2021-22 US Ice Dance | Page 11 | Golden Skate

2021-22 US Ice Dance

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At Cup of Austria, several American ice dance teams made their international season debuts.

The new ice dance team of Emily Bratti and Ian Somerville were the highest placing of all the American teams, scoring 67.18. If they perform well in the free dance and at US Nationals, they will certainly be hoping to try to challenge for one of the 4CC spots.

McNamara/Spiridonov scored 63.82.

Wolfkostin/Chen made their senior international debut with a score of 63.04. It's an interesting choice for them to be attempting to go for both a senior and junior season this year. They have said that they plan on skating at Senior US Nationals this year. They will almost certainly be assigned to Junior World Championships, so it will just be interesting to see how they stack up against the other Senior US teams.

For 4CC spots, one of them will certainly go to whichever of Hawayek/Baker and Green/Parsons don't go to the Olympics, another will go to Carreira/Ponomarenko, and the last one is more up for grabs. Cesanek/Yehorov are probably favored to get the spot, since they were selected to go to Skate America, while their rivals aren't on the Grand Prix, but it looks like Pate/Bye and Bratti/Somerville can also contend, especially B/S, who got a huge score for a debut team. By contrast, C/Y scored 58.75 at Lombardia and 61.07 at Skate America. Pate/Bye scored 67.20 in the rhythm dance at US Classic and will compete at Warsaw Cup next week. We are still yet to see the two new teams of Hsu/Kolesnik and Nguyen/Smirnov, so it will be interesting to see if they can challenge for the last 4CC spot as well.

 
Caveat re brand-new partnerships (no matter how talented) who have not even made their U.S. debuts:

I am not sure that there would be any possibility that logistics could work out for them to earn the ISU tech minimums for Four Continents in time?
The deadline for earning Four Continents minimums is 21 days before the first practice day (which is Jan 18).
The entry deadline for Golden Spin was Nov 12 ...​



Good luck to all competing in Alpharetta in the coming week. :)
 
Caveat re brand-new partnerships (no matter how talented) who have not even made their U.S. debuts:

I am not sure that there would be any possibility that logistics could work out for them to earn the ISU tech minimums for Four Continents in time?​
The deadline for earning Four Continents minimums is 21 days before the first practice day (which is Jan 18).​
The entry deadline for Golden Spin was Nov 12 ...​



Good luck to all competing in Alpharetta in the coming week. :)
I forgot about the ISU tech minimums :LOL: so Hsu/Kolesnik and Nguyen/Smirnov can't go to 4CC this season unless they are assigned to Golden Spin and get their tech minimums.
 
At Cup of Austria, several American ice dance teams made their international season debuts.

The new ice dance team of Emily Bratti and Ian Somerville were the highest placing of all the American teams, scoring 67.18. If they perform well in the free dance and at US Nationals, they will certainly be hoping to try to challenge for one of the 4CC spots.

McNamara/Spiridonov scored 63.82.

Wolfkostin/Chen made their senior international debut with a score of 63.04. It's an interesting choice for them to be attempting to go for both a senior and junior season this year. They have said that they plan on skating at Senior US Nationals this year. They will almost certainly be assigned to Junior World Championships, so it will just be interesting to see how they stack up against the other Senior US teams.

For 4CC spots, one of them will certainly go to whichever of Hawayek/Baker and Green/Parsons don't go to the Olympics, another will go to Carreira/Ponomarenko, and the last one is more up for grabs. Cesanek/Yehorov are probably favored to get the spot, since they were selected to go to Skate America, while their rivals aren't on the Grand Prix, but it looks like Pate/Bye and Bratti/Somerville can also contend, especially B/S, who got a huge score for a debut team. By contrast, C/Y scored 58.75 at Lombardia and 61.07 at Skate America. Pate/Bye scored 67.20 in the rhythm dance at US Classic and will compete at Warsaw Cup next week. We are still yet to see the two new teams of Hsu/Kolesnik and Nguyen/Smirnov, so it will be interesting to see if they can challenge for the last 4CC spot as well.

This was an incredibly generous tech panel and I think had C/Y been here they'd have outscored the other US teams.
 

Overall, at Cup of Austria, Bratti/Somerville outscored Wolfkostin/Chen by two points and McNamara/Spiridonov by eight points. This is a strong start for the new team of Bratti/Somerville, beating W/C and M/S, who have had more illustrious junior careers.

Golden Spin assignments are out, and Hawayek/Baker, Cesanek/Yehorov, and Bratti/Somerville are all assigned. Hopefully H/B will be healthy enough to compete at Golden Spin. As of now, H/B are also still assigned to Rostelecom. If they can compete well at both Rostelecom and Golden Spin, they should be able to establish themselves this season to try to keep their position as US No. 3, but that's very contingent on how they've been recovering from injury. C/Y and B/S will be an interesting matchup, since both teams will be looking to try to get that last 4CC spot.

 
Avonley Nguyen/Grigory Smirnov will be competing this Wednesday in Alpharetta, Georgia for the US Series. Sophia Eowyn Hsu/Vadym Kolesnik will unfortunately not be competing. In October, they were listed as competitors for the competition, but are not in the Starting order.
 
Avonley Nguyen/Grigory Smirnov will be competing this Wednesday in Alpharetta, Georgia for the US Series. Sophia Eowyn Hsu/Vadym Kolesnik will unfortunately not be competing. In October, they were listed as competitors for the competition, but are not in the Starting order.
So does this mean that Nguyen/Smirnov would be able to qualify for US Nationals if they do well, but since there are no more Championship events, Hsu/Kolesnik are unable to compete at Nationals this year.
 
Have Elizabeth Tkachenko/Alexei Kiliakov switched to Israel? I heard this mentioned somewhere, but I don't know where to find this out.
 
Avonley/Grigory had a nice skate today, leading the RD with a 66.56. They showed some good potential in their skate. It was well done with some little things to work on. Still waiting for the protocols, and my guess is they may have gotten some lower levels.
 
Protocols are out now. Levels were low, level 2 on the midnight blues, level 2 midnight step, levels 2 and 1 pattern step. Regardless, a pretty good showing for a very new team.


Edit: Scores can't be compared across competitions, but N/S's 66.56 is pretty comparable to B/S's 69.41 at their USFS Championships Series Blaine and Pate and Bye's 68.51 also at Blaine. It's a very strong score for such a new team, and it'll be interesting to see how their free dance scores line up compared to their competition. Since N/S aren't competing internationally this season, they don't have tech minimums for a 4CC spot, but they're certainly hoping for Challengers next year and maybe a Skate America host pick.
 
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Protocols are out now. Levels were low, level 2 on the midnight blues, level 2 midnight step, levels 2 and 1 pattern step. Regardless, a pretty good showing for a very new team.

One of the judges gave them a +4 on their midnight blues. They did well, especially for their first competition together.
 
One of the judges gave them a +4 on their midnight blues. They did well, especially for their first competition together.
They were good especially Smirnov. Very visible difference in skating skills but they should get better as they continue skating together. This a win win, for Avonley getting a partner who is very strong and better than Kolesnik and for him to have an opportunity to continue skating and in USA.
 
For 4CC spots, one of them will certainly go to whichever of Hawayek/Baker and Green/Parsons don't go to the Olympics, another will go to Carreira/Ponomarenko, and the last one is more up for grabs. Cesanek/Yehorov are probably favored to get the spot, since they were selected to go to Skate America, while their rivals aren't on the Grand Prix, but it looks like Pate/Bye and Bratti/Somerville can also contend, especially B/S, who got a huge score for a debut team. By contrast, C/Y scored 58.75 at Lombardia and 61.07 at Skate America. Pate/Bye scored 67.20 in the rhythm dance at US Classic and will compete at Warsaw Cup next week. We are still yet to see the two new teams of Hsu/Kolesnik and Nguyen/Smirnov, so it will be interesting to see if they can challenge for the last 4CC spot as well.

Unfortunately I'm not sure how strongly C/Y are favored for the 4CC spot - I think the competition could be close with Bratti/Somerville, Pate/Bye, and even Wolfkostin/Chen.
 
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