2019-20 U.S. Regional Singles & Sectional Pairs/Dance Challenges (spanning October 2019)

[Theoreticalgirl]

I was at IceWorks as well. Have some thoughts but will post later!

 

[ZilphaK]

Cailey Weaver's Instagram Stories has a group shot of the top 4 with their medals. They all looks so happy!

 

[Sylvia]

Cailey Weaver's IG selfie photo of the top 4 (behind Gracie are Jill Heiner & Emily Zhang): https://www.instagram.com/p/B3P5qgVHNT1/

 

[Deleted member 221]

Gracie's flip is still on such a blatant outside edge . I guess it's more important for her to fill a box with any triple she can do, but the baked-in point loss on this in both programs is going to hinder her. The spin levels and lack of combinations didn't help her here either.

For Sectionals, I wonder if she'd be better off only practicing lutzes, loops, and double axels and making she gets the levels on her spins. The lutz looks good; it could be worth doing two lutzes within the first three elements of the program where she has full strength.

SP: 3Lz+2T (or 3T if she thinks she can manage a < v. <<); 3Lo; 2A.
FS: 3Lz+2T (or 3T), 3Lz, 3Lo, 2A, 2A+1eu+2S, 3Lo+2T, then maybe do a 2Lz or attempt a 3Fe or 3S as the last element?

 

[Tinami Amori]

Cailey Weaver's IG selfie photo of the top 4 (behind Gracie are Jill Heiner & Emily Zhang): https://www.instagram.com/p/B3P5qgVHNT1/

Wow! Cailey Weaver is such a pretty girl! looks like she can be on TV and in the movies.

https://yt3.ggpht.com/a/AGF-l79ZWyiqvy9VxQEubcSXP5jXpsAIPlob_SBQjw=s900-c-k-c0xffffffff-no-rj-mo

"Italian princess"... with an "irish name" i guess....

Cailey Weaver on Instagram: "Super proud of these little ones today 💕"

September 15, 2019 - 108 likes, 2 comments - Cailey Weaver (@cailey_weaver) on Instagram: "Super proud of these little ones today 💕"

www.instagram.com

 

[Debbie S]

Cailey was the female skater in the USFS Get Up commercials (TJ Nyman was the male) a few years back.

Congrats to her on making Easterns! Her retirement postponed for another month.

 

[Debbie S]

Right now, skaters with byes to Eastern Sectionals are Megan Wessenberg (NE), Gabriella Izzo (NE), Audrey Shin (NA), and Sarah Jung (SA), correct? It is still top four from Sectionals go to Nationals?

I think Izzo may now actually have a bye straight to Nats, since she is on the list of entries for the Asian Open at the end of the month and 3 int'l assignments gets a bye through Sectionals? Paging @Sylvia....

Megan has 2 Challengers...if she gets a 3rd, I guess that would also get her a bye?

 

[Carolla5501]

Honestly I think there is a lot of optimism for Gracie. I’m not sure based on where she is that she's going to be on that Olympic team. She doesn't just have to get back to where she was, she may have to move on from there... Unless something happens I am beginning to think you are going to need a quad or triple axel to make that team.

I hope she's doing this because she loves it and can be happy no matter how it turns out.

 

[ZilphaK]

Cailey Weaver's IG selfie photo of the top 4 (behind Gracie are Jill Heiner & Emily Zhang): https://www.instagram.com/p/B3P5qgVHNT1/

OMG, that's so stinking cute!

 

[Sylvia]

I think Izzo may now actually have a bye straight to Nats, since she is on the list of entries for the Asian Open at the end of the month and 3 int'l assignments gets a bye through Sectionals? Paging @Sylvia

USFS hasn't posted their Asian Open FS Trophy entries on their website yet but, yes, Izzo should get a bye through Easterns since that would be her 3rd international this fall. Also, the other two Challenger Series competitions in November, Tallinn Trophy and Warsaw Cup, take place during Sectionals week so any U.S. skater assigned to one of those should receive at bye (if they don't already have one) to Nationals as well.

ETA:

Honestly I think there is a lot of optimism for Gracie.

Better than negativity! I think the majority of skating fans understand that she is just at the beginning of a very long road to being competitive by current standards. My impression is that she is realistic about this as well.

 

[Sylvia]

Gracie

3Z-2T, 3F, 3Lo, 1A, CCoSp, steps, 1A, 2Z, 2S, fly camel combo spin, layback.

Beautiful program.

Fan cam, part 1: https://twitter.com/Jacobskate633/status/1180546919011102720
Part 2: https://twitter.com/Jacobskate633/status/1180546919011102720

 

[haribobo]

SWP Competitor List (the only one of all upcoming regionals to have it posted so far)

Link

 

[Frau Muller]

Gracie

3Z-2T, 3F, 3Lo, 1A, CCoSp, steps, 1A, 2Z, 2S, fly camel combo spin, layback.

Beautiful program. Arrghh, I hope she can stay top 5!

And she's 2nd! I'm glad the judges rewarded the superior skating skills and presentation.

Both Gracie and Amber Glenn seem obsessed by the same kind of music - dull, monotonous contemporary female ballads. Zzzzzzzz.... Was this sort of crap what the ISU had in mind when they allowed vocals?

 

[Sylvia]

Cross-posting here from GSD:

U.S. Qualifying Season press release: https://www.usfsa.org/story.aspx?id=92714&type=media

For Regional and Sectional Challenges, on-demand video will be available on the Figure Skating Pass on NBC Sports Gold (senior and junior competitions) and the U.S. Figure Skating Fan Zone (juvenile, intermediate and novice competitions) the week after each competition. In November, the Figure Skating Pass on NBC Sports Gold and the U.S. Figure Skating Fan Zone will carry live coverage of Sectionals and Finals.

Fan Zone link to watch for free (videos from the first 3 Regionals (juvenile/intermediate/novice levels) should appear here sometime this week): https://usfigureskatingfanzone.com/watch/

 

[Theoreticalgirl]

Hi @Louis—Gracie's flip happened in front of me quite literally, so I'm going to have to disagree that it was "blatant". Was it a deep inside edge? No. Much better than the one she singled in the short, that's for sure.

Overall, I thought the event was good. Even the earlier groups had skaters with positive qualities, or an element here or there that was quite nice. (Case in point: Isabella Rongione had AMAZINGLY fast spins. Surprised the judges didn't award her a little more GOE for them.)

If there was one bit of advice I could give the majority of the skaters, it would be to look up and out. So many of them looked like they were doing another run through at the rink, barely acknowledging the judges or audience. Given how large the crowd was for this event—probably the largest crowd some of these skaters have been in front of—I'm sure this made the event more stressful than usual.

Gracie looked a lot better than I expected, but she barely squeaked by in a field that wasn't particularly strong to begin with. The judging and technical panel were tough (I am friends with one of the callers, I know they are pretty strict), and the programs lacked the mileage that could have been gained from doing one or two area comps over the summer. According to my , the SP crowds freaked her out (which is why no one could go near the boards during the FS). Even though IceWorks has been good about providing her privacy to regroup and recover, I wonder if it's helpful for her overarching goals. If someone can't handle Regionals, how are they going to cope with the microscope that is Nationals (provided she makes it).

Emily Zhang: The height of those jumps was stunning, but then she went and kept tripping on crossovers. Chalking it up to nerves.

Julia Biechler: Can we just make Julia's skating skills the default minimum for all women and girls on Team USA? (Yes I know she competed in ice dance; sometimes we skate together.) Glad to see her rally and qualify to Sectionals.

Jill Heiner: I know she has an NQS bye, and it showed—she skated with the confidence of someone who didn't need to be there. LOVED IT. She was channeling some deep Natalie Wood vibes in her WSS free skate. Looks like her jumps were called clean here, but some of those landings were veering a little too close to two-footed for my taste.

 

[ZilphaK]

Absolutely agree on Julia's skating skills. And I was wondering how those crowds might freak out the other skaters. Senior Ladies in recent years at SA Regionals can often be a fairly low-key event with most of the top skaters already having byes to Sectionals, but very few big crowd draw names (unlike the Liberty competition held there during the summer).

 

[Sylvia]

@Theoreticalgirl, thanks a LOT for your report! South Atlantics might actually have the deepest field of Senior ladies of the 9 Regionals this year. I heard that Julia Biechler was given a NQS bye but competed in Aston anyway, which means the sixth place finisher, Joanna Hubbart, has qualified for Easterns.

Northwest Pacific Regional Singles Challenge results: https://www.usfigureskating.org/leaderboard/results/2020/27734/index.asp
Re. 2 ISP skaters:
Alena Budko improved her season best total score in Junior Ladies to 159.66 (48.60 SP, 111.06 FS). She landed six triples in her FS: 2A+1Eu+3S, 3Lz+1T, 3F(!), 3Lo+2Lo, 3Lo, 3Lz, 2A.
Lucas Broussard won Intermediate Men with an impressive total score of 165.09 (56.41 in SP, 108.68 in FS). His FS jumps all received + GOEs: 3S+3T, 3Lz, 2A+3T, 3Lo, 3F+2T, 3S (received 8 bonus points for his 7 triples and one 2A). He was invited to compete in the Novice Challenge Skate in Salt Lake City last month and won that event (his NWP free skate was a cleaner performance so I'm looking forward to seeing the Fan Zone video).

Eastern Great Lakes Regional Singles Challenge results: https://www.usfigureskating.org/leaderboard/results/2020/27729/index.asp
Emilea Zingas, St. Clair Shores FSC (she was the 2019 U.S. Novice silver medalist) improved her season best total score in Junior Ladies to 144.52 (46.82 SP, 97.70 FS).

ETA that I've posted about the Midwestern results of Shilling/Petrov and Pate/Bye (their competition debut together) in the U.S. Dance thread in GSD: https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/th...eason-news-updates.105725/page-7#post-5652759

 

[Theoreticalgirl]

@Sylvia Ah, good to know Julia had an NQS bye as well.

 

[sk8nlizard]

@Theoreticalgirl, thanks a LOT for your report! South Atlantics might actually have the deepest field of Senior ladies of the 9 Regionals this year. I heard that Julia Biechler was given a NQS bye but competed in Aston anyway, which means the sixth place finisher, Joanna Hubbart, has qualified for Easterns.

Northwest Pacific Regional Singles Challenge results: https://www.usfigureskating.org/leaderboard/results/2020/27734/index.asp
Re. 2 ISP skaters:
Alena Budko improved her season best total score in Junior Ladies to 159.66 (48.60 SP, 111.06 FS). She landed six triples in her FS: 2A+1Eu+3S, 3Lz+1T, 3F(!), 3Lo+2Lo, 3Lo, 3Lz, 2A.
Lucas Broussard won Intermediate Men with an impressive total score of 165.09 (56.41 in SP, 108.68 in FS). His FS jumps all received + GOEs: 3S+3T, 3Lz, 2A+3T, 3Lo, 3F+2T, 3S (received 8 bonus points for his 7 triples and one 2A). He was invited to compete in the Novice Challenge Skate in Salt Lake City last month and won that event (his NWP free skate was a cleaner performance so I'm looking forward to seeing the Fan Zone video).

Eastern Great Lakes Regional Singles Challenge results: https://www.usfigureskating.org/leaderboard/results/2020/27729/index.asp
Emilea Zingas, St. Clair Shores FSC (she was the 2019 U.S. Novice silver medalist) improved her season best total score in Junior Ladies to 144.52 (46.82 SP, 97.70 FS).

ETA that I've posted about the Midwestern results of Shilling/Petrov and Pate/Bye (their competition debut together) in the U.S. Dance thread in GSD: https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/th...eason-news-updates.105725/page-7#post-5652759

Yes, it definitely has one of the strongest senior ladies events and one of the biggest. In both the other regionals held this weekend, Gracie would have won Senior ladies by 20ish points.

My bigger concern looking at these Regionals is how small they are! When I skated it was normal to have 6-8 groups of Juvenile and Intermediate ladies. So far, South Atlantic’s is the only one that has come close, NWP only had 15 Juvenile girls total! If I was US Figure Skating, this would be super worrisome to me.

 

[Theoreticalgirl]

@sk8nlizard It's entirely possible that people who may have participated in Regionals in the past opted for the NQS over the summer.

 

[Sylvia]

NWP has been much smaller than the other Regionals for a while (last year there were only 4 Senior ladies and 10 Juvenile girls who competed).

 

[sk8nlizard]

@sk8nlizard It's entirely possible that people who may have participated in Regionals in the past opted for the NQS over the summer.

Oh I know, I’m sure the NQS qualifiers mostly chose to skip. Still there is 1) So much inequity between regions as far as numbers goes and 2) just generally declining numbers at the lower levels.

 

[sk8nlizard]

NWP has been much smaller than the other Regionals for a while (last year there were only 4 Senior ladies and 10 Juvenile girls who competed).

Yes, it was smaller 15-20 years ago, but still 2 or 3 groups of Juv was fairly typical and now we are down to 10-15 total competitors. And Juv is really still fairy grassroots.

 

[Theoreticalgirl]

Oh I know, I’m sure the NQS qualifiers mostly chose to skip. Still there is 1) So much inequity between regions as far as numbers goes and 2) just generally declining numbers at the lower levels.

According to the Governing Council reports, membership has grown over the past 5 years. Not accounting for LTS and Individual, it looks like the Eastern section has stayed relatively flat with the Midwest and Pacific seeing the most growth. I'm not sure "declining numbers" is how USFS would see it.

As I said above, NQS is probably what drained numbers away from Regional qualifiers. Not a bad thing. If I knew there was an option to make it to Sectionals that didn't involve travel during the academic year (and at a potentially lower cost than Regionals), I'd take it too.

FWIW, it looks like the groups in Novice and Junior at SA were somewhat larger than last year's, which also means the incentives those levels provide (High Performance Development camp [or whatever they're calling it] + Nationals) was worth it to drive skaters forward, instead of letting them bloat/sandbag/etc the Juvenile levels.

If you want to go on and be sad about the "declining numbers," by all means, go for it. But the numbers don't scan with your personal perspective.

 

[Debbie S]

According to the Governing Council reports, membership has grown over the past 5 years. Not accounting for LTS and Individual, it looks like the Eastern section has stayed relatively flat with the Midwest and Pacific seeing the most growth. I'm not sure "declining numbers" is how USFS would see it.

While membership has grown, I'm not sure the number of skaters choosing to compete in the qualifying FS system has increased. My club saw a marked decrease in entrants, particularly in Juv-Senior FS, in our comp this summer. We thought it might be b/c we opted not to do NQS for FS, but our ref heard from others that that entries were down even at NQS comps this year. It wouldn't surprise me if the additional members/skaters were moving toward synchro, TOI, solo dance, or even test-level FS comps once skaters get past/outgrow the lower levels. I do remember not long ago, Souths would have at least 5 or 6 qual groups at Juv and Int. This year, I think they had 3 (or maybe 4) at Juv and then 3 in Int and Novice. I also think Liberty/Philly entries have been down the past few years, and I mean Juv-Nov, not the highest levels, who admittedly might have decided to do Skate Detroit or Glacier instead.

 

[Theoreticalgirl]

@Debbie S That's fair! Perhaps a better way of framing it is that there's more options for skaters, rather than a singular competitive route.

 

[gkelly]

While membership has grown, I'm not sure the number of skaters choosing to compete in the qualifying FS system has increased. My club saw a marked decrease in entrants, particularly in Juv-Senior FS, in our comp this summer. We thought it might be b/c we opted not to do NQS for FS, but our ref heard from others that that entries were down even at NQS comps this year.

At some NQS comps, including my club's. But I know of at least one other where the entries were significantly higher than usual.

I think skaters are still figuring out what's most useful to them in terms of entering big competitions or comps where there are less likely to be qualifying rounds so they can get credit for the combined event without getting cut. If a big contingent chooses to enter a previously small-to-medium competition instead of a nearby large competition, the small-to-medium one might end up larger medium that year and there will need to be qual rounds and cuts there after all.

It wouldn't surprise me if the additional members/skaters were moving toward synchro, TOI, solo dance, or even test-level FS comps once skaters get past/outgrow the lower levels.

Yes, all these options are "draining" some skaters away from the well-balanced freeskate qualifying stream. But it probably also attracts some skaters who would otherwise have quit skating and gone to other sports or other activities entirely. So for the federation as a whole, membership is healthy.

I do remember not long ago, Souths would have at least 5 or 6 qual groups at Juv and Int. This year, I think they had 3 (or maybe 4) at Juv and then 3 in Int and Novice.

This year there were 4 qualifying groups for Juvenile Girls at Souths and 6 for Intermediate Ladies. So the numbers are pretty comparable to what they have been in recent years.

Remember also that a couple of years ago 13-year-olds were allowed to compete Juvenile at which point the juvenile numbers were higher, but then that option was recently removed for girls. So once again the juvenile numbers are lower and the intermediate numbers at least comparable to what they had been during those years.

Also there were 18 Juvenile Boys, which is an exceptionally high number. Admittedly one of those boys was representing a North Atlantic club but competing at Souths because he was also competing at the Pairs challenge in Aston.

So it seems that different events sometimes wax and wane depending on rule changes and particular cohorts within a specific region.

I think numbers of skaters at regionals reached a peak ca. 2003-2007, representing skaters who had started skating during the boom years of the late 90s, and then tapering down shortly afterward with IJS demands and the economic recession causing some recreational skaters to leave the sport entirely. And since then other disciplines have kept skaters within figure skating but not within the standard well-balanced singles-pairs-dance qualifying stream.

 

[Debbie S]

This year there were 4 qualifying groups for Juvenile Girls at Souths and 6 for Intermediate Ladies. So the numbers are pretty comparable to what they have been in recent years.

Ooops! Sorry, not sure why I thought there were only 3 Int groups.

 

[Debbie S]

According to my , the SP crowds freaked her out (which is why no one could go near the boards during the FS). Even though IceWorks has been good about providing her privacy to regroup and recover, I wonder if it's helpful for her overarching goals. If someone can't handle Regionals, how are they going to cope with the microscope that is Nationals (provided she makes it).

If people were standing right up against the boards (as in, their noses practically pressed against the glass), I can understand that freaking Gracie (or anyone) out b/c that's not the norm at GPs/Nats/Worlds, etc - the audience is a little further away. Maybe Gracie didn't plan on there being such a big crowd for Regionals, but given the size of the arenas she's competed in before, I think she'll be fine with crowds at Nats. I hope she makes it!

 

[ZilphaK]

I'm hopeful that maybe skaters and parents are being more realistic about "what it takes" to compete singles and make it to top ranks, and as a result, they are moving away from elite singles track.

I see that as a good thing, with fewer kids burning out, being pressured, and families draining savings for a shot at elite competition, when children and families can have perfectly -- even more perfectly -- fulfilling youth sports and figure skating experiences in the Excel tracks or, again, any of the other competitive or non-competitive routes.

I think the kids with talent+drive+cash will still make a run for it. But more skaters all around means more rinks and programs stay open, more coaches make money. That's a good thing, too.