2012-13 Grand Prix Pre-announcement Thread

[Zemgirl]

There are no restrictions for the host picks, at least in the announcement. Several times in the past decade, there have been fields at NHK that didn't reflect the "one from 1-3, one from 4-6, etc." selection process. I think Japan can pick both Takahashi and Hanyu for NHK; if neither Chan nor Takahashi nor Hanyu chooses to do three events, another event would likely get two from the 4-6 (Joubert, Amodio, Brezina).

I don't think this is true, and I can't recall it happening, at least not in the recent past - if there were no 1-3 or 4-6 skaters at an event, it was likely because of retirements/injuries, but the original assignment would have included one seeded skater from each group. E.g. for NHK - 2007 you had Takahashi from the previous Worlds' medalists and Verner from 4-6 guys; 2008 had Johnny Weir (3), Takahashi (4) would have been the other seeded skater but tore his ACL; 2009 had Joubert from the 1-3 group and Kozuka as the 4-6 skater, 2010, Takahashi and Abbott; 2011 was an easy selection, because one group had Kozuka and the other included Takahashi.

Now that the seeded skaters can get three events, it is possible to have more than two seeded skaters, but I believe every event is still supposed to have at least one medalist and one 4-6 finisher.

[kwanfan1818]

I wished they would be explicit in their own documentation, but that is too much to hope for. NHK has had exceptions, but never to have two 1-3 or two 4-6 skaters from Japan.

From 2003-2011, there were two skaters/teams in either the 1-3 or 4-6 groups from a single country -- all of them host countries -- but none were assigned to the host event the following GP season:

2003:
Ladies: Cohen and S. Hughes (4-6)
Pairs: Totmianina/Marinin and Petrova/Tikhonov (1-3); Pang/Tong and Zhang/Zhang (4-6)

2004:
Men: Weiss and Weir (4-6)
Ladies: Cohen and Kwan (1-3)
Pairs: Shen/Zhao and Pang/Tong (1-3)

2005:
Pairs: Totmianina/Marinin and Petrova/Tikhonov (1-3)

2006:
Men: Sandhu and Buttle (4-6)
Ladies: Meissner and Cohen (1-3)
Pairs: Pang/Tong and Zhang/Zhang (1-3)

2007:
Ladies: Ando and Asada (1-3)
Pairs: Shen/Zhao and Pang/Tong (1-3)

2008:
Dance: Belbin/Agosto and Davis/White (4-6)

2009:
None

2010:
Men: Abbott and Rippon (4-6)

2011:
Men: Takahashi and Oda (4-6)
Pairs: Kavaguti/Smirnov and Bazarova/Larianov (4-6)
Dance: Davis/White and Shibutani/Shibutani (1-3)

2012:
Men: Takahashi and Hanyu (1-3); Joubert and Amodio (4-6)

In the case of retirements, last season's announcement said if there are fewer than six seeds, they would not be replaced. If there are vacancies for 7-12, they look for skaters/teams with SB better than the lowest SB among the 7-12 skaters/teams, and slot them in, and if there aren't any, they go to #13 at Worlds. That's a change from two seasons ago, where they replaced a missing seed with a skater/team that had a higher SB than the lowest of the SB among the top 1-6 skaters.

[NMURA]

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20...000520-yom-spo

She says "I will make entries to next season's GPs" but "may cancell if I couldn't have enough motivations."

I don't know how to read this. Maybe Morozov is willing to "come back" but Ando herself is still undecided.

[love_skate2011]

I am expecting Miki to come back !

I'd take her over Murakami, and with Mao not doing well
she could still be Japanese lady No.1 if she comes back next season

[Jeschke]

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20...000520-yom-spo

She says "I will make entries to next season's GPs" but "may cancell if I couldn't have enough motivations."

I don't know how to read this. Maybe Morozov is willing to "come back" but Ando herself is still undecided.

would be so , if she comes back.

but as we read in morozovs interview, the chapter ando has closed. i cannot imagine him being her coach after they split up as a couple. i thought she may could go back to nobu sato, but with asada there, unlikely. let´s wait and see...
lang way until autumn, but crossing fingers.

[jlai]

If she does enter herself in the gp, that will mean even fewer spots for the other ladies. I'm curious how ISu will handle that, considering they are the ones who reduce the number of competitors in each GP to ten.

[Jeschke]

If she does enter herself in the gp, that will mean even fewer spots for the other ladies.

sounds a little bit reprouchful.
as a two time world champ and 5-times top6-finisher, she has the right, imo.

it would be a thousand times better to see ando (even not at her best) than given the spots to hecken, meite or helgesson 1 or 2

don´t misunderstand me, i don´t like the 10 spots at gp , i would prefer 12 again and i lwould like to see those skaters (between 10-20 at worlds), but ando is so much more worth to see.

[DORISPULASKI]

I would like to see 12 spots again, too.

[barbk]

I am expecting Miki to come back !

I'd take her over Murakami, and with Mao not doing well
she could still be Japanese lady No.1 if she comes back next season

I'm expecting Mao to do a lot better once she has some real time to mourn her mother. What an incredibly tough season this has been for her.

[aemeraldrainc]

would be so , if she comes back.

but as we read in morozovs interview, the chapter ando has closed. i cannot imagine him being her coach after they split up as a couple. i thought she may could go back to nobu sato, but with asada there, unlikely. let´s wait and see...
lang way until autumn, but crossing fingers.

Forgive my ignorance, but what Morozov interview are you referring to? What thread is it posted in?

[Jeschke]

this one

http://eg.ru/daily/sports/31120/

was posted in the from russia with love 2 - thread, just before it was closed and we moved on the the off-season-thread.
was an interview about his personal life, life as an athlete and coach.

question was about miki; i´ll copy from my earlier posts there what he said:

he was going to marry her, but things turned out to be differenz now. she is in japan with ehr mother and he thinks, she will never come back to compete.
the chapter ando is closed for him, andos mother is against the relationship, he didn´t want to give any details.

[Sylvia]

ISU Season Best Total scores have been updated through World Team Trophy (Men, Ladies, Pairs, Dance) - New SB scores for:

1 Daisuke Takahashi JPN
18 Adam Rippon USA
21 Kevin Reynolds CAN
56 Paolo Bacchini ITA

4 Akiko Suzuki JPN
29 Valentina Marchei ITA

6 Anna Cappellini/Luca LaNotte ITA

[npavel]

In the list on the first page, Contesti is listed two times, one in the garanted 2 spots as top 12 at worlds and one at season best top 24, so you can drop him the second time, making the spot free for someone else

[euterpe]

this one

http://eg.ru/daily/sports/31120/

was posted in the from russia with love 2 - thread, just before it was closed and we moved on the the off-season-thread.
was an interview about his personal life, life as an athlete and coach.

question was about miki; i´ll copy from my earlier posts there what he said:

he was going to marry her, but things turned out to be differenz now. she is in japan with ehr mother and he thinks, she will never come back to compete.
the chapter ando is closed for him, andos mother is against the relationship, he didn´t want to give any details.

Not surprised AT ALL that Ando's mom was against the relationship!

[smarts1]

WHAT? THAT RELATIONSHIP WAS REAL?

[Sylvia]

Konstantin Menshov picked up 250 points for his win at Gardena Spring Trophy which should move him into the top 24 in the ISU World Standings after the forthcoming update, thereby guaranteeing him 1 Grand Prix invitation under the current selection rules.

UNOFFICIAL PROJECTED ISU WORLD STANDINGS
1 Patrick Chan CAN 4080
2 Daisuke Takahashi JPN 3476
3 Yuzuru Hanyu JPN 3088
4 Michal Brezina CZE 2751
5 Jeremy Abbott USA 2679
6 Artur Gachinski RUS 2625
7 Takahiko Kozuka JPN 2592
8 Samuel Contesti ITA 2435
9 Javier Fernandez ESP 2331
10 Florent Amodio FRA 2219
11 Adam Rippon USA 2013
12 Tomas Verner CZE 1936
13 Kevin Van Der Perren BEL 1893 (reportedly retiring)
14 Brian Joubert FRA 1859
15 Alexander Majorov SWE 1851
16 Denis Ten KAZ 1850
17 Nobunari Oda JPN 1825
18 Ross Miner USA 1682
19 Han Yan CHN 1667
20 Richard Dornbush USA 1547
21 Konstantin Menshov RUS 1237 1507
22 Takahito Mura JPN 1465
23 Jason Brown USA 1452
24 Tatsuki Machida JPN 1442

25 Nan Song CHN 1408
26 Joshua Farris USA 1317
27 Jorik Hendrickx BEL 1275
28 Keiji Tanaka JPN 1259
29 Abzal Rakimgaliev KAZ 1234
30 Kevin Reynolds CAN 1229
31 Peter Liebers GER 1205
32 Daisuke Murakami JPN 1192
33 Andrei Rogozine CAN 1173

ETA: Yuki Nishino picked up 225 points for her silver medal at Gardena Spring Trophy but it doesn't look like it will be enough to move her into the top 24 after the update (maybe around #28?).

UNOFFICIAL PROJECTED ISU WORLD STANDINGS (corrections welcomed)
(1-24 on page 1 of this thread)
25 Cynthia Phaneuf CAN 1371
26 Caroline Zhang USA 1315
27 Sonia Lafuente ESP 1161
28 Yuki Nishino JPN 1141
29 Polina Korobeynikova RUS 1121
30 Risa Shoji JPN 1101
31 Julia Lipnitskaia RUS 1100
32 Christina Gao USA 1098
33 Kexin Zhang CHN 1072
34 Yrethe Silete FRA 1063
35 Rachael Flatt USA 1011

[skatak]

I think there's a draw to decide the order of the federations. Skaters. Most of the time, the federations try to go with the athletes' choices (ie an European skater training in the US who would rather go to SA).

For Joubert, his rink is closing down soon this year (16th May for the public, later for the skating club) so he's going to have to find an alternative.

Actually it's May 6th, meaning this week-end was the last time I could skate there before they take it down . Hoping they'll manage to keep the same smell !

For Brian, he said sometimes during the season, and this was backed up by Didier, that he may have to chose which event to skate in as he is not getting younger. So maybe he'll just skip part of the GP season ?
But he also said in the past that he needs competition to compete well, and he still has not won CoC.
And French Masters are usually early September / October.

[Ziggy]

WHAT? THAT RELATIONSHIP WAS REAL?

Morozov shagging his skaters. Shocking.

[Jeschke]

Morozov shagging his skaters. Shocking.

[aemeraldrainc]

this one

http://eg.ru/daily/sports/31120/

was posted in the from russia with love 2 - thread, just before it was closed and we moved on the the off-season-thread.
was an interview about his personal life, life as an athlete and coach.

question was about miki; i´ll copy from my earlier posts there what he said:

he was going to marry her, but things turned out to be differenz now. she is in japan with ehr mother and he thinks, she will never come back to compete.
the chapter ando is closed for him, andos mother is against the relationship, he didn´t want to give any details.

Oh ok. I missed it the first time it was posted so thanks!