Canadian Pairs 2012

[flowerpower]

Meagan and Eric were beaten by S/S, V/T, T/T and P/T. No surprise about S/S, V/T, and P/T. T/T did surprisingly well, but on a different day K/S and B/L could have performed better than they did. Bottom line - fifth was an excellent result for Meagan and Eric. Could MT-M have achieved eighth place? Maybe, but no guarantees. So to say that the two teams together would have earned three places for Canada in pairs at the next WCh is by no means certain.

[julieann]

Meagan and Eric were beaten by S/S, V/T, T/T and P/T. No surprise about S/S, V/T, and P/T. T/T did surprisingly well, but on a different day K/S and B/L could have performed better than they did. Bottom line - fifth was an excellent result for Meagan and Eric. Could MT-M have achieved eighth place? Maybe, but no guarantees. So to say that the two teams together would have earned three places for Canada in pairs at the next WCh is by no means certain.

I agree. D/R had trouble with jumps and K/S and B/L had a horrible competition and the scores were so close there really could have been a shake up anywhere. I think MT/M would have been somewhere around D/C.

[kwanfan1818]

I think MT/M would have been somewhere around D/C.

Somewhere around Denney/Coughlin was 8th, which with Duhamel/Radford's 5th would have meant three spots.

[flowerpower]

Somewhere around Denney/Coughlin was 8th, which with Duhamel/Radford's 5th would have meant three spots.

If they beat D/C (rather than D/C beating them). Plus 5th was pretty much best-case for D/R...they could have been slightly lower.

[kwanfan1818]

If they beat D/C (rather than D/C beating them). Plus 5th was pretty much best-case for D/R...they could have been slightly lower.

D/R could have been a lot lower had they had a similar SP to theirs at 4C's, where they didn't look like a top 10 team at Euros, let alone Worlds. However, the national team was decided before 4C's, except for Ladies.

I hadn't thought of the possibility of SC sending M-T/M to Worlds until this thread. (Perhaps if they had been a close third, but not skipping over both D/W and L/S.) However, if I had and were looking at the odds of getting three spots, I would have bet my v-cash on M-T/M having a much greater potential upside based on their technical content and experience.

I was responding to the suggestion that M-T/M could "only" do as well as D/C, who, numerically, did enough.

[flowerpower]

D/R could have been a lot lower had they had a similar SP to theirs at 4C's, where they didn't look like a top 10 team at Euros, let alone Worlds. However, the national team was decided before 4C's, except for Ladies.

I hadn't thought of the possibility of SC sending M-T/M to Worlds until this thread. (Perhaps if they had been a close third, but not skipping over both D/W and L/S.) However, if I had and were looking at the odds of getting three spots, I would have bet my v-cash on M-T/M having a much greater potential upside based on their technical content and experience.

I was responding to the suggestion that M-T/M could "only" do as well as D/C, who, numerically, did enough.

I agree with various posters that on paper, MT-M had a better past track record than L/S or D/W (implying possible success at Worlds). But after they finished 4th at Nationals (with a disastrous performance) I don't know how it would have been possible to justify sending them to the WCh. You have to deliver when it counts, especially when the field is deep.

[kwanfan1818]

USFS justified choosing Dornbush for first alternate to 4C's, and he had a disastrous Nationals. SC justified not sending Emmanuel Sandhu to Olympics and National Champion Pfaneuf to (senior) Worlds when it suited them.

Again, I wouldn't have expected SC to have skipped over L/S, but they might have had a 4C's face-off between D/W and M/T-M had M/T-M come in a close third, especially with Worlds being in London the following year.

[julieann]

Somewhere around Denney/Coughlin was 8th, which with Duhamel/Radford's 5th would have meant three spots.

Hypothetically their personally best of 177 would have only had them in 10th. They would have had to beat a team they couldn't beat months before also Marley and Brubaker. They also could have finished as low as 13th.

At any rate D/W earned their spot and did pretty well for only their first year. I think they are a much better team than this season reflects.

[flowerpower]

But who to send to 4CC?

D/R were the national champs and very much wanted to go and try to win (see post-nats interviews). Do you deny them?

L/S are a strong team and needed a good score to earn future GP assignments. Do you deny them?

D/W were second at Nats - should they be bypassed?

Sorry, but MT-M did not deliver when it counted. Who would you keep home so that MT-M could have a second chance at qualifying for Worlds?

[kwanfan1818]

Skate Canada agrees with you in this case that performing at Canadian Nationals was the only thing that counted. (They didn't for Ladies.) MT-M are #12 on the SB list, from their score at SA; D/W are 19th, from their score at SC. MT-M's score was 177.43; the highest D/W scored in international competition was 158.44. That's pretty easy math. D/W had three chances to surpass their first score -- TEB, 4C's, Worlds -- and they didn't. M-T/M had a lower score at CoC, but they still broke 170.

I'm not sure how many times I have to post that I think that M-T/M should have been considered only if they were a close third to D/W, in which case it would have been a no-brainer to have a skate-off at 4C's, like they did for Ladies, and for Ladies, SC was willing to punt the reigning national champion, which would not have been the case for Pairs.

Lawrence/Swiegers didn't need a good score at 4C's to earn future GP assignments: they would have been 21st in World Standings even without their 4C's points, and would have been guaranteed a spot. ETA: They also would have been Top 24 SB with their score from SC.

[flowerpower]

I'm not sure how many times I have to post that I think that M-T/M should have been considered only if they were a close third to D/W, in which case it would have been a no-brainer to have a skate-off at 4C's, like they did for Ladies, and for Ladies, SC was willing to punt the reigning national champion, which would not have been the case for Pairs.

So you agree that MT-M should not have been considered for Worlds, since they were not a close third to D/W at Nats. And furthermore, it is a completely different situation from Ladies. Perhaps we are indeed in agreement.

[shutterbug]

I don’t think Kirsten & Dylan have any issues with who was chosen for the 4CC and World teams. The results from Canadians are almost always used. They know that. Someone tweeted Kirsten a message after Worlds saying that she & Dylan should have been sent instead of D/W. Her reply was that D/W beat them “fair and square”. Nerves really impacted the outcome of the event IMHO. All 3 of the medalists from the previous year were visibly stressed in the warm ups, and it in the end it came down to who managed their nerves the best. Kirsten at just 19 simply didn’t fare as well as the older girls. Even though MT/M are NOT my favorite team, I felt very sorry for her. Poor child genuinely looked like she was going to be ill. But managing nerves is part of the deal and she’ll learn from the experience.

As far as how they would have fared at Worlds, no one can say for sure of course, but based on how strongly they were skating in practice at Canadians, they may very well have finished reasonably close to D/R, possibly in the 7th -8th range. They had solid programs and fairly high tech content with a 3T – 3T sequence, SBS 3S, and complex lifts. But this assumes that they would have kept their nerves in check, and there’s no way to know if that would have happened.

[kwanfan1818]

I don’t think Kirsten & Dylan have any issues with who was chosen for the 4CC and World teams. The results from Canadians are almost always used.

I don't think there was any question about that.

So you agree that MT-M should not have been considered for Worlds, since they were not a close third to D/W at Nats. And furthermore, it is a completely different situation from Ladies. Perhaps we are indeed in agreement.

I agree that given how SC does its team selection, yes. Under the current selection process, the only wuzrobbed scenario would have been at Canadian Nationals themselves, about which I have no opinion.

My favorite Canadian pair is L/S, and what I think should happen might not be in their favor.

I disagree with how SC does its team selection for Worlds. I don't think that one competition should be the lone basis for selection for all spots, if there is more than one. I agree with the USFS in automatically sending the National champion and also that the National champion should get first dibs on 4C's. I agree with USFS in having other, primarily international criteria on the list. I disagree with USFS in rarely using that other criteria, because they could quantify it in various ways.

I think Skate Canada should look at international results, including scores and technical content, to select all but the first spot for Worlds. For 4C's, I think they should use it for the most compelling reason that season: as a skate-off (not including the National champion), to give skaters a chance to reach Top 24 SB/WS if they are not likely to do so, or, this season, perhaps to meet the minimum TES score for Worlds.

While all four top pairs are capable of meeting the two TES minimum scores for Worlds, if in this past year there had been three spots, and the new minimums were in place, L/S, in two chances (Nebelhorn and Skate Canada) did not reach the SP minimum. D/R and M-T/M easily did in their GP's; D/W scored 28.X in both of theirs.

With scores of 25.X and 26.X, L/S would easily have met the new Euro/4C's minimum (20). The question for the scenario is, should they get the contingent 3rd spot, based on whether they could earn the minimum at 4C's, which it turns out they did easily, or should M-T/M get the spot in January, since they met the Worlds requirements by Canadian Nationals? There was a less than a point between D/W earning 28 and not, and the scenario could have applied easily to them for the World #2 spot under the new minimums.

It could take an injury, an unexpectedly bad season, or a difficult sophomore season to have a scenario like this going into London.

I think if the National champion hasn't met the World minimums, which is possible, that SC should sent the skater to at least one Senior B to try to earn it before 4C's.

[flowerpower]

^
If the objective is to build the best Worlds team by considering, in a quantified and systematic way, selection criteria beyond the results of one competition (Nationals), why exempt the skater who happens to win that one competition from the assessment process? One rule for the person/team who wins on that day, and a different rule for everyone else sounds problematic from a fairness perspective, and from the perspective of building the best team.

Your proposals are interesting. How would you suggest the selection criteria be weighted and combined?

[kwanfan1818]

I think that winning the National championship should mean a reward internationally, if that skater meets the age requirements. As much as USFS and SC claim that their national judges' decisions are independent, I don't believe that there isn't some consideration of reputation involved, especially when it comes to PCS, that already skews the results. the only exception would be if there is someone who is injured and is so much stronger, in a way that can be quantified. For example, if Rochette competed in GP in 2013 and had to skip 2014 Nationals for illness or relatively non-serious injury -- i.e., on which would preclude being prepared properly for Olympics/Worlds -- and National champion hasn't gotten within 20 points of her (for example) -- I'm sure there's an algorithm that could assign a single spot based on relative strength.

It doesn't have to be that way, and the National championship could be considered its own reward, but the weighting should be based on an algorithm, not politiks.

As far as weighting, I haven't thought it out completely, but I would start with looking at both the difference in scores at Nationals and at the range of scores in international competition and basing the weighting on how far apart the scores are, especially when recent international scores are a lot higher than Nationals scores. For example, a 3- or a 5-point difference in different international competition -- Skate America vs. Skate Canada -- would be weighted less than a 3- to 5- point difference at the same competition and much less than a 10- or at 15-point difference. On the technical side, I would compare base difficulty to how much under or over base the skater/team earned, and extrapolate the up- and down-sides of the differences in technical content. I'd want to take trends into consideration, and that August-September results are less meaningful than November-December results in terms of program and technical readiness.

On the downside, if the overall data shows a 10% bump at Nationals over international competition, then I'd look at international scores that were more than 10% less.

The issue in weighing international results is that a skater might miss the Fall due to injury or be a comeback or breakout skater without international results. If the only score for a skater is the Nationals score, there's not much to weight, and the answer might be to reduce the score by Nationals "bump" (or increase it, if the Nationals judges/tech panels are much harder/stricter, according to all of the international vs. national score data).

[flowerpower]

If you ever decide to work this out in more detail, it would be very interesting to discuss.

My gut feel, though, is that the fairness of such a system would always be questioned because people would not agree on the weighting factors and the algorithm to be applied. Not sure it would be worth a fed's time and $$ to go down that road. Simple systems, even when they aren't ideal (e.g. go with Nationals results, except in rare situations) often have an intuitive appeal and receive greater support.

[Cant Skate]

The entry list for BC Summer skate is up...not much going on in terms of pairs skating. Only two pre novice teams and new Novice team Digness/Thiessen.

[Sylvia]

The Wirtzes are bringing their teams (Moore-Towers/Moscovitch and Steele/Schultz in Senior; Brittany Jones/Ian Beharry, Mary Orr/Anthony Furiano, and Shalena Rau/Phelan Simpson in Junior) again to Indy Challenge, August 3-5 - link to the event thread in Kiss and Cry: http://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/showthread.php?t=84192
Other Canadian pairs include Lawrence/Swiegers, Purdy/Marinaro, and the junior team of Dylan Conway/Dustin Sherriff-Clayton (N2), who are coached by Monica Lockie and Bryce Davison.

[Daniskates93]

http://flic.kr/s/aHsjANFtgw

Rau/Simpson, Jones/Beharry, Moore-Towers/Moscovitch & Orr/Furiano

[scs]

Thanks for sharing the link to the photos!