I've never been a Caroline fan myself, but she does have some positive points that may be worth salvaging. For whatever reason, she is going backwards not improving, and her serious jump flaws may be uncorrectible at this point. I'm not willing to throw her under the bus completely, but in order to ever be competitive in the top levels of skating, she'll need to:
1) Skate at US Nationals and then voluntarily retire from competition for the rest of the season, with the possible exception of 4CC if she skates acceptably enough for USFS to send her. I think her chances of being selected for Olympic or World team in 2010 are slim and none, and slim's out of town. No matter how she skates at US Nationals.
2) Take the entire competitive 2010-2011 season off, and work primarily on technical such as power, speed and of course relearn jumping technique. Her technique problems are so serious that at best it will be difficult to make the fixes needed and I think will take the better part of 2 years and that's if all the planets align and she has a strong technical coach and LISTENS TO THE COACH. There's no way she'll be able to do the necessary fixes if she has to concentrate on practicing programs and then competing at international majors. It ain't gonna work. She would also benefit from a lot of off-ice general and core strength training.
3) Get rid of Mingzhu Li and get a strong technical coach that practices tough-love like Frank is doing with Mirai. For whatever reasons, it's not just Li's coaching skills on question here, but the Caroline-family-coach dynamic that I suspect isn't helping Caroline's progress. These technique issues had to have surfaced back when Caroline was doing doubles, or learning triples, probably by intermediate/novice level. Why the coach didn't put her foot down and insist Caroline fix them is a mystery to me, as Li certainly was able to get the message of decent jump technique across to Lu Chen years ago with great results.
4) None of this will happen unless Caroline herself is willing to bite the bullet and do what it takes to get up there with the best of ladies skaters. With a goal of making her mark in the 2012-2014 period. And she will have to have family support (or at least noninterference) and probably USFS support. She may need to move away from southern Cal, which is feasible for a 16-17 year old.
Unfortunately, the glimpses I see of Caroline's attitude and personality do not make me optimistic she can/will do this. But if she doesn't change course drastically over the next few months, she will likely go down the path of Canada's Mira Leung. This would be a sad waste of talent.
the way she says it too, it's just so off the cuff and with a smiling facade.
