Thoughts from the weekend.
Not too much changes in the movement of the top 5 contenders for the Olympic team. We now have 3/5 of those contenders with so-so results - one good GP and one not-so-good GP.
Here are the overall score averages (Challenge/GP) for our top six skaters:
Nathan Chen 284.42
Adam Rippon 255.94
Jason Brown 255.66
Max Aaron 252.82
Vincent Zhou 242.96
Ross Miner 226.84
The concerning thing, for me, is Andrew Torgashev's result at Warsaw Cup. He had an opportunity to medal, and he was far off the podium. He struggled with his 3A jumps in both the SP and FS and his scores at the even are FAR below his best from JGP (His season's best is 212.71 and he scored 182.78, a full 30 points less). He has a chance to redeem himself at JGPF. That drop his score average to 200.35, 12th out of 14th Team USA skaters.
From sectionals: Tomoki Hiwatashi did a lovely 4T-3T in the free skate after a poor SP. He is one of 4 candidates for a JW spot and he's the odd man out for JGPF, so it will be interesting to see if at Nationals he can beat either Andrew or Alexei and get that JW spot. Alexander Johnson won Midwestern sectionals with two good programs, though had a few jump issues.
Timothy Dolensky did well winning Eastern Sectionals. He opted to not try the quad salchow and he skated two solid programs. I'd squarely put him as a contender for that third 4CC spot.
Sean Rabbitt won Pacific Sectionals, but had problems with his 3As.
Up next:
Adam Rippon has a HUGE shot to stand out from this men's field at Skate America by medaling and qualifying for his second GPF. Nathan should qualify easily for GPF easily.
But with all the poor performances at IdF (and Javi's win, send that man a fruit basket!), Jason Brown's prospects for a GPF berth are still alive. He needs to sit back and see how the top four candidates for GPF spots will do. Basically if the Skate America results are: Nathan, Adam/Boyang Jin (in 2nd and/or 3rd), Sergei Voronov , in that order, Jason's out. If Adam/Boyang get 4th, they will have to have score more than 245.11 and 242.62 to pass Jason, if either ends up in 5th, they are out and Jason is in. Jason is also in if Sergei Voronov does not finish top 5 at Skate America. Jason odds to get a GPF spot are against him, but this has been a strange season. Jason will get at least 1st alternate and given the ambitious content and injuries, it's not also out of the realm of possibility that Jason manages to get called up to replace someone that W/Ds from GPF.
This will also be our first view of Ross Miner since the Challenger Series. He had a really good FS at his second event. It will be interesting to see if he can improve his prospects. Alexei Krasnozhon will also be at Tallinn Trophy, which I believe will mark his Challenge Series debut (his senior debut technically came this summer doing the Philadelphia International Senior B).
ETA:
I didn’t follow FS closely in the last Olympic cycle, but it seems like this season, pretty much all the guys are feeling a tremendous amount of pressure and are struggling with it, whether by succumbing to illness or injury or more simply by underperforming.
The quad definitely did not play as prominent role as it does now. The ramping up of the quad in the last few years is pretty noteworthy. Leading up to 2014, it seem like the focus was to just simply encourage men to attempt the quad. They upped the BV, they changed the UR rules (it used to be that a UR=DG) and also upped the scale of values so a well-executed jump would get more points Most of the men attempted 4T and/or 4S and few did both.
The winning FS score -- by Denis Ten --- at 2013 Worlds was 174.92. At 2017 Worlds, Jason's score was a tad higher -- 176.47 -- and he was 7th in the FS. Of course that's also a reflection of PCS inflation. At 2013 Worlds, Patrick Chan had the highest PCS at 89+. Yuzuru got 97+ at Worlds 2017.
And when you think about it the 4LO/4F/4Lz craze only really came into being like two seasons ago when Boyang Jin did 4Z. This is after many, many seasons of most skaters just doing 4S and/or 4T.
I also feel like the season's much longer now than in previous years with the addition of the Challenger Series (which started in the 2014-2015 season) and things like World Team Trophy/Team Challenge Cup. The Challenge Series was supposed to be a way to encourage developing countries to send their skaters, but somehow it's turned into a pre-season tune-up for top skaters.
