- Joined
- Nov 12, 2009
I am curious as to what the penalty should have been, in your view. He got 1.1 base value (instead of 8.5) and 0.09 GOE. Do you think that international judges would have lowered his component scores as well because of this pop?
In the case of Russia, Canada, and France, they do not seem to have any well-defined and consistent procedure for selecting the world team. To me, it seems like they just play it by ear each season and send the person that, for whatever reason, they think has the best chance to do well.
I just think a score of 170 is pretty spectacular and therefore should not be handed out for a skate with a big pop on an intended 3a. It would have been different if he was trying 2 quads and two 3a or something, or if he had fallen on a fully rotated 3a, but idk, popping an intended 3a into a single is a pretty big deal and the fact that he was still 2nd in the FS with that kind of error does make it seem a little bit like reputation judging. I'm fine with Ross getting a slight PCS edge to Farris especially where it's Nationals as he does have more speed and maturity, but as far as jumps go, Farris rotated all of his and landed all but one, and his jumps were of better quality that night compared to Ross, really they were gorgeous, including both of the 3a, so it just doesn't seem quite right that given all that, he came out 5 points behind Miner with the 1a for that program, and 86 is too high in PCS for Ross - i'd understand maybe if he was perfect, but he wasn't and some of his jumps weren't landed so well either but it seemed like that didn't get accounted for in the GOE. I think Ross going to Worlds is probably the right call, but I do think Farris deserved to place ahead of both he and Jeremy in the FS at Nationals - overall, the placements among those 3 is a toss-up. And this is similar to the Gao situation as well relative to Gold, Hicks, and Zawadzki.
So basically, I think if USFS wanted to select the teams that had the best chances to place the highest at Worlds and get 3 spots, they'd focus less on Nationals being the be-all-and-end-all of the decision and factor in international events more, and if they did that, I feel like the placements at Nationals might be a little more objective/fair as opposed to questionable because it allows for a skater who places say 3rd or 4th at Nationals due to illness or having a flukey bad skate to be sent to Worlds regardless.
So for the ladies, if USFS thinks Wagner and Gold are the best team to send, they could justify that selection by saying Ashley has been by far the strongest US lady internationally all fall and really since 4CC last year, and by saying the strength of Gracie's FS at Nationals makes them believe she's a good 2nd candidate because she showed she's capable of racking up a huge score when she delivers. In this situation, Wagner could have been given a lower FS score and Gold a lower SP (and maybe FS too) score, their placements would necessarily be 1 and 2, and someone like Gao could have wound up on the podium where she belonged. Now, if the judging at Nationals stayed the way at was, or even if it was more objective, to get an idea of who should go to Worlds with Wagner, it would have made sense to have 4CC as a skate-off between Gold, Gao, and Zawadzki - given the outcome: Gao continuing to show consistency and strong scores, while Gold showing her inconsistent fall outings to be more telling of what we can expect from her internationally than her sterling FS at US Nats, and Zawadzki showing the same inconsistencies we've seen all season coupled with much lower PCS than she received at Nationals, the decision for Worlds would come down to Gao vs. Gold. Gao deserves the spot IMO but a case could be made either way given Gold's more difficult content and thus potential to score higher. However, if that was to be a deciding factor, they could have said to Gao and her team that they wanted her to try for tougher content at 4CCs and see how she faired - if she tried 7 triples in the FS and upgraded her SP combo to 3f-3t or something and the result was basically the same, then well, more reason to give her the nod, if not, send Gold.
With the men, if they wanted to use Farris having skated as a junior internationally all season as a reason for his not being considered for a spot on the Worlds team and just being sent to JW then they could have just said that instead of conveniently having him place 4th so as to avoid even addressing that issue by placing Miner and Abbott ahead of him in the FS at Nats when they really didn't deserve to. So that's one argument. But again, if they want to have the best team at Worlds, they should have sent Miner and Farris, or Dornbush if they did not want to throw Farris in the mix, to 4CCs and wait until those results were in to make the final decision. Ross was given the benefit of the doubt at Nationals when he popped open his 3a because he's known as the Steady Eddie, but then after 4CC, we see him have problems in the SP again and pop a 3a in the FS again. Had Farris been sent, would he skate a clean SP and skate very well in the FS like at Nationals, or would he struggle a bit more due to the nerves and the pressure of the situation? The PCS scores should also have been noticed. If Farris came out ahead of Miner at 4CCs with two solid skates and was not significantly behind Ross in PCS, well then, he might be the smarter pick. Or take Josh out of the equation and put in Dornbush - he wasn't great at Nationals, but he beat Ross handily at 4CC and does plan more difficult content and is more consistent with his quad which maybe gives him an advantage. Like Gracie vs. Christina, it's a tough call, but could be made either way.
The issue is more USFS should just say we're sending so and so because we think they'll make the strongest team, or because 4CC was the deciding event and _ beat _ there and therefore earned a World's birth. Russia has the system right honestly. Finagling Nationals results so that the top 2 end up being the skaters USFS wants to send to Worlds does not need to happen to necessarily send those 2 skaters to Worlds. Plus how many times has using questionable Nationals results to decide international assignments blown-up in their faces in the past? Quite a few...
Last edited: