Maybe it is more that they only wanted a "Good enough" fall? and Vincent's was and Ross's was not?
Jason... was just weird to me. I love Jason... but his fall has not been great and nationals was not an improvement. He normally improves over the season, but this season he has almost struggled more as time goes by. I am not sure what good putting him as 1st alt does at this point, frankly I think something is wrong and he needs to get that figured out, not be first alt. Something needs addressing - even if it is just taking a LONG vacation and looking at what went wrong, something needs addressing. And sooner is always better.
And while we are on the subject... Max Aaron as 3rd alt is equally strange in my eyes. Yes he medaled on the GP, and has long been respectable, but he was 9th at nationals... the guys who beat him here are also respectable. Tim Dolensky has faced Max three times this season and come out ahead two out of three... I think I'd have given him at least one of Max's grants.
Frankly i think this is all just another argument they should not announce it all so soon. I think after, what was it 4 hours of debate?, they were just too tired to think straight and frankly may have have physiologically needed sleep before making a final decision.
Well one upside... Ross is a heck of a lot more of "a name" now then he was before. He might be able to profit from this in the long wrong. Nothing wrong with the lovable underdog.
Honestly, I think if you take feelings out of the matter, it isnt that hard to justify what they did.
I did a quick experiment, applying the criteria to each guy in the top 6 except Grant (sorry Grant!).
Rules:
Per published criteria, all events in each tier are equally weighted.
My arbitrarily chosen weights:
Tier 1 event = 3, Tier 2 Event = 2, Tier 3 Event = 1.
Each medal (any Tier) = +1.
Each stellar performance (Ross Nats, Jason Worlds, Vincent JWC, Nathan 4CC) = +2.
Each abysmal performance (Jason 2018 Nats) = -2.
Consistency (Adam) = +1.
Results:
Nathan: 28
Jason: 18
Adam: 14
Vincent: 14
Ross: 11
I have no idea how they actually weighted the tiers and intangibles (such as a really good or bad performance). Maybe top 5 should be worth more than 6 or below. Maybe the value of a Tier medal should be greater than a Tier 2 or 3 medal. But that was too much work for me!
Anyway, the problem for Ross seems to have been that he simply didn’t do that many qualifying events, and the only one he medaled at was Nats. Out of ten possible events, he only did 5 - and 3 of the 5 were in Tier 3. Unless his silver medal at Nats is worth, say, +10 (in which case you’d have to say Vincent’s bronze was maybe worth +6 or 8), it’s hard to make him come out ahead of Vincent.
As to Jason, well by rights under my system, he should have been on the team. The fact that he wasn’t suggests to me that his really poor performance and 6th place finish at Nats were just too much for his body of work to overcome; putting him on the team would simply have caused too big an uproar.
