This is the other competition that I dread making predictions on, because there are so many skaters that I am not familiar with.
In the Ladies, although Alyssa’s results in the past 3 years have been overwhelmingly wins with a few seconds, on the whole Bradie has been doing better in terms of actual scores. Admittedly, this is probably down to the different requirements between Junior and Senior routines. But still.
The main problem was that there are a lot of skaters who would normally be near the top that have not been performing as well as I would expect recently. Consequently, whereas I would normally have Karen up near the top, she is towards the bottom of my Top 10 this year.
In the Men, it would be a braver man than me than to bet against it being a Chen-Zhou-Brown podium. But, as we saw in the Europeans SP, strange things can happen.
The real decision was over what order to have Hiwatashi, Pulkinen and Krasnozhon in. Tomoki was actually 4[SUP]th[/SUP] on the absolute PB list, but he has been scoring lower than the other two guys this season. Camden had a monster score at Skate Canada, but otherwise has been scoring very similar to Aleksei. So, given that I am a Russophile, I went for Aleksei.
For the rest, I just kept them in absolute PB order. Frankly, hardly anybody has been scoring anything near their PB’s recently. So, they aren’t going to be challenging for the Top 5 positions anyway.
In Pairs, well, given that one of my kids is competing here, I think you all know who I am going to put on top. Everybody’s favourite Austradian from Texas, and her faithful right-hand man Tim.
I have to be honest, I got a surprise when I looked at the absolute PB’s. I thought Scimeca / Knierim would be close to Cain / LeDuc. But they were actually further back, heading a close group with Denny / Frazier and Kayne / O’Shea.
Going into this, I was planning to put Mr & Mrs Knierim into 2[SUP]nd[/SUP], with Denny / Frazier in 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] and Kayne / O’Shea in 4[SUP]th[/SUP]. But after seeing the most recent scores for the three partnerships, I put the married couple in the middle.
Calalang / Johnson were always going to be next, largely because I am more familiar with their partnership than I am with any of the other remaining partnerships.
Because I am not that familiar with the rest of the partnerships, I just kept them in absolute PB order. But, there are some individual skaters in there that I would not be surprised to see do well, based on their previous partnerships.
Ice Dance was actually tricky. Not the top 2 spots – I knew I was putting Maddy C and Evan on top (something I don’t think I’ve ever done in any predictions game round before) with Maddy H and Zach in 2[SUP]nd[/SUP]. But it was who to put on the podium with them that was the problem.
Normally, I wouldn’t hesitate to put Hawayek and Baker into 3[SUP]rd[/SUP]. But, the younger partnerships have been so impressive this season.
I admit that I have always had a soft spot for Jean-Luc because his parents are successful British skaters. But I have also always had a soft spot Anthony because his parents are successful Russian skaters. And this season, I actually prefer Christina and Anthony. Plus, given Christina’s problems with red tape, I would love her to show 2 fingers to the pen pushers by finishing on the podium in the American Championships.
Given what I wrote in the previous paragraph, I would have felt really guilty if I had put Kaitlin and Jean-Luc any lower. So I put them in 4[SUP]th[/SUP], with the 2 remaining younger partnerships behind them.
The remaining partnerships are all brand new. However, since this Alexander Petrov is British, I made up for my guilt over Jean-Luc by putting Livvy and Sasha as the highest of the new partnerships.
CaroLiza_fan
AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
Ladies
1. Bradie TENNELL
2. Alysa LIU
3. Mariah BELL
4. Emily ZHANG
5. Starr ANDREWS
6. Amber GLENN
7. Karen CHEN
8. Gracie GOLD
9. Gabriella IZZO
10. Courtney HICKS
Men
1. Nathan CHEN
2. Vincent ZHOU
3. Jason BROWN
4. Alex KRASNOZHON
5. Camden PULKINEN
6. Tomoki HIWATASHI
7. Yaroslav PANIOT
8. Sean RABBITT
9. Andrew TORGASHEV
10. Jordan MOELLER
Pairs
1. Ashley CAIN / Timothy LEDUC
2. Haven DENNEY / Brandon FRAZIER
3. Alexa SCIMECA / Chris KNIERIM
4. Tarah KAYNE / Danny O'SHEA
5. Jessica CALALANG / Brian JOHNSON
6. Audrey LU / Misha MITROFANOV
7. Olivia SERAFINI / Mervin TRAN
8. Nica DIGERNESS / Danny NEUDECKER
9. Laiken LOCKLEY / Keenan PROCHNOW
10. Jessica PFUND / Joshua SANTILLAN
Ice Dance
1. Madison CHOCK / Evan BATES
2. Madison HUBBELL / Zachary DONOHUE
3. Christina CARREIRA / Anthony PONOMARENKO
4. Kaitlin HAWAYEK / Jean-Luc BAKER
5. Lorraine MCNAMARA / Quinn CARPENTER
6. Caroline GREEN / Michael PARSONS
7. Livvy SHILLING / Alexander PETROV
8. Bailey Anne MELTON / Ryan O'DONNELL
9. Eva PATE / Logan BYE
I should have had more faith.
