U.S. Ladies [#6]: "Swaggering with the S'Wagner" et al. into 2013

[kwanette]

Yeah, the whole thing with skaters that "burst onto the scene" seems to move in cycles.

In 1996, it was Michelle, Tara, Nicole, and Angela Nikodinov.

In 2000, it was Sarah, Sasha, Jenny, and Naomi.

In 2004, it was Kimmie, Kathy, and Danielle (The Three Chicklets).

In 2008, it was Rachel, Caroline, Mirai, and Ashley.

In 2012, it was Gracie, Angela Wang, and Nina Jiang.


Not only does the hype move in cycles, but also the skaters birthdays seem to move in cycles.

For example, all of the 1996 skaters were born from 1979-1982.

All of the 2000 skaters were born from 1983-1986.

All of the 2004 skaters were born from 1987-1990.

All of the 2008 skaters were born from 1991-1994.

All of the 2012 skaters were born from 1995-1998.


My guess is that we'll see the next round in 2016 featuring Starr Andrews, Karen Chen, and some others.

I thought that you are off on some of the yrs and I never remember any Angela hype.

[PDilemma]

but she showed poise in the freeskate and was seemingly the only one willing to do that.

Yes. Because every other woman in that competition woke up Saturday morning and said, "I totally don't want to skate with poise and without errors tonight. I'm not in the mood. I hope I can totally f*ck up my free skate".

[johndockley92]

^^ Everyone obviously wanted to do their best, but she seemed to be the only one who did.

[UGG]

It would be confidence coming from a GOLD medalist. Coming from the second-place finisher talking about someone who finished ahead of her, it crosses 'bordering on' into at best ill-advised overconfidence. She sounds condescending. She should have stopped after "amazing." I had no opinion on her after seeing her skate other than the same 'meh' as I got from all the other ladies, but the comment makes me think she has an ego problem out of keeping with her results.

It does sound arrogant, but I really don't think she meant it like that. She probably meant it more like "We all deserve to be on the podium together" or something like that.

This situation kind of reminds me of when Tara said something like "skaters who are beneath me". Just an innocent comment that came out the wrong way.

[Coco]

I've had to speak to the media a few times. It's horrifying to read quotes in print, stripped of the conversation's context, tone of voice, facial expression, etc. I never knew there were so many ways to interpret comments!

She gets a pass, she's 17 and she's got 1/2 the world telling her she's Queen of USA. If she's at all "herself" in 2 months, I'll be very, very impressed and happy.

[TheGirlCanSkate]

Yeah, the whole thing with skaters that "burst onto the scene" seems to move in cycles.

My guess is that we'll see the next round in 2016 featuring Starr Andrews, Karen Chen, and some others.

I'd put a fully healed Gia on your futures list: http://www.youtube.com/user/Kokotakis, Ai Setoyama, Akari Nakahara and Runa Maeda http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSF8f_5ezM

[PDilemma]

^^ Everyone obviously wanted to do their best, but she seemed to be the only one who did.

You said the others were not "willing" to do their best. That is absurd.

[IceAlisa]

I guess she didn't want to do her best in the SP.

[demetriosj]

She clearly has the best jumping ability of all the US ladies and can rival that of the best in the world. It's also not her fault that she has as much hype as she does, so don't hate her for it.

Not so clear to me. Sorry, I'm not buying this. Hicks' jumps, for example, are just as good, if not better, as I said before. But, for whatever reason, Gold is the only one being hyped ridiculously..................Also I don't think anyone on this board "hates" her.....geeeeez....

[johndockley92]

If you watched the practices at all, you'd see how much easier it was for Gracie to land clean triple triples than the rest of the pack, including Courtney. Gold doing a cheated one in the SP was a fluke, while Courtney's was just as she had practiced

[Sasha'sSpins]

^^ Everyone obviously wanted to do their best, but she seemed to be the only one who did.

Except in the SP when she fell on her combo, popped another jump and still managed to receive HUGE PCS scores. Mirai should have scored through the rough in comparison as she DID obviously want to 'do her best'.

And ALL the top girls, not just Gold, had great practices. The videos are online if you want to re-watch them. None of the girls performing triple-triples seemed to be struggling with them or completing them with any less effort than Gold including Agnes Z, Mirai, Gao, and Hicks. It didn't look any easier for her than Agnes Z. or Hicks especially. They're all big jumpers. And Nagasu was nailing some great ones in practice too.

[lahaa968]

Except in the SP when she fell on her combo, popped another jump and still managed to receive HUGE PCS scores. ]

...Huge PCS? She scored around 26 for PCS...pretty fair IMO.

[kwanfan1818]

Whether you argue that Gold was over-scored by the US judges at Nationals, the US judges were right in line with international judges when it came to comparing similar programs:

Skate Canada SP: 3T/3F< with "e", 2A with -3 GOE across the board, fall, a L1 combo spin.

Base TES: 29.03. Actual TES: 27.53. Avg. PCS: 6.42

US Nationals FS: 3T/3F<, 1A, fall, L4 combo spin.

Base TES: 27.70. Actual TES : 28.74. Avg. PCS: 6.46.

Just about identical scoring between US and international judges for similar performances.

Rostelecom Cup FS: edge calls on both 3F's with -GOE on both, -GOE on doubled the Lo and Lz and singled the Lo in three -jump combo, -GOE on the 2Lo, but L4 spins, L3 steps, the better of her GP FS,

Base TES: 50.18. Actual TES: 54.77. Avg PCS: 7.26.

US Nationals FS: Landed the 3Lo and 3Lz instead of doubling, replaced solo 3F with 3S, did 3/2/2 and 2A/3T with lots of GOE.

Base TES: 60.31. Actual TES: 70.11. Avg PCS 7.67.

For the elements she had in common in both the RC and US Nationals, here are the comparisons:

3Lz/3T:

RC 11.5 (+1.4 GOE, 1-1, 1-3, 7-2's).
USN: 11.9 (+1.8 GOE, 4-2's, 5-3's)

2A:

RC: 4.09 (+.79 GOE)
USN: 3.8 (+.5 GOE)

L4 Layback Spin:

RC: 3.7 (+1 GOE)
USN: 3.49 (+.79 GOE)

L4 Flying Combo Spin:

RC: 3.79 (+.79 GOE)
USN: 3.71 (+.71 GOE)

L1 CH Sequence

RC: 2.6 (+.6 GOE)
USN: 2.7 (+.7 GOE)

L4 Change Foot Combo Spin

RC: 4.43 (+.93 GOE)
USN: 4.43 (+93 GOE)

For the five elements that both FS's had in common, there is a marginal difference in scoring. In fact, the international judges gave Gold a slight .08 margin.

There was one element called higher at USN:

Step sequence:

RC: L3, 3.8 (+.5 GOE), 8-1's, 1-2.
USN: L4, 4.8 (+.9 GOE), 6-1's, 3-2's.

Between the level upgrade and increase in GOE, she gained an extra point from the US judges.

The substantial difference in score between the RC and USN FS was technical, i.e., the five jump elements that were not in common to both programs. Just doing the math on the downgrades jumps, Gold lost 8.63 in base right there. In RC, she had -GOE on three of the five, and three of the five were unintentional downgrades, with the 2Lo being both. That's a lot of points left on the table, as well as a negative against the overall quality of the program's jumps. At USN, she landed all five beautifully, although the US tech panel and judges might very well have missed the edge call on the solo 3F combo, for which she got .1 GOE.

Still, at RC, she did receive a 9% bump over base TES, while at USN, she received a 16% bump over base TES, for a program that was 20% harder, and 95% of the increase in difficulty was due to the increased jump value. For a substantially better executed and more difficult program -- I don't hear anyone arguing that Gold was Mao Asada or Carolina Kostner at RC -- she received a bump of, on average, .4 per PCS, or 3.25 additional PCS in total, after the 1.6 factor for the Ladies' FS.

To recap, at worst the US technical panel may have over-leveled Gold's step sequence by .5 and missed an edge call on a 3F, and the US judges may have been a little overenthusiastic about the five jumps elements that weren't in common, and for which we have no international panel scores to which to compare. About the .4/ea bump in PCS Gold received from the US judges for a superior program, it's half of the PCS bump Wagner got from international judges on average between her GP's last year and her 4C's FS, and twice what Wagner got between her GP's and Worlds, and it's a quibble over very few points in the big picture. If the three points were removed, and the .5 for the step sequence and another point for the edge call, Gold still would have won silver.

As for whether other skaters were robbed, I'll leave that to people who've watched all the programs, but the US judges were firmly in the corridor with the international judges when scoring Gold, and the technical panel was fairly close with their international peers.

[johndockley92]

And ALL the top girls, not just Gold, had great practices. The videos are online if you want to re-watch them. None of the girls performing triple-triples seemed to be struggling with them or completing them with any less effort than Gold including Agnes Z, Mirai, Gao, and Hicks. It didn't look any easier for her than Agnes Z. or Hicks especially. They're all big jumpers. And Nagasu was nailing some great ones in practice too.

I watched the practices in person. Many of Courtney and Mirai's attempts were cheated, while Gao and Zawadzki were successfully doing the easier 3t+3t combination. No question to me that Gold finishes her rotation further from the ice on the triple triple than the rest of the girls.

[b-man]

For this GP season, Wagner won both of her events, other than that none of the US girls medaled at both their events - Gao and Gold did manage a silver medal (and Gao made GPF). Nagasu and Zawadzki won a bronze only, but Zawadzki also won a fall international, with Gold winning the silver. Nagasu won the bronze from Finlandia. While all respectable, Nagasu's season so far would pale in comparison to some of these girls.

Nagasu finished 8th in GP standings, ahead of Agnes and Gold, and her combined scores were ahead of Gao, Agnes, and Gold. Gao had a relatively easy draw at Skate America where she got her silver. I don't agree that Nagasu's early season paled in comparison with Gao, Agnes and Gold. Her international SB is still ahead of all three.

[Sasha'sSpins]

...Huge PCS? She scored around 26 for PCS...pretty fair IMO.

Imo it was too high. Any newbie other than Gracie would have scored much lower imo.

[Sasha'sSpins]

Nagasu finished 8th in GP standings, ahead of Agnes and Gold, and her combined scores were ahead of Gao, Agnes, and Gold. Gao had a relatively easy draw at Skate America where she got her silver. I don't agree that Nagasu's early season paled in comparison with Gao, Agnes and Gold. Her international SB is still ahead of all three.

^^^
THIS!

[Jammers]

Let's just be happy that we have skaters now that can land 3-3 combo's and most all of them are the younger ladies who have long careers ahead of them. If for no other reason i hope Yuna comes back so we don't see 4 triples win a World championship. There's no excuse for the women to regress technically while the Men push themselves.

[demetriosj]

Let's just be happy that we have skaters now that can land 3-3 combo's and most all of them are the younger ladies who have long careers ahead of them..

I'll be happy when all of the younger skaters now that can land 3-3 combo's are rewarded, as they should have been at Nationals. Not just a chosen one.....

[victoriaheidi]

Christina's taking a year off from Harvard: http://www.usatodayeducate.com/stagi...ool-or-skating

ETA: This article's badly written, but it's still pretty interesting.