OK, so because the Final Entry Lists were only posted the day before competition started, I am going to do things slightly differently this week.
I am going to post my predictions for each category in separate posts as soon as I finish making them out. That way, I can make sure I get the Singles categories in before tomorrow and then, if needed, I will have extra time to get the Dance and Pairs finished.
Men was actually the first I did, because it was the first category to have their SP Start Orders released. (It makes it quicker to sort the ISU Bios if they are opened in a rough seeded order than if they are alphabetical)
Obviously, there was no way I was going to have anybody except Javi on the top spot. But, it was difficult to decide who to have as the rest of my Top 6, as we have a different line-up of Russians this year, and there are so many good Junior skaters that we are not used to seeing amongst the Seniors.
Because it was so soon to the competition starting, I wasn’t going to bother going to Stats On Ice to look up absolute PB’s. But, due to there being so many different names to what we are used to, I had to.
Obviously, I already knew from previous editions of the Game that Amodio had a very high, but very old, absolute PB, and that I would be pushing him down the order. But, I was shocked to see that using his SB (from French Nationals last month) would only put him in 15th position, between Fentz and Rizzo.
I could maybe use the excuse of “National Inflation” to justify pushing him above Fentz, as Fentz’s International PB (from November’s Golden Spin) is much lower. But the same excuse could be used to push Amodio down even further, as using the score from his only International competition this season, Skate America (197.45), would put him in 19th on the list, behind Philip Harris (whose PB’s and SB’s are ALL within half a point either side of Amodio’s Skate America score).
But, I feel guilty having him as the last name of the part of the list I am posting, so I will push him up 2 places, ahead of Fentz and Pavlov. (Incidentally, although Pavlov’s absolute PB is from 2014 Ukrainian Nationals, his International PB from the Tallinn Trophy in November is only 5 points lower than it, and is also 5 points higher than Amodio’s Skate America score).
When you take Amodio out of the equation, next on the absolute PB list after Fernandez are the 3 Russians. The ISU PB’s for Kovtun and Kolyada are practically identical, as is the Nationals PB for Petrov. HOWEVER, all 3 of them scored their absolute PB’s at Nationals, and there are massive differences in them. Kovtun’s score from 2014 is nearly 11 points ahead of Kolyada’s score from 2015, with Petrov a further 12 points back.
However, are the International judges liable to be as generous as the Russian judges? I doubt it. So, I am going to take my chance and put Kolyada ahead of Kovtun. Largely because Kolyada’s scores this season have, on the whole, been better than Kovtun’s. The only scores that Kovtun got that were higher were both from competitions held in Russia – firstly at the Mordovian Ornament (which I tend to ignore when comparing scores, because the judges were systematically overscoring in EVERY competition), and secondly at Nationals.
The next 3 on the absolute PB list were Hendrickx, Březina and Majorov. Given that Hendrickx is not long getting over a broken leg, I had every intention of slipping him behind the other 2. But then I noticed that his absolute PB was from November, after he came back from his injury. Although his results say otherwise, Březina is not having a good season. He has been ending up on his backside at least once every segment, because he keeps attempting quads and not succeeding. And as for Majorov, well he is coming back after being a donor for his Dad, who has leukaemia. So, I would love to see him do well.
Much as I like Michal, he drew the short straw and ended up as the one outside my Top 6.
Even though it was outside the scoring positions, the hardest decision to make was actually what order to put the next 4 in. On absolute PB’s, it was Samohin, Righini, Bychenko and Vasiljevs. But, Samohin’s was from the Mordovian Ornament, and his next best score put him just 1 point behind Bychenko, who scored his absolute PB 2 weeks ago at the Toruń Cup. Vasiljevs’ absolute PB (from last month’s Latvian Nationals) was a further 8 points back, but got 2 silver medals in the Junior GP, the same as Samohin.
In the end, even though all the numbers went against it, I went with my gut.
Next post:
Ladies
Caroliza_fan
EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
Men
1. Javier FERNANDEZ, ESP
2. Mikhail KOLYADA, RUS
3. Maxim KOVTUN, RUS
4. Alexander PETROV, RUS
5. Jorik HENDRICKX, BEL
6. Alexander MAJOROV, SWE
Just for fun
7. Michal BREZINA, CZE
8. Daniel SAMOHIN, ISR
9. Deniss VASILJEVS, LAT
10. Ivan RIGHINI, ITA
11. Alexei BYCHENKO, ISR
12. Franz STREUBEL, GER
13. Florent AMODIO, FRA
14. Ivan PAVLOV, UKR
15. Paul FENTZ, GER
