you all you need to know.
By contrast, Karen Chen is 25th in the ISU World Standings, but is up in 7th place in the ISU Season’s World Rankings. Polina E’s ISU PB is nearly 8.5 points ahead of Karen’s, but both of those scores are from way back in the 2013-14 season. But if you go to their absolute PB’s, Karen’s score from the 2015 Nationals is just over 6 points more than Polina E.’s from the 2014 Nationals.
With this in mind, by rights, I should have put Karen on the podium with Ashley and Gracie. But, I just couldn’t bear to kick Polina E. off the podium!
I will probably live to regret that decision, but hey!
There was a battle between 3 skaters to complete my Top 6: Bell, Hicks and Nagasu.
I had been intending on putting Mariah as my 5th position. But when I looked at the numbers, it turned out that she was behind both Courtney and Mirai on all counts except for Nationals PB, where she was 3 points ahead of Courtney. But this wasn’t enough to justify putting her ahead, so she quickly became cemented in 7th position.
Although Courtney was ahead of Mirai in both ISU Standings and ISU Rankings, it was not by too many positions in either case. So, it all went down to PB’s.
The problem with Mirai is that her ISU PB dates all the way back to the 2010 Olympics. That is SIX years ago!!! So, you can’t really judge her current form by that. Although it is a LOT lower than Mirai’s (by 7 points), at least Courtney’s ISU PB is from this season.
HOWEVER, Mirai’s National PB is only a wee slither more than her ISU PB, and it only dates back to 2014. Courtney’s National PB, by contrast, is further 6 points lower than her ISU PB, and dates back to 2013. So, that was the clincher. Mirai completes my Top 5.
For the rest, I just kept them in absolute PB order. But, I have to say that I was impressed that somebody who I had never heard tell of before (Bradie Tennell) was up in 8th place. By contrast, I was very disappointed to see that Ashley Cain was down in 13th and Maria Yang in 14th. And that the 2 remaining girls that I had heard tell of, Katie McBeath and Carly Gold, were down in 16th and 17th positions respectively.
When it came to the Men, it was a no-brainer as to who to put as my Top 5. But, the problem was the order.
On ISU PB’s, Max was a massive 10 points ahead of Ross and Adam (whose scores were practically identical), and then 12 points further back was Nathan, with Grant just 1 point behind him.
But when you went to the absolute PB’s, it is a LOT more spread out. Adam is a massive 12 points ahead of Max, who is 9 points ahead of Ross, who is 7.4 ahead of Nathan, who is 8 ahead of Grant.
When it comes to ISU World Standings, the order is the same as the absolute PB order. But, there is a difference when you come to the ISU Season’s World Rankings. In this, Max is in 3rd, one place ahead of Adam.
When
skateluvr started the thread about whether it will be Max or Adam that wins, I thought “hey, what about the other guys?” But now that I have looked at the figures, I think it was right to discount everybody else as a potential Champion.
Personally, I prefer Max’s programmes for this season to Adam’s. So, I’m going with that rather than all the scientific opinion. Again, I will probably regret this decision, but hey!
For the other 3, I was happy enough with the absolute PB order.
When it came to my 6th place alternate, I was in a quandary. The guy who is 6th on the absolute PB list, Alexander Johnson, is somebody I have never heard tell of before! His score is a full 6.6 points ahead of the score for Vincent Zhao, the guy I was always intending to put in 6th.
HOWEVER, Vincent’s PB was scored when he won this year’s Midwestern Sectionals, whereas Alexander’s was from when he was 2nd at the 2013 Challenge Cup. Significantly, Alexander’s SB was achieved at the same Sectional competition, when he finished 2nd, 8.32 points behind Vincent.
Given this big gap, I reverted back to my original intention and put Vincent in 6th.
Using Johnson’s SB as opposed to his absolute PB also meant that the guy I had intended putting into 7th, Timothy Dolensky, was promoted to 7th! His absolute PB, from this year’s Skate Canada, was 7 points more than Johnson’s SB.
However, I did not push Johnson down any further than that. The guy I had been intending to put in 8th, Sean Rabbitt, had scored his absolute PB this season, but it was lower than Johnson’s SB.
For the rest, I just kept them in absolute PB order. But, I really hope that Curran Oi can get into the Top 10. After all, if it were not for his database, I would not have been able to do all this scientific stuff! But, according to his entry on his own database, he has only done FOUR competitions since he scored his absolute PB back in the 2009 Nationals. So, it is hard to tell if he might be able to pull off any surprises.
That said, the absolute PB’s for the 2 guys in front of him are also quite old now (Scott Dyer’s is from 2012, while Shotaro Omori’s is from 2013). And their SB’s are similar to Curran’s absolute PB. The problem is that Curran’s SB is 173.89, which is roughly 20 points lower than Dyer’s SB, and roughly 25 points lower than Omori’s SB. So, it probably won’t happen. But, I’ll still be supporting him!
When it came to Pairs, I was happy because ordering them by absolute PB brought about the Top 6 order I wanted it to!
Deciding which way round to put the remaining 2 couples I had heard tell of was fun, because they are so well matched when it comes to PB’s. It wasn’t even as if I could discount any of the PB scores for being too old, as they were all set in 2015!
On Stats On Ice, Curran has the PB’s separated into 2 tables: “ISU” and “non-ISU”. So, since we have 2 couples, that is 4 PB’s we are looking at. Well, for Pfund / Santillan and Liu / Johnson, 3 of the 4 PB scores were covered by just 2 points!!!
In the end, Liu / Johnson lost out because their ISU PB was much lower.
For the rest of the field, it was all couples I had either never heard tell of, or new partnerships that I hadn’t seen together before. So, I left them ordered by absolute PB.
Well, I couldn’t find a Stats On Ice profile for Elizaveta USMANTSEVA / Matej SILECKY, so I went by the most recent former partnership (Usmantseva / Talan). But, while I was there, I noticed something. Liza is only 18, but has had more partners than hot dinners!!! She has had a different partner every season since 2010!!! And I thought Xie Zhong was going through partners at a rate of knots!
They say that only a fool does the same thing over and over again and expects different results. Well, I am that fool! Yet again, I am again putting the Shibs ahead of Chock / Bates in Dance. Well, it’s bound to pay off eventually, isn’t it…?
On the whole, Dance was pretty straightforward. I knew what order I wanted to put the Top 6 in, and apart from the top 2, the absolute PB order agreed with it.
One thing that could have caused complications is that some of the couples still have PB’s that date back to the days when we had Compulsory Dances. Thankfully, in the case of the Shibs, they have a National PB that has surpassed their 2009 ISU PB.
But, for Cannunsio / McManus, their absolute PB dates back to when they finished 3rd at Junior Sectionals in 2009! Of course, this is because there were 3 scores being added together rather than the 2 we have now. Their PB under the 2-segment system is from this season’s Skate America, so I have used it instead. But, as it turned out, it did not make any difference to their position on the list.
It gets worse. With the Reynolds siblings, their absolute PB dates back to when they finished 2nd at JUVENILE Nationals in 2006!!!

Their PB under the 2-segment system is from last season’s Senior Nationals, so I have used it instead. Although it is a full 14 points lower than their absolute PB from 2006, it only drops them down one place on the list.
Apart from the Top 2, this was actually the only change I made to the absolute PB order. Put simply, I am not familiar enough with the partnerships outside the Top 6 to make any judgements. OK, so I am familiar with some of the individuals, but that was when they had different partners.
Although, I do feel guilty for putting the girl that
cheerknithanson knows in last place.
Wow!!! Did I really write 3 ½ A4 pages of analysis???!!!

I was not expecting to write even one page, since I wasn’t really in the mood for making predictions, and since there are so many skaters that I am not familiar with.
Sorry for boring you!
Caroliza_fan
AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
Ladies
1. Ashley WAGNER
2. Gracie GOLD
3. Polina EDMUNDS
4. Karen CHEN
5. Mirai NAGASU
6. Courtney HICKS
Just for fun
7. Mariah BELL
8. Bradie TENNELL
9. Tyler PIERCE
10. Hannah MILLER
11. Franchesca CHIERA
12. Angela WANG
13. Ashley CAIN
14. Maria YANG
15. Alexie MIESKOSKI
Men
1. Adam RIPPON
2. Max AARON
3. Ross MINER
4. Nathan CHEN
5. Grant HOCHSTEIN
6. Vincent ZHOU
Just for fun
7. Timothy DOLENSKY
8. Alexander JOHNSON
9. Sean RABBITT
10. Scott DYER
11. Shotaro OMORI
12. Curran OI
13. Daniel KULENKAMP
14. Jimmy MA
15. Eric STINEHART
Pairs
1. Alexa SCIMECA / Chris KNIERIM
2. Tarah KAYNE / Daniel O’SHEA
3. Marissa CASTELLI / Mervin TRAN
4. Madeline AARON / Max SETTLAGE
5. Jessica CALALANG / Zack SIDHU
6. Caitlin FIELDS / Ernie Utah STEVENS
Just for fun
7. Jessica PFUND / Joshua SANTILLAN
8. Chelsea LIU / Brian JOHNSON
9. Elizaveta USMANTSEVA / Matej SILECKY
10. Alexandria SHAUGHNESSY / James MORGAN
11. Cali FUJIMOTO / Nicholas BARSI-RHYNE
12. Alyssa MCDOUGAL / Paul SCHATZ
13. Brianna DE LA MORA / Maxim KURDUKOV
14. Erika SMITH / AJ REISS
Ice Dance
1. Maia SHIBUTANI / Alex SHIBUTANI
2. Madison CHOCK / Evan BATES
3. Madison HUBBELL / Zachary DONOHUE
4. Kaitlin HAWAYEK / Jean-Luc BAKER
5. Anastasia CANNUSCIO / Colin MCMANUS
6. Danielle THOMAS / Daniel EATON
Just for fun
7. Karina MANTA / Joseph JOHNSON
8. Charlotte MAXWELL / Ryan DEVEREAUX
9. Alissandra ARONOW / Collin BRUBAKER
10. Alexandra ALDRIDGE / Matthew BLACKMER
11. Kseniya PONOMARYOVA / Oleg ALTUKHOV
12. Elicia REYNOLDS / Stephen REYNOLDS
13. Tory PATSIS / Nathaniel FAST
14. Gabriela MORRELL ZUCKER / Andrejs SITIKS