2017-18 State of U.S. Ladies Skating

[b-man]

If Mirai lands 2 more 3As, gets in the top 5, and maybe medals at Worlds, is she the next lady to enter the USFS Hall of Fame?

Might be a good thread, after worlds. Hughes, Kwan and Cohen are all in. Next generation Czisny, Wagner, Gold, Nagasu?

 

[tosca]

Mirai just had a clean run-thru of her SP! Everything rotated!

 

[tosca]

Mirai just had a clean run-thru of her SP! Everything rotated!

Karen ran thru her FS. It was pretty good minus 3 jumping passes 3lz<?-3T, 3F<?, and popped her 3S to a 2S.

 

[kalee]

According to the draw procedure for ISU Championships and OWG, Bradie could have ended up anywhere from #1 to #15 in the OWG start order.

https://isu.org/inside-single-pair-skating-ice-dance/figure-skating-rules/regulations-rules-fs (pp. 88-89)​

So happened that Bradie drew to skate first.

Explanation:

Based on ISU World Standings, the thirty OWG entries are divided into two groups: a "skating later" group of fifteen and a "skating earlier" group of fifteen.

Bradie is #43 on the World Standings list.
Of the thirty OWG entries, at least twenty are higher on the WS list than Bradie.
So she was in the "skating earlier" group.

There was a random draw among the fifteen in the "skating earlier" group to determine positions #1 thru #15 in the start order.​

(The determination of positions #16 thru #30 is slightly more complex. I'm not going to go into that explanation.)

At the very least, Bradie is extremely unlucky (in Singlish / Hokkien, we call it "suay")
She is number 21 in WS among the ladies participating in the individual event, and pretty much all of the skaters above her in WS within that "skating earlier" group had points from Euros or 4CC which she didn't participate in. Currently she has 1424 points, which means she only needed 382 points to get herself into the top 15 skaters (above Loena Hendrickx who has 1805 points and sitting in 29th place for WS). Had she participated in 4CC, she would have gotten above Loena in WS points with a top 8 placement (eminently possible for her). Not saying that she should have done it, but there are many skaters with lower scoring potential than her who are getting a boost to their skating order from Euros participation and that's part of the reason for her current situation.

 

[klutzy]

Poor Bradie--this is the downside to coming out of the blue--if only the U.S. had realized what it had on its hands, she could have had a third assignment earlier on to help her standing.

 

[skylark]

Dang, at first glance being #1 in the SP looks like a bad circumstance for Bradie. But I remember Mikhail Kolyada (not well known at the time) skating #2 in the SP at 2016 Worlds, scoring in low 90s and being the leader for a long time. Then, he skated well in the FS and came in 4th overall, IIRC.

If Bradie's behavior so far this year is any indication, she won't let this faze her at all. In fact, I could easily see her wowing the judges, making them sit up and take notice. That is my hope anyway.

Karen is really flying under the radar. Maybe she'll live up to the Quiet Assassin moniker. It could work to her advantage to be getting so much less attention than her teammates.

It'll really be great if Mirai can follow up last week with a solid SP including clean 3A!

Go Bradie, Mirai, and Karen!

 

[ice coverage]

Poor Bradie--this is the downside to coming out of the blue--if only the U.S. had realized what it had on its hands, she could have had a third assignment earlier on to help her standing.

Not sure what you mean by a third assignment?

Results from only two internationals per season count toward WS. (Internationals meaning non-GPs and non-ISU Championships.)
Bradie already has World Standings points from Philadelphia Summer International (first place = 250 points) and from one Challenger (fourth place Lombardia = 219 points).
Even if Bradie had entered two more Challengers and placed first at both (worth 300 points each), maxing out the WS point total from this season's internationals would have been an increase of only 131 points -- which would not have moved her into the "skating later" group at OWG.

USFS gave her Skate America, and had no control over a potential second GP assignment for Bradie.

As kalee pointed out, Four Continents theoretically could have been a source of sufficient WS points to make a difference for Bradie at OWG.
The only such source that was an assignment that USFS could control.
Which would have meant competing in Taipei two weeks before the OWG team event.

I do hope that a good placement for Bradie at OWG potentially could get her into the "skating later" group at Worlds.
(I will not attempt to look into a crystal ball and do any arithmetic.)

---

Good luck to Mirai, Bradie, Karen in the SP and FS this week :yay:.

 

[skatesofgold]

Didn't Tara have an early draw in 1998?

 

[kwanatic]

I watched Mirai, Gabby and Karen's practice yesterday. Elizabet, Kaori and Dabin were there as well but the cameraman didn't focus on them at all...

Mirai: Only thing I saw her mess up on was a swingy 3F with less than a minute to go in the session (she looked as if she just threw it in to get one more jump before the session ended) and her first 3A attempt. She over-rotated and ended up stumbling out of it. A few minutes later she did her run thru of her SP (a full run thru mind you, no marking) and hit on everything and it all looked rotated to me. She practiced a couple of 3-3s (3F-3T, 3Lz-3T and even 3S-3T). When she relaxes and bends her knees, her back end 3Ts look to be fully rotated which is a great thing. I posted a full list of everything she did on Twitter while I was watching it. She looked really relaxed and calm, and very focused. Tom was recording her jumps and after every one she went over to the boards and reviewed the footage with him.

Karen: She did a partial run thru of her FS. Honestly, a lot of her jumps looked the way they did at nationals where they look like they could be clean but on replay they're under-rotated. Most of the ones she landed looked like that. I was so shocked by how many URs she got at nationals that I went back to watch her performance and pay closer attention to her jumps. There's this little stutter to her landing edge that is so brief you might miss it only b/c she tends to land her jumps with decent speed. I'm hoping she can at least have a clean SP...that will keep her in the range of the top 10. She's such a gorgeous skater but I just have zero faith in her jumps.


I'm excited for tonight's SP (duh). The other events have been so exciting and well-skated so I'm hoping we'll get something like that. The ladies' event is likely to be one of the most predictable seeing as how (short of a hole opening in the ground and swallowing them) the two Russians are 99.998% guaranteed the first two medals. It's really a battle b/w those two and then everyone else scrapping it out for bronze. Anyone other than Evgenia or Alina in the top 2 is going to be an absolute shock. That's not to say it couldn't happen but I would be floored if it did.

 

[concorde]

had no control over a potential second GP assignment for Bradie.

Not true. Let's just leave it at that.

 

[ice coverage]

Not true. Let's just leave it at that.

USFS had no direct control.

If you have non-hearsay proof that USFS was responsible for denying Bradie a chance at a second GP, please share.

 

[concorde]

If you have non-hearsay proof that USFS was responsible for denying Bradie a chance at a second GP, please share.

This also is not true. Just you sent you a PM.

 

[ice coverage]

This also is not true. Just you sent you a PM.

Have not received your PM. In any case, what I meant was that I was asking you to share any proof in the thread.

Anyway, I think you are saying that it is "not true" that USFS was responsible for denying Bradie a second GP assignment.

If you were saying the opposite, then I again expect you to back up what you are saying by sharing non-hearsay proof here in the thread that USFS was responsible.

 

[concorde]

I got a kid moving up the ranks and no way will I annoy USFS. Politics is big. USFS chooses to release what they release and I will not cross it.

My source is about as knowledgeable as you can get. USFS was not in the wrong here (maybe not in other cases but not here).

 

[mrrice]

Have not received your PM. In any case, what I meant was that I was asking you to share any proof in the thread.

Anyway, I think you are saying that it is "not true" that USFS was responsible for denying Bradie a second GP assignment.

If you were saying the opposite, then I again expect you to back up what you are saying by sharing non-hearsay proof here in the thread that USFS was responsible.

I thought GP assignments were based solely on rankings. I also believe that the selections are made by the ISU unless it's a host pick. Bradie got Skate America which unfortunately for her was the end of the season. She also did well in her Senior B's. She's had a great season and I think her Title has erased any ill feelings about GP assignments. Her draw here has nothing to do her GP ranking, does it? If Bradie hits everything, my hope is for her to be in top 10. Even if she were to skate last, I can't see her beating any of the Russian's or Gabby, Kaetlyn, Carolina, or Sotoko. So, if she finishes eighth, I think she should be thrilled.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

If it hasn't been mentioned already, Maria Butyrskaya drew first to skate (and left in tears) in the 1998 Nagano SP. She finished 3rd in that segment IIRC, so Bradie could still have a good placement. (Maria was also a more decorated skater then than Bradie is now, so who knows.)

 

[ice coverage]

... USFS was not in the wrong here (maybe not in other cases but not here).

Lest anyone wonder:

I am not one who ever said (or even implied) that USFS did anything wrong concerning Bradie.

I never have had any reason to believe that USFS did anything wrong concerning Bradie.​

 

[chuckm]

I'm just not buying it that both Vincent and Bradie got such early starts solely due to "bad luck". Too much of a coincidence there....

 

[evasorange]

I’m here in Korea for the Olympics and I ran into Mirai crossing the street yesterday! She seems shy but she was nice! Any time I see a skater in person I’m
Always stuck by just how tiny they actually are lol here’s to hoping she does the triple axel this morning!!

 

[tosca]

Mirai just had a rough practice. So nervous.