British Skating News 2021-2022

[Belsornia]

Where is J. Buckland btw?

Last seen listed as a choreographer for a junior pairs team at US nationals.

 

[Sylvia]

WOW & CONGRATS to Edward Appleby on his JGP bronze medal today! Re-posting here from the JGP Courchevel (2) Men's thread in Kiss & Cry):

Appleby is the second-ever British JGP medalist, after Matthew Davies, who won a bronze medal at JGP Slovakia in 1998.

 

[morqet]

Jenna McCorkell & Alan Street also each won a JGP medal. But this is the first for almost 20 years!

 

[Colonel Green]

Jenna McCorkell & Alan Street also each won a JGP medal. But this is the first for almost 20 years!

Heh, you're right. I went through the whole Wiki list, not sure how I missed those.

 

[Foolhardy Ham Lint]

Appleby really uses his height to advantage. He is also very musical and reminds me a bit of Robin Cousins.

 

[Frau Muller]

I really hope that Appleby sticks with skating into the Senior level. He has tremendous potential, as he improves his tech and finds his own style.

 

[millyskate]

That’s lovely news for British skating!

 

[kalamalka]

I really enjoyed Appleby - both his skating and his interview. Looking forward to seeing more of him.

 

[hanca]

Last seen listed as a choreographer for a junior pairs team at US nationals.

It was a mistake to split up the partnership with Olivia Smart.

 

[Belsornia]

That's a shame, but glad to hear it was an amicable split! Fingers crossed for the new team

Bekker/Hernandez have already received a second JGP assignment (Gdansk) so looks like they did well in monitoring.

The only other GB skater with a second assignment is Ed Appleby (also going to Gdansk). to him for the great result at Courchevel II.

 

[miffy]

So the Nebelhorn entries are up and PJ has the men’s spot with Graham as sub. No lady (no spot to qualify of course) Sasha and George in dance with no sub, and Zoe and Chris in pairs with Ana and Luke as sub.

I am a little disappointed about the pairs, but Ana and Luke are still young and hopefully will have plenty more chances in future. It’s not that I don’t admire Zoe and Chris, but I am excited to see how Ana and Luke can do.

Fingers crossed for the Nebelhorn team, the fields are quite tough but it would be amazing if we can qualify a men or pairs spot as we’d have a fairly good chance at making the team event with a 3rd discipline.
If the BOA will send our skaters of course

 

[Belsornia]

Ana and Luke aren't on the entry list for the second British Championship qualifier - so perhaps they've been assigned to Finlandia, which is the same week. I wasn't surprised that Zoe and Chris got the nod for Nebelhorn, but really hope that Ana and Luke get some better luck and competition experience soon.

The qualifier list also has some more new partnerships in junior dance. Billy Wilson French has teamed up with Katarina DelCamp, who won bronze in junior dance at US Nationals earlier this year - sounds like an interesting partnership (and I wonder where they're training). And Adam Bouaziz is back from the US - or possibly still in the US but back skating for GB - with new partner Eliza Lowe. She's maybe a former US singles skater, but I'm not sure.

 

[miffy]

There are a couple of junior pairs too!

Charlotte Hodgkinson / Elliot Appleby
Niamh Davison / Shailesh Caller

I’m interested to see how Elliot does in pairs.

 

[Belsornia]

Ana and Luke aren't on the entry list for the second British Championship qualifier - so perhaps they've been assigned to Finlandia, which is the same week.

Finlandia entries are out and Ana and Luke are scheduled to make their debut.

Other GB entries are Natasha McKay, Karly Robertson and Fear/Gibson (in a pretty stacked Challenger dance event).

 

[Belsornia]

We don't have any representation at the last JGP in Linz, so that's a wrap on GB interest in the JGP for another season.

The highlight was clearly Ed Appleby's bronze at Courchevel II And I'm glad that he was able to put out another solid performance in Gdansk and get top ten in a much deeper field. The other junior men were both pretty messy, but I thought they both had better programmes than Ed - Joseph Zakipour's Slumdog Millionaire LP in particular could be very enjoyable if he could get his jumps semi-under control.

Junior women were pretty unmemorable, but to Elena Komova too for improving her PB by nearly 20 points. And 13th is not a bad result in a field with five Russian women!

After the disappointing but unsurprising results at Nebelhorn last weekend I've been thinking a bit about what BIS should do to get in a position to qualify for the team competition from the next quad - but for the singles disciplines....I really don't know, beyond avoiding putting too much pressure on Ed and hoping the GB women continue the trend of peaking later than their international peers.

The ice dancers all looked like they need more time and more competive experience to get comfortable with their programmes and partnering, which isn't surprising. So it's a bit unfortunate that dance (and most of the pairs) seem to have been pulled from the second qualifier and they're going straight to the British Championships. Got to make space for 65 basic novice girls!

I really liked Pallu-Neves / Panesar, especially their West Side Story FD. They were lots of fun and very Team Towler-Green, in the best way! And she in particular looked like she was loving competing, which always makes lower level teams good to watch. Ahramenka / Surenkov-Gultchev had a couple of excellent lifts but they seemed to be really struggling with their height difference. And a solid start to their career together for Bekker / Hernandez with 10th and 8th. They looked like they will have capacity to deliver more in both skating and performance - which I mean as something positive, but it looks a bit mean now that I write it. I really hope that BIS send them to some junior Bs. And some of the other teams on the JGP and some of the new teams that weren't ready in time too, of course, but I think B/H especially need more competitive outings if they get the Juniors Worlds spot and/or are thinking of moving up next season.

Hopefully we'll have at least one junior pair next season!

As usual, it would be nice if BIS would use all the spots available...

And looking ahead, so far the only GB skaters* with Junior Worlds tech minimums are Appleby, Komova (SP from 2019) and Bekker/Hernadez, which will make the selectors' job easy if they don't send some others to junior Bs with appropriate panels!

* Zakipour got the SP minimum and Bushell/Lapsky the RD.

[/verbose ramblings]

 

[miffy]

I think Phebe and James have a really good look together, it’ll be interesting to see how they do later in the season. Good results for a new team especially as they had a few errors.

I also liked Freddie Leggott although his jumps didn’t go to plan.

Out of interest, does anyone know what happened to the Bray family? IIRC Connor was skating in Japan earlier in the year, are they all training there? As none of the 3 were listed for the qualifier.

 

[Belsornia]

I also liked Freddie Leggott although his jumps didn’t go to plan.

Freddie has great hair too! But ouch on the jumps.

 

[miffy]

Freddie has great hair too! But ouch on the jumps.

The best hair in skating this season IMO

 

[Andrea82]

The ice dancers all looked like they need more time and more competive experience to get comfortable with their programmes and partnering, which isn't surprising. So it's a bit unfortunate that dance (and most of the pairs) seem to have been pulled from the second qualifier and they're going straight to the British Championships. Got to make space for 65 basic novice girls!

Several Junior Ice Dance teams are entered to the Victor Petrenko Cup to be held in Odessa (20-23th October)

УФФК

3​	Phebe BEKKER / James HERNANDEZ	GBR​
4​	Sophia BUSHELL / Alex LAPSKY	GBR​
5​	Natalia Pallu NEVES / Jayin PANESAR	GBR​

 

[Belsornia]

I'm glad they're all getting another outing before the British.

(Though why BIS will send B/L and PN/P to this competition but would leave the last JGP spot open rather than give one of them a second event is a mystery to me.... )

Also on the senior dance entry list are Fear/Waddell (who are racking up the Senior Bs this season) and the Latvian Brits.

 

[Andrea82]

Have British Ice Skating published specific criteria to be used for Olympic team selections? I am thinking about Women in particular given that whatever criteria they would set up, Fear/Gibson would end up as the Ice Dance choice.

And does British Olympic Association have some further (published) requirements to ratify team selections?

 

[Sylvia]

And does British Olympic Association have some further (published) requirements to ratify team selections?

Coach Simon Briggs tweeted this past April about "BOA enhanced criteria still to meet" for McKay: https://twitter.com/s1briggs/status/1377695502477709320

 

[Belsornia]

The list of singles skaters qualified for the British Championships has been published. Ed Appleby is down to compete in both senior and junior men. Elena Komova is only listed in juniors even though she did both at Budapest Trophy a couple of weeks ago. The qualification criteria for pairs and dance teams this year appears to be existing.

There's also a provisional schedule - novice singles early in the week, all senior events and all ice dance at the weekend. I'm tempted to go (at the end of the week) for the first time in forever.

In other news, UK Sport has awarded figure skating £40,000 ahead of the Winter Olympics "to secure support from a choreographer".... Bureaucracy really has been too kind to British skating lately.

 

[miffy]

I’m vaguely tempted too now you’ve said that Are pairs and dance (all levels) at the end as usual?

It was interesting to see the results in the international PJ and Edward competed in last week in Nice, Edward did better in the SP and PJ in the FP and they finished pretty close.
PJ has said it is his last season - I’m quite sad, I remember when he won novice men years ago, I’m guessing 2008-2009 (can’t remember if it was December or January then!) But I am excited to see what Edward can achieve in the future.

 

[Sylvia]

Billy Wilson French has teamed up with Katarina DelCamp, who won bronze in junior dance at US Nationals earlier this year - sounds like an interesting partnership (and I wonder where they're training).

In Sheffield - DelCamp officially announced her new partnership with Billy today ("Our coaching team will be headed up by the legend that is Christopher Dean & Mark Hanretty..."): https://www.instagram.com/p/CVi0EuKr1nv/

 

[Belsornia]

In Sheffield - DelCamp officially announced her new partnership with Billy today ("Our coaching team will be headed up by the legend that is Christopher Dean & Mark Hanretty..."): https://www.instagram.com/p/CVi0EuKr1nv/

DelCamp needs to update her instagram bio.

I'm looking forward to seeing them at the British Championships. And great to see Chris Dean working with a British team again.

I’m vaguely tempted too now you’ve said that Are pairs and dance (all levels) at the end as usual?

Looking at the provisional timetable, yes for dance, mixed for pairs. All levels of dance (intermedite novice to senior) are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, along with all the other senior events. Pairs below senior (one ice cut for basic novice to junior!) are down for Thursday and Friday evening, after the junior singles.

Last time I went the Championships only went down to what was then primary. I'm happy to see more skaters getting into pairs, but British basic novice pairs sounds like it might be a bit for spectators. Maybe best to keep at a quieter part of the schedule!

 

[miffy]

Kristen Spours won the Tirnavia Ice Cup with what appears to have been a very strong FS - a clean lutz, 2x flips and 2x loops, all jumps clean, no negative GOEs and level 4 on all 3 spins! From the protocol alone it looks perfect.

What is the criteria for getting sent to Euros this season, and is the Olympic spot theoretically open to anyone, or would they only send Natasha?

(I can’t see them sending anyone but Natasha, I’m just curious).

 

[Belsornia]

Congrats to Kristen! I know this wasn’t the deepest field, but it must be a real motivation boost to win an international competition. I found a video of her long programme:

I haven’t seen anything from BIS about the current criteria for team selection (or BOA on the “enhanced criteria” for the Olympics). You’d think they’d want some transparency after all the in the past!

All of the British men are on the entry list for the international in Dundee this weekend, so it should be interesting to see how they stack up before the Championships.

 

[Belsornia]

The complete competitor list for the British Championships has been published, now including pairs and dance. We’re still on for that full podium of senior pairs!

Less positively, since the preliminary schedule was released junior dance has gone down to a single group: the four JGP teams plus Lowe/Bouaziz. So DelCamp/Wilson French won’t be making their debut just yet. Matthias/Alexander and Phillips/Anderson who both skated at the first qualifier are also out.

 

[Intheknow1]

I haven’t seen anything from BIS about the current criteria for team selection (or BOA on the “enhanced criteria” for the Olympics). You’d think they’d want some transparency after all the in the past!

The skaters have been informed of the criteria for both Olympics selection and European/World selection. There is also "enhanced criteria" for the Olympics from the BOA which they are also aware of. Only Natasha has met the criteria so far for the Olympics with Karly, Nina and Kristen having one international left each to try and get it.