Ladies. Well, needless to say that I am putting my Canadian wife on top. But, to be fair, with the form she is in at the moment, you would have to be a madman to bet against her winning!
In fact, I had pretty much decided my Top 5 positions before I even started any research (which was done on Stats On Ice for a change, as Rink Results doesn’t have any results from Canadian competitions). It was just a case of which way around to put Austman and Tamura. But, when I looked at the PB’s (be they ISU or absolute), they weren’t even close. Larkyn was way in front of Sarah.
Deciding who to have as my alternate was the tricky part. The two girls I was intending to put around that area, Kim Deguise Léveillée and Emy Decalles, were actually further down the absolute PB order than I was expecting, in 10th and 9th places respectively. And they were a good bit behind the three girls above them, who were separated by practically nothing. So, I kept them rounding off my Top 10, but swapped them around.
As for the fight to be my alternate, since they were so close, I decided to put them in order of how recently their absolute PB was achieved.
When it came to the Men, I again faced my annual problem of the Top 2 having absolute PB’s that are very old. Patrick’s is now 6 years old, whereas Kevin’s is now 5 years old.
Patrick has only done one competition so far this season, but it was good enough to keep him in the Top 5 on the absolute PB list. And his scores from last season are good enough to convince me that he is still the favourite to win.
With Kevin, his scores so far this season have been a lot lower. He has only done 2 competitions, and his SB from Skate America would only put him 12th on the absolute PB list. BUT, he was scoring well last season, and his three highest scores from last season would all keep him in the Top 5 of the absolute PB list.
So, I kept Patrick at the top, and moved Kevin down to 5th, ahead of Elladj Baldé, who I kept in 6th place as my alternate. I like Elladj and would have loved to put him higher. But, I know from bitter past experience that the judges just don’t get him.
After Patrick, it was a no-brainer to put Nam into second. But, it was so hard to choose between Keegan and Liam in the fight for the remaining podium position. There is only 0.01 between their absolute PB’s, both of which were achieved this season. And I like them both.
In the end, I opted for the Alaskan, because I am so impressed with how much he has progressed since switching countries.
For the rest of the Top 10, I knew who I was putting in there before my research, but hadn’t a clue what order to put them in. So, I kept to the absolute PB order. I did have one dilemma, due to there only being 0.14 separating the absolute PB’s for Roman Sadovsky and Joseph Phan. At first, I was going to swap them because Joseph’s was from this season, whereas Roman’s was from last season. But then I looked at their other scores, and it turns out that this was the only time that Joseph has broken the 200 barrier, whereas Roman has been doing it frequently over the past 4 seasons. So, I kept him ahead of Joseph.
When I came to do Pairs, the partnerships pages weren’t coming up on Stats On Ice, so this was done purely by gut. And I say gut for a reason, because my heart would have had second and third swapped around.
After the Top 4, I wasn’t sure what order to go with. I knew I was putting Shalena and Johann at the bottom, because I can’t find anything relating to their partnership. (I think there might have been a typing error in the Entry list PDF – is he Johann Wilkinson, who previously skated in Singles for South Africa?) But for the other three, I kept changing my mind.
All three of these partnerships have only been together 2 or 3 seasons. And so I only had their ISU PB’s and the results from last year’s Nationals to go by. Ruest / Wolff were ahead of Kolodziej / Deschamps on both those counts.
With Walsh / Michaud, it was harder to judge because they were in Juniors last year (Canadian Champions, no less). If you compare the scores of the three teams from Nationals last season, the Junior Champions would have slotted into the middle. But, although this score was higher than their ISU PB, it was a lot lower than the ISU PB’s for the other two partnerships.
With nothing better to go on, I put them into the order of the scores that I could find. Which was the same order (but not the same scores) as the ISU PB order.
Unfortunately, it was a similar problem in Ice Dance. Of course, the podium order was straightforward enough. But after this, I hadn’t a clue!
With the three partnerships I was dithering over for 4th, 5th and 6th, they were actually in the same order in both the ISU PB’s and last year’s Nationals. So, I just went with that.
And with the three partnerships that do not have ISU Bios, it was easy enough to order them by their scores from Nationals last year. Chartrand / Seidel finished 8th (out of 8) in Seniors, but their score was significantly higher than Cipriano / Richardson and Cunningham / Bridgewood scored in Juniors (who finished 10th and 11th respectively out of 15)
The question was where to slot in the new partnership of Lanaghan / Razgulajevs. In the end, it turned out easy to resolve because I could only find 2 scores from them, and both of these (the higher was from the Lake Placid International) were between the best I could find for Arnold / Williams and Chartrand / Seidel.
Wow! I wrote more than I was expecting!
CaroLiza_fan
CANADIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
Ladies
1. Kaetlyn OSMOND
2. Gabrielle DALEMAN
3. Alaine CHARTRAND
4. Larkyn AUSTMAN
5. Sarah TAMURA
Just for fun:
6. Alicia PINEAULT
7. Michelle LONG
8. Kelsey WONG
9. Kim DEGUISE LÉVEILLÉE
10. Emy DECELLES
Men
1. Patrick CHAN
2. Nam NGUYEN
3. Keegan MESSING
4. Liam FIRUS
5. Kevin REYNOLDS
Just for fun:
6. Elladj BALDÉ
7. Nicolas NADEAU
8. Roman SADOVSKY
9. Joseph PHAN
10. Stephen GOGOLEV
Pairs
1. Meagan DUHAMEL / Eric RADFORD
2. Julianne SÉGUIN / Charlie BILODEAU
3. Lubov ILYUSHECHKINA / Dylan MOSCOVITCH
4. Kirsten MOORE-TOWERS / Michael MARINARO
5. Camille RUEST / Andrew WOLFE
Just for fun:
6. Sydney KOLODZIEJ / Maxime DESCHAMPS
7. Evelyn WALSH / Trennt MICHAUD
8. Shalena RAU / Johann WILSKINSON
Ice Dance
1. Tessa VIRTUE / Scott MOIR
2. Kaitlyn WEAVER / Andrew POJE
3. Piper GILLES / Paul POIRIER
4. Carolanne SOUCISSE / Shane FIRUS
5. Haley SALES / Nikolas WAMSTEEKER
Just for fun:
6. Sarah ARNOLD / Thomas WILLIAMS
7. Molly LANAGHAN / Dmitre RAZGULAJEVS
8. Vanessa CHARTRAND / Alexander SEIDEL
9. Gina CIPRIANO / Jake RICHARDSON
10. Ravie CUNNINGHAM / Cedar BRIDGEWOOD
, eager to see new FD!
