US Pairs 2012-13 news & updates

[Ziggy]

I really hope that they can get consistent on their jumps this season. Their lines and their presentation in general are really stunning and they stand out from the crowd (plus, he's ).

[Cloudy_Gumdrops]

Me too!! I'm so excited to see their new sp to Lady Caliph.

OMG, I can't wait to see this. Lady Caliph is gorgeous music and should really suit their stunning qualities.

I hope her jumps have improved.

I honestly believe that aside from the sbs jumps, Donlan & Speroff are the finest American pair, by far.

[carriemarie]

Liberty: Zhang/Bartholomay very strong in winning short- big 3 twist, 3 toes (she step out), and huge 3 lutz throw. Better transitions and speed and are relating well to each other in program. 49. score seemed low although it was 9 points ahead of closest team

[olympic]

Liberty: Zhang/Bartholomay very strong in winning short- big 3 twist, 3 toes (she step out), and huge 3 lutz throw. Better transitions and speed and are relating well to each other in program. 49. score seemed low although it was 9 points ahead of closest team

Sounds great for them! I'm also happy that she was able to do triples

Also surprised that this program would only get 49 pts. nationally. Maybe she had a severe UR or something on the SBS 3toe?

[Jenna]

It could just be chalked up to low levels. This is pretty common in the early part of the season with all the rule changes.

[Subway]

OMG, I can't wait to see this. Lady Caliph is gorgeous music and should really suit their stunning qualities.

I hope her jumps have improved.

I honestly believe that aside from the sbs jumps, Donlan & Speroff are the finest American pair, by far.

Came into this thread landing on just your post and one above and thought you had to be talking about Donlan & Speroff. I hope her sbs jumps improve too; I so want them to break out. They're a gorgeous team, just need to back and fill in some areas. Others are already brilliant. I don't worry about element security with them so much as injury. Injuries to both held them back.

Yanakowskas and Reagan look very sexy together with really nice natural grace. At this stage they seem slow and he seems tentative, but solid in what he does do, if that makes sense.

[carriemarie]

Liberty Senior Longs:

Zhang/Bartholomay: 3 twist, 3 toes, 2 axel- 2 axel series, 3 sal throw, 3 lutz throw, nice carry lift at end of program- solid elements with improved speed, a clean long program in July. Impressive.

Kemp/King: 3 twist messy, nice lifts, 3 loop throw, 3 flip throw step out, not much for jumps but a good program for them.

Duarte/Grafton: 3 toe-2 toe not bad but he doesn't do 2 toe, 2 twist, miss both throws, second jump pass and a lift comes down...ouch.

[Rochelle]

Skater groups are posted for Skate Detroit (next weekend), and a relatively solid turn out for the pairs:
http://evt.sk8stuff.com/lister_event_detail.asp?id=4475

Yankowskas/Reagan are listed for both Senior SP & FS -- their competitive debut. Is this the competitive debut for Baga & Toth as well? I noticed Kiri is also entered in the Senior ladies events.

Senior Pairs entered (All 7 teams entered in SP & FS):
Baga & Toth **
Denney & Frazier
Moore-Towers & Moscovitch -- CAN **
Purdy & Marianaro -- CAN **
Scimeca & Knierim
Steele & Schultz -- CAN **
Yankowskas/Reagan

Junior Pairs entered (All 11 teams entered in SP & FS):
Aaron & Settlage
Bell & Sylvester -- CAN
Calalang & Sidhu
Conway & Sherriff-Clayton -- CAN **
Jones & Beharry -- CAN **
Liu & Perini
Oltmanns & Santillan **
Orr & Furiano -- CAN **
Rau & Simpson -- CAN **
Simpson & Blackmer
Zaitsev & Stevens **

**= entered in Indy Challenge the following weekend (Aug. 3-5)

[stjeaskategym]

Baga and Toth are competing already? I feel like they just formed! Hopefully Baga has been able to get a solid pairs foundation. I hope and pray that Donlan/Speroff can somehow jump. Such a beautiful pair, with only one real area of weakness. Such a shame. And do we know why Denney/Coughlin didn't attend the Evening on Ice exhibition? Just trying to get fully caught up on the American pairs scene.

There's nothing wrong with working on elements that make you more competitive. I just don't see many teams attempting throw jumps that hard, that late in a program, and have regular success with the element. I don't want to see this element turned into a Hail Mary,especially when the team hasn't proved it's a no-brainer element for them.

There's only so much you can do earlier in the program, and you need to try to get as many elements in the bonus as you can. Last year, Marley/Brubaker had the 3 sal throw late in the program and didn't land it all that cleanly, so they may not be sacrificing any cleanliness by putting the throw 3 lutz/flip later instead. They haven't shown a real tendency to land one throw (cleanly) more often than the other in competition. So you might as well put the harder one later, especially since your main American competition always puts their harder throw second, too. And if M/B are really working on a throw 3A, that would certainly replace the first throw if it was ever ok enough to compete.

I still think they have limited chemistry, but I think the softness of the program can help mask some of that. I find the program pleasant. Marley has the same random little knee bends that detract from her lines, and the lifts aren't all that great, but I think they're an improvement over last year's and hopefully they'll look better later on. I think it's a lot to expect a lot of transitions from them. For example, judging by the double twist they did, it's clear the triple twist still isn't second nature for them, so a transition beforehand may make it substantially harder to get the clean catch they're trying to get.

[jdonavan]

Baga and Toth are competing already? I feel like they just formed! Hopefully Baga has been able to get a solid pairs foundation. I hope and pray that Donlan/Speroff can somehow jump. Such a beautiful pair, with only one real area of weakness. Such a shame. And do we know why Denney/Coughlin didn't attend the Evening on Ice exhibition? Just trying to get fully caught up on the American pairs scene.



There's only so much you can do earlier in the program, and you need to try to get as many elements in the bonus as you can. Last year, Marley/Brubaker had the 3 sal throw late in the program and didn't land it all that cleanly, so they may not be sacrificing any cleanliness by putting the throw 3 lutz/flip later instead. They haven't shown a real tendency to land one throw (cleanly) more often than the other in competition. So you might as well put the harder one later, especially since your main American competition always puts their harder throw second, too. And if M/B are really working on a throw 3A, that would certainly replace the first throw if it was ever ok enough to compete.

I still think they have limited chemistry, but I think the softness of the program can help mask some of that. I find the program pleasant. Marley has the same random little knee bends that detract from her lines, and the lifts aren't all that great, but I think they're an improvement over last year's and hopefully they'll look better later on. I think it's a lot to expect a lot of transitions from them. For example, judging by the double twist they did, it's clear the triple twist still isn't second nature for them, so a transition beforehand may make it substantially harder to get the clean catch they're trying to get.

I would bet the farm that there will be a number of withdrawals at this competition namely Baga/Toth and Caitlin/Josh.

[icelover]

Hi Rochelle,

Do you have the list of novice pairs as well?

[hippychick]

IIRC Donlan and Speroff were one of the few pair teams who had both of their throws in the second half of their program last year at Nationals and were successful. While they don't do a throw flip or lutz the throws they do are huge and garner them a lot of points. Was looking forward to hearing reports on their progress at Liberty, too bad they withdrew. They seemed to have kept a pretty low profile the last couple of months, at least I have not heard that much about them.

I hope that the new teams Baga/Toth and Leng/De Luc are willing to take the time to really develope their pair skills and are not banking on strong single skills alone. In most cases it takes several seasons for the unison etc. to develop.

As for Yankowskas and Reagan, anxious to see what they can do.

[sammyf]

Skate Detroit Novice pairs

Elizabeth Egbers/Jacob Simon
Sophia Dai/Jeffrey Fishman
Lianna Thomas/David Botero
Annabelle & Joel Schneider-Farris
Elizabeth Swenor/Rocky Swenor CAN

[Rochelle]

I would bet the farm that there will be a number of withdrawals at this competition namely Baga/Toth and Caitlin/Josh.

Steele/Schultz (Sr - CAN) & Conway/Sherriff-Clayton (Jr - CAN) have both withdrawn from Indy Challenge, so it'll be interesting to see if they appear at Skate Detroit. Therefore, I imagine that they will be two of the withdrawing teams from Skate Detroit.

[Rochelle]

I hope that the new teams Baga/Toth and Leng/De Luc are willing to take the time to really develope their pair skills and are not banking on strong single skills alone. In most cases it takes several seasons for the unison etc. to develop.

As for Yankowskas and Reagan, anxious to see what they can do.

Amen. Not only for these two teams, but for ALL of the new / nearly new teams -- regardless of whether the new teams are composed of experienced pairs skaters, or those new to pairs.

[icelover]

Thanks for the novice list, Sammy!

[jdonavan]

IIRC Donlan and Speroff were one of the few pair teams who had both of their throws in the second half of their program last year at Nationals and were successful.

While they don't do a throw flip or lutz the throws they do are huge and garner them a lot of points. Was looking forward to hearing reports on their progress at Liberty, too bad they withdrew. They seemed to have kept a pretty low profile the last couple of months, at least I have not heard that much about them.

I hope that the new teams Baga/Toth and Leng/De Luc are willing to take the time to really develope their pair skills and are not banking on strong single skills alone. In most cases it takes several seasons for the unison etc. to develop.

As for Yankowskas and Reagan, anxious to see what they can do.

This is true. Zhang/Bartholomay also had 2 throws in second half last year and according to reports from Liberty, they have hit them again solid. I see this team building a fan base very quickly with their consistency.

Remember ISU needs a certain amount of points from the technical side to qualify for Worlds, 4CC etc. I would caution too much hope in the Donolan/Speroff jump situation, but they are a lovely couple, I just remember their Summer/Fall competitions from last year.

[hippychick]

If Takahashi and Tran can garner enough technical points for Four Continents and Worlds with their jump issues I don't see that Donlan and Speroff would have an issue meeting a miinimum score. They certainly need lots of work on their jumps, but they gain plenty of technical points in other areas. They may just be one of these teams who build throughout each season. There were several teams last season who started out these season strong but did not finish that way.

[olympic]

Icenetwork article on Zhang / Bartholomay -

http://web.icenetwork.com/news/artic...&vkey=ice_news

snip (details about program):

The skaters, who teamed in May 2011 and moved to Ellenton, Fla., to train under Jim Peterson and Lyndon Johnston, also hit a throw triple Salchow and gained Level 4 on all three of their lifts as well as their pairs combination spin. Their only mistake was a slight collision on the landing of their opening triple twist, and they earned 100.95 points.

For the Indy Pairs Challenge in early August, the team plans to upgrade its throw triple Salchow to a loop.

I applaud their ambition and drive!

Oh, and he's all different levels of hot

Here's a 7/20 article from Icenetwork just after the SP. It talks about wanting to do a 3t-3t seq.

The team plans a side-by-side sequence of two triple toes as well as double Axels in its free skate to West Side Story, and Peterson said they are also focused on improving their line and unison.

It apparently didn't happen at Liberty, but maybe this will happen later in the season

[feraina]

Very impressive from Zhang/Bartholomay!