U.S. Men 2012-13 news, updates & general discussion

[pinky166]

Does this mean Dornbush will be the first alternate for Worlds? I had heard that Jeremy turned down being an alternate to let his back heal then focus on training his quad, and if Rippon is injured, does that mean Dornbush is next in line or Farris? I thought the point of putting Rippon ahead on the Worlds alt list was due to Farris' assignment to JW close to Worlds, so I wonder if this means the order changes now that Rippon is injured. Anyways, good luck to Ricky! Nice chance for him to improve his SB. Too bad for Rippon though, hope he has a speedy recovery! I do wonder though what this means in terms of GP assignments for next season though, there's a chance Rippon's current SB will fall out of the top 25 by the end of the season, in which case he'd still get a GP guarantee from his top 25 WS, but it might be tough to get a 2nd unless it's in the form of a SA host pick. I guess if he were to get assigned to WTT assuming he's healed by then, that would give him another chance to get a new SB.

[Sylvia]

Does this mean Dornbush will be the first alternate for Worlds? I had heard that Jeremy turned down being an alternate to let his back heal then focus on training his quad,

Original list of men's alternates for 2013 Worlds:

Alternate 1 - Jeremy Abbott
Alternate 2 - Adam Rippon
Alternate 3 - Joshua Farris

Abbott reportedly declined 4CC and is still 1st alternate to Worlds, AFAIK. I believe any changes to the alternate list would have to be voted on by USFS' International Committee.

[LilJen]

Tatjana Flade just tweeted: "Adam Rippon (USA) withdrawn from 4Conts due to injury. :-( Replacement Richard Dornbush."

of seeing his fun Incredibles program. Hope it's nothing major.

[kwanette]

of seeing his fun Incredibles program. Hope it's nothing major.

Sending good thoughts to Adam.

[Frau Muller]

Tatjana Flade just tweeted: "Adam Rippon (USA) withdrawn from 4Conts due to injury. :-( Replacement Richard Dornbush."

Nooooo!!!!!!

I'd love for Adam to (a) get well soon and (b) keep his current Incredibles LP into the Olympic season. He can ride that one all the way to Sochi, IMO.

[Sylvia]

Alexander Johnson (7th at Nationals) and Brandon Mroz (9th) are on the entry list for the Challenge Cup in The Hague, Netherlands (Feb. 21-24) - see event thread started in the Kiss and Cry forum. This was be Johnson's first senior international since 2009 Finlandia Trophy!

[Sylvia]

Dornbush replaces Rippon at Four Continents - press release: http://www.usfsa.org/Story.asp?id=48962&type=media
"Rippon, who placed fifth at the 2013 U.S. Championships, sustained an ankle injury on Saturday. He is expected to make a full recovery."

[crzesk8dad]

Does this mean Dornbush will be the first alternate for Worlds? I had heard that Jeremy turned down being an alternate to let his back heal then focus on training his quad, and if Rippon is injured, does that mean Dornbush is next in line or Farris? I thought the point of putting Rippon ahead on the Worlds alt list was due to Farris' assignment to JW close to Worlds, so I wonder if this means the order changes now that Rippon is injured. Anyways, good luck to Ricky! Nice chance for him to improve his SB. Too bad for Rippon though, hope he has a speedy recovery! I do wonder though what this means in terms of GP assignments for next season though, there's a chance Rippon's current SB will fall out of the top 25 by the end of the season, in which case he'd still get a GP guarantee from his top 25 WS, but it might be tough to get a 2nd unless it's in the form of a SA host pick. I guess if he were to get assigned to WTT assuming he's healed by then, that would give him another chance to get a new SB.

Pinky, one competition at a time!

[Sasha'sSpins]

USFS now makes changes to the rules continuously, I've talked to my ice dance coach about this as he's a national competitor. The changes can come out of the blue and you may not have the time to make the change before competition. Trust me, skaters and coaches do the best to keep up, but it isn't easy these days.

Wow. I did not know this. I thought it was similar to gymnastics in that once requirements are set they are set for the next four years. That's hardly fair to the athletes who have to invest money in coaches and choreographers to keep changing things up. :/

Lol, yep, and now we Americans have OUR own "Quad King" in Max Aaron.

Btw, I've watched his FS again over on youtube (IN won't have it up until Tuesday ON DEMAND) and was blown way once again, and noticed things I mght've missed the first time, like that FAB 3T-1/2R-3S sequence, as well as ending with the 3R jump! But more than anything else I noticed how much Max reminds me of another long-time favorite of mine, Elvis Stojko, they're built similar and are T O U G H. 'nuff said

What a joy it's going to be to watch Max over the years, my gosh he's only 20 yrs. old, just imagine what's ahead, WOW, and he's American, a big plus, we *finally* have our own "Quad King"...

I too am very excited indeed at Max's prospects! Some here seem to be saying he's an artistic disaster-but he's not THAT bad. There's room to grow. I'll be rooting for him all the way! If he does great at 4CCs it will help him to establish some rep and hopefully he'll keep it going at Worlds!

Timothy Goebel discussed this in his Skate Lesson Podcast interview. He spoke about doing virtually no warm-up and starting to jump and jump and jump off the bat. It was the macho thing to do, just like tennis players talked about similar things back in the day. Mets outfielder Mookie Wilson blew out his shoulder when his then-manager insisted he throw at full strength at the beginning of spring training one season.

Like anything else, if athletes are trained from the beginning to warm up properly, do off-ice training, and to build into their jump practices, it's a habit that many or most will continue. The fluff piece on Chan's off-ice training regimen last season couldn't hurt, as athletes try to replicate successful methods and emulate systematic, professional training methods.

Ot but what became of the manager? Hope they fired his a$$!

Tatjana Flade just tweeted: "Adam Rippon (USA) withdrawn from 4Conts due to injury. :-( Replacement Richard Dornbush."

I read about it in another thread. I'm SO bummed! Sending healing vibes to ((Adam)).

[gkelly]

USFS now makes changes to the rules continuously, I've talked to my ice dance coach about this as he's a national competitor. The changes can come out of the blue and you may not have the time to make the change before competition. Trust me, skaters and coaches do the best to keep up, but it isn't easy these days.

Wow. I did not know this. I thought it was similar to gymnastics in that once requirements are set they are set for the next four years. That's hardly fair to the athletes who have to invest money in coaches and choreographers to keep changing things up. :/

As I understand, USFS makes actual rule changes once a year (at the Governing Council in May, but they may take effect immediately, July 1, or Sept. 1).

Any rules that affect junior and senior program content would be based on what the ISU does. ISU changes usually come out later in the spring, especially in even years when major changes get proposed and sometimes adopted at the ISU Congress. So the US may have to change rules after Governing Council to reflect the ISU rule changes.

Both the ISU and the USFS issue clarifications throughout the year (although mainly in the summer) when ambiguous points are identified and resolved. These mostly affect technical panel calls. So there could be an official change midyear in the way that technical panels interpret specific features, specific errors, etc. That's probably what's under discussion here.

[mgobluegirl]

I'd love for Adam to (a) get well soon and (b) keep his current Incredibles LP into the Olympic season. He can ride that one all the way to Sochi, IMO.

I love Adam and I also hope he gets well soon. I was glad to see him skate well and do well at nationals. However, maybe I'm in the minority here, but I thought his Incredibles FS was the most boring material he's put out there in years.

[Skittl1321]

So there could be an official change midyear in the way that technical panels interpret specific features, specific errors, etc. That's probably what's under discussion here.

IIRC, this was not a minor clarification to the technical panel, it may have been a chance from last year to this year- but it was in effect all season, he change the program late in the season. It was that the solo change foot spin has to be a sit or a camel and he was going to do an upright spin for his change foot.

To me, if a message board poster can catch it, it is kind of sad a coach didn't (this thread- see the posts about the send off show. Also interesting to go back in this thread and see people's predictions for nationals, especially how they mention Max Aaron.)


(Note: I previously thought the error was that he was doing a flying upright, I said that in a previous post. I was wrong there, I rewatched the program and he didn't do a flying upright, but a change foot upright. The icenetwork article confused me because he mentioned a flying upright in a quote, but just in reference to not doing it because some people don't like them.)

[Catherine M]

I love Adam and I also hope he gets well soon. I was glad to see him skate well and do well at nationals. However, maybe I'm in the minority here, but I thought his Incredibles FS was the most boring material he's put out there in years.

You are not alone as I thought Adam's freeskate was pretty meh overall when I saw it at Nationals. It just didn't pop out at me like some of the others did. Not really sure what was missing but it for sure didn't go on my "wow, I love this program" list that I usually compile at the end of an event that I've witnessed in person.

[Skittl1321]

I thought it was fun, but a little 'slow' - if that makes sense. Too many pauses in the skating.

I love Adam though, so as long as he does his gorgeous lutz, I'm happy. (Wish he'd grow his hair out again.)

[Marco]

Dornbush replaces Rippon at Four Continents - press release: http://www.usfsa.org/Story.asp?id=48962&type=media
"Rippon, who placed fifth at the 2013 U.S. Championships, sustained an ankle injury on Saturday. He is expected to make a full recovery."

Although I love Dornbush's skating, I have to say he is extremely lucky to make 4CCs two seasons in a row.

[4rkidz]

Alexander Johnson (7th at Nationals) and Brandon Mroz (9th) are on the entry list for the Challenge Cup in The Hague, Netherlands (Feb. 21-24) - see event thread started in the Kiss and Cry forum. This was be Johnson's first senior international since 2009 Finlandia Trophy!

That is good news, especially with regards to Alexander Johnson, I think he is a really special skater and could become world class.. he really has the full package ..

[gkelly]

IIRC, this was not a minor clarification to the technical panel, it may have been a chance from last year to this year- but it was in effect all season, he change the program late in the season. It was that the solo change foot spin has to be a sit or a camel and he was going to do an upright spin for his change foot.

I think there's some confusion here. (And some brief confusion in the Abbott/Sato camp)

Read the IceNetwork article again: http://web.icenetwork.com/news/artic...&vkey=ice_news

There was no recent change in the rules about what spins are allowed.

The requirement for the change-foot spin in the men's short program has been the same since 1995: either camel or sit position with one change of foot.

There has also always been a flying spin required in the short program. Since 1989, for seniors, the position has not been specified. Skaters almost always chose to do either flying camel or some flavor of flying sit.

A lot of men had a favorite spin position and did either both the flying spin and the change-foot spin in sit position or (less commonly) both in camel position. Plenty also did sit for one and camel for the other.

A couple of years ago there was a rule change, introduced in the summer in the usual way, which specified that senior men could no longer use the same basic position for both the flying spin and the change-foot spin in the short program.

After that change, a number of men had to stop doing both flying sit and change-foot sit. Some of them chose to do camel for one of those spins. A handful, Abbott among them, decided to do flying upright instead, which is something that had not been used before the different-positions rule was introduced although it would have been allowed.

Now look at the article again. I can see why it would be confusing and suggest that the rules had just changed if you read it quickly and weren't familiar with the rules, but if you do know what the rules have been and what Abbott had been doing, it makes sense.

Remember, last year Abbott had been doing sit-change sit and flying upright.

"During the Grand Prix season, I wasn't getting the levels on my spins," Abbott said. "I was doing the camel-change-camel, and I'm not very flexible, because I've had tons of back issues, and so I was getting Level 2, which is not acceptable."

At the beginning of this season, he chose to change his layout to camel-change camel and flying sit, which is also legal. But he wasn't earning as high levels as he wanted.

When Abbott and Sato got down to training at the Detroit Skating Club, their first thought was swap out the spin and to repeat two of the skater's spins from last season, including a flying upright and a sit-change-sit spin.

So they considered going back to last year's also-legal layout.

"But a lot of people don't like the flying upright spin, so we decided to do a change-foot upright spin, which was actually very nice," Abbott said.

Abbott and Sato decided, after the Grand Prix, to try something else -- change-foot upright and flying sit. That meets the requirement that the two spins be in different positions. But it does not meet the requirement -- which has not changed since 1995 -- that the change-foot spin in the senior men's short program be either camel or sit. Whoops!

That's where things went awry.

"The rules say I can't do a change-foot upright spin," he said. "The change-foot spin has to be in either a camel or a sit spin position. We didn't realize that until today."

It was totally Abbott and Sato's mistake. Evidently they were busy worrying about the levels and the relatively recent can't-repeat-position rule and forgot to check what the actual rules required.

Luckily, a sharp-eyed IJS rules aficionado spotted the problem during Abbott's run-through at his first practice on Thursday. So, Abbott is back to doing the flying upright and sit-change-sit.

"It will be the same spins I did last year," Abbott said. "It's a little bit of a mess, but I think it's an easy fix."

He tried to change things up this year from what he had been doing last year, but in the fall events he ran into trouble getting the levels. So he tried to change again, this time choosing a layout that didn't meet the requirements. When someone pointed that out to him, he went back to last year's layout.

Note that all these changes since last year are decisions that Abbott and Sato made, not changes that the ISU made. The short program spin rules have not changed in the last year.

[Marco]

This is sad. I am a casual fan and I realised that it was illegal upon my first viewing when he did the short program at one of those shows leading up to Nationals. I pointed it out in one of the threads here and was given to understand that the upright change upright was just for the show.

How much does Abbott pay Sato for her to not even realize something like that? (then again, back in 2005, Kwan didn't realize there was a 3 second rule for the positions in the spiral sequence to count).

[aftershocks]

You are not alone as I thought Adam's freeskate was pretty meh overall when I saw it at Nationals. It just didn't pop out at me like some of the others did. Not really sure what was missing but it for sure didn't go on my "wow, I love this program" list that I usually compile at the end of an event that I've witnessed in person.

I thought it was fun, but a little 'slow' - if that makes sense. Too many pauses in the skating.

I love Adam though, so as long as he does his gorgeous lutz, I'm happy. (Wish he'd grow his hair out again.)

Well I enjoyed the Incredibles fp, because Adam was enjoying it. Plus, I love his new costume. Color looks good on Adam. His original fp outfit earlier in the season was too drab and muted, and he didn't seem comfortable with the program yet. Adam's fp was not an easy program for him because it is a completely different style, and he was also adjusting to a new coach and a new training environment. The music is different for Adam too, and while learning the program he was still in the process of re-working his jump technique, in particular on the 3-axel.

After trial runs of the fp on the GP circuit, it's obvious that Adam and his coach got together with his choreographer, Michael Seibert, to tweak and fine-tune his fp. The changes they made work, and most importantly Adam skated it at Nationals with more conviction and enthusiasm.

[misskarne]

Note that all these changes since last year are decisions that Abbott and Sato made, not changes that the ISU made. The short program spin rules have not changed in the last year.

That's pretty poor, to not even bother checking the rules.

How much does Abbott pay Sato for her to not even realize something like that? (then again, back in 2005, Kwan didn't realize there was a 3 second rule for the positions in the spiral sequence to count).

It's not just the coach's responsibility. Abbott should have known the rules or at least checked himself.