I have seen her skate in person, and no, her 'flaws' are not strongly obvious, particularly in the short program. The audience, what little there was of it, actually came alive during her skates too, because she stayed on her feet and watching the splatter fest was getting incredibly tiring. The judges were really unfair to her.
I understand that they are used to ice dancers for the most part, but it was so strakly obvious that she could jump and everyone else couldn't. Seriously, shame on them for being so narrow-minded and short-sighted, particularly that Quebec judge. It's thanks to them that we are seeing what we are seeing in Canadian singles now. Complete lack of anyone to even hope for.
Jumps are completely irrelevant when judging any other aspect - And they have to be for the judging system to work. That most judges don't follow this principle is one of the biggest problems in skating right now.
It's often common that a skater with weaker skating skills will look better in the SP as it is shorter and packed with the required elements.
In Quebec after decades of focusing on performance, the younger skaters are now finally training jumps... I had never seen as many 3-3 combos and harder triples at Challenge than this year. Fée Ann is a good example of a skater who could skate with power and ease, and a good performance level, but acquired her big jumps only later.
This is mostly my impression from watching her in person at Challenge. I do think her skating skills didn't stand out as significantly weaker than others in her warm-up group the way that I noticed it in the first group though. I'm not a trained judge though. Her presentation did stand out as weaker. Where she ranked in PCS for the free skate (around the middle) is fair in my opinion.
(replying here since it's the current thread)
National Team isn't based on the level they compete internationally. The criteria is:
Interesting. Surely that wastes some of the spots on the national team?
I don't think so, there's no set number of spots except for the medalists. The only difference for them is that they'll likely do the NextGen competition instead of High Performance Camp.
New Ice Dance team - Dana Sabatini-Speciale/Danny Kaye:
Not sure which country they'll compete for, they'd have four options to choose from after all - CAN, ITA, GBR, IRLBarbara Fusar Poli is tagged, so maybe that's a small tip-off towards Italy?
New Ice Dance team - Dana Sabatini-Speciale/Danny Kaye:
Not sure which country they'll compete for, they'd have four options to choose from after all - CAN, ITA, GBR, IRL
Dana was on the JGP circuit for Canada for the past 2 years. Best result was 5th at JGP Budapest this past year. She is quite a good skater.
Presumably that means they either need to represent Canada (which would probably give them fewer international opportunities longer term unless they could be top 2 or 3 in the country) or wait 2 years for her release before they can represent a different fed?
Not necessarily, as I’ve heard that the process is different for Jrs, especially pairs/dance teams, as partner splits happen often. I know a friend who works for a lower level Skate Canada job and she said that when the Skate Canada board votes on the release, they sometimes automatically say that they don’t have wait, as the skater was not the top in the world. For example, it would be a fighting match if Piper/Paul or Deanna/Max wanted to switch. But since she was only Jr and didn’t go to Jr Worlds or Final, my friend doesn’t see a problem.
Interesting. I always thought they capped it at five.
