Joesitz said:
What gets me, if you've ever been to a Worlds, the QR is divided into as much as 20-20 for Parts A and B. I think they draw which of the two parts skates the first thing in the morning. Can you imagine getting up so early to do everything to wake up, and then go the rink with all your gear, warm up in the hallways, put on your costume, get called to do the competition warm up, and it's only 8:30 am. Whoa. Not easy. And your other competitors get to skate at 1pm. Whoa Not fair. That happend to Joubert but he pulled himself up in the SP and got a silver after the LP Joe
I think Joubert should have won his quali group and come in 3rd in the SP, but that's me. But Sandhu was just as disadvantaged skating in that group, and Sandhu started three places earlier than Joubert. By the time Sandhu skated as #12, there were already two groups ahead of him and a zamboni break, which would have given him closer to an 11-11:30am start time, and Joubert 15-20 minutes later. By that time in the morning, Chait/Sakhnovski have completed their daily 2-hour practice session and have headed to off-ice training.
Skaters are used to getting up quite early for practices, although to a person they say that it's very hard to skate at 10am. Jet lag is likely to be more of a factor than the actual waking time, and Joubert, who is based in the same time zone as Worlds and a short hop flight, had an advantage there over Sandhu.
The way the quali groups are created, any of the top 24 skaters from the prior year who compete in the current year are divided alternately into groups A&B based on placement from last year. After that all other competitors are assigned to the quali groups in alphabetical order by country name and surname. Then there's a draw to see who goes first. So everyone has an equally good chance of ending in the early group; it doesn't go automatically to the second-place qualifier's group.
Qualification for the SP will not go on total scores across groups; the top 15 from each group will qualify for the SP, unless there is a tie for 15th, and then the tied skaters go forward, or if the host country doesn't qualify anyone, they get a bye. (That could come in handy if Zelenka doesn't qualify, particularly, since he'd get another bye into the LP. With Kostner and Marchei, the Italian team doesn't have to worry about the Ladies.) This maintains the "all of the skaters in the early group are in the same boat" aspect of qualification. However, if skating early means a lower score -- or one group of judges grades higher than the other -- one group is going to get an advantage when the score is factored into the total score. Qualification for the free skate is based on the top 24 aggregate scores of SP and Quali. Starting order is based on taking the bottom three from each group and drawing start numbers 1-6, then taking the next three from each group and drawing start numbers 7-12, etc. (A host nation bye always starts first and joins the first warm-up group.)
The difference -- both positive and negative -- is that last year, Joubert was stuck with his ordinal for the quali round, and he had to rely upon how other skaters placed, regardless of whether he had skated a .1 or 10 point lesser performance than Sandhu. He was considered to have skated the same skate that Lindemann did in the other group, regardless of whether he skated 5 points better or worse or the same. This year, the actual score will be counted.
Last year, almost all of the the top competitors skated at Worlds. Buttle, who hopefully will qualify this year, and Goebel, if he's healthy enough to qualify, are the exceptions. Any other top competitors are likely to be newbie surprises -- perhaps Ota if she does well in 4C's -- or veterans like Poth (if Pavuk is too injured) or Soldatova (if she beats Sokolova and Volchkova doesn't recover in time) making a comeback.
Whether Suguri qualifies could determine whether Group A includes Arakawa, Kwan, Kostner, Suguri, Slutskaya, and Group B includes Cohen, Ando, Sebestyen, Rochette, and Sokolova (if she qualifies), or if Slutskaya would be in Group B with Cohen, Ando, and Sebestyen, with Rochette slotting into Group A. (Rochette should be lighting candles for Suguri to win the skate-off, because she's got a better chance of being in the final six in Group B.)
Whether Weiss qualifies and Lambiel is healthy could determine whether Group A includes Plushenko, Lindemann, Weir, Zhang, and Dambier and Group B includes Joubert, Lambiel, Weiss, Sandhu, and Li. Whether Zhang is third-ranked after Joubert and Lambiel in his group or Weiss is, the groups will be pretty balanced if Lambiel is healthy, the usual suspects qualify, and if Goebel and Buttle both qualify and don't get alphabetized into the same group.
Total scores might give a better idea of which group actually was stronger on that day at that time, if the judging and calling is consistent between groups.
