The point I was trying to make is that Four Continents is outside the loop in terms of who the USFSA sends to wolrlds. If there are two spots, the first two at Nationals go.
Other federations do it differently (notably France and Russia). They may wait until after Europeans to make their selection, or arrange some other kind of skate-off challenge.
Japan just recently switched over to the U.S. model (that's why Fumie iSuguri is going to worlds and Yukari Nakano isn't.) They formerly had a point system covering all events for the two previous years, but there was a big dust-up in 2006 when the Japanese federation was accused of low-balling Yoshie Onda at Japanese Nationals to make sure that Miki Ando got enough points to make the Olympic team. (Of course, this can happen in any selection process.)
As for sudden injuries, anything can happen, especially if Alissa skates in both Four Continents and the Universiade. But Alissa seems to skate best when she is on the fly from one event to another, and to skate worse when she has a long idle time to brood over it and work her nerves up.
If the suggestion is that Carloine Zhang might skate so well at Four Continents that the USFSA will bribe or pressure Alissa to fake an injury, um, no. What would they offer Alissa? An automatic spot on the Olympic team? Money? What would they threaten her with? That they will only give her 6.25 in choreography at next year's Nationals if she doesn't play ball?
