It's too bad Skate Canada takes the view that Junior ladies should have flip and lutz, because the fact is few Junior ladies competing at the World level have those jumps with any kind of consistency, and not all that many Senior ladies have them, either.
Chrissy Hughes won the gold medal at JGP Roumania without the big jumps, while silver medalist Leonova had the 3F but could not land a 3L, and landed just one clean 2A out of 3 tries. Rumi Suizu's big trick is the 3T3T in her SP, but she could not land a 3L in either the SP or FS. In the FS, her only consistent triple was the 3T; she doubled the flip and the salchow.
Yet these skaters edged out Samson, who supposedly "has" a 3Z and a 3F. Myriane fell on the lutz in the SP and underrotated and doubled it in the FS; she fell on her first 3F attempt in the FS and doubled the second one. In her last few international competitions, Samson has not landed the lutz and flip with any kind of consistency at all. She gets good marks for presentation, but then she should, as she just turned 19 and most of her competitors in this event were more than two years younger.
The field at JGP ROU was weaker than the JGP USA field, because no 'superstars' such as Nagasu were on the roster. Going into the event, I thought that Samson would surely win a medal. You have to wonder if Samson would have had a better shot if she had developed a Junior FS program with jumps that she can do consistently and well.
