U.S. Men in 2017 - articles & latest news

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Your list doesn't look right to me @Willin - Max got 261 at Salt Lake City and Jason had a 259 at Lombardia I thought. Or are you just looking at GP scores on that list?

So Adam ended up at the events where Hanyu and Chan both withdrew, then Boyang Jin was injured and off his game and two skaters withdrew mid-event from injury. Boy should buy himself a lottery ticket.
 
Vagabond said:
Adam Rippon sure knows how to clean up well and to warm up the house before he skates. :giggle:
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I'm just glad that, given how that final group was going, his clean up of the ice before his LP probably prevented another catastrophic skate. The men's LP was uncomfortable to watch.
 
@misskarne You're right! But either way, the two are pretty much neck-and-neck for that third spot without a GPF appearance to give Jason an edge.

ETA: During the press conference, Adam said that he dislocated his shoulder on the 4Lz and popped it back in before completing the program. While I don't advise any other skater tries this, I'm really impressed that he skated that well considering the situation!
 
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Willin said:
@misskarne You're right! But either way, the two are pretty much neck-and-neck for that third spot without a GPF appearance to give Jason an edge.
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Actually, Jason scored 261 at Skate Canada, so he and Max are pretty much tied (Max is about 0.40 higher).

Truthfully, I think it will come down to placement at Nats, but if the selection committee also takes body of work into account, Jason has a slight edge over Max despite a less than stellar season.
 
misskarne said:
Your list doesn't look right to me @Willin - Max got 261 at Salt Lake City and Jason had a 259 at Lombardia I thought. Or are you just looking at GP scores on that list?

So Adam ended up at the events where Hanyu and Chan both withdrew, then Boyang Jin was injured and off his game and two skaters withdrew mid-event from injury. Boy should buy himself a lottery ticket.
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Oh, look. Another extraordinarily bitchy comment at the expense of a skater who is upstaging your favorites. Shocking.

I'm not a huge fan of Adam but chocking up his 2 silver medals to luck is ridiculous and just looks petty (not a new look for you though). They're called opportunities and you still have deliver because the judges don't just hand out medals to people for showing up. Jason for example delivered at Skate Canada where Patrick had imploded (obviously luck...) but then fell apart at NHK even though he was just as "lucky" as Adam to be at that event. But both clearly have different results.
 
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rhapsody said:
Another extraordinarily bitchy comment at the expense of a skater who will most likely upstage your favorites. Shocking.

I'm not a huge fan of Adam but chocking up his 2 silver medals to luck is ridiculous and just looks petty (not a new look for you though). They're called opportunities and you still have deliver--they don't just hand out medals to people for showing up. Jason, for example, delivered at Skate Canada where Patrick had imploded, but then fell apart at NHK (the same event Adam was lucky to be in, mind you).
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Ya know luck's not always a dirty word, right? He did get lucky. And he capitalised on that luck.

You know who else is really lucky? Vincent, for not being at Skate Canada, because that would have been a brutal, brutal score.

Would it have made you feel better if I'd said instead that Jason, Max and Vincent all got unlucky in various ways? Because they did. Jason got unlucky by ending up at an event where the tech panel wanted to kill everyone, which could have affected his scoring. Max and Vincent got double unlucky where they ended up at the two toughest fields on the GP AND came across a judging panel at IdF that decided giving out PCS for the first-group FS skaters wasn't a thing. But you'd have complained about that, too.

Adam was lucky. He made the most of that luck.


EDIT: You know what makes him really lucky today? That when he shoved his shoulder back in it actually went back in. He was millimetres away from being Samohin 2.0. That is very, very lucky.
 
Willin said:
So, only two US men at the GPF, but Jason is the first alternate, so if anyone's injured he'll go as well. It makes it seem like Jason's spot is the least safe on the US team.

Also, my love for sassy Adam was solidified today. I hope he makes the Olympic team.
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Good Lord, that competition had me on edge...

Jason coulda done a double axel instead of a single at his last completion and I feel he would have gotten the bronze and already be locked in. I think he gave up at his second GP in the free. Also don't need to see that blue onesie anytime soon. LOL
 
misskarne said:
Ya know luck's not always a dirty word, right? He did get lucky. And he capitalised on that luck.

You know who else is really lucky? Vincent, for not being at Skate Canada, because that would have been a brutal, brutal score.

Would it have made you feel better if I'd said instead that Jason, Max and Vincent all got unlucky in various ways? Because they did. Jason got unlucky by ending up at an event where the tech panel wanted to kill everyone, which could have affected his scoring. Max and Vincent got double unlucky where they ended up at the two toughest fields on the GP AND came across a judging panel at IdF that decided giving out PCS for the first-group FS skaters wasn't a thing. But you'd have complained about that, too.

Adam was lucky. He made the most of that luck.
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I'd believe most other people if they told me it wasn't intended as a backhanded compliment but your MO when you point out things like that on here and on GS is so clear. I'm not the first, fifth, or even tenth person to point out your catty attempts to bring down skaters or find excuses for why some do well when they upstage those you like. But anywayyyy... moving on.

I think the Olympic team will be Nathan, Jason, and Adam.
 
Willin said:
@AngieNikodinovLove Brad Griffies made an instagram post about the blue onesie and said he'd made a mistake when making the pants. I was really hoping the mistake was the velvet onesie, but nope - they're still going to be blue and velvet... -.- I don't like the top a whole lot or the fact that it's a onesie, but the velvet is what really makes it awful.
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Wait is that the improvement? Thats one high waist. LOL

Thanks @Willin for keeping in the loop.

I still feel like he shoulda fought more at the end of his free program at his last GP.
 
rhapsody said:
I'd believe most other people if they told me it wasn't intended as a backhanded compliment but your MO when you point out things like that on here and on GS is so clear. I'm not the first, fifth, or even tenth person to point out your catty attempts to bring down skaters or find excuses for why some do well when they upstage those you like. But anywayyyy... moving on.

I think the Olympic team will be Nathan, Jason, and Adam.
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Yeah. Because this doesn't go both ways at all. :rolleyes:

I think the Olympic team will be Nathan, Max and Jason.
 
I just hope that everyone stays healthy. I can't get rid of this feeling in my gut that the injuries in the men aren't going to end - by a bit. :(
 
Based on his NBC interview, it sounds like Nathan's big problem was the change in the blade. It sounds like he knew it was a gamble and that made him a bit more nervous. He also said that the blade would've been fine if he would've had a day of practice ice before competing on it - also that he's learned his lesson about switching blades.

Adam also said that he can't do the Rippon lutz because of a shoulder injury he had before the season - I guess he dislocated it then and then re-dislocated it tonight? Either way he thinks he'll be fine. I was wondering why he wasn't doing the Rippon lutz, so I was happy to at least find that one out.
 
Barring injuries, I think the Olympic team will be Nathan, Adam, and Max or Jason. Since Jadon was at the last Olympics, I’d be happy with Max going.
 
Tesla said:
Barring injuries, I think the Olympic team will be Nathan, Adam, and Max or Jason. Since Jadon was at the last Olympics, I’d be happy with Max going.
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Nathan and Adam seem like locks now. I just can’t wrap my head around Jason not being there. I hope he pulls out two of his best skates at Nats.
 
ETA: But if he doesn’t and Max does, that would be very touching and I couldn’t complain. Not sure Jason would either, at least not out loud.
 
I don't think he's fed up with Nathan - watch him with some of his other skaters, you can tell when he's fed up. He was even telling Nathan don't worry, it's okay, etc. in the K&C. Nathan's never skated that poorly as long as I've watched him (and that's been for a long time now)

Part of it, he seems to be talking about everyone having trouble in general since he says he watches other skaters and can see the problems. As far as Nathan goes, I think he's talking about Nathan's consistency going down in general. He dropped the 4lo and his axels look like they are declining again after looking pretty good at the start of the season. (I'm thinking he means this because he says that Nathan was able to do good programs with axels and loops earlier in the season) His 4t also hasn't been great all season. Along with that, probably just the Olympic pressure in general - Nathan's human, after all. But that's just my read on it, who knows what he's really talking about.

Probably not a good idea to talk about it with reporters though, even if you were trying to be cryptic.
 
Pretty Vegas said:
Probably not a good idea to talk about it with reporters though, even if you were trying to be cryptic.
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Why even bring it up? The guy has enough pressure with everyone pinning their hopes on him for this season. This will just cause the reporters to get more info to feed their hype.
 
I don't think Raf hates Nathan as much as it sounds like Raf is frustrated with something or hinting at some problem. Certainly he's always a lot happier in the K&C than he is with his other skaters. But, I wonder if there's something about Nathan that he's frustrated about - based on the quote, maybe a nagging injury or something that neither of them has control over? I know in the past Raf's been frustrated with how hard Nathan pushes himself.
 
mollymgr said:
Why even bring it up? The guy has enough pressure with everyone pinning their hopes on him for this season. This will just cause the reporters to get more info to feed their hype.
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That's what I'm wondering but Raf has kind of a loose style when talking to reporters I've noticed. But he should know by now, if you're dealing with some confidence issues, talking about the issues with the media isn't going to help. I think how Nathan looks at the final will be very telling - if this was a one-off because of the blades or whatever or if it's the pressure reallllly getting to him or something else entirely. There's not much time at all between then and now to regroup but hopefully they are able to.

Willin said:
I don't think Raf hates Nathan as much as it sounds like Raf is frustrated with something or hinting at some problem. Certainly he's always a lot happier in the K&C than he is with his other skaters. But, I wonder if there's something about Nathan that he's frustrated about - based on the quote, maybe a nagging injury or something that neither of them has control over? I know in the past Raf's been frustrated with how hard Nathan pushes himself.
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Yeah, I could see that too.
 
I think Rafael is just being Rafael. We've seen the prickly behavior before with Ashley and he's never been shy about what he says to the press. It must be the Russian blood :D

He just doesn't like it when his skaters don't skate up to the ability he knows they can
 
All I got from that cryptic interview was a sense of an authority figure trying to deal with his teenage boy prodigy. Not the sense that Nathan is lazy or anything but that Raf needs him to be more in the zone or something. I could be way off base here but with such vague statements who knows what he means.
 
And all I got was that it’s not easy being in charge of multiple Olympic or potential Olympic skaters, especially one who’s a serious OGM candidate but is also young, still fairly inexperienced (at the senior level) and perhaps a tad headstrong. There is absolutely nothing there to suggest Arutunian hates Nathan and frankly the suggestion is ridiculous, so please don’t be spreading that kind of rumor.
 
It's probably more "stern Russian coach meets teenage boy who thinks he's bulletproof and wants to do his own thing". I mean, we know skaters are a different breed, but at the end of the day, Nathan is only 18, and there are lots of 18 year olds who think they can just do whatever and nothing will happen.

We've heard that one before, that Rafael has had trouble reeling Nathan in because he just wants to do everything, so it wouldn't surprise me if that was the issue here.
 
I sense RAF has a great sense of responsibility around Nathan. Look how carefully they’ve calibrated his LPs this season - not trying to do them all early, etc. I hope that Raf can put him in the zone and help him find space to decompress.
 
Nathan seems a bit impulsive at times in trying to meet his ambitious goals.

It was so strange today to see him try to reel out quads in the last third of the program to make up for the mistakes and kind of abandon the program a bit. It was a bit disappointing given all the chatter of his work with Lori. Jason/Adam may be at an disadvantage with their technical content but neither of them abandons programs/choreography/performance when there are mistakes.

I think that's probably more of what Raf's referring to. Not that he hates Nathan or even that Nathan has issues with work ethic, but just that it's really hard to manage this kind of impulse/perfective/ambitious behavior. I hope he does though cause Nathan does have two wonderful programs this season.

ETA: Speaking of Adam, i really have to give him credit at this competition and in general. I think he's similar to Ashley that he isn't as skilled in certain areas compared to some of the other U.S. men, but he performs, sells his programs and refuses to be ignored as a contender. I disagree with you @misskarne that Adam was lucky. That whole FS segement in a lot of ways was really unideal and all sorts of strange things could have shook Adam, but it didn't. I would have liked Jason to be in GPF, but he did not seize the opportunity at NHK Trophy. I think he'll bounce back at Nationals.
 
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