US Olympic Team Announced

[Mathman]

Two comments.

1. I really like Illia's LP music. It seems to me to be extremely well suited to serve as a background for his performance, and he makes subtle but effective use of the musical phrasing with regard to timing of the elements. He is not required to tell a stoty, portray a character, or evoke an emotional mood. And you never feel like, "I wish this guy woulod get off the ice so I can enjoy this masterful music." Illia's skatring was the diamond, the music the setting.

2. I am glad that Jason went for the quad and I hope that he attempts it at the Olympics. To me, this shows respect for the soprt of figure skating. Jason's persistence honors the sport by underlining the point that there are many aspects of competitive figure skating, and that while he excels at some of them, quads are part of the equation, too. He ever strives to be a complete skater.

 

[bekalc]

I mean that's fine if you feel that way. But, the USFS laid out selection criteria before the season started. Everyone knew the criteria. Ilya knew the criteria. This criteria strongly favors Jason's BOW over Ilya's one great national performance. You might not like these criteria. That's fine. @TontoK has been clear all year that he believes nationals should determine a winner. I favor a points-based system like Spain. However, neither you, nor I, or @TontoK determined the selection. That was up to the USFS. Once the guidelines have been determined, they should be followed. To their credit, the USFS followed the criteria in all disciplines with equality. So, to me that's fair. Should they change their selection criteria? Maybe, maybe not. There are pluses and minuses either way. But, those acting like leaving Ilya off the team was unexpected or some kind of terrible miscarriage of justice are just selectively ignoring many facts.

They created criteria that severely punishes young skaters.
In 2016 Jason had body of work over Nathan Chen too.

I actually agree that one good competition shouldn’t determine all. But I don’t think a situation should also be created where it becomes impossible for young skaters to earn spots. Young skaters have less opportunities and the quickest to improve and also the quickest to have issues with body changes.

In this case if you look at Alyssa versus Ilia. Two years ago Alyssa was more impressive but frankly eight now I don’t think she is showing it’s likely she will maintain a quad or a consistent triple axel. She got Senior gps due to results from two years ago.

In contrast ilia has improved tremendously in the last two years and due to the pandemic didn’t have the opportunity to Earn Senior spots.

I don’t agree with a situation that makes tells a skater it doesn’t matter how much you improve we won’t take you.

Or tells an established skater it doesn’t matter how much you DONT improve we will take you.

Trajectory is also suppose to be taken into account and that goes with Ilia.

I actually agree with taken Vincent over Ilia because Vincent has shown he can compete for a major medal. And he has shown market improvement to this year.

But Jason has not shown major improvement. He results are stagnant he has had eight years to develop technical content that will make him competive. He is fairly established so he gets good scores but it’s clear he is not competitive for a world or Olympic medal.

To sit there and tell you skaters we will never take you even though you just displayed remarkable content that makes you competitive with the best in the world and the other person has never shown their content is competitive is foolhardy.

That is not a system that creates champions it is a system that rewards stagnation.

 

[moonvine]

They created criteria that severely punishes young skaters.
In 2016 Jason had body of work over Nathan Chen too.



But Jason has not shown major improvement. He results are stagnant he has had eight years to develop technical content that will make him competive. He is fairly established so he gets good scores but it’s clear he is not competitive for a world or Olympic medal.

To sit there and tell you skaters we will never take you even though you just displayed remarkable content that makes you competitive with the best in the world and the other person has never shown their content is competitive is foolhardy.

That is not a system that creates champions it is a system that rewards stagnation.

Could you please tell me what you’ve been watching? Jason has been ON FIRE this year. He’s having one of his best, if not his best, seasons ever, consistently bearing skaters with inarguably harder tech content.

I don’t think it’s about “young skaters.” USFS (rightly) rewards senior comps over junior comps. 17 year olds can choose to skate as a junior or senior.

And for everyone who is all about Ilia’s (admittedly very impressive) comeback in his sole Senior competition this season) such a comeback would not be possible in the Olympics or Worlds because he would not make the free skate.

 

[JustSomeGuy]

I would like to first of all re-iterate my previous point here, with an additional caveat: Malinin bombed his SP at his one senior competition so badly, he literally does not have the tech minimums for senior worlds. You know who does have the tech minimums for senior worlds? Donovan Carillo! Zhou failed to make the FS at last years worlds. You know who did make the FS? Donovan Carillo! Seriously, I love Donovan and seeing him qualify for Beijing was the only thing that could take away the pain of Fentz not qualifying, but having one US man place below him would be an embarrassment, two of them? It would be an utter humiliation of the US figure skating program, and that is a genuine risk if they send both Zhou and Malinin, so it really needs to be one or the other.

Now, since a lot of people seem to be crying "This wudn't happen in Russia !!1!", I will relieve you all of that delusion - the Russian figure skating federation had absolutely no problem leaving their national champion at home during a home-field Olympics in favour of a "sentimental fave" who had essentially no body of work from the past few season due to being retired and didn't even bother to skate at Euros, also leaving two that-year Euros medalists off of the team for that same fave.

In 2018, the same year that everybody collectively lost their sh*t over Ross "no body-of-work from the last five years or senior results throughout his whole career" Miner being left off, the Russian figure skating fed also left off their national silver medalist from the team in favour of their bronze medalist, and that was despite said silver medalist being a reigning junior worlds medalist and having medalled at one senior GP event and placing 4th at the other, whilst the bronze medalist had placed sixth and eighth at his. If anybody has a right to whine about getting the so-called Ross Miner Treatment, it's Samarin, and I don't recall anybody being offended on his behalf when he actually got screwed by the fed.

Basing your Olympic (or worlds) selection on a single competition is a bad idea - ironically, on the example used above, it was literally one good competition (Euros) that put Aliev on the Olympic team, but let's face it, they were getting him on that team one way or the other, actual results be damned. Ross Miner never repeated those nationals skates since and he had never presented them before hand, and while I wasn't particularly happy with Rippon at the Olympics purely for the reason that I don't care for his skating (and yes, I know Max Aaron took himself out of the equation so I'll deal), sending Miner would have been a mistake and I honestly still think that if he had gone, he would have bombed spectacularly. I mean, at least it would have been something to laugh at, because I'm a bad person an all, but still. Basing selections on a single competition is how you end up sending a one-skate wonder who promptly bombs and humiliates themselves and the country - I'm not saying that's what would happen to Malinin (I honestly think Zhou is the more likely to bomb, and I say that as a Zhou fan), but there is a reason why body of work is taken into consideration.

 

[moonvine]

I would like to first of all re-iterate my previous point here, with an additional caveat: Malinin bombed his SP at his one senior competition so badly, he literally does not have the tech minimums for senior worlds. You know who does have the tech minimums for senior worlds? Donovan Carillo! Zhou failed to make the FS at last years worlds. You know who did make the FS? Donovan Carillo! Seriously, I love Donovan and seeing him qualify for Beijing was the only thing that could take away the pain of Fentz not qualifying, but having one US man place below him would be an embarrassment, two of them? It would be an utter humiliation of the US figure skating program, and that is a genuine risk if they send both Zhou and Malinin, so it really needs to be one or the other.

Now, since a lot of people seem to be crying "This wudn't happen in Russia !!1!", I will relieve you all of that delusion - the Russian figure skating federation had absolutely no problem leaving their national champion at home during a home-field Olympics in favour of a "sentimental fave" who had essentially no body of work from the past few season due to being retired and didn't even bother to skate at Euros, also leaving two that-year Euros medalists off of the team for that same fave.

In 2018, the same year that everybody collectively lost their sh*t over Ross "no body-of-work from the last five years or senior results throughout his whole career" Miner being left off, the Russian figure skating fed also left off their national silver medalist from the team in favour of their bronze medalist, and that was despite said silver medalist being a reigning junior worlds medalist and having medalled at one senior GP event and placing 4th at the other, whilst the bronze medalist had placed sixth and eighth at his. If anybody has a right to whine about getting the so-called Ross Miner Treatment, it's Samarin, and I don't recall anybody being offended on his behalf when he actually got screwed by the fed.

Basing your Olympic (or worlds) selection on a single competition is a bad idea - ironically, on the example used above, it was literally one good competition (Euros) that put Aliev on the Olympic team, but let's face it, they were getting him on that team one way or the other, actual results be damned. Ross Miner never repeated those nationals skates since and he had never presented them before hand, and while I wasn't particularly happy with Rippon at the Olympics purely for the reason that I don't care for his skating (and yes, I know Max Aaron took himself out of the equation so I'll deal), sending Miner would have been a mistake and I honestly still think that if he had gone, he would have bombed spectacularly. I mean, at least it would have been something to laugh at, because I'm a bad person an all, but still. Basing selections on a single competition is how you end up sending a one-skate wonder who promptly bombs and humiliates themselves and the country - I'm not saying that's what would happen to Malinin (I honestly think Zhou is the more likely to bomb, and I say that as a Zhou fan), but there is a reason why body of work is taken into consideration.

This is a really great post. I’d like to also add that Ilia’s redemption skate in the CS was only possible because everyone qualified to skate the free. If you don’t qualify to skate the free, no redemption skate.

I used to love the Olympics. Now I’m sick of it already and it hasn’t even happened yet. And people will literally be debating this for years. Ugh.

 

[bekalc]

A sentimental favorite in Russia who was a three time Olympic medalist a world and Olympic champion over a guy who was inconsistent.
I didn’t agree with Russia either but To compare Jason to Plushenko.

And once again Jason’s technical content is not competitive with the top men

Illia had one bad skate. Went on to qualify first in the JGP he didn’t have nearly as many opportunities as Jason . This is unfair.

Once again I don’t have a problem with naming Vincent or Nathan they had body of work.

I just disagree with claiming body of work for a skater whose SB is only 9th best on the Senior Circuit.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

Basing your Olympic (or worlds) selection on a single competition is a bad idea

I get that Jason has had a nice season, not just one good event like Ilya, and can probably finish somewhere in the 5th to 10th place at the Olympics. From my perspective, I would have considered that taking Ilya off the team knocked him down two spots from 2nd to 4th (i.e. first alternate) from the Nationals result, which is rare since it's usually the 3rd (or 2nd if there are two spots) who misses out in these scenarios. Doing that is within the rules of the selection process, but shouldn't there be some compelling reason to remove the 2nd place finisher who was substantially better than the two who followed at Nationals? I get it if Jason is needed for the team event or is a contender for an individual medal, but I don't think that wil be the case. I think this is discouraging for not only Ilya but also other young skaters who will basically need a few years of senior experience to even be considered ahead of nearly-retired skaters. It's also made me realize that Lindsay probably had zero chance of making the team since it's clear moving into a higher group based on the Nationals result is less important than getting in that tier through other competitions.

 

[yelyoh]

So where are they sending Ilia so he can get the SP minimum? Any word?

 

[moonvine]

A sentimental favorite in Russia who was a three time Olympic medalist a world and Olympic champion over a guy who was inconsistent.
I didn’t agree with Russia either but To compare Jason to Plushenko.

And once again Jason’s technical content is not competitive with the top men

Illia had one bad skate. Went on to qualify first in the JGP he didn’t have nearly as many opportunities as Jason . This is unfair.

Once again I don’t have a problem with naming Vincent or Nathan they had body of work.

I just disagree with claiming body of work for a skater whose SB is only 9th best on the Senior Circuit.

Ilia could have chosen to skate as a senior this year. He would then have a larger BOW to be considered.

Personally my team would have been Nathan, Ilia and Jason. But I’m not going to spend time fuming over it.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

Now, since a lot of people seem to be crying "This wudn't happen in Russia !!1!", I will relieve you all of that delusion - the Russian figure skating federation had absolutely no problem leaving their national champion at home during a home-field Olympics in favour of a "sentimental fave" who had essentially no body of work from the past few season due to being retired and didn't even bother to skate at Euros, also leaving two that-year Euros medalists off of the team for that same fave.

In 2018, the same year that everybody collectively lost their sh*t over Ross "no body-of-work from the last five years or senior results throughout his whole career" Miner being left off, the Russian figure skating fed also left off their national silver medalist from the team in favour of their bronze medalist, and that was despite said silver medalist being a reigning junior worlds medalist and having medalled at one senior GP event and placing 4th at the other, whilst the bronze medalist had placed sixth and eighth at his. If anybody has a right to whine about getting the so-called Ross Miner Treatment, it's Samarin, and I don't recall anybody being offended on his behalf when he actually got screwed by the fed.

Samarin was at least thoroughly defeated by Aliev at Euros by about 44 points, so the Russian fed selecting Aliev made sense at the time (and indeed paid off with Aliev placing 7th at the Olympics (rough FS but perfect SP) even higher than Kolyada.

2014 was a complete farce though with Plushenko, after losing to Kovtun at Nationals, didn't even compete at Euros and snagged a spot due to his prowess and some so-called closed doors skate which the public didn't even get to see to verify if he actually was in better shape. Yes, he did well in the team event before WDing in the individual, but the circumstances were completely ridiculous and behind the scenes politicking that literally allowed the Russian champ to stay at home because of doing poorly at Euros over the Russian #2 who didn't even go to Euros.

I wonder if Trusova or Scherbackova bombs at Euros as hard as Kovtun did if Mishin can work his magic one more time and get Tuktamysheva to do a "closed door skate".

 

[Hyena]

On what planet do you think he will be any way in the top 12?

Jason was 7th at 2021 Worlds.

He is currently 8th on the 2021-2022 ISU Season's World Rankings and 2nd on the ISU World Standings (personally I don't really like the World Standings as a metric so this one is not as meaningful to me, I don't expect these to be the Olympic results ).

He has the 9th highest Season's Best score (10th Short Program score and 9th Free Skate score).

Per Skating Scores, he has 6th highest mean event score based on international comps this season.

 

[bekalc]

Jason was 7th at 2021 Worlds.

He is currently 8th on the 2021-2022 ISU Season's World Rankings and 2nd on the ISU World Standings (personally I don't really like the World Standings as a metric so this one is not as meaningful to me, I don't expect these to be the Olympic results ).

He has the 9th highest Season's Best score (10th Short Program score and 9th Free Skate score).

Per Skating Scores, he has 6th highest mean event score based on international comps this season.

Once again these are all nice but the scores don’t scream I am a world or Olympic medal contender. And mean score means nothing.

Is USFSA shooting for 7th?

 

[Hyena]

Once again these are all nice but the scores don’t scream I am a world or Olympic medal contender.

Sure, I was just showing why Jason is very much in the running for a good placement (the other poster said top 12). I love Ilia and would have completely understood and supported him being chosen for the team - in fact, that's what I expected and may have been my vote if I was on the selection committee (I am not).

 

[GymDad]

Seriously why is Starr going to 4CC ahead of Hanna? Hanna beat her and Starr has had her chances and hasn't improved in years. Get Hanna out there so she can continue to improve.

 

[GymDad]

I actually think Starr has made a lot of progress this season, I guess her selection is not based on Nationals alone but the whole season. Her jumps looks better this season and her programs are great. She had a bad SP for sure in Nashville but her FS was quite good. Harrell isn´t the most stable skater either and Kate does not have the minimum. All though, as I have mentioned before in this thread I find it odd that Gabbie is listed as 3rd alternate for Olympics and got a spot for 4CC as well, neither did Lindsay or Amber. I get that they think it´s unlikely that Gabbie will need to go to Beijing because she is 3rd alternate, but I think it´s risky and since they left Lindsay and Amber out of 4CC they could have done the same with Gabbie and nobody would think about it and Harrell could have gotten a spot for 4CC along with Starr and Shin and everybody would be happy. Since Hanna is the first alternate though she might go to 4CC if somethings happen.

Yes, the Starr promotion train continues. Why did she get so many opportunities this past season? It is all the same, as long as she is in thees, sport and middling around she will get opportunities. The world rankings is a two edge sword - with alot of opportunities - someone can continue to get points here and there and keep their name higher on the list - when others don't get an opportunity to compete - they can't use that as a portrait. Yes they should stop the world rankings criteria. I just want to award opportunities for up and comers. How about Jill Heiner? Rena Ikenishi? Was Gracie even on the table? If TV ratings are a concern - Send Gracie. I wish real people were on the selection committees.

 

[GymDad]

I totally agree - it is her endorsements that is motivating this.

 

[lariko]

If TV ratings are a concern - Send Gracie.

Now, containing GG to the national scene is the decision of the USFS that I can wholeheartedly support.

 

[GymDad]

I'm the definition of mixed feelings right now. Jason earned it with his consistency this season; Ilia is SO promising and I would have understood having him on the team too.

I hope Jason delivers what he's capable of with his top notch programs at the Olympics because if he does, he's very much in the fight for a top placement. And I hope this lights the biggest, brightest fire under Ilia to come out focused, confident, and guns blazing at every opportunity.

At Jason's best - he is 7th to 10th - Ilia could be a medalist - he should have thrown his 4/4 in the free afterall.

 

[GymDad]

I have a question - not very important to anyone - but, How in the H is Ryan Dunk an alternate to anything? He cannot even land a 3 Axel. What? That makes no sense at all to me - Why? What happened to Eric Sporberg? Why not list Yaro, Dinh or Liam as alternates? Oh, they don't have the right prelim scores? Well put an asterik by their name as well.

 

[lariko]

What happened to Eric Sporberg?

He withdrew prior to the competition and didn't skate.