Rachael skated better at Nationals than she skated here. She only had 5 triples in the long, and well there was the underrotated 3/3 in the short issue as well.
Quite frankly Rachael mentioned the fact that she's willing to make the changes to her program necessary to compete, so I bet that since she was getting hit with edge calls that she'll likely replace 2 of her lutzs with loops and help herself out tremendously there. Going back to her old program will help as well. I think maybe Flatt's scores were a little bit inflated, but anywhere near to the extent Alissa's was.
Look, I recognize we are going to have our downtime. But I still expect the USFSA to send the best teams to worlds and reward the skaters at Nationals who deliver. They didn't do that and because of it, we have less of chance of getting 3 spots.
So for me it's this. IF Alissa had let's say skated well in the long program 5 triples, I would have accepted Alissa on the team and would have lived with the results of Worlds. I wouldn't be sitting here complaining saying Whhhhyyyy!
But what ticks me off is that they held her up, (and don't mention the fall on the lutz in the short because Flatt doubled her salchow in the long. ) when two other skaters really delivered. And these two skaters have shown themselves to be much stronger under pressure than Alissa is.
Now if Zhang/Flatt had went to worlds and not gotten 3 spots, I could have accepted that too. But what I cannot accept is the USFSA inflating the scores of their most inconsistent skater at the expense of their two most reliable under pressure skaters.
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