Ladies LP

[ChrisH]

Jenni is almost 16 (May 26, 1992), a year or more older than Rachael, Caroline and Mirai. The three US girls had all or most of the difficult jumps by the time they were 13, and were doing 3/3s with the tough jumps at 14.

That's not to say Jenni can't get the jumps, but it's going to be hard to learn them and get them consistent while she is growing taller and filling out.

More precisely, Jenni is about 2 months older than Rachael (which is why Jenni is age eligible to compete at senior Worlds and she did compete at the European championships), 11 months older than Mirai, and 12 months older than Caroline.


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About Jenni - I would give her another year in Juniors to win it with a complete arsenal of jumps followed by an Oly win, if eligible or definitely a Senior Worlds win. We have our new Kwan and she's from Finland.

I doubt that Jenni will win junior Worlds next year. If she's not strong to make in onto the Finnish senior Worlds team next year, she won't be strong enough to beat Angela Maxwell, Amanda Dobbs, and Ellie Kawamura (much less Rachael if she is forced to defend her title) at junior Worlds.

 

[dizzydi7]

2007-08 Competitions and Events

It just seems to me that gone are the days when we can predict a champion. I wonder if this is because of the number of talented skaters that are emerging or is it because of the technical demands of COP. In a way, I really like the unpredictability of these competitions. It's much more exciting to know that several skaters have a shot at the top prize. I'm looking forward to see who will be senior world champion this year. Hopefully, it will be a new face for both men and ladies.

Dizzy

 

[skatergirl45]

I am glad that we cannot predict a champion. It makes things much more exciting!\

I saw Jenni on icenetwork and loved her. A skater who did not impress me was the Japanese girl. Cant think of her name......... another Yukari N???

 

[Kati]

I am glad that we cannot predict a champion. It makes things much more exciting!\

I saw Jenni on icenetwork and loved her. A skater who did not impress me was the Japanese girl. Cant think of her name......... another Yukari N???

Yuki Nishino?

 

[PolymerBob]

It's not just that a lot depends on the technical specialist, but his calls can affect (and perhaps even overrule) the GoEs (and perhaps even the PCSs) of the judges. Many of the observations of the judges are thus lost. I believe that Mathman said something similar to this previously.

It wouldn't be so bad that the technical specialist can overrule the judges if the specialist was always right ...

I have an idea. Let's put sensors under the ice that can tell us which edge a skater takes of from, and how many revolutions he / she executes before landing. That should cut out a lot of bad calls.

 

[skatergirl45]

Thank you!

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

I have an idea. Let's put sensors under the ice that can tell us which edge a skater takes of from, and how many revolutions he / she executes before landing. That should cut out a lot of bad calls.

Excellent idea and we could also put on the skaters speedometers to make sure who has the fastest speed.

Joe

 

[chuckm]

If Jenni Vahamaa can get her lutz and flip consistent, she can win JW next season. With all due respect to Angela Maxwell and Amanda Dobbs, they don't have anywhere near Jenni's experience and presentation skills.

The only obstacle to Jenni winning might come if the US has only two places at Senior Worlds next year, and one or more of Caroline, Mirai or Rachael has to return to JW. And Yuki Nishino might not have skated her best at JW, but she did beat Jenni at the JGPF, so she can't be left out of the equation.

 

[vlaurend]

It wouldn't be so bad that the technical specialist can overrule the judges if the specialist was always right ...

I won't say the system is perfect, but don't forget, there are 3 technical specialists at work during each event, including the technical controller. It's not just one person's unchallenged opinion.

 

[bubbleyum]

I think you mean hemangioma. Hematomas are bruises = ecchymoses.

Attending physician

thanks for the correction

 

[feraina]

Excellent idea and we could also put on the skaters speedometers to make sure who has the fastest speed.

 

[ChrisH]

She has so much speed and height into her jumps, it's just crazy that she's always at risk of under-rotating or otherwise messing up the landings. I think it's something to do with her air position and the alignment of her body. Notice how often her landing edges swiggle between outside, inside, outside... It's the way she's passing her free leg behind her, or maybe the way she's checking with her upperbody or something. Just weird.

What I've seen is Mirai has the most neutral head position while Caroline is almost the opposite. Caroline's head is always at her left shoulder and leading the rest of her body in the air. Perhaps she spots the landings quicker that way. Mirai's head is aligned with the rest of her body. The other ladies have head positions somewhere between Caroline and Mirai's. Mirai also occasionally pre-rotates her right foot/leg just before landing. That may explain why she swiggles her edges on her ride outs. I wouldn't say that Mirai's jumps have been at risk in her short programs. In her Nationals short program, she had significantly less pre-rotation than the other ladies and she wasn't under-rotated. Her free skate, however, wasn't as good both in terms of pre-rotation and under-rotation.

 

[ChrisH]

Caroline's jumps here were the best I've ever seen them,

I think so too. And her triple-triples were gorgeous.

and if she was a little short on the loop, it wasn't significantly noticeable. Her loop certainly looked more suspect in the SP, and it wasn't downgraded there.

I've watched the half speed replay (that they show as the scores are being tabulated) of the 3Lo a few times and I still don't see the under-rotation. I see that it might have been under-rotated, but that's all. And I have reason to believe it wasn't a pre-rotation issue.

I felt the artistic element was a little missing in this performance, and in this regard I think Rachael was better (which is why it's puzzling that Caroline had higher PCS!). Rachael looked freer out there, whereas Caroline seemed more business-like, but I gotta say, there's no way that Rachael should ever get +GOE on any of her non-jump elements such as spins and spirals.

I think that Caroline's slight injuries hurt her spins and spirals somewhat (but not her jumps). Still, this is my favorite performance of hers this season. (It's a toss-up between Mao and Caroline as to my favorite performance.) The size and secureness of her jumps brought a sense of steadiness to her skating skills and transitions and an extra level of gracefulness to the rest of her presentation. It's enjoyable watching these programs again and again ...

If anything, it sure did seem like Tarasova agreed with me. I'd love to know precisely what her comments were, but she sounded very excited when CZ was on...

I love what Tarasova has done with Mao. How could it work out with Caroline working with Mingzhu Li and Tarasova?

 

[feraina]

Caroline's exhibition had no jumps! I wonder if her injuries were even more serious than she let on. I'm so proud of her coming out to skate two perfect programs after the disappointments of National's and the bad press ("Nagasu Dazzles While Caroline Fizzles", nobody seemed to care that she then skated her best LP of the year), plus then she had her injuries and lost her skates before JW. I'm so glad that her season is over and she can finally relax a little.

I have also wondered repeatedly what Tarasova could do for Caroline. Tarasova seems to really like her, but I'm also sure that she can spot things that Caroline can work on. Maybe Li MingZhu could go coach in Beijing next summer (as the Chinese federation seems to be really keen on) -- then it would also be a good time for Caroline to hope over the border to Russia and work a bit with Tarasova.

 

[PolymerBob]

If Caroline's exhibition had no jumps, that's bad.

As for a new coach, it's tough for a 14 year old girl to leave her home, her family, her friends, her school, basically her whole life. She might not be ready for that yet.

 

[jsteam4501s]

I am very happy that Rachel won Juniors. I wish her and our other two medalists all the best and look forward to seeing them on the GP circuit next fall. In the meantime, let's all give our support to Kimmie, Ashley, and Bebe for a good job at Worlds late this month!

 

[PolymerBob]

It’s amazing how long these girls have been competing against each other. Here are results from the juvenile competition at the 2003 Junior US Championship, December 2002. Caroline was 9 and Rachael was 10.

http://www.usfigureskating.org/even...ontent/events/200203/jrnats/juvgirls-free.htm

 

[beep_beep]

*Smacks head* (why don't we have a smiley for that?)

Let's say the skater underrotates by 80 degrees and the caller typically calls it at 100 degrees. So we are talking about the intersection of the two distributions (one of them normal), and the effect on this intersection of sliding the skater's graph to the left. This is monotone decreasing as the skater gets better and better.

I will think this through and start a thread on the Edge about it if anything interesting pops up.

Darn, I just can't resist it !
*smacks head* ( we should really have a smiley for that...)

I guess a Bayesian probability would work here, as in " the probability of a skater getting caught on an underrotation equals the probability of the tech panel catching the underrotaion given that the skater underrotated"

 

[skates]

It’s amazing how long these girls have been competing against each other. Here are results from the juvenile competition at the 2003 Junior US Championship, December 2002. Caroline was 9 and Rachael was 10.

http://www.usfigureskating.org/even...ontent/events/200203/jrnats/juvgirls-free.htm

This has proven that rachael does not beat caroline everytime they go head to head.

 

[PolymerBob]

Though it was not a normal competition, Caroline finished in front of Rachael in the International Counter Match back in October in Japan.

http://www.usfigureskating.org/event_details.asp?id=39700