Mid-Season Report: U.S. Ladies, R.D. Style
- Thread starter R.D.
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- Nov 12, 2009
Alissa didn't bomb at 2005 GPF, she had one fall in the FS and popped a double axel after landing 4 or 5 clean triples. That's pretty good for her, she came in 6th because everyone else there was better than her.
I don't think the USFSA will ignore UR, they tech caller there downgraded Rachael and Caroline's 3-3s in their freeskates and both were borderline. I agree that they might give Alissa a huge PCS boost, but I don't think they will ignore underotation. Plus last year at nats she only rotated the jump she fell on, as her other mistakes were switching a 3t-3t combo (which i've never seen her do in competition) into a 2t-2t. The loop looked questionable too as it always does but I think they gave it to her.
Do you really think she's been under-rotating her jumps all along though? I'll have to go back and look at her skates from 2005. I thought the UR calls were a recent development that came with her new technique and sudden loss of speed. Poor Alissa, if she could just nail those jumps she'd be great
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Any Em fans in the house?
Tara fans?
yes to all three... though I really only like Tara's pro stuff.
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- Nov 12, 2009
Her average jump success rate is like 3 triples? I think if she attacked more it wouldn't be any worse than that. I think the most times she's ever fallen in a freeskate in 3. And she should skate to win at nats if she wants to go to the Olympics! She said she wants to medal at the Olympics, she must attack! Oh Alissa, maybe she should take up kickboxing to work on her attack
.This is gonna be her year this year, I feel it in my bones. 6 clean triple freeskate at nationals and then again at the Olympics getting her 5th place.
If this happens I'm going to be SO EXCITED
One thing Alissa has over the other American girls is her lutz. Of the top 5-6, she is the only one who can consistently land two clean triple lutzs per program, and given other girls' issues with the jump, she can easily build up a sizable advantage. In fact, I believe her 3z has been more consistent than Yuna Kim and Miki Ando this season
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- Nov 12, 2009
One thing Alissa has over the other American girls is her lutz. Of the top 5-6, she is the only one who can consistently land two clean triple lutzs per program, and given other girls' issues with the jump, she can easily build up a sizable advantage. In fact, I believe her 3z has been more consistent than Yuna Kim and Miki Ando this season
You mean her first lutz. She fell on her second lutz at nationals last year and again at Skate Canada this year. But it's true that she has a good takeoff and never gets edge calls or ! on her lutz. I think when she falls on the second one it's just because it's so late in the program and she's tired. Her flip is troublesome though, she only attempts one and it's usually questionable, often falling on it or getting ! and negative GOEs. Her 3loop is also a problem, and she has it in a sequence in her LP! I think Alissa's jump layout should look like this:
3lz-2t
3fl
3lz
2a-2a seq
3t-2t-2lo
3sal-2t
3t
No 3loop, both 3lutz are toward the beginning, and the flip is right after her first combo which she hits almost every time, so things look good. If she falls on the flip, it's early enough in the program that she won't slow down a lot and stick attack the rest of the program
Unfortunately Czisny hasn't done the salchow since 2004 I believe, so I doubt she would be bringing that back.
Anyone else remember when she was attempting 3lutz/3toe? ...sigh...don't think that will be coming back... but she should continue to do the 3Lutz/2toe/2toe, I think she did it at COR but not in SC. I was happy to see though that she did not get an edge call on her flip at Skate Canada. The work on the flip and the lutz have improved but it looks like it may have drained her on her loop.
The loop never really seemed to give her problems before and now this season she just can't seem to get it around. I think she should remove those turns before the loop and just do it with a regular entry, I think it would help a lot.
I also think that she should do the combo with the first loop and not the second. I understand that doing it towards the end gives her the bonus points, but considering her struggles this season on it, she has a better chance of landing the first loop cleanly, rather than falling on the second, and getting another deduction for not doing the combo.
As for her possibly needing to change coaches... I think at this point its too late...
But hasn't she been also working with Boitano and Sato?? I remember hearing in 2007 that Boitano was working intensively with Alissa and said that this was a 2-Year work in progress for her.... times up!
Anyone else remember when she was attempting 3lutz/3toe? ...sigh...don't think that will be coming back... but she should continue to do the 3Lutz/2toe/2toe, I think she did it at COR but not in SC. I was happy to see though that she did not get an edge call on her flip at Skate Canada. The work on the flip and the lutz have improved but it looks like it may have drained her on her loop.
The loop never really seemed to give her problems before and now this season she just can't seem to get it around. I think she should remove those turns before the loop and just do it with a regular entry, I think it would help a lot.
I also think that she should do the combo with the first loop and not the second. I understand that doing it towards the end gives her the bonus points, but considering her struggles this season on it, she has a better chance of landing the first loop cleanly, rather than falling on the second, and getting another deduction for not doing the combo.
As for her possibly needing to change coaches... I think at this point its too late...
But hasn't she been also working with Boitano and Sato?? I remember hearing in 2007 that Boitano was working intensively with Alissa and said that this was a 2-Year work in progress for her.... times up!
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- Nov 12, 2009
Yeah, she's worked with Boitano and Sato. And yes, the two year time period was up last year. That's too bad about the Salchow too. She did 3lz-3toe at 2005 Skate America but it was downgraded and I don't think she's attempted it in competition again.I heard she was working on 3t-3t as well but haven't seen it in competition. If she does her 3 jump sequence at the end of the program though, she can get more points.
Where her other skills are so strong, she doesn't really need 6 or 7 triples (unless she's trying to medal, which I think is a real long shot at olys) to be competitive, especially at nats. She does need at LEAST 4 though, if she wants to be above 10th at the Olympics/worlds if she goes. Alissa with 5 clean triples would probably score around a 115 internatinally which would get her to 175-180 if she does a good short. That's a good score. If she can just figure out a way to make that happen, she's fine. She should just tweak around her jump order and which one she does so that she can try and make this happen, which I think she really can, 5 jumps is a lot less than 7!
But she needs to FULLY ROTATE the triples she does attempt, and that seems to be nearly impossible for her. She has received at least 3 UR calls in every FS this season. She's still scored OK, though not great, but since she's never been able to reach (let alone top) 110 points in her FS, her placements will continue to be limited.
She has not been able to fully rotate ANY of the 3 loops she has attempted, and I have to question why she is relying on this jump. It seems to me like an exercise in futility.
Her average jump success rate is like 3 triples? I think if she attacked more it wouldn't be any worse than that. I think the most times she's ever fallen in a freeskate in 3. And she should skate to win at nats if she wants to go to the Olympics! She said she wants to medal at the Olympics, she must attack! Oh Alissa, maybe she should take up kickboxing to work on her attack
This is gonna be her year this year, I feel it in my bones. 6 clean triple freeskate at nationals and then again at the Olympics getting her 5th place.
If this happens I'm going to be SO EXCITED
I feel like last year was her year, and someone else will show up this time (Wagner? Flatt?). I think a back-to-back win by Czisny would be unprecedented considering a) her competitive history and b) the fact that no lady has successfully defended her first US title in 25 years. Of course, if she does exactly what you list above, that'll be cool with me too
Or the pressure could get to everyone and "the last person standing" or "the best of the worst" will win. I do hope that everyone gives it what they've got though- and saves their best for the Olys of course :yes:
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- Nov 12, 2009
I wonder about the loop too. But here's what I was thinking, there are 5 different triples: lutz, flip, loop, sal, toe. Alissa doesn't do sal, so that leaves four. She struggles with the flip, Julie talks to her about it after almost every skate of hers, "Oh I hope they give you the flip!", so it's too risky to attempt two of them. She already attempts two triple lutzes. She only attempts one triple toe in the program which I don't get, because if she did two 3toes, then she'd only have to do one 3loop and could still fit in 6 triples. I don't know why she does not replace the second 3loop that's supposed to be in combination with a 3toe, because then she wouldn't lose points for the whole combination and could probably land it.
The only rationale I could think of not doing two 3toes and one 3loop would be if Alissa plans to tack a triple toe on the back end of a combination somewhere and use up her second triple toe that is allowed. But for her I don't think a triple-triple is what she needs, it's just bound to get UR. If she could just land 5 rotated triples she'd probably get a 110 or 115.
Also, I heard that she left her coach Theresa McKendry last season. Theresa was a very technical coach and now she's down to Julie as her main coach who has been her coach forever. I'm wondering if she isn't suffering from the same construct-your-own lesson dilemma that seems to be giving Mao and Caroline trouble. Just a thought.
I think Alissa should get a new coach who makes her do tons of triple loops every day so she can fix the issue. Apparently that's what Rachael Flatt does, she attempts a set number of each jump every day and does them all in a row, that way if you're having a bad lutz day, you can't get away with doing flips instead but rather have to attack the problem!
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- Nov 12, 2009
Yeah...I wonder how long she's planning to stick around for. If she doesn't make the Oly team this year does anyone think she'd wait around for 2014 when she's 26?
I'd also like to see Alissa break out of her comfort zone music wise, I feel like she always skates to slow/mellow classical music. I'd love to see her do a jazzy program to something like Chicago like Alena is doing this season or try out something more dramatic (like Mao, but not that depressing). She is a great performer and i'm sure a change in program would be a pleasant surprise to her fans. Her Zorro SP is a little different, and she definitely pulls off the flirty spanish thing well, but the music still sounds pretty similar to her usual. She's a 22 year old lady now, no time to be shy! She should embrace her maturity like Joannie's done a put out programs that stand apart from the likes of Nagasu and Flatt
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- Nov 22, 2009
Uh, no...doing "tons" of triple loops sounds like a good way to destroy your hip even more quickly. The triple loop is absolutely vile in that regard. Alissa may need a new main technical coach, but I've found from personal experience and from observation of others that over-fixation and over-repetition on any one jump per session isn't necessarily as useful at "fixing" the problem as you might suppose. Sometimes the more you do, the worse they get, which can be a mental fatigue problem as well as a physical one. There's a balance to be struck between too few and too many. I'm not convinced Alissa's issue is one of doing too few.
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- Nov 12, 2009
nevermind then, that does not sound good. We don't want Alissa getting hip replacements before the age of 30! I know her coach Theresa used to make her do double run throughs of her program a lot and had competition day once a week where she would perform in costume to an audience, seemed like a good idea to help with the nerves and stamina.
I don't know what she does now that Julie is her only main coach. Alissa has so many people listed as her coach now though, I'm not entirely sure how the whole situation works. Idk if she works with all those people year round or just for a few weeks of the year
At any rate, I look forward to seeing a program with a clean flip and loop at nationals from her! With those two jumps clean I kind of doubt she'll be below second
The pressure of the Reigning Champ and the Olympics will be on her.
Last year she shared the pressure of Olympic spots with Flatt. She was done after the short.
_________
WARNING: NOT MY ACTUAL PREDICTION, PER SE, BUT MY TAKE on what could happen if the Oly team was able to be predicted on pre-Oly season competitive history ALONE (i.e. this year's GP results DON'T COUNT)
YMMV
Logically, Czisny would be done after this year's short, too. Going purely by competitive history indicates that: a) Flatt will be on the team (she did well at Worlds, Nats the past two years) and b) she will be joined by either Nagasu or Zhang (Nagasu as a former national champ, consistent performer, good mental toughness; Zhang as a high-place finisher internationally. More likely of the two: Nagasu, based on Zhang's tendency to struggle at Nationals). The former was going through injury in the 2009 season so that's taken into account. Wagner would likely fall short due to her inconsistency (more so than Zhang), and Czisny will succumb to the pressure and take herself out of the running.
So when it's all said and done, we're left with:
Flatt and Nagasu (not necessarily in order!), with Zhang as the alternate
(On any given night, the places of Zhang and Nagasu could be switched!)
_____________
Will it go like that, though? Don't think so but I don't know, really. Throwing out this year's GP results basically counts Wagner out (her 2008 results weren't much to write home about), as well as Czisny (yes, she did win Nationals but without any significant pressure. When it was put on her at Worlds, she crumbled). Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if any others will come out of the woodwork to challenge Those Five. Perhaps in the SP (like last year), but the FS will right the ship again.
Last year she shared the pressure of Olympic spots with Flatt. She was done after the short.
_________
WARNING: NOT MY ACTUAL PREDICTION, PER SE, BUT MY TAKE on what could happen if the Oly team was able to be predicted on pre-Oly season competitive history ALONE (i.e. this year's GP results DON'T COUNT)
YMMV
Logically, Czisny would be done after this year's short, too. Going purely by competitive history indicates that: a) Flatt will be on the team (she did well at Worlds, Nats the past two years) and b) she will be joined by either Nagasu or Zhang (Nagasu as a former national champ, consistent performer, good mental toughness; Zhang as a high-place finisher internationally. More likely of the two: Nagasu, based on Zhang's tendency to struggle at Nationals). The former was going through injury in the 2009 season so that's taken into account. Wagner would likely fall short due to her inconsistency (more so than Zhang), and Czisny will succumb to the pressure and take herself out of the running.
So when it's all said and done, we're left with:
Flatt and Nagasu (not necessarily in order!), with Zhang as the alternate
(On any given night, the places of Zhang and Nagasu could be switched!)
_____________
Will it go like that, though? Don't think so but I don't know, really. Throwing out this year's GP results basically counts Wagner out (her 2008 results weren't much to write home about), as well as Czisny (yes, she did win Nationals but without any significant pressure. When it was put on her at Worlds, she crumbled). Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if any others will come out of the woodwork to challenge Those Five. Perhaps in the SP (like last year), but the FS will right the ship again.
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^^You're right; at the end of last season, Wagner was far from a top contender for the Olympic spots. Her disastrous short at Nats and mediocre showings at Jr Worlds (which she could have won easily had she skated even close to clean) made her known as an inconsistent competitor (though that reputation haunts her sinds Worlds 2008). I'm glad she build up a case for herself this GP, but it still comes down to Nats. Personally, I would love for the team to be Ashley and Alissa; Ashley because she has the complete package, and if she proves herself yet again at Nats, she really is Olympics-ready; Alissa because she's gorgeous and this will be her last chance. But it would take a completely bombing Flatt for that to happen; and we're all expecting Flatt to be consistent as ever. Though what if she bombed the most important competition of her life, 2010 Nats... It could happen (but I agree it's not likely).. Pressure could get to *her*; have we really seen her deal with big pressure? Alissa's disastrous short at Worlds kind of took the pressure away because no-one was expecting her to win or medal to save the day...
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- Nov 12, 2009
Very insightful analysis. Things have changed this year though, and though Alissa won nationals last year, I'm not sure if it was deserved or not. She got a 112 for the calliber of FS that would have gotten her a 100 internationally (which is what she has been getting internationally for her FS for the past two years or so).
Zhang and Nagasu BOTH had injuries last year, but while Mirai's seems to be better this year, Zhang's might still be an issue and the reason of her struggles.
Ashley also made the GPF this year and did well there, even though she was outscored by both Rachael and Alissa.
Alissa seems to have mastered the SP this season and only falters in the long. At high pressure events though (both worlds) she tends to falter in the short too. Worlds last year she didn't even have a lot of pressure, no one expected her to medal, but she must have been nervous being at such a big competition and messed up anyways.
In terms of scoring potential, Alissa has the highest scoring potential for the short, as she has gotten a 63+ internationally. However, this could easily be much lower if she messes up the short, which very well might happen at nats and/or Olympics.
Nagasu and Flatt are tied in second for the best short score. Nagasu got a 62+ at China but edge calls, !, and potential UR could cause her scores to drop lower. Rachael normally earns just about an even 60 points, with a couple point margin depending on if she hits the triple-triple or not.
Ashley and Caroline seem to get around 55 points for their shorts due to edge calls, UR, and negative GOEs.
For the long program, Rachael has the highest scoring potential, as she has gotten more than 110 points for her FS multiple times in international competition.
Ashley comes in second for scoring potential because she often gets FS scores over 100 that are near 110.
Alissa and Mirai both normally score FS that get right around 100 points.
Zhang is unpredictable because she could get over 100 or under 100 depending on the day.
So if you look at it this way:
Short:
1.) Alissa
2.) Rachael/Mirai
3.) Ashley/Caroline
Long: (multiply these numbers by 2 b/c it is worth about twice as much as the short)
1.) Rachael
2.) Ashley
3.) Alissa/Mirai/Caroline
Rachael: 2+(2x1)=4
Ashley: 3+(2x2)=7
Alissa: 1+(2x3)=7
Mirai: 2+(2x3)=8
Caroline: 3+(2x3)=9
The math suggests that Rachael has the best shot of making the team, followed by Ashley and Alissa, followed by Mirai, followed by Caroline.
I actually think this makes a lot of sense, and that at this point, Rachael will go and the second spot will either go to Ashley or Alissa, with an outside shot at Mirai or Caroline taking that spot. The thing is, with the exception of Rachael, the scores and performances of the other skaters are unpredictable. Caroline was consistent until this season but now she's as much of a mystery as the others
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