2025-26 US Pairs Discussion - Milano-Bound By Way of Beijing & St. Louis

Karen-W said:
I'm not begrudging them the GP assignments they earned, but I think they (and Williams/Lewer last season) would have been much better off taking the Golubeva/Giotopoulos Moore route from 2 seasons ago where, yes, they received a GP assignment on the initial assignments, but they decided to go back to the JGP for the prize money & greater competition opportunities. GoluGM got the CTES mins for 4CCs and Worlds by doing a late Challenger and I think that's a much better path, especially in the Olympic season when none of the Olympic team members will be assigned to 4CCs, so there's a major senior Championship opportunity ripe for the taking.
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I see your point here. And Golubeva/Giotopoulos certainly had a great dual jr/sr season. It looks like Canada's Kemp/Elizarov may be trying that route this year as well. OTOH, I do think it's harder for that route to end up at a senior Championships for the bigger skating nations. The Aussie team didn't have a lot of domestic competition, which isn't the case for Canadian or American teams. And then there's the whole BOW thing to contend with in the U.S. For example, ice dancers Wolfkostin/Chen tried the dual jr/sr season in the 2022 Olympic season,; they medaled at both their JGPs, finished 6th at Nationals, and got skipped over for the 4CC team anyway.
 
Flores/Wang are listed as withdrawn from Nebelhorn on the Int'l Assignments page.
 
dancefan17 said:
Still very surprised that Shin/Nagy are still listed for Beijing qualifier. Thought Chan/Howe might be replacing them after the John Nicks competition.
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My guess is any Int'l Committee revisit of that decision would have waited until after Kinoshita Group Cup, which was held over the weekend.
 
Gah. The USFS really are the dumbest of the dumb feds. They gave ShiNagy the SkAm TBD spot based off of Champs Camp. What these bozos are thinking boggles the mind. You'd have thought they'd at least have given it to McBark after their strong showing at John Nicks, but nooooooooooo...
 
Karen-W said:
Gah. The USFS really are the dumbest of the dumb feds. They gave ShiNagy the SkAm TBD spot based off of Champs Camp. What these bozos are thinking boggles the mind. You'd have thought they'd at least have given it to McBark after their strong showing at John Nicks, but nooooooooooo...
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Esp since L&B destrrrroyyyyedddddd them at JN
 
I kinda get why USFS would promote Shin/Nagy. They have citizenship, they have a Challenger medal and a year's competition experience together, they aren't coming back from injury, and they are projected to continue after the Olympics. None of the other US pairs can claim all that. They're also pretty consistent with landing at least one good SBS triple in every competition, if not two, a rarity among US pairs.
It is kinda nuts that ShinNagy have two GPS with a personal best of 170 but I guess that's the privilege of belonging to a big federation.
 
farahfan said:
I kinda get why USFS would promote Shin/Nagy. They have citizenship, they have a Challenger medal and a year's competition experience together, they aren't coming back from injury, and they are projected to continue after the Olympics. None of the other US pairs can claim all that. They're also pretty consistent with landing at least one good SBS triple in every competition, if not two, a rarity among US pairs.
It is kinda nuts that ShinNagy have two GPS with a personal best of 170 but I guess that's the privilege of belonging to a big federation.
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None of those are good reasons to give them the SkAm spot. They are reasons - it is also an assumption they plan to continue into the next quad. They haven't said anything about their long-term plans.

I'm actually pretty pissed about this. The USFS has played favorites far too often in the past and it almost always blows up in their faces. It won't surprise me if ShiNagy not only fail to secure the 3rd spot for the US this week, but if they finish behind 3-4 other teams who have citizenship at Nats. Right now, their SB is below 3 teams who are Oly-eligible (ChanHowe, PlaFern & LiuBed) with 1 left to make their season debut who will most certainlyoutscore them (KamO).
 
Karen-W said:
None of those are good reasons to give them the SkAm spot. They are reasons - it is also an assumption they plan to continue into the next quad. They haven't said anything about their long-term plans.

I'm actually pretty pissed about this. The USFS has played favorites far too often in the past and it almost always blows up in their faces. It won't surprise me if ShiNagy not only fail to secure the 3rd spot for the US this week, but if they finish behind 3-4 other teams who have citizenship at Nats. Right now, their SB is below 3 teams who are Oly-eligible (ChanHowe, PlaFern & LiuBed) with 1 left to make their season debut who will most certainlyoutscore them (KamO).
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I think we can agree tho, if the pair has solid single elements, the pair elements will come in time, so it's a vote of confidence. Whereas if the pair is bad at jumping, it usually never gets better.
 
farahfan said:
I think we can agree tho, if the pair has solid single elements, the pair elements will come in time, so it's a vote of confidence. Whereas if the pair is bad at jumping, it usually never gets better.
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If you want to make that argument, go right ahead. It still fails since McBark also usually manage to land at least 1 of their SBS triples per program and their pairs elements are on par with ShiNagy.

Also, sometimes the pairs elements never come together for a team. We've seen that happen with plenty of teams over the years. Sometimes this is a matter of the coaching team they refuse to leave, other times it's a matter of the partners actually not being a great fit for each other.
 
I really don’t think that any of the pairs have shown something special that makes me want to get upset over who’s being selected for what at this point. They seem committed and working. If they are just showing up randomly at competition in horrible shape I could see being a little upset that they were getting picked over other teams that were doing that but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. I know we can’t judge skaters on instagram alone but their elements have looked quite good.
 
I want to believe that there is a rationale for sending S/N that makes sense to the powers that made the decision. I wish them the best in the Olympic qualification competition, but all the recent competitive data suggests that this decision may be robbing another team from an Olympic dream and that just makes me sad.
 
I find almost all the US teams incredibly inconsistent so I’m not entirely upset about this. They could send another team and that team could also fail due to lack of consistency.

Also, Parkman is unlikely to even have citizenship for 2030, I can see why USFS might not be pushing them. Liu just took a year off and came back suddenly, who’s to say that won’t happen again, especially knowing her concussion issues? There could be lots of reasons shin/nagy were selected.
 
By all reports the decision (for both the OQE and SkAm) was purely based on the simulated competition held at Champs Camp. Which is just more than a little nutty considering they've used John Nicks in the past to decide on the SkAm host TBD spot.
 
Trialeti Trophy entries are out.

Chan/Howe, Kam/O'Shea and Moss/Galbavy are assigned. This will be MossGal's senior int'l debut. Hopefully they'll be able to earn the senior CTES mins.
 
Tinycities said:
I find almost all the US teams incredibly inconsistent so I’m not entirely upset about this. They could send another team and that team could also fail due to lack of consistency.

Also, Parkman is unlikely to even have citizenship for 2030, I can see why USFS might not be pushing them. Liu just took a year off and came back suddenly, who’s to say that won’t happen again, especially knowing her concussion issues? There could be lots of reasons shin/nagy were selected.
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I don’t think Parkman will have it by 2030 as well so I can see why they don’t send them. But to not send Chan/Howe over Shin/Nagy is very questionable and assigning them SkAm over them as well is just poor from USFS.

According to Liu/Bedard in an interview. Liu taking a year off and their partnership ending wasn’t because of concussions or any head injuries it was due to issues with Nagy. Here’s the quote: “It was never my intention to step away from skating; I always wanted to continue competing. However, I found myself in a situation that brought me more pain than happiness. While making sacrifices is part of any career, I eventually realized where 'the line' was for me—I was not willing to sacrifice my mental well-being for success in sport”.
 
SmoothEdge said:
I don’t think Parkman will have it by 2030 as well so I can see why they don’t send them. But to not send Chan/Howe over Shin/Nagy is very questionable and assigning them SkAm over them as well is just poor from USFS.

According to Liu/Bedard in an interview. Liu taking a year off and their partnership ending wasn’t because of concussions or any head injuries it was due to issues with Nagy. Here’s the quote: “It was never my intention to step away from skating; I always wanted to continue competing. However, I found myself in a situation that brought me more pain than happiness. While making sacrifices is part of any career, I eventually realized where 'the line' was for me—I was not willing to sacrifice my mental well-being for success in sport”.
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Some of Nagy’s quotes about the start of his partnership with Audrey have made me concerned for her mental wee being as well. He’s always given me a bad vibe.
 
TanithandBenFan said:
Some of Nagy’s quotes about the start of his partnership with Audrey have made me concerned for her mental wee being as well. He’s always given me a bad vibe.
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It's rather interesting how he's bounced around various training centers over the course of his career.

He also was the one who dumped Maria Pavlova after Euros 2022 even though they would have had a clear path to Euros & Worlds the following season since everyone knew Magyar was retiring after the Olympics.
 
sp555 said:
Does it really matter who the US sends to that olympic qualifying event? I figure the USFS has already bought and paid for their extra spot. Maybe I'll be surprised but I don't expect the results to be fair in any of the disciplines.
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It's cute and cool and everything else to post something like this, but how would it really work? Where does the money come from? Who makes the decision that having a third pair in Milano, is so important that money needs to be spent? Who gets the money?
 
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