Novice Senior US Champion She deserves it but If this were a russian champion we will still be reading nasty comments about age on ladies. Double Standard at its worst.
The ISU and all of the feds are hung up on pre-teens and teenyboppers doing 3-axels and quads. Eteri is not being kow-towed to in a vacuum. Zag and Med unfortunately have already reached Eteri-over-the-hill territory, as soon as the Olympics were over. Maybe even before the Olympics were over. This season, Zag's draggier speed, uber ugly cross-overs and awkward technique complicated by her growth spurt are even more cringe-worthy to see the judges over-rewarding. At least, Med saw the writing on the wall, and ran for the Cricket Club. I'm not sure there's still hope for either sans judges' blind gifts, but never say never.
Eh, Alysa Liu is cute and talented, and way over-hyped. The judges and everyone* else are ignoring the fact that Liu had at least 3 URs in her fp, one on her second 3-axel (*including Jackie Wong proclaiming with faux certainty on IceTalk that every one of Liu's jumps were clean
). US fed, fans and media look so Kwan-seeking desperate.
It will be cool for Hanna Harrell and Ting Cui to stay on the down low, and under the hot media glare radar, and then come out and slam bang their competition to the hilt. They are also next level talented technically and artistically, even w/o 3-axels. And both are better than Liu right now on PCS, IMHO.
I don't care which country a skater is from, I call it as I see it. I root for U.S. skaters and for any skater whose talent I find irresistible. Still, regardless of who my faves are, I call it as I see it. Right now, I think Trusova, Kostornaia, and Scherbakova are all better than Liu -- and obviously a bit older than her too. All of these junior ladies are over-rated on PCS at this point in their careers, aside perhaps Kostornaia. But I think the three Russian phenoms are more talented overall than Liu at this point. Of course that could change over time, which will be why we watch to see what happens.
Liu is definitely the real deal in terms of her talent and her 3-axel abilities, but the favoritism and hype is so way OTT, it's embarrassing, IMO. Liu has a lot to learn and a long way to go. Her PCS should have been scored within reason, and they should have called the URs. Bradie, Mariah and Amber folding may have been predictable, especially the latter two, but it wasn't pretty. I think the U.S. judges would have actually rewarded Mariah with the win if not for that one silly fall. And Bradie apparently allowed the pressure to get to her. The judges were surely counting on Bradie to pull it out, but they weren't going to hand her a win -- keeping her on the podium was favor enough. Bradie probably should have stuck with her more reliable 3/3 combo to open her fp, rather than trying to add the difficult 3-loop on the tail end.
Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway #Get Up campaign by USFS is not the end-all, be-all answer to everything. It's also about not giving up, I think. Title of Hamilton's new book: Finish First
OMG I knew some of it sounded familiar but would have never guessed Whitney 
Yeah, this is too damn slow! He should have just skated to Whitney 
