2018 Challenge Cup

this competition seems to me more interesting than the Olympics, there are many of my favorites that will participate in this challenge cup I am happy for Wakaba; Yuhana and Nana as well as Rika Hongo, this announces a beautiful battle. Thanks to those who will report practices or what they thought of each skater, I hope there will be a live video to see the competition.

sakurano said:

this competition seems to me more interesting than the Olympics, there are many of my favorites that will participate in this challenge cup I am happy for Wakaba; Yuhana and Nana as well as Rika Hongo, this announces a beautiful battle. Thanks to those who will report practices or what they thought of each skater, I hope there will be a live video to see the competition.

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yes there will be a livestream, not geoblocked far as I know. Website url is known already, too.
https://www.showyourskill.online/livestream-m.html

Harriet said:

Senior Ladies: Yasmine Kimiko Yamada; Yoomni Lehmann or Shaline Ruegger.
Senior Men: Stephane Walker; Nicola Todeschini or Lukas Britschgi.
Senior Pairs: Ioulia Chtchetinina/Mikhail Akulov.
Junior Ladies: Noemie Bodenstein; Maia Mazzara; Anais Coraducci.
Junior Men: Nurullah Sahaka; Tomas Guerino Sabate.
Advanced Novice Boys: Noah Bodenstein.

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Okay, so they've just announced that Nurullah Sahaka and Maia Mazzara are going to the World Junior Championships, which are on 5-11 March. That makes it less likely that we'll see those two here, I think.

Noemie's not going to JWC?

Spirals for Miles said:

Noemie's not going to JWC?

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Clearly not.

Based on past years, the Swiss federation seems to like to share higher-level opportunities across a broad variety of skaters (unfortunately this often also means throwing kids into high-level competitions with little international experience beyond one Bavarian Open, meaning that they proceed to go a bit more wobbly at the knees than usual and not get the kind of scores they do in Swiss-Cup comps). Noemie and Polina Ustinkova got the JGP this year, so someone else gets the JWC.

Maia Mazarra's a good choice for it; she's not my type of skater based on what I saw of the Junior National livestream, but she's this year's junior champion, she's got a solid 3T+3T combination and when she's on she can score into the low 140s. Anais Coraducci likewise (she's the alternate): solid performances, a decent triple-triple, and she's got more low-level international experience than Mazarra but also a lower personal best this season.

Noemie's one of the youngest on the junior national team from what I can tell - just turned 15 IIRC, she was still 14 at Senior Nationals in December) and is the one I find most interesting as a skater so far, but though she skates seniors at national level she's currently at decent all-rounder status: low to mid 130 scores when she's on, and can hit six fully-rotated triples in a free skate on a good day (okay, so one was a step-out, but still called fully rotated), but doesn't have a triple-triple combo yet and so is less likely to make the free skate at JWC. It makes sense to me that they'd put the more competitive skater in JWC and give Noemie another development year before trying her at a world-standard competition.

Their Junior Ladies national team next season will be interesting, though. Tina Leuenberger's aged out of junior competition at international level and Polina Ustinkova seems to have withdrawn from the team - hasn't competed apart from one JGP event and her personal best score was deleted from the listings on the website shortly before Junior Nationals - so that leaves Noemie, Anais, Maia and Nicole Zaika as the potential continuing members, if they pass the PISTE (and they all should). I can't pick who'll fill the remaining two spots, though. Maybe one of the A-reserve girls?

Am I the only one who wishes there was a junior competition for Euros and 4CC as well? The more development opportunities at different levels kids from a variety of federations have access to, the more they're going to be able to develop.

Sorry, all of this is wildly off-topic, but if they won't give us the list of participants we have to speculate about something!

Oh I do wish that there was a junior Euros! A lot!! same for 4CC...

I think the entries are there in figureskatingonline.info website. For Swiss Junior it is Anais and Amandine. Japan is sending top 3 Novice B skaters--all equipped with 3Lz plus 3 T at age of 10/11/12.....

Wow, Japan are taking this seriously...
http://www.figureskatingonline.info/live.php?comp=1170&list=competitors
Dunno how official the list is, but it looks nice!
Thanks for the headsup!

Edit: seven pairs?! Woah...

Mikaifan said:

I think the entries are there in figureskatingonline.info website. For Swiss Junior it is Anais and Amandine. Japan is sending top 3 Novice B skaters--all equipped with 3Lz plus 3 T at age of 10/11/12.....

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Wow, if that's the complete list the Swiss contingent has dropped from 12 to 7 (and given Noemie's last-moment withdrawal from the Bavarian Open I suspect she might be injured). And no Laurine in the French team... .

OTOH, the site's list of skaters is out of date. They don't even have Tina Leuenberger, Jeromie Repond or Federica Magnifico listed, and they all have active ISU biographies, and Anais Coraducci is still listed as a novice when she's been skating Juniors for over a year. Lea Serna isn't even listed for France, or Gabrielle Daleman for Canada! There might be some skaters entered from multiple countries who aren't showing up on the list because the site doesn't know they exist yet!

I’d never even seen that website before, lol.
Alexander Majorov isn’t on there, either.

Alysa Liu is competing here!

Harriet said:

Wow, if that's the complete list the Swiss contingent has dropped from 12 to 7 (and given Noemie's last-moment withdrawal from the Bavarian Open I suspect she might be injured). And no Laurine in the French team... .

OTOH, the site's list of skaters is out of date. They don't even have Tina Leuenberger, Jeromie Repond or Federica Magnifico listed, and they all have active ISU biographies, and Anais Coraducci is still listed as a novice when she's been skating Juniors for over a year. Lea Serna isn't even listed for France, or Gabrielle Daleman for Canada! There might be some skaters entered from multiple countries who aren't showing up on the list because the site doesn't know they exist yet!

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Lea Serna can’t compet at this event cause the same week are Junior French Champs

Winnie_20 said:

yes there will be a livestream, not geoblocked far as I know. Website url is known already, too.
https://www.showyourskill.online/livestream-m.html

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thank you I can not wait to see the competition

So the published list on that website is indeed the correct one (post on Facebook just linked to it.)

Winnie_20 said:

So the published list on that website is indeed the correct one (post on Facebook just linked to it.)

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Cool! That means Yoonmi Lehmann can't have suffered any ill effects from her fall at the Bavarian Open - I'm glad. Also, I figured out why the site's biography database is so patchy: they add skaters to it as and when they're involved in a competition that gets its start list/results posted there, but it's only been patchily updated for the past few years at least, and mostly for competitions in the Netherlands, it looks like. So if a skater hasn't competed in any of those (mostly small) competitions in the past few years, they won't be in the database!

Sounds like it's going to be a great competition, though. Lots of newish/aspiring skaters getting to try out their stuff in a larger arena than they normally might. Fingers crossed for everyone!

Looks like the Japanese senior ladies are still scheduled to appear, so I'll make the trip to The Hague. I have no particular interest in the rest of the competitions (not like I'm not seeing enough figure skating at the moment, and I have an all-event ticket for Worlds, so... *shrug*), but will probably be there for the Senior competitions, and possibly Sunday.
Feel free to say hi, I'll probably bring a Pooh bear with me just because, and throw some flowers or Pooh bears on the ice for the ladies, because I have way too many of those stuffed toys lying around and regardless of Hanyu making it to Worlds or not, they'd never all fit in my suitcase.

Be sure to wear warm clothes, it's proper Dutch winter right now, about -5 C in the night up to +5 during the day, but with the expected wind it'll feel much colder.

Livestream is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgwmnG2t14M

Oh dear, almost all of my Swiss gals have withdrawn! Hope there's not a flu going around or anything like that. Nevertheless, good luck to Yoonmi Lehmann in the Senior Ladies tomorrow - hoping for no falls this time...

Hmm, even with Alysa's mistake, I'd give the win to her...

anything interesting? where's a result page?