Hey all - I put a few more impressions in the US men’s thread if you’re interested. Sorry I got distracted and basically stopped reporting last night, but if there’s anyone you have questions about, let me know and I’ll try to answer.
Of the women, I really enjoyed Livvy Shilling - she has a clean, confident style that’s really nice to watch. Hanna Harrell has generally very solid jumps but she’s young and needs to develop her artistic side more. I missed Sonja Hilmer, sadly, and most of Emily Chan - but what I saw of Emily was really nice. Julia Fennell is really musical and does a lot of things beautifully, but she did not seem confident in her jumps. Courtney hasn’t been with Kori very long, but I think she’s already improving her presentation.
I think the biggest surprise for me was that even when given the opportunity to focus on spins and moves such as spirals, so many skaters still opted to use some not very creative or well done spins and did only perfunctory spirals. Maybe the scoring required it, or maybe it was easier because that’s what people train in their “regular” competitive programs. On the other hand, there were quite a few awesome spread eagles and hydroblades.
Second biggest surprise was how many people were sitting at the judges / tech panel tables. I did realize later that one of them was the announcer, but still! Maybe if the rules are totally different from COP - or if they are using new COP rules (not sure how this was judged) judges needed assistance to know what rules actually were. I wasn’t seated directly behind the tech panel (it was roped off) but I could still see their screens - just wasn’t paying much attention. As I also wasn’t paying much attention to which jumps were actually being done - sorry about that.
Overall I really enjoyed it and hope that in future years we will see more and more focus on real artistry in the programs.
@Stitchmonkey, it turns out that the lady who reminded me of Johnny Weir is the coach of Jacob DeWolfe, one of the skaters (at least, she was in knc with him). I only ever saw her from across the rink, so up close she may or may not actually resemble Johnny. But I did notice in the kiss n cry that she was wearing a pair of silver glitter stiletto boots that both Johnny and Rohene Ward would probably covet.
also was the choreographer for Courtney Hicks, per Brooklee's reporting.
she is my son's coach only and no up close she does not look like J.W 
