2017-18 State of U.S. Ladies Skating

[temadd]

Only one judge gave Polina any scores in the 9s, and that was only in the LP. Most of her scores were 7s and low 8s. In the SP, they were primarily low 7s. Overall her scores were only slightly higher than Mirai Nagasu's, and on par with Rika Hongo's, although in my opinion, Polina is much stronger on just about everything (though her LP is admittedly not very good, and that LP costume is even worse).

Sorry, I was referring to the LP - all 8s and a 9.5
8.50
8.00
9.50
8.75
8.25
8.00
8.25
8.00
8.50.

I still think it's ridiculous. I don't know what the scale is but IMO her performance was a 5 and only because her jumps are spectacular

 

[R.D.]

Karen has a higher ceiling, lower floor. Risk-reward. The US should only be trying to hang on to the bronze medal - go with the lower risk.

I guess that’s a strategic decision to be made by the Federation. A more risk-tolerant approach may be, if there’s a reasonable shot at silver via a higher ladies SP score, why not take it? Yes, if it backfires it may lead to an OTP finish. But playing it safe is also no guarantee of anything...as we’ve seen *many* times in the individual event.

Again, depends on how reliable Chen proves to be in the SP, and whether she makes the team. If she’s on at both SA AND Nationals - why NOT have her do the Team SP?

 

[andromache]

I guess that’s a strategic decision to be made by the Federation. A more risk-tolerant approach may be, if there’s a reasonable shot at silver via a higher ladies SP score, why not take it? Yes, if it backfires it may lead to an OTP finish. But playing it safe is also no guarantee of anything...as we’ve seen *many* times in the individual event.

Does anyone believe this is the case? It's my understanding that both Canada and Russia are overwhelming favorites and neck and neck for gold and silver, whereas the US legitimately risks losing the bronze to Japan/Italy/France/China (I don't actually know lol) given the state of our pairs and ladies.

Anyway, I just really like talking team event strategy for all of the countries.

 

[andromache]

Sorry, I was referring to the LP - all 8s and a 9.5
8.50
8.00
9.50
8.75
8.25
8.00
8.25
8.00
8.50.

I still think it's ridiculous. I don't know what the scale is but IMO her performance was a 5 and only because her jumps are spectacular

She also received some scores in the 7s for the LP, FWIW.

Agree to disagree on what she "deserves". Relative to the scoring of the rest of the field and how ladies' scoring in general has trended this season, I would personally have had her in the range of low 9s for her SP and mid 8s for the LP.

I may have been inaccurate in stating that she was "hosed" in PCS - rather, I'm of the opinion that her competitors received overly high PCS, given their flawed performances, and Polina wasn't adequately rewarded for her clean performance in comparison.

 

[R.D.]

^ US ladies, folks...unless we’re discussing Polina Edmunds.

 

[creaturelover]

Can we please say Polina T to avoid confusion with Polina Edmunds??

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

Therefore, the US will get beaten by Zhenia, Kaetlyn, Wakaba, and Carolina. In other words, we will be fifth, or fourth at best. It doesn’t really matter, since men’s and dance will hold the team up. All that matters is the pair team does no worse that 5th themselves. If they bomb, the cushion is gone and the US may lose bronze.

This looks about right, although it would not shock me to see two of Kaetlyn, Wakaba, or Carolina falling in the SP, which could put a clean US woman in 3rd for that segment. However, I don't think any of our skaters with a < could beat Carolina with one fall, so our woman would have to be squeaky clean to take advantage of mistakes.

 

[chuckm]

Gabby is a great SP skater who tends to be a bit of a mess in the LP.

I anticipate Skate America having a kind technical panel, which will make Ashley's job easier.

Polina Tsurskaya got hosed on PCS in Japan - I expect the same in the US.

Polina got 7s in PCS in the SP, yes. But she got all 8s in the FS. No doubt the judges were influenced by 7 huge CLEAN jumps, all L4 spins, and L4 footwork. She got lots of +2 GOE on her elements which made her FS TES enormous. Even in the SP, with low PCS, she still was third overall behind Medvedeva and Kostner with 70.04.

Ashley will definitely get higher PCS than Polina in both SP and FS. Whether or not it will be enough to trump Polina's cumulative TES is another question.

 

[mrrice]

It will be very interesting to see Polina Edmunds this weekend. IMO, she is the wildcard when it comes to who will be on the Olympic Team. Gracie has dropped completely off my radar and at this point, I don't have a favorite US Lady. I guess Ashley is having the best season but, she isn't really a threat if she doesn't nail her SP. Her LP is a proven winner but, I wonder how the judges will react to it after seeing it for the THIRD time.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

It will be very interesting to see Polina Edmunds this weekend. IMO, she is the wildcard when it comes to who will be on the Olympic Team. Gracie has dropped completely off my radar and at this point, I don't have a favorite US Lady.

I'm excited to see Polina too, in particular whether she has improved the flip and lutz since her last outing. With Gracie, even if she miraculously showed up to Nationals in tip-top shape, I don't think she has enough recent events under her belt to compete with confidence, much like Sasha Cohen at 2010 Nationals.

 

[frida80]

It's possible that Gabby, Alina, and then the second Japanese lady will skate a program. I doubt either country wants to exhaust their individual medal hopefuls by skating two programs for the team event (we all remember what happened to Yulia). Alina won't be beat by a US lady, but Gabby and whoever the 2nd Japanese lady are are beatable by an American, potentially. I'm also not sure if we will see Carolina in the LP portion of the team event - could be a French lady instead, given the strength of J/C and P/C.

I’ve thought about that too. Gabby is potentially too risky to put in until she can prove she’s up to par. Her SP is stronger than her LP, so she’s probably compete in the SP. But for Canada to win gold there is very little leeway. Ladies must be 2nd in both the SP and the FS. Men’s must get 16 points total. Pairs must be second in both the SP and FS. And Tessa and Scott must win the SD and the FD.

Mai is very strong. She just scored 139 at the CoC while in the first group. That means her score will be even higher in the second group. We’ll know more at TdF, but I think she’s headed to the 140’s making her very tough for the US to beat.

I don’t think Carolina will be in the LP unless Italy thinks it can get bronze after all. Carolina is looking good for an individual medal herself.

I’ve done several calculations. The team that will definitely make it to the finals are Russia, Canada, and the USA. From there, these are the teams that the most likely to make the finals.

France, Italy, Japan, and China. The two most likely to make it are Italy and France. It all depends on how well each team does with their weakest segment.

Every combination yields the same result. USA wins bronze with 58 points. US ladies are always in third or fourth position, but USA gets bronze anyway.

This is without Nathan doing both segments. Men, ladies, and pairs can all be in fourth place (pairs as low as fifth) and the US will always get bronze so long as pairs doesn’t bomb in the SP. There is no possibility of silver at all.

 

[Miss Ice]

I'm excited to see Polina too, in particular whether she has improved the flip and lutz since her last outing. With Gracie, even if she miraculously showed up to Nationals in tip-top shape, I don't think she has enough recent events under her belt to compete with confidence, much like Sasha Cohen at 2010 Nationals.

Sasha Cohen at 2010 Nationals was never a real contender for Olympic team spot...was she?

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

Sasha Cohen at 2010 Nationals was never a real contender for Olympic team spot...was she?

Well, no one really knew what form she was in. She had the name recognition internationally that the others lacked.

 

[mrrice]

Sasha Cohen at 2010 Nationals was never a real contender for Olympic team spot...was she?

Actually she was.....I think she got fourth but, I think she was second going into the free after Ashley had a rough SP. I remember them showing her in the KnC right before Mirai's scores came up. So yes, she was in the mix until Mirai knocked her off the team with her spectacular LP. We only had 2 spots that year and Ashely and Sasha just missed the team.

What I remember most about the Ladies at that event was seeing defending champion, Alissa Czisny implode. I was sad for her....

Here it is....Get a load of Diva Wagner's expression after Mirai's Free Program.....:handw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rJX0_QqCTE

 

[R.D.]

Sasha Cohen at 2010 Nationals was never a real contender for Olympic team spot...was she?

The US ladies had fallen far enough that Cohen *was* in the mix by default - it was just an unknown what shape she would show up in.

Funny thing about Cohen’s 2010 run is that in the practices, you could sense that she was legit about it. The pieces WERE actually there; it was just about putting everything together. I remember watching her squeak out a 3-3 in warmup (something she stopped doing early on in her career). But she was always injury-prone and thus ran out of time. I still think she should have made her return in 2008 (or at least ramped up her training to full intensity then) if she was truly serious about Vancouver; as I remember, there were suspicions that it was nothing more than a PR stunt by her, USFS or NBC to drum up interest in the Olympics.

 

[temadd]

She also received some scores in the 7s for the LP, FWIW.

Agree to disagree on what she "deserves". Relative to the scoring of the rest of the field and how ladies' scoring in general has trended this season, I would personally have had her in the range of low 9s for her SP and mid 8s for the LP.

I may have been inaccurate in stating that she was "hosed" in PCS - rather, I'm of the opinion that her competitors received overly high PCS, given their flawed performances, and Polina wasn't adequately rewarded for her clean performance in comparison.

Sorry to talk about a Russian here so this is my last comment: I'm referring only to the "performance" scores in the PCS and she had little to no expression or connection to the music and audience. If Polina T gives the same at SA, Ashley should have significantly higher performance numbers. But unfortunately judges don't seem to think it's ok to have 6's in one area of PCS and 8's in others.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

If Polina T gives the same at SA, Ashley should have significantly higher performance numbers. But unfortunately judges don't seem to think it's ok to have 6's in one area of PCS and 8's in others.

The range of marks have to cover a wide variety of abilities. Here are the marks given at 2017 Euros for the ladies LP: http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1617/ec2017/SEG004.HTM I see only one score below 5, a 4.96 for the 20th place finisher. You may not like certain skaters' interpretive abilities, but the judges don't use a large range of marks for top contenders.

 

[R.D.]

What I remember most about the Ladies at that event was seeing defending champion, Alissa Czisny implode. I was sad for her....

Oh yeah, I forgot about Czisny. She did peak the next year though - a late peak at that - with her Nationals win and 5th place at worlds. Heck, if she hadn’t messed up the long(?), podium wouldn’t have been out of the question...

Was she the one that had that freak accident at some club comp around Oly 2014? I think it was injury or something that kept her out of the 2014 picture (not to mention the window which had opened for her in 2010 had all but closed with Wagner and Gold leading the way)

 

[mrrice]

Oh yeah, I forgot about Czisny. She did peak the next year though - a late peak at that - with her Nationals win and 5th place at worlds. Heck, if she hadn’t messed up the long(?), podium wouldn’t have been out of the question...

Was she the one that had that freak accident at some club comp around Oly 2014? I think it was injury or something that kept her out of the 2014 picture (not to mention the window which had opened for her in 2010 had all but closed with Wagner and Gold leading the way)

Alissa's competitive career basically came to an end after she had that rough showing at Worlds in 2012. Some say that she was masking an injury and I think placed 22nd.....

 

[Ender]

My biggest worry for Nagasu is that will she calm her nerves to skate well at Nationals this time. I am certain she will peak at the Olympic if she is chosen.