livetoskate
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Yes! I forgot to mention Liam as another nice highlight of the SP. His floaty 3x was gorgeous-- too bad I was on the other end of the rink to fully enjoy seeing it. The audience loved him too.
U.S. Men 2021-22 season news & updates
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Coco
Rotating while Russian!
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If there is a trade to work out, let it be for pairs girls/boys who can land their sbs elements.
Karen-W
YMCA is such a catchy tune!
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Lolololol. You cannot seriously be saying that Levandi will beat Malinin at Jr Worlds. I like Levandi and he's as much of a future star as Malinin but Levandi is probably going to finish somewhere between 4th-6th at Jr Worlds. Men being men, sure, he could land on the podium but factor in the 3 Russians (Yablokov, Lutfullin, and Sarnovskiy), Wesley Chiu and at least 1 Japanese man and Levandi will be lucky to finish 5th. And, really, the same is true of any of these guys because they are all THAT good on any given day when they hit it.
Carolla5501
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IMHo Ashley showed up at Nationals for her coronation she stood there, she posed, she looked sassy and she said I’m here put me on the team. Her performance at National’s actually made it easier for the committee to say nope we’re not sending you
Jason may not have a fire power of the other skaters but he’s probably Going to do his best to at least make the committee have to think about the decision.
Holy Headband
Yuna Aoki's Olympic journey starts here
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At least one Japanese man? Shun Sato and Kao Miura are the clear favourites for gold and silver and Tatsuya Tsuboi has as much of a shot at bronze as anyone else in the field. A Japanese sweep of the podium is not out of the question.
Lutfullin, Malinin, Tsuboi, two of Sarnovskiy/Yablokov/Kovalev (I forget which Russians are going, but these three are kind of interchangeable in terms of their chances IMO), Chiu and Levandi will be duking it out for 3-9 unless Sato or Miura has a complete meltdown, and any one of them could come out on top.
Levandi's technical content is a huge limiting factor, but the fact he participated in several senior international events this fall, established himself as Estonia's number 2 with an eye toward overtaking E. Selevko, & will be going to Euros, where I expect him to finish in the top 10 in an injury-depleted field, means he'll head into Junior Worlds with a huge reputational boost compared to where he was when the JGP ended. He's also very consistent and has a way of overtaking more ambitious skaters with clean performances, much like Chiu.
Anyway, sorry to derail the thread. I just wanted to clarify my reasoning. Back to US Nats!
Mens champions have also tended to be older - Malinin in 2030 would be closer in age to a lot of them. I do think the age is going to keep trending younger as long as the jumps are overvalued in the scoring, but the historical pattern probably isn’t super relevant.
Not to mention the long list of talented kids who got an early Olympic experience and then didn’t pan out. Ilia’s history of injuries already makes me nervous. I hope he takes good care of himself. But that’s another good reason to base the selection on things that have happened versus things that might happen. Whatever happens today should obviously count, but whatever could possibly happen in 2026 is pure speculation.
Weird how much they reference top 10 in the group three criteria, in that case. Must be a typo.
Karen-W
YMCA is such a catchy tune!
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Well, they also reference Worlds Top 15 in the Group 4 criteria. The Worlds Top 3/Top 5/Top 10/Top 15 are benchmarks for the group priorities. Not sure why you think that the criteria isn't designed to prop up a skater who isn't Worlds Top 3/Top 5 when those benchmarks are for the groups with the higher priority. It certainly doesn't seem to me like merely making Top 10 in the Worlds is going to be enough get selected over skaters who demonstrate the ability to finish Worlds Top 3 or Top 5.
It is speculation and there is no guarantee four years later but given young skaters a shot is always a good long term policy.
For example Polina did not pan out long term but she did end up beating the girls who folks said should make the team over her.
Meissner didn’t last for four years but she did become a world champion.
Sasha became a multiple world and
Olympic silver medalist.
You do Better going with young talent and using junior PCs is a mistake.
I mean the USFSA put themselves in a position in 2016 to not take Nathan to worlds over body of work because they refused to give him the nod over Rippon.
And while Rippon like Brown was a beautiful skater. He was never competitive.
It took the international judges to get behind Nathan.
The USFSA started winning the started backing out the men’s skaters with the goods to be competitive.
PCs rise with experience. Ilia has the experience to be very very competitive
That’s only Chen and Zhou, though. Nobody else has hit the top 5 benchmark. I was responding to the suggestion that consistent top 10 scores shouldn’t benefit Brown in group three even though it’s very much a part of the group three criteria. USFS would have said AND nationals top three (instead of OR nationals top three) in that section if they didn’t think consistent top 10 had any independent value.
A lot of the younger men are so, so good. All they need is the quad. If Liam can get one I expect to see him near or on the podium at Nationals next season.
misskarne
Handy Emergency Backup Mode
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I would add that Jason is also actually disadvantaged by Nationals scoring.
Jason's strength is in racking up the huge GOEs he gets for doing everything so beautifully. For example, his beautiful 3F which is +5 worthy every time he does it. But at Nationals, suddenly he loses that advantage. Sure, he gets the +5 GOE he deserves. But then suddenly the judges are also handing out +4s for a 4Sq for other skaters, or +3s for a jump that is dodgy as long as it's by one of the other leaders, and +5s for every other jump, even if it's nowhere near as beautiful and perfect as that 3F. His gap narrows. He can no longer make up points in the usual way. Yes, he may benefit from the occasional lax tech panel call - but so does everyone else in the leading group, so it cancels out.
Jason's strength is in racking up the huge GOEs he gets for doing everything so beautifully. For example, his beautiful 3F which is +5 worthy every time he does it. But at Nationals, suddenly he loses that advantage. Sure, he gets the +5 GOE he deserves. But then suddenly the judges are also handing out +4s for a 4Sq for other skaters, or +3s for a jump that is dodgy as long as it's by one of the other leaders, and +5s for every other jump, even if it's nowhere near as beautiful and perfect as that 3F. His gap narrows. He can no longer make up points in the usual way. Yes, he may benefit from the occasional lax tech panel call - but so does everyone else in the leading group, so it cancels out.
Karen-W
YMCA is such a catchy tune!
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Wait a minute... You, who have been reminding us ALL season long about how Jason's scores go UP at Nationals and his 260-ish range will easily be 270-275 at Nationals for the same performances, are now saying that Jason is disadvantaged by scoring at Nationals?
Do you not comprehend the concept of relative scoring and its importance?
In any event, with Tracy Wilson testing positive for COVID, Jason now has other issues to worry about. Let's hope he somehow managed to dodge it.
AYS
?
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Oh no.
Mens' champions used to be older, but that was before the multiple quad era. Looking at the short programs, Nathan and Vincent are so young and they already look depleted. Same with Hanyu, Misha and Boyang. Ilia in comparison looks as fresh a daisy easily knocking out that quad lutz and quad triple combo. It's kind of shocking to see, since usually men gain strength advantages as they get older, but clearly like the women, smaller, lighter bodies prevail. If Nathan hadn't bombed that short program , he would have won the OGM at 18, just like Hanyu had in Sochi.
Ilia still has to skate well tonight, but barring nerves, assuming they send him, I think he can be a huge spoiler because those are clean quad jumps. All the tinkering in the world with PCS isn't going to change the fact that he is doing these jumps out of complex entrances. That's the revenge of Tatiana Malinina, that she couldn't catch a break in spite of clean jumps and real lutz edge in 6.0 era.
Edited to add, that the only advantage in putting Brown on the team is that he may bring more casual attention to the sport like Adam Rippon. Adam may not have been the strongest skater, but he actually was the most memorable team member and brought a lot of attention to the sport. I think Jason can bring that attention as well. I wonder it the USFS can track participation in Learn to skate, based on Rippon's participation on Dancing with the Stars and his other media endeavors. Jason would kill it on Dancing with the Stars.
carriecmu0503
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No way in Hades Ilia Malinin is left off the Olympic team after this!
Jarrett
What the hell?!
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Vincent could be 3rd or last place. There is no in-between with his technique. So disappointing.
Vincent was a mess. He is so inconsistent. When I think about his performance at Worlds and the performance today and his general inconsistency, if I were an almighty skating czar who got to choose the Olympic team, I would go with Nathan, Jason, and Ilia.
He is so inconsistent. When I think about his performance at Worlds and the performance today and his general inconsistency, if I were an almighty skating czar who got to choose the Olympic team, I would go with Nathan, Jason, and Ilia.
alexikeguchi
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Okay Vincent just made things interesting... I feel like Ilia earned an Olympic spot with his two performances at this competition, but should Jason be left off the team with essentially the same score as Vincent?
carriecmu0503
Well-Known Member
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Jason skated as best as he can. Vincent was a mess. They got virtually the same score. I would send the one with the higher ceiling.
Tesla
Whippet Good
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This. While Vincent and Jason have the same score, Jason is more consistent.
Jarrett
What the hell?!
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I would like to see how Vincent's jumps were called because it sounds like Tara and Johnny thought they were favorable when they shouldn't have been.
Vincent has been gifted a medal here. He should be 4th at best. So already the podium should be different, IMO.
Jarrett
What the hell?!
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4th gets a medal too. I dont think he was gifted a medal because it was a long way down to 5th.
4th doesn't get a real medal, then.
Nathan obviously made that glaring mistake on the stepwork sequence, but I can't remember ever seeing him look like he was having more fun. I'm very happy he went back to this program. And I don't think he'll make that mistake again. It was an aberration. I think this would have been well received by an international panel.
OTOH, this was not an aberration for Vincent, and if Vincent had skated before an international panel, I think he would have received much worse scores, even relative to the others. He didn't even make the long program at Worlds.
OTOH, this was not an aberration for Vincent, and if Vincent had skated before an international panel, I think he would have received much worse scores, even relative to the others. He didn't even make the long program at Worlds.
