As for who to send -- Alissa is National champion. There's no official argument to be made. However, if Alissa "mysteriously withdraws", well, that would raise my eyebrow. Yes Caroline did amazing tonight, but this is essentially the best she can do. It's not the best Alissa and Rachael can do, so...
Sure Alissa "may land 5 triples and do a clean short program" That's possible look at how well Cynthia skated tonight, and she's inconsistent. But am I willing to bet on Alissa doing a clean short program and a 5/6 triple performance under pressure HECK NO.
The fact of the matter is that there is a reason Caroline and Rachael are World Junior Champions, whereas Alissa never medaled at a Junior Worlds.
Both Caroline and Rachael are good under pressure and rarely have meltdowns.
However, what happened at Nationals was even though Alissa had an extremely poor free skate, the USFSA judges decided to give Alissa huge PCS, higher PCS than Alissa would ever receive by international judges for a similar skate.
The point is and the reason so many of us were screaming so heavily and hard was a lot of us felt that if international judges had judged the event Rachael and likely Caroline would finish ahead of Alissa....
IF Alissa had skated well in the long program, I would have had no issue with her going to Worlds. But I'm amazed at the sheer stupidity, of the USFSA for choosing to held up their most inconsistent skater, when Olympic spots were on the line.
Flatt and Zhang WERE are best shots at 3 spots for the Olympics, they always were. And Nationals showed that they were our best shots, but the USFSA judges decided it would be a lot nicer to have a "mature lady win."
Frankly there's a time and a place to gamble on inconsistent skaters. That place ISN'T at the Olympic Qualifiers.
It's okay, Medusa... it took me a long time to figure that one out when I first saw it.
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