Junior Worlds: Ladies' FS

The 2019 World Junior Figure Skating Championships concluded with the Ladies event on Saturday in which Russia's Alexandra Trusova defended her title. Teammate Anna Shcherbakova took the silver in her debut in this event, while USA's Ting Cui pocketed the bronze, improving from a seventh-place finish last year.

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What are your thoughts on the Ladies event?

Congrats to Trusova for the 2nd World title. She deserves it totally. With only one planning quad, Anna chose the safety although it ruins the competition a little bit. The good surprise for me is Ting Cui. Her jumps were solid and gave her good GOE when she landed them. No Russian podium sweep this time (their last chance) but I’m happy with it. Next year, when 3A move to senior, the competition will be much more open for other federations.

I thought the judging was pretty much spot on. Some people might complain that Shcherbakova (and maybe some others) should be a little farther ahead of Trusova in PCSs, but it takes a big difference to overcome a substantial tech advantage in the IJS.

Great performances by Ting Cui and Yuna Shiraiwa.

nipman said:

Next year, when 3A move to senior, the competition will be much more open for other federations.

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We'll see how Eteri's new crop of juniors does.

But a great competition, and so happy for Ting! And Canada making top 10.

Mathman said:

I thought the judging was pretty much spot on. Some people might complain that Shcherbakova (and maybe some others) should be a little farther ahead of Trusova in PCSs, but it takes a big difference to overcome a substantial tech advantage in the IJS.

Great performances by Ting Cui and Yuna Shiraiwa.

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I thought Yuna Shiraiwa was underscored--for me, she demonstrated the most artistic maturity and best skating skills of the pack across both segments of the competition. But I 100% agree Sasha deserved the win. At the end of the day, the tech difference was too big, and while Anna does deserve higher PCS than Sasha, it should not be by enough to erase the tech advantage.

Shanshani said:

I thought Yuna Shiraiwa was underscored--for me, she demonstrated the most artistic maturity and best skating skills of the pack across both segments of the competition. But I 100% agree Sasha deserved the win. At the end of the day, the tech difference was too big, and while Anna does deserve higher PCS than Sasha, it should not be by enough to erase the tech advantage.

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Agreed re: Yuna. To me, she was the only one in the field who demonstrated senior-level skating skills and maturity, so a massive underscore on PCS for her compared to the medalists.

nipman said:

Congrats to Trusova for the 2nd World title. She deserves it totally. With only one planning quad, Anna chose the safety although it ruins the competition a little bit. The good surprise for me is Ting Cui. Her jumps were solid and gave her good GOE when she landed them. No Russian podium sweep this time (their last chance) but I’m happy with it. Next year, when 3A move to senior, the competition will be much more open for other federations.

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I'm not so sure about the last chance. Maybe not the next year, but Valieva, Akatieva, Samodelkina and many others are already very good and they still have time. I guess we will hear about Eteri's next generation pretty soon.

Congrats to Trusova on winning JW for the second time! That is an amazing accomplishment! Trusova’s 4T is very solid and quite consistent. It was smart of her to switch out 4lz+3T for 4t+3T. If Trusova wants a 3 quad skate next year, I think 4T and 4S would be smarter choices. The 4lz is not very successful but her 4T and her 4S are really nice jumps. Trusova is the correct winner but her PCS score was far too high in comparison to some of the other girls.

Anna’s skate was solid. She performed very well and landed the quad for the first time in international competition. ( although with negative GOE) She also got positive GOE on other elements. I think her GOE on spins was a little too high. They were a bit sloppy but still received good GOE. However, she definitely deserved her 2nd place ranking and the other elements were lovely! The music feels too heavy for her. The SP is much more successful at highlighting her musicality. But, she has gotten better at performing the free throughout the season. Congrats Anna!

Ting did not fall apart in her free skate! She is a lovely performer and deserves her medal. Like with Anna, I feel this music is not the best choice for Ting and the SP does a better job highlighting her strengths but she really made huge progress here. She had a clean SP and a very good long. What great personal triumph!

Ksenia is a lovely performer. In my opinion, her components were really the best among the Russian girls here but the free skate was not her strongest. I am sure we will see amazing skates from her next year!

Congrats to Young You, Yuna S., Yuhana for having great come back skates. I feel like Yuna was really underscored in PCS and Yuhana in GOE. But, unfortunately judges seem to reward skaters these marks based on reputation rather than the skating performed on a given night.

I really missed Alena. The competition was not the same without her beautiful skating! But, great skates from the girls on the podium. What amazing talents!

JW Spots
3 spots: RUS, USA
2 spots: JPN, KOR, CAN
1 spot: everyone else

JGP Spots
2 entries 7 events: RUS, USA, JPN
1 entry 7 events: KOR, CAN, GEO
1 entry 6 events: AZE, HUN, FRA, ITA
1 entry 5 events: UKR, AUT, CHN, GBR, HKG, BUL, SUI, ISR
1 entry 4 events: CRO, EST, TPE, GER, FIN, SWE
1 entry 3 events: KAZ, NZL, CZE, SVK, BLR, NED, ROU, ESP, POL, LTU, LAT, MEX, SLO, DEN, TUR
1 entry 2 events: everyone else

Shanshani said:

I thought Yuna Shiraiwa was underscored--for me, she demonstrated the most artistic maturity and best skating skills of the pack across both segments of the competition...

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neusw said:

Agreed re: Yuna. To me, she was the only one in the field who demonstrated senior-level skating skills and maturity...

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I have to admit I felt sort of strange about Yuna's performance. We are used to seeing young skaters in seniors and saying things like " that was a good skate, but it was kind of 'juniorish.'"

Here I thought, OK, who's the ringer? This skater is way too "seniorish" to be competing against these girls.

That's because Shiraiwa IS a senior skater. She skated in the GP for the first time this past season, finishing 4th and 5th at her two events.

She was sent to JW as 'insurance' to protect Japan's 3 JW spots, since Yohana Yokoi had won just one bronze medal in the JGP last season. Didn't quite work out, as Yuna finished 5th and Yohana, 9th.

chuckm said:

That's because Shiraiwa IS a senior skater. She skated in the GP for the first time this past season, finishing 4th and 5th at her two events.

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She also skated in the GP last season (NHK and IDF).

Young You impressed me. What a lovely skater! I would say she wuzrobbed in pcs. Her GOE was quite reserved as well.

Ksenia was not bad. I just wish she was more relaxed and did not do mistakes on landings.

I liked Ting's free program better than the short. Still she needs some polishing. Well deserved bronze even with the fall.

Anna is an extraordinary skater. Her expressive skating with the outstanding feel of music is sublime.

And Sasha is the rightful winner. Come on, two clean quads vs. none. She risked. After 4Lz fall going for 2 more quads was brave. One mistake and she would have lost. But she nailed everything else. Bravo!

Congrats to Sasha for a well-deserved win! She's the only lady other than Elena Radionova (who I miss ) to win back-to-back JW titles, which comes to show that it definitely isn't easy! For most of the season I was pretty worried that Sasha would get herself badly injured with all that content, so it's great to see that she maintained a good condition throughout. I hope she takes a good rest and then starts working a bit on her artistry during the off-season.

Anna had some ups and downs this season, so I'm glad that she had two good performances here. I still don't find her artistry as fascinating as others here do, but her skating is definitely fluid and has some nice qualities. Her SP is also lovely.

Really happy to see Ting do so well, especially as someone who struggles with consistency. She really seized the opportunity and set herself up well for next season. I am excited to see where she'll go from here.

I admit that I'm not a big fan of Ksenia's skating, but I applaud her for doing pretty well here despite such a short notice. Hopefully she doesn't get lost in the hordes of Russian juniors :hopelessness:.

I'm a fan of Yuna, and so to finally see her skate a clean FS was so rewarding. Yes there were some minor URs here and there, but she stayed on her feet and kept the performance going. Too bad her PCS was underscored in relation to the top 3. I hope she'll continue to climb upwards next season.

I can understand why Young was so emotional after her skate. She had boot problems right before the competition and probably went through lots of emotional stress throughout, since she had to adjust to the new boots AND do well for Korea's JGP/JW spots next season. She has made great improvements this season (like her jumps - when did they get so big?) and she has always been a fantastic performer.

Hanna was a standout to me at US Nationals, and so I was excited to see her again here. Although there were errors, she still did pretty good and is definitely one of the promising US juniors out there.

I really, really appreciate Haein's jumps. They have good spring and flow throughout. I'm glad the judges agreed with me on the ones she landed cleanly. She will definitely be Korea's leading junior lady if Young moves to seniors.

Despite losing 3 spots, without Yuna Japan wouldn’t have maintained their JGP spots. Besides, despite her senior experience she’s younger than quite a bit of juniors, including her fellow compatriot Yuhana. Senior experience can build maturity but she is a talented skater, despite her technical issues. I think she’s still very impressive whether amongst seniors or juniors.

Scoring made me not enjoying this event as much as i wanted.

1) Trusova PCS makes no sense, she should have been 2nd here overall. Yes she has 3 quads but her skating skills were the worst of the top 4 easily (comparable to Yuna Shiraiwa), and the free program also gave me nothing. I can only imagine how frustrating that must be for the other skaters, working hours every day on these things and not getting rewarded for that.

2) Ting Cui should have been behind Kseniia Sinitsyna, and the gap between the two scores is complete nonsense.

- Ting lacks in transitions, some of the entries like in the 3f (wrong edge) are clearly telegraphed and yet she got huge GOEs for those. Not only that but she fell on the 3flip and falls should affect the components mark in performance, ironically that was Ting's highest mark in her PCS.

- Yuna's 3flutz (with blade assist)-3t actually got higher GOE than Kseniia's 3ltz-3t-2t in the second half, judges what are you doing? Do you need a pair of glasses?

- The program is easier. This is a sport, you have to give credit to the skater who goes for the most difficult elements, and doing all your combos at the end of the program is hard, not only that, but Kseniia missed her second 3-3 and she had the guts to change plans (she had 3F as the final element) and do a 3lo-3t instead (it was under but still)

If the reason behind all this is "you had to give USA one medal" or "you couldn't let Russia sweeping the podium" that's when i'm out following this sport. You should look at the athlete and not at the country behind, what are we looking here? a sport or a game between 2-3 federations?

Sorry I but I call shade. Sinitsina made errors in her free skate and had underrotations.

I do think though her first two jumping passes should have gotten more GOE - she executes jumps so softly and effortlessly.

Ting skated well (in the SP too) but the door was open for a Russian sweep but Ksenia didn't do enough to earn the bronze. Still for stepping in during Alena's absence she did a fine job, I'd say.

But let's not diminish Ting actually earning bronze. You say look at the athlete not the country - is Ksenia from some unknown skating country and was thus unfairly scored? Ting was 6 points ahead IIRC so that's a comfortable bronze too, I'd say.

You also don't get points for guts in this system. You do get points though if you do something gutsy and execute it (see Zagitova missing her lutz combo in the Olympics and then doing it on her second lutz without error).

Tolstoj said:

This is a sport, you have to give credit to the skater who goes for the most difficult elements.

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That's why Trusova won.

Mathman said:

That's why Trusova won.

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And to reiterate, she needed the second quad in order to win - fully rotated and clean. So at that point, I'm like... okay, well you earned it. She was behind Anna otherwise and did what she needed to do. Had Anna done her second half 4Z she would have won, but I'm guessing the first one with the stepout maybe shook her a bit or she didn't have the speed to do it the second time and wanted to ensure she got the combo (if she fell on the 4Z and not comboed, that would have definitely put her well behind Trusova)

Mathman said:

That's why Trusova won.

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Her FS first one and half minute is surreal. Somehow you need to add it to PCS not only TES