Norwegian Nationals was this weekend and there were some really interesting results
Senior women:
1. Mia Risa Gomez 169.91
2. Kaia Kleven 140.92
3. Linnea Kilsand 139.32
Junior women:
1. Oda Havgar 127.91
2. Pernille With 120.62
3. Ida Vamnes 111.91
Junior women:
Oda Havgar was able to get the junior title for the third time in a row despite not having competed all season. I´m not sure the reason. She only did 2 triples in the FS and not with great success, one was UR and one got bad GOE. Despite that her lead from the SP and overall performance was enough to take the title again as the other skaters wasn´t clean either.
As I mentioned Pernille With has been out with injury for months and just started to train very recently. I wasn´t even sure she would be at Nationals. She skated with a watered down content. In her SP she only did 2Lz and 3S-2T as combo, but she was clean and scored 40 points. In her FS she had a bad start on the two opening elements and no 2A-3T today. After the bad start she successfully delivered 3 other triples two of them in combos, which was enough for her to take the silver. I think she is pleased with the result considering all the time she had off ice but it´s far from what she can deliver and no lutz and flip which she just started to introduce in her program in JGP. So she had a little set back.
As I mentioned only Pernille and Mia has the minimums for JrWorlds now and Oda doesn´t have any upcoming international competitions. But with the watered down content and coming back from injury I´m not sure it´s a good idea to send Pernille. So i´m really curious what they will do now. It says the selection will be decided after Nordics.
I´m not sure if it´s a coincidence or not, but Mia was supposed to go to Challenge Cup but she is not on the entries there, she also pulled out of Tallinn Hotell Cups. I´m wondering if it might be a sign that they will send her to JWC because the two competitions are close to JWC, but as I mentioned before she does not really fill the selection criteria because she only did one junior competition this season.
Senior women:
First of all, Mia defended her title from last year and the others did not stand a chance after the FS. The fruits of her coaching change to Agnes Zawadski is starting to show.
Her SP: 3F-3T< (fall), 3Lz, 2A, level 4 on spins and stepseq.3. Score: 56.45 points. It´s the first time Mia tried a 3F-3T combo so she is challenging her layout. Even with the fall she scored very decent in the SP. Given that her 3T-3T hasn´t been working this season I actually think it´s a smart decision for her to try for 3F-3T, also I think if she wants to play it safe she could just do a double after the flip because the flip looked great.
Linnea had a great SP with only a fall on the axel and she scored 55.05, so it was really tight after the SP.
Kaia Kleven delivered the cleanest SP but with lighter content, 3S-2T, 3T, 2A and really great performance, her SP is really cool, she scored 51.33 points which also was a new PB for her.
Frida did not have her best SP and scored 44 points and was in 4th.
So after the SP it was very tight between the top 3 and Linnea could even challenge Mia for the title.
Kaia did not have a clean FS, she had a few stumbles, but she got all the elements done and maxed her content with 3 triples in her FS, but they were all around. She only jumps 3S and 3T. Despite that it´s very impressive she was able to score a 140 in total and even with some negative GOE because of stumbles.
It could have been an easy match for Linnea, she started well but then things went sought, she popped some jumps and had some falls, which is the reason she just fell behind Kaia in the result and only took the bronze. Linnea needs to work with e mental coach because this is not the first time.
Mia really smashed her FS with a really difficult layout: 3Lz-2T, 3Lzq (fall), 3F, 3Lo, 3S, 3T-2A, 2A-seq-3S. The only mistake was the fall on the second lutz and her salchow in the last sequence got called but still she got over 7 points for that combination alone, so there were some really smart layout content because the last two combos gave her 9 points and over 7 points each. She got level 4 on all spins, but only a stepseq 2, so she could still improve her points more. She got a TES of 61.85 and even with mistakes. If she is able to to go clean it seems her scoring potential with this layout would be around 65 points.
And her total score of 169.91 is of course both a new PB and a new Norwegian record for ladies, if she didn´t fall on the lutz and went clean in the SP she would have passed 170 points.
Kaia really impressed me and I really hope she gets more international competitions now, she was able beat both Frida and Linnea now. On the Feds webpage it says Kaia is a sub for Nordics but the entries list suggest she is going along with Mia, Linnea and Frida. I really hope she is because she deserves it.
I think the Norwegians can do well in Nordics this year but we will see how they will manage back to back competitions. It´s a shame it´s so close so they might be at disadvantage but we will see. At least it´s in Sweden so not that long travel.
). I was also pleasantly suprised by Gabriel's PCS given the mistakes and him being in the first group.
