Sorry that I am only putting this up on the morning that the Senior competitions start. But, they would have been up yesterday afternoon had it not been for me finding out that Russian Junior Nationals were being streamed. I had Ladies, Men and Pairs all finished before dinner time, and only had Dance left to do. But, I just couldn’t turn down the opportunity of watching the young Russians!
We all know who should finish in the Top 4 in Ladies. And they are all capable of winning. I’d be happy enough with any order, as I like them all. But I really want Kaetlyn to win. I really like her, and she has been through so much over the past couple of years with her injuries.
In the Ladies, I went in with an order in my head for most of the Top 10. But, when I looked up the PB’s, I got some surprises.
Admittedly, when I ordered the girls by absolute PB, the girls I was intending to have as my Top 6 were in the order that I was going to put them in. But there were 2 interlopers.
There was a girl that I had never heard tell of with the 5th highest score! Now, maybe I am doing Larkyn Austman a disservice, but I suspect that we may have a Canadian version of the Mordovian Ornament on our hands. The reason I say this, is that Austman’s score when she won the 2015 Super Series BC YK Section Championships in November is over 20 points higher than her next best score (the 2015 Skate Canada Challenge in December)!
Kelsey Wong’s score from finishing 2nd in the same competition has put her in 7th on the absolute PB list. Admittedly, the gap to her next best score (from the 2015 Super Series SummerSkate in August) is smaller, at just a slither under 9 points. But, it is still pretty big.
Because I am unsure about the judging at this competition, I am going to deviate from the absolute PB list. I was going to use the second best scores for these two girls, but it would still not have given me the order I wanted, as Austman’s second best score is 2 points higher than Roxanne Rheault’s absolute PB.
So, I just went for the order I originally intended, and put Austman in 7th and Wong in the 8th.
The other surprise I got when looking at the absolute PB’s was just how far down the order Kim Deguise Léveillée was! Like, she was 5th in last year’s Nationals, but that score only put her in 11th on the absolute PB list!
That said, if we are using Wong’s second best score, then that means that there were 5 skaters covered by only 4 points, from 8th on the list down to 12th. So, with this in mind, I decided I could get away with bumping Kim up a couple of places to 9th.
Incidentally, the 2 girls that were moved down to achieve this (Gray and Bergeron) had PB’s that were only 0.08 points apart. And, they were both scored at the same competition (the 2015 Skate Canada Challenge)!
And Emma Cullen’s absolute PB was only 0.04 behind Deguise Léveillée’s! But they were from different competitions (Emma’s was another from the 2015 Skate Canada Challenge).
Just shows you how close the mid-field is in Canadian Ladies skating.
With the Men, it seemed straightforward enough. I knew who was going to make up my Top 8, and I more or less knew what order the Top 5 were going to be in.
With the programmes Patrick has this season, if he skates them half decently, nobody is going to touch him. Nam should be a safe second.
Elladj and Liam should have a good battle. Although Elladj is way ahead of Liam in the ISU World Standings, he is one place behind him in the ISU Season’s World Rankings. Not only that, but on absolute PB’s Elladj is only 2 points ahead of Liam. Elladj’s from this season’s Nebelhorn Trophy, while Liam’s from the 2014 Nationals. But, although Elladj has the higher PB, and it is more recent, I’ll give the higher position to Liam. The judges don’t seem to “get” Elladj as much as the fans do.
You may have noticed that I didn’t say what position they would be fighting over. That is because of the elephant in the room – Kevin Reynolds. Kevin has the second highest absolute PB. But it is from 2013 Nationals. And he has been so plagued with injuries and boot problems that he has only done 5 competitions since that season, 3 of which were the following season.
Nobody knows what form Kevin is likely to be in. His only competition this season was when he finished 2nd at the Skate Canada Challenge last month. But none of the other big name Canadian skaters were there, and his score was 54 points lower than his absolute PB.

More significantly, it was nearly 26 points less than the winning score from Nicholas Nadeau (his absolute PB by 10 points).
If I used his SB, it would slot Kevin into 8th on the list. And I just wouldn’t feel right putting him that low. So, I will instead slot him in behind Nadeau, and have him as my 6th place alternate.
For the rest of the field, I kept them ordered by absolute PB. The two remaining guys that I wanted in my Top 8 were in 7th and 8th, and the rest of the field I am unfamiliar with.
Before looking at the figures (and before bringing Kevin into the equation), I had been thinking of having the final 3 Top 8 places as Sadovsky, then Nadeau, then Messing (because he is new to the Canadian field). But, then I found out the absolute PB order, and the scores we pretty spread out, so I left them in that order.
I have to say, I was really shocked to find that Sadovsky was as far down as 8th on the absolute PB list. He really made an impression in Junior GP’s this season (and last season, although I wasn’t watching Junior GP’s then), so I was expecting him to be higher.
When it came to doing Pairs, I was in a major dilemma. Not over the Top 2 positions, because that should be straightforward based on what has happened on the international stage so far this season.
No, the dilemma was over Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch. Specifically, which of the former partners to put on the remaining podium step.
If we are going purely by absolute PB’s, then it is straightforward, as both couples achieved them at last year’s Nationals. Lubov and Dylan finished in 2nd place, just over 7 points ahead of Kirsten and Michael in 4th place. Plus, I prefer Lubov and Dylan to Kirsten and Michael.
But, it is not that straightforward. If you look at the ISU World Standings and ISU Season’s World Rankings, then the story is reversed. Kirsten and Michael are ahead of Lubov and Dylan in both.
The reason for that is that Lubov and Dylan are not finishing as high up the order this season as they were last season. In their 3 competitions, they have finished 4th (Ondrej Nepela), 7th (Cup of China) and 5th (NHK Trophy). Kirsten and Michael, on the other hand, are finishing a LOT higher up the order than last season. In their 3 competitions, they have won 2 bronze medals (US Classic and Skate Canada), and had a 7th (Cup of Russia).
The paradox is that Lubov and Dylan are, on the whole, scoring better than last season. And they are scoring higher than Kirsten and Michael are this season (Lubov and Dylan’s SB from the NHK is just a slither higher than Kirsten and Michael’s absolute PB).
The long and the short of it is that, probably because they did so well last year, Lubov and Dylan are being entered into competitions with tougher opposition than Kirsten and Michael are. And, because they have weaker opposition, Kirsten and Michael are getting the better finishing positions.
So, since they are going to have the same opposition, I’m going for Lubov and Dylan.
In the end, I only made one deviation from the absolute PB order. I like Rudi Swiegers, and couldn’t bear to see him and new partner Hayleigh Bell in last position. So, I moved them up one place, using the excuse that they have a higher ISU PB than Shalena Rau / Sebastian Arcieri.
In Dance, I knew who I was going to have as my Top 4, and what order they were going to be in. But, I hadn’t a clue about what order to put the rest of the field in!
Of the remaining 10 couples, there were only 1 ½ couples that I am familiar with! The problem is that although I know the skaters, I don’t know the partnerships. Nicole Orford and Asher Hill are only in their first season together, and I haven’t seen them skate with each other yet. And Shane Firus is only in the second season of his partnership, and I have only seen them once, at this season’s Nebelhorn. So, there is not much to go on.
Because I really rated their previous partnerships, I went in toying with the idea of putting Orford / Hill in 5th. But I decided to be more cautious and look at the numbers. And it turned out that they were 7th on the absolute PB list. The 5th place absolute PB from Andréanne Poulin / Marc-André Servant was 8.44 points higher than Orford / Hill, and was actually only 2.74 points below Paradis / Ouellette in 4th. So, Poulin / Servant were definitely not going to be moved down!
The dilemma thus became whether to move Orford / Hill up one place to become my 6th place alternate. That place on the absolute PB list was occupied by Brianna Delmaestro / Timothy Lum. Their absolute PB is only 2.74 above Orford / Hill, but was from when they won the 2015 Super Series BC YK Section Championships in November. Now, you may recall that that is the same event that I was unsure about the level of judging at for the Ladies. However, in this case, the score is only 0.77 above their second best score, from when they won last season’s Junior Nationals. So, I don’t think we have a case of inflation here.
If you look at the ISU World Standings, Delmaestro / Lumare a full 45 positions ahead of Orford / Hill! BUT, that is because Brianna and Timothy have 2 ½ seasons worth of results counting towards it, whereas Nicole and Asher only have half a season. When you go to the ISU Season’s World Rankings, then Orford / Hill are 17 positions ahead of Delmaestro / Lumare.
In light of all this, I left them as they were. And I did the same with the rest of the field.
So, I have ended up writing 3 ½ A4 pages for the Canadian Championships as well as the American Championships. Well, at least it is a way of taking my mind off everything else that is going on at the moment.
Now I'm off to look for videos of the Russian Junior Men's SP before their FS starts.
Caroliza_fan
CANADIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
Ladies
1. Kaetlyn OSMOND, AB/NT/NU
2. Gabrielle DALEMAN, CO
3. Alaine CHARTRAND, EO
4. Véronik MALLET, QC
5. Selena ZHAO, QC
6. Roxanne RHEAULT, QC
Just for fun
7. Larkyn AUSTMAN, BC/YK
8. Kelsey WONG, BC/YK
9. Kim DEGUISE LÉVEILLÉE, QC
10. Jane GRAY, AB/NT/NU
11. Valérie BERGERON, QC
12. Emma CULLEN, EO
13. Michelle LONG, CO
14. Justine BELZILE, QC
15. Eri NISHIMURA, CO
16. Stephie WALMSLEY, NS
17. Valérie GIROUX, QC
18. Véronique CLOUTIER, NO
Men
1. Patrick CHAN, CO
2. Nam NGUYEN, CO
3. Elladj BALDE, QC
4. Liam FIRUS, BC/YK
5. Nicolas NADEAU, QC
6. Kevin REYNOLDS, BC/YK
Just for fun
7. Keegan MESSING, AB/NT/NU
8. Roman SADOVSKY, CO
9. Christophe BELLEY, QC
10. Mitchell GORDON, BC/YK
11. Bennet TOMAN, CO
12. Shaquille DAVIS, CO
13. Anthony KAN, CO
14. Daniel-Olivier BOULANGER-TROTTIER, QC
15. Samuel ANGERS, QC
16. Dustin SHERRIFF-CLAYTON, AB/NT/NU
17. Laurent GUAY, QC
18. Jack KERMEZIAN, QC
Pairs
1. Meagan DUHAMEL / Eric RADFORD, QC
2. Julianne SÉGUIN / Charlie BILODEAU, QC
3. Lubov ILYUSHECHKINA / Dylan MOSCOVITCH, CO
4. Kirsten MOORE-TOWERS / Michael MARINARO, WO
5. Vanessa GRENIER / Maxime DESCHAMPS, QC
6. Brittany JONES / Josh REAGAN, WO
Just for fun
7. Hayleigh BELL / Rudi SWIEGERS, SK
8. Shalena RAU / Sebastian ARCIERI, WO
Ice Dance
1. Kaitlyn WEAVER / Andrew POJE, NO
2. Piper GILLES / Paul POIRIER, CO
3. Alexandra PAUL / Mitchell ISLAM, CO
4. Elisabeth PARADIS / François-Xavier OUELLETTE, QC
5. Andréanne POULIN / Marc-André SERVANT, QC
6. Brianna DELMAESTRO / Timothy LUM, BC/YK
Just for fun
7. Nicole ORFORD / Asher HILL, BC/YK
8. Lauren COLLINS / Shane FIRUS, CO
9. Carolane SOUCISSE / Simon TANGUAY, QC
10. Catherine DAIGLE-ROY / Dominic BARTHE, QC
11. Alexa LINDEN / Addison VOLDENG, SK
12. Jocelyn LEBLANC / Danny SEYMOUR, CO
13. Roxette HOWE / Jean Luc JACKSON, BC/YK
14. Elysia-Marie CAMPBELL / Philippe GRANGER, QC