Watched the WOS pairs and dance, and a little singles. The report cards are posted online on the WOS site. Couple of observations:
- There is a strong field of pairs teams at the top, and only a few developing underneath. That is not a good thing for the future. But perhaps pairs teams just start later?
- Bobek/Beharry are beautiful, and continuing to improve.
- I don't think there is much question whether or not Bobek/Beharry will bring home the hardware at Nationals in Junior this year. I hope they medal at the JGPF in Quebec City.
- Orr/Furiano and Rau/Simpson have been pushing each other for years. For Orr/Furiano, they look like they are having a good year. I'm not sure whether or not he has a year of Junior left after this one. Perhaps they will be able to get some international experience. For Rau/Simpson, they have all the time in the world. She's too young to be on the JGP circuit this year. I'm sort of glad they have Bobek/Beharry to take the spotlight so they can grow, mature and develop. Next year they will be ready for JGP assignments.
- In dance, the ranks are very thin at the top, but filling up nicely at the bottom. There were 5 pre-juvenile teams, 2 juvenile teams, 1 pre-novice team, 1 novice team, and 1 senior team. Nice for the future, but very low numbers right now in the competitive ranks.
- Arnold/Trojek withdrew. I guess that means they are done skating? Maybe injured? There was also a Junior team that didn't skate, and a novice team that withdrew.
- The pre-novice and novice teams are definitely going to struggle at Challenge.
- Lioudvinevitch/Mulder were the only dance team at Senior. They have made a lot of improvement over the last couple of months. Stronger, more confident, and mostly clean. Still some levels issues, and it looks like a couple of judges gave them a hard time with low GOE's and PCS (looking at the report cards, PCS on FD ranged from 3.50 to 6.00 - I'm thinking this was more on the side of the 6.00), but I'm sure they will have no problem getting through to Nationals. If they can skate clean, and continue their course of improvement all the way to Nationals, they could very well challenge for one of those spots between 6 and 10 at Nationals. Gorgeous programs, especially the FD. Gorgeous costumes. And a very smooth, elegant skating style with deep knees and edges. In comparing from last year, their biggest noticeable improvements are much faster speed and night and day difference in presentation/connecting with the music and each other.
