Canadian Ladies: Where do they go from here?

[hohoho]

Hopefully the younger skaters in Canada look further than just the national group of skaters. They need to look at the top juniors and top seniors and strive to reach that level. At least until the level in Canada has improved. Not much incentive to push to get past Lacoste (World #16 past two seasons). It is a long raod ahead for the ladies. They have to push to show that they belong in the top 10. Osmond and the JGP ladies (Seguin, Chartrand, and Daleman) have done well to start that trend after the mess of JW 2011 (Grenier, Najarro) and Senior Worlds 2011/12 (Lacoste, Phaneuf).

Canada needs the kids to keep pushing each other and that will make the next group even better.

 

[dorispulaski]

http://www.skatecanada-centralontario.com/Irma/Sectionals 2013/Interim List 21sep12.pdf

Alexe Gilles is now officially competing in Canada. She is on the entry list for Central Ontario sectionals.

 

[Dragonlady]

Hopefully the younger skaters in Canada look further than just the national group of skaters. They need to look at the top juniors and top seniors and strive to reach that level. At least until the level in Canada has improved. Not much incentive to push to get past Lacoste (World #16 past two seasons). It is a long raod ahead for the ladies. They have to push to show that they belong in the top 10. Osmond and the JGP ladies (Seguin, Chartrand, and Daleman) have done well to start that trend after the mess of JW 2011 (Grenier, Najarro) and Senior Worlds 2011/12 (Lacoste, Phaneuf).

Canada needs the kids to keep pushing each other and that will make the next group even better.

They can't push each other until there are finals for the girls at every level. And sorry, but the younger girls need to look outside Canada for inspiration. There is no one in Canada at the moment that I would hold up as an example to younger skaters, including Osmond (weak basic skating).

 

[emma]

very, very interesting! Thanks for sharing this!

ETA oops...very interesting Doris re: Gilles

 

[bibi]

Hopefully the younger skaters in Canada look further than just the national group of skaters. They need to look at the top juniors and top seniors and strive to reach that level. At least until the level in Canada has improved. Not much incentive to push to get past Lacoste (World #16 past two seasons). It is a long raod ahead for the ladies. They have to push to show that they belong in the top 10. Osmond and the JGP ladies (Seguin, Chartrand, and Daleman) have done well to start that trend after the mess of JW 2011 (Grenier, Najarro) and Senior Worlds 2011/12 (Lacoste, Phaneuf).

Canada needs the kids to keep pushing each other and that will make the next group even better.

not bad at all..
http://www.sestoiceskate.it/public/documenti/JuniorF_FS_Result.pdf
http://www.sestoiceskate.it/public/documenti/JuniorF_FS_Scores.pdf

 

[momskate]

They can't push each other until there are finals for the girls at every level. And sorry, but the younger girls need to look outside Canada for inspiration. There is no one in Canada at the moment that I would hold up as an example to younger skaters, including Osmond (weak basic skating).

For some reason Canada produce amazing foreign skaters, but non of their locals girls. What's the problem?

 

[ice coverage]

http://www.skatecanada-centralontario.com/Irma/Sectionals 2013/Interim List 21sep12.pdf

Alexe Gilles is now officially competing in Canada. She is on the entry list for Central Ontario sectionals.

Alexe Gilles ‏@AlexeGilles

I'm officially a Senior Lady, again!!! wooooooo!! lol
7:56 AM - 22 Sep 12
​

 

[Dragonlady]

not bad at all..
http://www.sestoiceskate.it/public/documenti/JuniorF_FS_Result.pdf
http://www.sestoiceskate.it/public/documenti/JuniorF_FS_Scores.pdf

Well it's certainly not good. Rioux-Oullet scored only 126 points in winning this event. While it's good that she tried all five triples, 5's and 4's for PCS is definitely weak, very weak and except for one spin, all of her non-jump elements are level 2's.

Martin attempted a 3F which was under-rotated, but otherwise only did a 3S and a 3T and combinations thereof.

At first blush you think, Canadian girls were 1 2 but the field was all Italian juniors and one Brit. The score sheets tell the real tale. No Russians, Japanese or American girls there at all. Hardly a strong, competitive field.

 

[bibi]

Well it's certainly not good. Rioux-Oullet scored only 126 points in winning this event. While it's good that she tried all five triples, 5's and 4's for PCS is definitely weak, very weak and except for one spin, all of her non-jump elements are level 2's.

Martin attempted a 3F which was under-rotated, but otherwise only did a 3S and a 3T and combinations thereof.

At first blush you think, Canadian girls were 1 2 but the field was all Italian juniors and one Brit. The score sheets tell the real tale. No Russians, Japanese or American girls there at all. Hardly a strong, competitive field.

I was not talking about the weak field. I thought it was good for a canadian junior women who was not even a JGP alternate to get 45.90 in technical. If it was an ISU sanction event, she would have gotten the minimum score in the free skate for junior worlds. I think it's not bad at all.

 

[slipslidin]

Is there a curse on the 49th parallel? In international competitions the US girls appear to be well-toned little athletes and the Canadians tend to look like timid little creatures with funny outfits. Surely, we must examine our training methods. The gene-pool and diet are roughly similar on both sides of the border. It does seem that jumping is a bug-a-boo, our pairs girls have trouble with that too, generally though, our pairs girls and dancers appear to be in better physical shape. We seem to be thrilled when one of our ladies gets 5th or 6th at worlds ( seemingly in post Olympic years when a number of the top skaters don't paticipate). Anybody who can do that seems to be able to defend her Canadian title, year after dreary year. It seems like the younger skaters are unable to bubble up from the lower levels.

 

[Violet Bliss]

One good thing about a weak field is that a talent has time to grow and peak as a mature Lady, a la Rochette and Kostner. In the US and Russia, there is always an excitement about some young super talents who then fizzle out or are eclipsed by others the next season. There is a different star to hype each year.

 

[slipslidin]

I'm hoping for competition in this competitive sport, let the chips fall were they may.

 

[hohoho]

I have said this many times that the Canadian ladies have been low since the departure of Joannie. SC put all their marbles on Phaneuf and that has fizzled. Lacoste is not the one. One can only hope that the next group of young skaters can develop into a contender. Competition breeds competition. SC just do not have the high-level international skater yet to help develop the young ones. People have to remember it took Kosner 10 years to get the elusive World Title.

 

[chuckm]

People have to remember it took Kosner 10 years to get the elusive World Title.

But it took Kostner only 3 years to win her first World medal. She won 3 World medals before finally winning World gold.

It took Joannie Rochette 7 years just to win her one world medal. Skate Canada doesn't have a good history of supporting and promoting their top ladies.

 

[hohoho]

Hopefully SC has learned the error in their ways with sending Najarro/Charbonneau/Grenier to JGP events for years instead of at least trying other skaters. Same with the Seniors. So how long does SC leave the current JGP skaters on the JGP. No spots in SGP.

 

[nadster]

Hopefully SC has learned the error in their ways with sending Najarro/Charbonneau/Grenier to JGP events for years instead of at least trying other skaters. Same with the Seniors. So how long does SC leave the current JGP skaters on the JGP. No spots in SGP.

Well , it will take a couple of years to see if SC has learned that error. At least so far this year our JGP ladies have shown they at least have the stomach for this level of competition ( something Najarro and Grenier have never shown ).

I am not for dropping a skater just because their first JGP is not so good. But after 2 or 3 JGPs, surely one can see if the skater has the stomach for international competition.

There was a problem of keeping skaters like Najarro , Grenier ( and Kang before that ). They all had multiple opportunities with 0 JGP medals. Kang often had total ( SP + FS ) combined of under 100 in her assignments. I will excuse Charbonneau a little bit because she at least had a couple of decent results even though she is inconsistent.

Grant you part of the problem is that until last season, there was nobody domestically pushing the perennial failures. When Najarro and Grenier got the ticket to JW, the winning junior lady ( Rheault ) landed nothing more than a triple toe and none of the junior ladies landed anything more than a toe or salchow.

Last season with only 4 JGP slots, Daleman and Osmond were showing promise in the summer. They were completely ignored ( not even considered as substitutes last year ).
In fact Rheault was put ahead of both of them for a substitute slot as well as then already 17 year old and now 18 year old Mallet ( who had nothing beyond a toe and salchow as well )


Last year SC wasted a golden opportunity to blood youngsters that were at least pushing the envelop beyond the triple toe / triple salchow only ceiling that seems to strongly exist with our Canadian ladies.

 

[herios]

Alexe Gilles was clearly out of shape at Thornhill. She's been away from serious competitive skating for a while now, having failed to make it to Nationals two years in a row .

For the record, Gilles only last year didn't qualify fo the US Nationals. The previous yea she did, just finished low, 14th

 

[slipslidin]

Skate Canada has to get over the idea that we can find one promising lady every ten years, and bet the farm on her. That strategy has been proven not to work.

 

[herios]

We just found a response to the OP questions. We'll now go obviously on the Osmond bandwagon, after what just happened in Oberstdorf

 

[ImaginaryPogue]

Yep.

Just so we're clear, her score in Nebelhorn would've placed her 6th at last year's worlds. It wasn't a clean skate either (no triple triple, UR'd solo triple toe w/ fall, edge call on the lutz, only one level four spin), but she got a level four on her footwork, and outside those two jumps, positive GOEs on every element. Terrific stuff in in her senior international debut.