2021/2022 Canadian Men: News and Updates

[dramagrrl]

If Canada pulls Sadovsky from the World Championships, the men's results in Beijing seem to indicate they'll need to find a skater who can produce 76 points in the short program or more to make the cut. Phan, Chiu, and Gogolev have all achieved that score, but at the Junior Grand Prix Series level.

So has Nam. I know he didn't have a good GP season or skate well at Canadians, but even with not-so-great results, he scored around 75 points in the SP at Skate America. He was over 70 at Canadians even with a seventh-place SP that counted two URs after he was barely recovered from the co-plague. Joseph had a major redemption at Canadians, but his only international SP score this season was at Zagreb, where he scored 56.01. Gogolev has barely competed in the last two years and his SP at Warsaw was under 70 points. Chiu would probably be the best replacement, but he has JW right before Sr. Worlds, and travelling to two international destinations with a less than two-week turnover during this time of the Plague could be dicey.

This is all theoretical because they might just let Roman go and try to redeem himself, but if he decides to wd or SC decides to pull him (or "suggest" that he steps aside), it's kind of a toss-up.

 

[Mayra]

I'm also curious if skaters feel as much "pressure" at the Olympics without any crowds... I wonder if it feels as "high pressure" as a typical olympics when you have a crowd there cheering loudly...?

I also wondered about this, but seeing the reactions of people like Kamila and Nathan after they finished their skates make me believe that at least for them, pressure exists regardless. Sometimes there's no pressure worse than the one you put on yourself and at the end of the day, you know the eyes of the world are watching and expectations still exist.

I feel for Roman. From sports standpoint, I would not fault SC if they pulled him from Worlds or hinted strongly at him to pull out. From human perspective, I hope Roman can regroup and put out a decent performance he can be proud of at Worlds. I don't think this Olympic experience is one he will forget, and not in a good way unfortunately.

 

[puglover]

Just who do they sub in? Wesley and Stephen have been named to junior worlds 2 weeks before senior worlds. Stephen is still pretty much an unknown at this point. Nam has had a rough season with physical and/or mental issues and had covid right before Canadians so no chance to make a case for himself. Joseph? Corey?

 

[Alilou]

Just who do they sub in? Wesley and Stephen have been named to junior worlds 2 weeks before senior worlds. Stephen is still pretty much an unknown at this point. Nam has had a rough season with physical and/or mental issues and had covid right before Canadians so no chance to make a case for himself. Joseph? Corey?

So see if Nam would like to make a case for himself now, if, of course, he's fully recovered from the crud, which is the only reason he didn't do well at nationals - have him do a test skate for TPTB.

Like @tony I'm not remotely surprised by Roman's skates.
I'm reminded of something Maya Angelou said: When people show you who they are believe them the first time.
I get it that this is awful for Roman, and I get it that he's by all accounts a total sweetheart, but he's shown us over and over that he is not a good competitor.

 

[aussieSKATES]

So has Nam. I know he didn't have a good GP season or skate well at Canadians, but even with not-so-great results, he scored around 75 points in the SP at Skate America. He was over 70 at Canadians even with a seventh-place SP that counted two URs after he was barely recovered from the co-plague. Joseph had a major redemption at Canadians, but his only international SP score this season was at Zagreb, where he scored 56.01. Gogolev has barely competed in the last two years and his SP at Warsaw was under 70 points. Chiu would probably be the best replacement, but he has JW right before Sr. Worlds, and travelling to two international destinations with a less than two-week turnover during this time of the Plague could be dicey.

This is all theoretical because they might just let Roman go and try to redeem himself, but if he decides to wd or SC decides to pull him (or "suggest" that he steps aside), it's kind of a toss-up.

Our understanding, and correct me if we're wrong if this ruling is no longer in effect, is that Skate Canada requires an athlete to have placed within the top five at the Canadian Championships to be considered for international selection as part of their Body of Work.

Bear in mind that Nam, at the 2016 and 2018 World Championships, with poor performances in the men's short program, did not qualify for the free skate at either event.

 

[danafan]

Only two other (actively competing) senior men have the TES minimums: Nguyen and Orzel. There's not much time between junior worlds and worlds so it would be tough for either Chiu or Gogolev to do both. I do wonder if Skate Canada will try to get them (or Phan and Circelli for that matter) to a senior international just in case.

 

[Karen-W]

Are you people for real saying that it's too difficult for the men assigned to Jr Worlds to turn it around and compete at Sr Worlds two weeks later? Jr Worlds are in Sofia and Worlds are in Montpellier - that's a day's worth of travel. I'm pretty sure that any of the guys would gladly take both assignments. Ilia Malinin certainly isn't turning it down for the US...

 

[skatingguy]

Only two other (actively competing) senior men have the TES minimums: Nguyen and Orzel. There's not much time between junior worlds and worlds so it would be tough for either Chiu or Gogolev to do both. I do wonder if Skate Canada will try to get them (or Phan and Circelli for that matter) to a senior international just in case.

Circelli or Phan, neither of them got the minimums at Four Continents?

 

[Karen-W]

Circelli or Phan, neither of them got the minimums at Four Continents?

https://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stsmjustsen3.htm - no, Worlds TES mins are 34 / 64 - they're both missing the SP min. Of course, Skate Canada could send them to Challenge Cup like the USFS is sending Malinin there to, hopefully, get it before Worlds.

 

[overedge]

Our understanding, and correct me if we're wrong if this ruling is no longer in effect, is that Skate Canada requires an athlete to have placed within the top five at the Canadian Championships to be considered for international selection as part of their Body of Work.

Here's the selection criteria, on the third page of this document.

https://skatecanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2022-Skate-Canada-ISU-Championships-Selection-Criteria.pdf

There's the "wiggle room" criterion of "other relevant criteria deemed relevant for selection". The document clearly says that the team is named at Canadians after the end of the senior events. There's nothing in it about pulling athletes for poor performances at the Olympics.

 

[puglover]

I don't think anyone is saying it couldn't be done. Stephen is just barely back after not really competing for several years. Wesley is having a great season. He is young and pretty new to international competition but so far has handled jgps really well. Senior worlds is another story - maybe he is ready and maybe it would be better for his future to compete only junior where he is having good success this year.

 

[skatingguy]

https://results.isu.org/isujsstat/tes3/stsmjustsen3.htm - no, Worlds TES mins are 34 / 64 - they're both missing the SP min. Of course, Skate Canada could send them to Challenge Cup like the USFS is sending Malinin there to, hopefully, get it before Worlds.

So Skate Canada, if they wanted to, could send Nguyen, Orzel, or Nicolas Nadeau (who hasn't skated singles in almost 2 years) - that's kind of what I thought.

 

[Karen-W]

Look, even if Roman bombs again and fails to make the FS, as long as Keegan can manage a top 10 finish, Canada will be good to send 2 men in 2023, so why all the angst? I mean, are things as dire as US Pairs 2017?

 

[overedge]

Daleman had a lot of strong enough performances and results to not question her placement on the Team. I don’t have a problem with skating federations not relying on Nationals for such acclaimed competitions. If replacing Roman sends such a message, I guess don’t see what’s wrong with the actual message? Yes, if you actually do well in EVERY international event, why shouldn’t you make the Worlds or Olympics team despite a bad performance at Nationals? I am still bitter about Buttle.

The SC selection rules have criteria in addition to Nationals placement. Roman won GP medals in 2018-19 and 2019-20, so it's not like he screws up every time he goes to international events.

IMO replacing Roman would send a couple of negative messages. One would be that SC can ignore its own selection rules when it wants to. Another is that SC won't support you if you're having a difficult time.

If Roman doesn't want to go to Worlds and chooses to withdraw on his own, that's fine. But Skate Canada should not pull him if he wants to go. What is the worst that can happen? It wouldn't be the first year ever when Canadian men didn't skate well enough to keep the same number of spots for the next year, or didn't get more spots. There are four years after that to rebuild to the next Olympics.

 

[Colonel Green]

What is the worst that can happen? It wouldn't be the first year ever when Canadian men didn't skate well enough to keep the same number of spots for the next year, or didn't get more spots.

Yes, but the federation never wants that to happen. That's how you end up in a situation like we were in in 2021 where we only had one man for a pre-Olympic Worlds.

I doubt the federation will pull Roman (they'll just cross their fingers for Keegan to pull them through), but I don't think it would be a negative if they did. Skaters should know there will be accountability.

 

[coppertop1]

Yes, but the federation never wants that to happen. That's how you end up in a situation like we were in in 2021 where we only had one man for a pre-Olympic Worlds.

I doubt the federation will pull Roman (they'll just cross their fingers for Keegan to pull them through), but I don't think it would be a negative if they did. Skaters should know there will be accountability.

Because Roman did it on purpose. It would be negative to his morale. It's easy to judge from behind a keyboard.

 

[overedge]

Yes, but the federation never wants that to happen. That's how you end up in a situation like we were in in 2021 where we only had one man for a pre-Olympic Worlds.

Of course the federation doesn't want that to happen. I don't know why you're even bringing that up.
A federation always wants its skaters to do as well as they can.

And as for accountability, the skaters are very well aware of how many resources have been poured into supporting them, and what the federation expects in return. I don't know why you're bringing that up either.

Inevitably there are going to be years when a federation's skaters aren't as good as its skaters were in other years, or when there are a lot of skaters from other countries who are better. It's the reality of the sport. It's not the end of the world, and federations plan around what they have. They can't just magically produce better skaters right away. There are going to be down times as well as up times.

And everyone who is getting bent out of shape about "why does Canada not have any good men's skaters right now" should remember in the early 2000s, there was at least one year when the only international medal won by any Canadian man was won by an adult skater. And look what happened in the years since then. Like then, this is a rebuilding period.

 

[Sonata]

While Roman is inconsistent, I’ve never seen him skate like this back to back. This is not his baseline. Had Keegan skated the short and Roman the long, I think we would have seen a different skate.

What I saw in both his reaction after his free and his tearful interview with Elladj was that he had just gone through something rather traumatic in front of an international audience. The timing of the mens individual SP event very shortly thereafter was unfortunate, as was his draw.

Personally if I were Skate Canada, I would make sure he has a good psychologist, not because he needs a mental prep coach, but because he is so obviously suffering mentally from this experience. I think it is the wrong signal to send to the Canadian team to drop him and not support him. You should not have to spend years struggling through mental health conditions because of what happened at an Olympics, as has happened to some other athletes.

I would not push Roman off the worlds team. They appear to have pressured Liam Firus to withdraw from worlds in 2016 and it did not work out in their favour. And as someone mentioned, Keegan will likely place top 10 and get 2 spots.

 

[Seerek]

And as for accountability, the skaters are very well aware of how many resources have been poured into supporting them, and what the federation expects in return. I don't know why you're bringing that up either.

Not directly related to Roman, but I do wonder how much the Own the Podium funding will drop for the Cortina quadrennial based on the results in Beijing.

The Team Event 4th will help a little, plus Gilles/Poirier, and then...?

 

[Colonel Green]

Because Roman did it on purpose. It would be negative to his morale.

Who said he did it on purpose?

The federation exists to field competitive athletes. I don't regard it as a negative if the federation were to decide that Roman's consistently poor performances in high pressure situations warrant him being pulled from being put in such situations until such time as he shows he might be ready for them.

Like I said, I doubt that they'll do this, though that will also result in more pressure on Keegan since he's going to be expected to carry the whole weight in Montpellier.

But if I was director of high performance, at this point I would be looking at sending Chiu for future development purposes, unless his coaching staff thought it wasn't a good idea.

Of course the federation doesn't want that to happen. I don't know why you're even bringing that up.

Because the federation should always be working to maximize results at any given event, especially one where there are long-term implications. Whereas you were suggesting that the upcoming Worlds doesn't really matter because they can try again next time.

 

[skatingguy]

Not directly related to Roman, but I do wonder how much the Own the Podium funding will drop for the Cortina quadrennial based on the results in Beijing.

The Team Event 4th will help a little, plus Gilles/Poirier, and then...?

I was thinking about that as well - no medal here will hurt the funding that Skate Canada gets, but the good news is that changes in the way Olympic athletes receive their funding in Canada means that if an athlete, say Lajoie/Lagha for example, become medal contenders in the next couple seasons then they can apply to B2ten to get additional funding, and support.

 

[karmena]

Yeah, while the pressures of this event produced a particularly bad set of skates from Roman, none of this is at all unprecedented from him, and he does not skate well at relatively low-stakes events either. He has had at least one 60-69 range short program in every season as a senior, and regularly posts free skate scores in the 120s-130s.

He has obvious jumping limitations imposed by his height, but assuming he's able to practice these jumps with reasonable consistency, he simply is not a good competitor.

No, there seems to be much more than "...he simply is not a good competitor". He would not be where he is now if he would received a help (and a long time ago) or if somebody else in his inner circle would have recognized that his inability to perform/ compete has a deep roots in his psychological disposition and he needs help. It did not happen and he is where he is now.

 

[RoseRed]

Who said he did it on purpose?

The federation exists to field competitive athletes. I don't regard it as a negative if the federation were to decide that Roman's consistently poor performances in high pressure situations warrant him being pulled from being put in such situations until such time as he shows he might be ready for them.

Like I said, I doubt that they'll do this, though that will also result in more pressure on Keegan since he's going to be expected to carry the whole weight in Montpellier.

But if I was director of high performance, at this point I would be looking at sending Chiu for future development purposes, unless his coaching staff thought it wasn't a good idea.

Because the federation should always be working to maximize results at any given event, especially one where there are long-term implications. Whereas you were suggesting that the upcoming Worlds doesn't really matter because they can try again next time.

Is having Nam there instead significantly less pressure? Because currently the options are just him or Conrad. He might do fine, but he's had a really rough season (even before Nationals) and he's also missed the FS at Worlds multiple times before. That might still be the better option (because I don't know if going to Worlds would be in Roman's best interests, SC aside), but I don't think it's that different for Keegan. They'd still be relying on him.

If Wesley had the minimums (or can get them) that would be a bit different, since he's had a really good season. But he'd still be a junior with almost no senior experience. So again, mainly relying on Keegan. Stephen - barely competed in the past couple of years, so same. Joseph had a 69.70 at 4CCs and is still injured, so same. Conrad had a terrible SP at SC, isn't a great competitor and doesn't get great PCS, so same.

I don't know if they should send Roman or not, honestly. But no matter who we send, realistically you're relying on Keegan for the spots. If it turns out that the 2nd guy does well and helps that's great.

 

[overedge]

Because the federation should always be working to maximize results at any given event, especially one where there are long-term implications. Whereas you were suggesting that the upcoming Worlds doesn't really matter because they can try again next time.

Please. There is no evidence at all that SC is not working to maximize its results, except in your eyes because they're sending a skater you think is a choker. SC has to work with what it has, and they chose Keegan and Roman as the skaters they thought would do the best out of the skaters that met the qualifications. You may disagree with that choice, but that doesn't mean SC isn't trying to get the best placements possible.

And I did not say these Worlds don't matter. Don't put words in my mouth. I said that not every year is going to be a great year, and some years the skaters are going to do better than other years. This is going to be one of the not-great years, but there are a few years until the next Olympics in which to rebuild.

And once more for the people at the back, SC has rules for selecting the World team, and the rules don't allow for a skater to be pulled by SC for having a bad Olympics.

 

[dramagrrl]

And once more for the people at the back, SC has rules for selecting the World team, and the rules don't allow for a skater to be pulled by SC for having a bad Olympics.

Because rules in figure skating have never been bent or manipulated behind the scenes by federations before…

 

[barbarafan]

Skate Canada already has enough with its, um, selective interpretation of the rules in making its choices for the pairs at Worlds.

Roman earned his spot at Worlds with his placement at Nationals. There is nothing in Skate Canada's selection rules for the Worlds team about pulling an athlete off the team if they don't do well at the Olympics. The athlete can choose not to compete, but Skate Canada can't take them off the team.

If Skate Canada pulls Roman from the Worlds team now, the message that's going to send to every up-and-coming young skater in Canada is that you'd better do well at every single international competition OR ELSE. Do you really think that's going to help develop better World and Olympic teams in the future?

Skate Canada needs to be sending all the top skaters plural to lots of international events and stop giving out byes to certain events so it is known properly where they stand in their training and can offer help. As well they need someone with a brain to raise money to add kids to the pool with obvious athletic talent who can't afford admission to a rink never mind lessons.

 

[skategal]

I'm still failing to understand what was really that shocking about Sadovsky's performance. He won Nationals in 2020 and then, as I mentioned way upthread, (I'm pretty sure) had the worst result ever by a Canadian man in the 4CC. He goes from really bad performances at Grand Prix events one week to a medal or a very strong performance a few weeks later. He barely qualified Canada the second spot at Nebelhorn and several people commented that they thought he was gifted there. None of this is new, and Skate Canada has to know the risk with assigning him to events.

Was he having a panic or anxiety attack? I don't think he 'clearly' was as someone claims, I think this is just his timing constantly being rushed in competition hence why we see a lot of pops. I also think that he probably has a lower success rate on the jumps in practices and warmups anyways, so for me it wasn't like a shell-shock moment that he wasn't able to deliver. He's a mini-Sandhu where you either get medals or you get borderline disaster performances, but with Sandhu his favor was that the rest of the field wasn't doing quads and upped technical content like is the case now.

I don’t think anyone expected Roman to be clean but he did come 4th (iirc) in one of his GPs this season as skated well enough at Nationals to make the Olympic team.

Also he usually doesn’t skate 3 stinkers in a row.

So I think we expected he would land some jumps and hopefully make the FS.

In his post competition interview he indicated that he “couldn’t feel his body out there” which is also indicative of something different rather than going for the jumps and rotating them and falling or his regular inconsistency.

 

[Orm Irian]

In his post competition interview he indicated that he “couldn’t feel his body out there” which is also indicative of something different rather than going for the jumps and rotating them and falling or his regular inconsistency.

Oh dear, it sounds like he might have developed a skater's version of the twisties. Poor guy, I hope he can work through it and be okay again eventually.

 

[mackiecat]

For those of you who think that Nam’s poor national performance can be blamed on Covid, go back and watch him at Challenge. He wasn’t sick then and both programs are very poor. If you can see him on the warmup to the long, he was skating around with his hands in his pants pockets.

 

[overedge]

Because rules in figure skating have never been bent or manipulated behind the scenes by federations before…

SC has already gotten a lot of grief for selectively manipulating its rules to name James/Radford to the Olympic team. I doubt even SC is foolish enough to try something similar to pull Roman off the team for Worlds. The rules are already very clear that the team is named after Nationals.

SC can have "discussions" with a skater about whether the skater should go to an event, sure, but there is no way they can pull a skater under circumstances like these.