Isabeau Levito earned her spot in the final via her score. I've been keeping track of the numbers, because I thought the ISU would be logical and use that method, and because Zhilina got injured, Isabeau made it to the final. Again, based on her score, not just the fact that she won a gold. Lindsay is a different story.
Isabeau still skated only once, so no one can say for sure what she deserved based on her score but Samodelkina on both her entries and Zinina and Muravieva on their previous entries scored higher. Still only one of those three will be in the finals with the highest probability.
The ISU might have been scheming, or they might have been clueless, scrambling for an answer. However, the only group that is really messed up as far as who is going to the final and who should really be going is the men. All of the top Russian ladies except Samodelkina are in the final. All of the Russian Ice dancers who should be there will be there. I don't know what the hell happened with the pairs, aren't they all Russian anyway? So I take it you're specifically talking about the men? That you think that the ISU is trying to help some other country by making up crazy rules to help the men? Have you asked yourself why on earth they would do this? This is the Juniors. Why create a huge fuss, create a lot of anger and suspicion, for junior competitions? Personally, I think this has more to do with Russian pride. It's a very important sport there, and they don't like to lose.
Depends who are considered "top russian women". Putting Zhilina aside because of her injury, Muravieva is this year's russian nationals bronze medalist, so she should surely belong among the top, yet she has not her spot assured. Zinina didn't win a bigger medal yet, but throughout the last season she (apart from one exception) didn't place worse than 5th at any competition in her age category. So at least two of the group of three I dare to say to russian juniors probably won't be in the finals, while still skaters like Kulikova, Zakhareva or Berestovskaia may not be counted among the top but are better than the rest of the juniors in the world maybe apart Levito and Kim.
Well there is a double negative so I have to guess a little that you are saying Zhilina shouldn't be allowed to go to the finals with just one attendance. I agree on that, the condition for the qualification to the finals should be to take part in two entries. Though this fact of late publication of the rules has the impact on more levels, like Kulikova for instance, Again, if they decided to apply those rules, at least they should have published it at the beginning, not now.Yes! This is why I don't think is Zhilina shouldn't be allowed be in the final, since she's only been in one competition. Even if she won it, I don't think it's right.