2017 Aerial Figure Skating Team (USA Jump) Challenge ~ June 24 in Colorado Springs, CO

[StitchMonkey]

What happened to Josh Farris?

we dont really know

he disappeared from the entry list early this week with no explanation... but really he is not a give an explanation kinda guy anyway.

 

[ilovepaydays]

we dont really know

he disappeared from the entry list early this week with no explanation... but really he is not a give an explanation kinda guy anyway.

Wasn't Vincent Zhou supposed to compete here as well? I thought he was supposed to be on Team Bradley.

 

[StitchMonkey]

Wasn't Vincent Zhou supposed to compete here as well? I thought he was supposed to be on Team Bradley.

same story

but he did give us this at least
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVsWLs1ljR_/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVsWLs1ljR_/

 

[Firedancer]

we dont really know

he disappeared from the entry list early this week with no explanation... but really he is not a give an explanation kinda guy anyway.

Thanks! Hope he is not injured.

 

[shan]

I'm looking forward to the pairs part of this event.

 

[misskarne]

Round 2

Jump 1 - random jump drawn in advance

Jordan Moeller (Bradley's Brawlers) - double Axel
rippon 2A, lovely
oooooooooo, I would have given some 10s

Audrey Shin (Dolensky's Dynamos) - any triple in sequence with at least one walley
walley 3T

Hannah Harrell (Abbott's All-Stars) - any triple in sequence with at least one walley
walley, walley, 3T

Jump 2 - 3 jump combination with at least 2 different triple jumps

Courtney Hicks (Dolensky's Dynamos)
3F-3Lo fall
she hit the floor just as the song did
RETRY
3F-turn-3Lo-turn-1T
ooooo, 7s...

Ashley Lin (Abbott's All-Stars)
3F-1Lo-3S hahahah very smart!

Angela Wang (Bradley's Brawlers)
3F step out
RETRY
2F pop step out 3T step 2T step mess
sixes

oooooooooooooooh, Abbott's All-stars have pinched the lead!

Jump 3 - triple Axel combination with two or three jumps

Jimmy Ma (Abbott's All-Stars)
3A fall whoops!
RETRY
3A-3T fall

Camden Pulkinen (Bradley's Brawlers)
3A-3T very nice!

Jason Brown! (Dolensky's Dynamos)
3A fall
he already used his retry
ouch sixes

Jump 4 - two jump combination with a triple toe as the second jump

Paige Rydberg (Bradley's Brawlers)
3T-3T fall
RETRY
2T-3T 2ft

Pooja Kalyan (Dolensky's Dynamos)
3T-3T

Drat! I missed it because my phone/chromecast interface was playing up.

Lead back and forth between All-Stars and Brawlers

Argh my stream!

Jump 5 - missed it

Alexei K (Dolensky's Dynamos)
4S<
choreo
4Lo<<

Emmanuel Savary (Abbott's All-Stars)
4T
4S hard fall ouch!
intense discussion about retry, because he has to redo both jumps
RETRY
4T fall
4S fall
that retry was a really bad idea...

Max Aaron! (Bradley's Brawlers)
4T hand down
4S hand down
little hair toss as he decides on a retry
awwww, hug from Ryan. He decides not to

 

[misskarne]

Jump 6 - pairs throw of their choice

Alexa Knierim/Chris Knierim (Abbott's All-Stars)
4STh oh okay! lovely!
PERFECT SCORE

Chelsea Liu/Brian Johnson (Bradley's Brawlers)
3STh

Ashley Cain/Tim LeDuc (Dolensky's Dynamos)
missed it, darn it

Jump 7 - backflip with variation

Ryan Bradley
backflip on one foot, half loop, 3S!!!!!

Timothy Dolensky
3F-1Lo-BACKFLIP-butterfly!

Jeremy Abbott
Backflip-footwork-backflip-footwork-3T!

All of them got perfect scores!

Yay, all three at once! Aww, group hug!

Bradley's Brawlers win!

 

[Sylvia]

Jump 6 - pairs throw of their choice

Alexa Knierim/Chris Knierim (Abbott's All-Stars)
4STh oh okay! lovely!
PERFECT SCORE

I'm pretty sure that was "just" a throw triple Salchow (in case some people get too excited ). ETA a clip via Brooklee Han: https://twitter.com/JacksonUltima/status/878724365914865664

Cain/LeDuc did a cool throw 3Lz followed by sbs 2T!

Clips for 2 of the 3 team captains:

Dolensky's 3F-half loop-backflip-butterfly: https://twitter.com/JacksonUltima/status/878725596007845888

Abbott: 2 backflips to 3T: https://twitter.com/JacksonUltima/status/878725893698580480

 

[misskarne]

I'm pretty sure that was "just" a throw triple Salchow (in case some people get too excited ).

ahahaha, it probably was, I am so sleepy. Maybe I will take a nap now.

 

[Bellanca]

Ryan Bradley
backflip on one foot, half loop, 3S!!!!!

WTG!

Bradley's Brawlers win!

 

[Spun Silver]

Missed the whole thing but thanks for the descriptions. I only saw one jump by Mirai???

I love the team names!! Congrats to Bradley's Brawlers! This whole thing seems like great experience - wish it would be duplicated elsewhere and done more often. It is Russian-style competitive training.

 

[Sylvia]

USFS' Facebook Live stream of the team comp. is archived here:
https://www.facebook.com/usfigureskating/videos/10154765492986342/

 

[GullyGirl84]

Missed the whole thing but thanks for the descriptions. I only saw one jump by Mirai???

I love the team names!! Congrats to Bradley's Brawlers! This whole thing seems like great experience - wish it would be duplicated elsewhere and done more often. It is Russian-style competitive training.

Mirai did a triple loop in one round, and a double axel triple toe in another. If you search her name on twitter, you can see replays of her jumps on the Jackson Ultima twitter feed.

 

[el henry]

Having watched this on Facebook live, I gotta say, although interesting and more fun than I thought it would be:

Cheesefest of the Century! Complete with bobsledder judges who knew as much about figure skating as I do about bobsledding. And whose scores counted. Not a problem for me because I like that kinda thing

But as I said elsewhere, to be as cool as Christopher Dean rocking a bespoke suit while holding up numbered cards at a cheesy jumpfest



Goals.

 

[aftershocks]

I watched the Facebook video. It all seemed like a lot of fun and all in good fun.

Some takeaways: so lovely to see Kitty Carruthers and Todd Eldredge. Christopher Dean seems ageless and very genial. Announcer Rusty Kath seemed in his element and less OTT cheesy than usual; he went down as more mellow and laid back. It must be the high altitude Colorado air. Ryan Bradley is a hoot and a houseful of fun, while being charming and cheeky at the same time; he's the happy-go-lucky kid in class who could always get the teacher to laugh rather than to scold him for his pranks. And he always brings home straight As, working like magic when it looks like he's just goofing off!

The biggest takeaways: Figure skating is hard, and gosh it's summer time and beach days, so not all of the skaters looked in tip-top shape or competitive mode. Plus, it don't seem like in this format that the skaters have enough warmup time to be ready to rap off some of the difficulty on a dime they are asked to do. And those bobsledders are handsome looking hunks who did a fairly decent job with the judging. However, for all the judges, what up with all those high scores for Bradley's team when they made obvious mistakes!? A number of awkward landings and at least two double-footed landings got some overly high scores for Bradley's team I thought. [Even Angela Wang on RBrad's team was overscored with those sixes for a clearly botched jumping pass after using a mulligan, no less]. And some lower scores were given to other teams' competitors that could have been higher. I guess the judges were getting a bit tired of juggling those score cards, or else the fix was in! The donuts may have done the trick.

Overall, I really enjoyed this fun team format. Hopefully, they will continue with this sporting idea, and improve all the rough edges of how it's organized and implemented going forward. It would have been nice to see Abbott's team come from behind and pull out the win. I wonder how the specific team members are chosen? Everyone who attended must have had a blast at the rink.

 

[centerpt1]

There was a bit of unfairness due to the late withdrawal of original contestants, their subsequent replacement, and the way the wild cards were selected- 2 teams ended up with wild card ladies, one had a wild card man. The team with the wild card man had an advantage. Somehow they need to balance the teams.

But it was all in fun and for charity, so I'm not complaining -all in all, it was fun to watch, and the team aspect kept things interesting. Everyone looked like they were having a great time.

Why were there luge (or bobsled or whatever) athletes judging???? That was odd.

But I love cheesefests! I want more.

Huge kudos also to fan favorite skaters like Nagasu and Brown who showed up despite the potential for embarrassment/loss of face - especially Brown. He's not known for his jumping - but he came and participated anyway. Having former US Champ skaters helps the entertainment value. There were quite a few US Champs here.

 

[Karpenko]

That throw 3sal by Alexa and Chris officially got me really excited for Pairs. It was nice (+1, maybe +2 but I'll be stingy because of the landing edge), I love them. This was a fun thread to read thanks for all of the pbp @misskarne

Here is Mirai's 2axel-3toe:
https://twitter.com/jacksonultima/status/878722012872667136
3loop:
https://twitter.com/jacksonultima/status/878710699329036289 (please bend your landing knee more and everything will be fine, think Mai Mihara)


^ she's still in a very strong shape, and nothing was >. Woot!

 

[mgobluegirl]

I wish they had used more the full range of scores to differentiate when mistakes were made or reward for things done very well. May as well not have included cards for numbers 1-5 in those stacks of score cards.

Agree that Wang's botched jump pass, as well as Brown's, should have been more heavily penalized. And Krasnozhon's 3/4-turn cheated quads.

Overall though it was fun to watch. Some of the young skaters in particular acquitted themselves quite well. And it was nice to see some gorgeous 4Ts from Max and Emmanuel.

 

[Sylvia]

Backstage photos: http://web.icenetwork.com/photos/238850896

Article by Sarah Brannen: http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2017/06/26/238855610
Excerpt:

Three teams, captained by Ryan Bradley, Jeremy Abbott and Dolensky, competed for a total of $30,000 in prize money. Bradley's Brawlers included Aaron, Wang, Rydberg, Pulkinen and Moeller, as well as the pairs team of Chelsea Liu and Brian Johnson. Abbott's All-Stars consisted of Nagasu, Harrell, Liu, Ma, Savary, and Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Chris Knierim, and Dolensky's Dynamos were made up of Hicks, Krasnozhon, Shin, Pooja Kalyan, Jason Brown, and Ashley Cain and Timothy LeDuc. ... <snip> ...
Bradley's team won the overall event and $15,000, beating out Abbott's team by just two points. The All-Stars split $10,000, with the Dynamos collecting $5,000.

 

[Sylvia]

Brooklee Han's article for IFS includes quotes from many skaters: https://www.ifsmagazine.com/aerial-challenge-twist/

The article ends with this sentence:
"The Aerial Challenge and team challenge are currently only open to skaters who represent the U.S., but there has been talk about expanding it to include international skaters."

 

[misskarne]

Yesssssssss, I am so up for international Aerial Challenge. Brendan could totally go jump-for-jump with anyone there.