Like last season, there are only three spots taken coming into the final stage, but the circumstances are very different. JGPF is very likely to be 4 Japanese, 2 Korean. That’s the make-up of the JGPF unless Shimada and Shifrin go 1-2 in any order and Shifrin beats Korea in a combined total tie-breaker if one of them gets a bronze and she wins silver.
Kamizawa with 24 points (15+9) will only fail to qualify if three skaters score above her as she beats any silver + bronze combo in a tiebreaker. So the podium has to be Korea(28)-Korea (26)-Shimada (26), or Shifrin(26)-Korea(26)-Shimada(26). In other words, Shimada, a skater who has been undefeated for three seasons, has to lose and lose to two skaters. This is….unlikely to happen. Ideally, there will be two qualifiers next week.
I don’t think there’ll necessarily be a Shimada-Korea-Korea podium and there are skaters that can play spoiler and I’m betting on Kushida or Bath. But spoilers will only block someone in the running from qualifying; they won’t qualify themselves. The other three medalists can all be off the podium and that will only result in Shimada being the only qualifier from the competition, in which case Kim Yuseong qualifies with her sister and it’ll still be…. 4 Japanese and two Korean.
