Four Nationals: Predictions Game Round 3

Here is the thread where you can make your predictions for the Four Nationals Championships.

Entries/Results Page:
http://czechskating.org/vysledky/htm2078/

Please Note: There is only one entry in Senior Pairs, so it will not count. But all the other Senior categories will count.

The competitions start on 19[SUP]th[/SUP] December 2015 at 11:40 CET (10:40 GMT) with the Pairs SP.

So, the target time to get your predictions in is 1 hour before that, i.e. 10:40 CET (09:40 GMT)

But, we will be accepting predictions for each category right up to the start of that category's Short Programme.

If you need any help working out what time this is where you are, here is the Time Converter that Mrs. P has been very kindly directing us to the past couple of years.


Entries

Ladies:



Men:



Pairs:


Dance:





Let the fun begin!!!

CaroLiza_fan

Martin Bidar Bio: http://www.isuresults.com/bios/isufs00011687.htm
Literally nothing in there. The only competition stated is from 2008 and in Novice Category. Also last year at Nationals he competed in Pairs category...
I only found this: http://krasouh.cz/novinky/mistrovstvi-cr-zaku-2013.html, which isn't much considering how long ago this competition was.

Ladies

1. Rajicova
2. Duskova
3. Brezinova
4. Toth
5. Ukolova
6. Hanzlikova

Ice Dance

1. Federica TESTA / Lukas CSOLLEY
2. Natalia KALISZEK / Maksym SPODYRIEV
3. Cortney MANSOUR / Michal CESKA

Men

1. Brezina
2. Belohradsky
3. Kotlarik
4. Neuman
5. Gala
6. Kedzierski

LADIES
1. Nicole RAJICOVA (in her own league here I think)
2. Anna DUSKOVA
3. Ivett TOTH
4. Eliska BREZINOVA
5. Elizaveta UKOLOVA
6. Michaela Lucie HANZLIKOVA

MEN
1. Michal BREZINA
2. Petr KOTLARIK
3. Jiri BELOHRADSKY
4. Krzysztof GALA
5. Patrick MYZYK
6. Michal NEUMAN

ICE DANCE
1. Natalia KALISZEK / Maksym SPODYRIEV
2. Federica TESTA / Lukas CSOLLEY
3. Cortney MANSOUR / Michal CESKA

Men are so hard to predict. There are to many skaters on the same level.

cathlen said:

Martin Bidar Bio: http://www.isuresults.com/bios/isufs00011687.htm
Literally nothing in there. The only competition stated is from 2008 and in Novice Category. Also last year at Nationals he competed in Pairs category...
I only found this: http://krasouh.cz/novinky/mistrovstvi-cr-zaku-2013.html, which isn't much considering how long ago this competition was.

Click to expand...

Thank you, Cathlen!!!

I have added the link to the table, and will now add it to the Fan Fest as well!

CaroLiza_fan

LADIES
1. Nicole RAJICOVA
2. Ivett TOTH
3. Anna DUSKOVA
4. Eliska BREZINOVA
5. Michaela-Lucie HANZLIKOVA
6. Eszter SZOMBATHELYI

MEN
1. Michal BREZINA
2. Petr KOTLARIK
3. Jiri BELOHRADSKY
4. Lukasz KEDZIERSKI
5. Patrick MYZYK
6. Michael NEUMAN

ICE DANCE
1. Federica TESTA / Lukas CSOLLEY
2. Natalia KALISZEK / Maksim SPODIREV
3. Cortney MANSOUR / Michal CESKA

Men;
1. Michal BREZINA (pleaseeeee skate clean from now on! )
2. Patrick MYZYK
3. Lukasz KEDZIERSKI
4. Jiri BELOHRADSKY
5. Petr KOTLARIK
6. Michael NEUMAN

Ladies;
1. Nicole RAJICOVA
2. Ivett TOTH
3. Eliska BREZINOVA
4. Anna DUSKOVA
5. Elizaveta UKOLOVA
6. Michaela-Lucie HANZLIKOVA

Ice Dance;
1. Federica TESTA / Lukas CSOLLEY
2. Natalia KALISZEK / Maksym SPODYRIEV
3. Cortney MANSOUR / Michal CESKA

CaroLiza_Fan, do you want me to still score ladies at the other two? :scratch:

Ladies:

1. Rajikova
2. Brezinova
3. Toth
4. Duskova
5. Ukolova
6. Hanzlikova

Men:

1. Brezina
2. Belohradsky
3. Kedzierski
4. Myzak
5. Kotlarik
6. Neuman

Dance:

1. Testa/Csolley
2. Mansour/Ceska
3. Kaliszek/Spodyriev

invisiblespiral said:

CaroLiza_Fan, do you want me to still score ladies at the other two? :scratch:

Click to expand...

Funnily enough, I was going to send you and andromache a message about that later on. So, I'll do it now.

I'll do it via PM, since I'm signed in here.

EDIT: No, I'll send it via e-mail, because I want to check them anyway.

By the way, this is my 4,700th post!

(Strange number to celebrate, I know. But it is still a round 100!)

CaroLiza_fan

Ladies
1. Nicole RAJICOVA
2. Ivett TOTH
3. Anna DUSKOVA
4. Eliska BREZINOVA
5. Michaela-Lucie HANZLIKOVA
6. Eszter SZOMBATHELYI

Men
1. Michal BREZINA
2. Petr KOTLARIK
3. Jiri BELOHRADSKY
4. Lukasz KEDZIERSKI
5. Patrick MYZYK
6. Michael NEUMAN

Ice Dance
1. Federica TESTA / Lukas CSOLLEY
2. Natalia KALISZEK / Maksim SPODIREV
3. Cortney MANSOUR / Michal CESKA

Men

1. Michal BREZINA
2. Patrick MYZYK
3. Lukasz KEDZIERSKI
4. Jiri BELOHRADSKY
5. Petr KOTLARIK
6. Michael NEUMAN

Ladies

1. Nicole RAJICOVA
2. Ivett TOTH
3. Eliska BREZINOVA
4. Anna DUSKOVA
5. Elizaveta UKOLOVA
6. Michaela-Lucie HANZLIKOVA

Ice Dance
1. Federica TESTA / Lukas CSOLLEY
2. Natalia KALISZEK / Maksim SPODIREV
3. Cortney MANSOUR / Michal CESKA

Ladies:

1. Nicole RAJICOVA
2. Ivett TOTH
3. Eliska BREZINOVA
4. Elizaveta UKOLOVA
5. Michaela Lucie HANZLIKOVA
6. Anna DUSKOVA

Men:

1. Michal BREZINA
2. Petr KOTLARIK
3. Jiri BELOHRADSKY
4. Krzysztof GALA
5. Patrick MYZYK
6. Marco KLEPOCH

Ladies
1. Rajicova
2. Brezinova
3. Toth
4. Duskova
5. Ukolova
6 Hanzlikova

Men's
1. Brezina
2. Kotlarik
3. Gala
4. Belohradsky
5. Klepoch
6. Myzyk

Dance
1. Testa/Csolley
2. Mansour/Ceska
3. Kaliszek/Spodirev

Men:

1. Michal BREZINA
2. Lukasz KEDZIERSKI
3. Jiri BELOHRADSKY
4. Petr KOTLARIK
5. Krzysztof GALA
   ----
6. Michael NEUMAN
7. Patrick MYZYK

Ladies:

1. Nicole RAJICOVA
2. Anna DUSKOVA
3. Eliska BREZINOVA
4. Ivett TOTH
5. Elizaveta UKOLOVA
   ----
6. Michaela-Lucie HANZLIKOVA

Ice Dance:

1. Federica TESTA / Lukas CSOLLEY
2. Natalia KALISZEK / Maksim SPODIREV
3. Cortney MANSOUR / Michal CESKA
5. 
   ----

Men

1. Michal BREZINA
2. Patrick MYZYK
3. Lukasz KEDZIERSKI
4. Petr KOTLARIK
5. Jiri BELOHRADSKY
6. Michael NEUMAN

Ladies

1. Nicole RAJICOVA
2. Ivett TOTH
3. Eliska BREZINOVA
4. Anna DUSKOVA
5. Elizaveta UKOLOVA
6. Michaela-Lucie HANZLIKOVA

Ice Dance

1. Federica TESTA / Lukas CSOLLEY
2. Natalia KALISZEK / Maksym SPODYRIEV
3. Cortney MANSOUR / Michal CESKA

Ladies
1.Rajicova
2.Brezinova
3.Toth
4.Duskova
5.Ukolova
6.Hanzlikova

Men
1.Brezina
2.Belohradsky
3.Kotlarik
4.Neuman
5.Gala
6.Kedzierski

Dance
1.Testa/Csolley
2.Kaliszek/Spodyriev
3.Mansour/Ceska

I agree with the consensus that Nicole Rajičová is the favourite for the overall title. The problem is who to put on the podium with her. Because, there are a number of skaters that are capable of it.

Although she is young, Hungary’s Ivett Tóth is very experienced of competing and doing well at international level. All things being equal, she will definitely win the Hungarian title by a good margin. But I am also leaning towards her for the overall silver medal.

For the Czechs, Eliška Březinová has long been the top Ladies skater. However, I do feel she is stagnating. Perhaps working with a different coach would help. OK, so I am totally biased, as I have never made any secret of the fact that her long-term coach (Karel Fajfr) disgusts me. But I do feel she needs to make big changes if she is to regain her position as the girl to beat. She is a good skater, and I don’t want to see her just fade away.

Again, I may be biased because I like the girl, but I see Eliška’s main competition for the Czech title to come from Anna Dušková. OK, so Anna’s main success in recent years has come in Pairs skating. In this year’s Junior Grand Prix, she won the silver medal in Pairs at the JGP Final, whereas she could only manage 10th in Singles at the Toruń Cup. But, believe it or not, Anna’s ISU Singles PB is already better than Eliška’s. So with Březinová struggling, this could be her opportunity to make people take notice of the other side of her career.

So, I put Dušková in 3rd, with Březinová in 4th.

When I reached the Polish skaters, I got a major surprise. I was really shocked to find that Agnieszka Rejment’s ISU PB was so low. She is only 16th on the ISU PB list! I thought of her as quite a promising prospect. But, she hasn’t even broken the 100 point mark for her overall score. I had been intending on putting her as my 5th position but, after seeing that, I’m not.

So, who to put as my 5th and 6th choices? When I first looked down the entry list, the names that jumped out at me were Fruzsina Medgyesi of Hungary and Alexandra Hagarova of Slovakia. But when I looked up the ISU PB’s, Michaela Lucie Hanzlikova of the Czech Republic was actually ahead of them. And by a large margin.

But, that is only ISU competitions. When you look at all their competitions, there is a significant change. For Hanzlikova and Hagarova, their ISU PB is still their best score. But Medgyesi’s true PB (from last season’s Hellmut Seibt Memorial) brings her up to within 4 points of Hanzlikova.

In the end, I decided to go with a mixture of gut and science. I put Medgyesi in 5th, Hanzlikova in 6th and Hagarova in 7th.

For the rest of the field, I went purely by PB. With one exception…

I don’t like to write off skaters, especially when they are teenagers. But I have to be honest. In my eyes, Elizaveta Ukolova is not a contender. I don’t know if it is puberty or what, but after showing so much promise a few years ago, she has been seriously up and down the past season or two. I hate to say it, but I can see her struggling to get into the Top 10 never mind the Top 6.

It was only 4 weeks ago that Ukolova scored her PB at the Tallinn Cup. A score that put her 5th on the PB list, just 6 points behind the absolute PB’s for Dušková and Březinová. But this score seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

Ukolova’s scores have really varied these past couple of seasons. For some, she has been hitting scores similar to Hanzlikova’s PB. For others, she has barely scraped into 3 figures. The majority of her scores seem to be around the same as the ISU PB’s for Medgyesi, Hagarova and Raszykova. But, given the very low scores that Ukolova had, I put her behind this close group, in 9th.

I know. It is weird for me to put a Russian this far down!

Normally when we have a competition with this big an entry, I would cut off my list after the Top 15. But, seeing as none of the Poles made it into the Top 15, I will post the full list.

Before I discuss my choices for the Men, I have to point out – we have a very cosmopolitan field this year. As well as the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles and Hungarians, we have a Canadian, a Ukrainian and even a Swede!

I am ashamed to admit that there were only about 6 of the Men’s skaters whose names I even recognised – 4 Czechs and 2 Poles.

Unfortunately, when I ordered the Men by their PB’s, very few of those who I recognised were in the Top 6. In fact, the only ones that were are the Top 2.

And the scores were that spread out through the field that I couldn’t really justify moving any of them up into my scoring positions.

So, I just kept the Men in PB order. I don’t like doing that, but there are just too many of the guys that I don’t know.

Again, I have posted the full list, for the simple reason that the guy who I run a Fan Fest for has the lowest PB of the field…

I fared a lot better with Dance than Men – I knew who all the competitors were! And therein lay the problem!

Obviously, all things being equal, Testa / Csolley should win easily. But, what order to put the other 2 couples in. I like them both, and their PB’s are practically identical!

In the end, I went for Natalia and Maksym.

Caroliza_fan


FOUR NATIONALS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Ladies

1. Nicole RAJICOVA, SVK
2. Ivett TOTH, HUN
3. Anna DUSKOVA, CZE
4. Eliska BREZINOVA, CZE
5. Fruzsina MEDGYESI, HUN
6. Michaela Lucie HANZLIKOVA, CZE

Just for fun
7. Alexandra HAGAROVA, SVK
8. Laura RASZYKOVA, CZE
9. Elizaveta UKOLOVA, CZE
10. Nina LETENAYOVA, SVK
11. Miroslava MAGULOVA, SVK
12. Natalie KRATENOVA, CZE
13. Klara SVETLIKOVA, CZE
14. Julia BATORI, HUN
15. Aneta JANICZKOVA, CZE
16. Agnieszka REJMENT, POL
17. Coleitte KAMINSKI, POL
18. Oliwia RZEPIEL, POL
19. Aleksandra RUDOLF, POL
20. Elzbieta GABRYSZAK, POL
21. Eszter SZOMBATHELYI, HUN


Men

1. Michal BREZINA, CZE
2. Jiri BELOHRADSKY, CZE
3. Lukasz KEDZIERSKI, POL
4. Patrick MYZYK, POL
5. Petr KOTLARIK, CZE
6. Igor REZNICHENKO, POL

Just for fun
7. Michal NEUMAN, SVK
8. Krzysztof GALA, POL
9. Jan KURNIK, CZE
10. Marco KLEPOCH, CZE
11. Alexander BOROVOJ, HUN
12. Jakub KRSNAK, SVK
13. Alexander MASZLJANKO, HUN
14. Mate BOROCZ, HUN
15. Wiktor WITKOWSKI, POL
16. Martin KRHOVJAK, CZE
17. Martin BIDAR, CZE


Pairs

1. AnnaMarie PEARCE / Mark MAGYAR, HUN


Ice Dance

1. Federica TESTA / Lukas CSOLLEY, SVK
2. Natalia KALISZEK / Maksym SPODYRIEV, POL
3. Cortney MANSOUR / Michal CESKA, CZE

CaroLiza_fan said:

Obviously, all things being equal, Testa / Csolley should win easily. But, what order to put the other 2 couples in. I like them both, and their PB’s are practically identical!

In the end, I went for Natalia and Maksym.

Caroliza_fan

Click to expand...

Identical PB? Natalia/Maks PB is 150, while Cortney/Michal is 127. Not that it matter, but it's not even close.

cathlen said:

Identical PB? Natalia/Maks PB is 150, while Cortney/Michal is 127. Not that it matter, but it's not even close.

Click to expand...

Eh?! On Stats On Ice, it had them both at 144.something.

Natalia Kaliszek / Maksym Spodyriev

Cortney Mansour / Michal Ceska

Hang on. I think I know what has happened.

I had done my original search on there with Maksym's name. When I re-did it with Natalia's there now, I found that there were a whole pile of different profiles for them, because of different competitions transliterating Max's name from the original Cyrillic in different ways.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the PB for the profile I was looking at came from a competition in Poland!

Right. I contacted Curran Oi last week to ask if he could merge some duplicate profiles, and he very kindly did (and he even sent me a very nice message in reply!) I think I will need to do it again.

(I have a collection from Italy gathered up, so I will throw Natalia and Max into it as well).

Nevertheless, it doesn't make any difference to my predictions.

Moral of the story: When you are using 2 different sources to get your figures (ISU and Stats On Ice), for goodness sake re-check that they agree with each other before committing pen to paper! (Or finger to keyboard, in this case!)

CaroLiza_fan

THIS IS YOUR THREE HOUR WARNING.

You have just 3 hours left until the target time to get your predictions in, i.e. until 10:40 CET (09:40 GMT)

But, as usual in my Games, this is just a target time so that you are not rushing about at the last minute. Predictions for each category will still be accepted up until the start of that category’s Short Programme.

CaroLiza_fan