Prediction for Ice Dance. I’m nowhere near as au fait with what’s going on in Ice Dance, but it does seems relatively easy to come up with what should be a reasonably accurate prediction (though now having written it out it seems the last few spots are a bit up in the air).
For example, the top 10 at Worlds are the top 10 in the Seasons Best list, the next 13 in the list will all be in seniors, including the new World Junior champs Lajoie and Lagha, so that’s 46 spots in total.
Then there’s 3 couples who qualify via World Standing – Soucisse/Firus , Shevchenko/Eremenko and Komatsubara/Koleto, while for Host Picks I’m assuming 1 for each event – France = Galyavieva/Thauron, China = Chen/Sun, Japan = Komatsubara/Koleto.
However there may be a 2nd Host Pick in France, there’s 3 couples all with Seasons Bests in the 140’s which seems to be about the cut-off point for couples skating at GPs. Also the Shibutanis might return. They said they weren’t retiring after the Olympics, but didn’t specify when they would return. If they do decide to return they’ll get 2 spots under the Comeback rule.
For the time being I’ll assume they don’t and just list out things in order. Also as stated earlier on Galyavieva/Thauron have certain political advantages. They’re only just below the unofficial cut-off plus could easily be invited to somewhere like SA in return for IdF choosing someone just below the cut-off like Starr Andrews or Hanna Harrell.
Prediction rearranged by country –
Russia (15 spots) – Sinitsina/Katsalapov, Stepanova/Bukin, Zagorski/Guerreiro, Skoptcova/Aleshin, Evdokimova/Bazin, Shevchenko/Eremenko 2, Khudaiberdieva/Nazarov (2 spots as WJ runners-up?), Popova/Mozgov 1, Host Pick 1.
USA (13 spots) – Hubbell/Donohoe, Chock/Bates, Hawayek/Baker, Parsons/Parsons, McNamara/Carpenter, Carreira/Ponamarenko 2, Host Pick 1
Canada (11 spots) – Weaver/Poje, Gilles/Poirier, Fournier Beaudry/Sorensen, Lajoie/Lagha, Soucisse/Firus 2, Host Pick 1
France (5 spots) – Papadakis/Cizeron, Lauriault/Le Gac 2, Host Pick 1 (Galyavieva/Thauron), may be 2.
Spain (4 spots) – Hurtado/Khaliavin, Smart/Diaz 2
China (3 spots) – Wang/Liu 2, Host Pick 1 (Chen/Sun)
Italy (2 spots) – Guignard/Fabbri 2
Poland (2 spots) – Kaliszek/Spodyriev 2
Great Britain (2 spots) – Fear/Gibson 2
Japan (2 spots) – Komatsubara/Koleto 2 (1 via Host Pick, other via W/S)
Finland (1 spot) – Turkkila/Versluis 1 (last ones in, Popova/Mozgov are next).
Next in line Reed/Ambrulevicius, Galyavieva/Thauron, Shpilevaya/Smirnov, Nguyen/Kolesnik (assume stay in juniors), Koch/Nuechtern, Kazakova/Reviya, Tessari/Fioretti, Tweedale/Buckland, Yanokskaya/Lukacs.
ETA - Edited to reflect SnowWhite's post just below.
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