Golden Spin of Zagreb 2021 Women Podium Poll

[haribobo]

Waited til the last minute since there were so many withdrawals...

 

[Karen-W]

Waited til the last minute since there were so many withdrawals...

Well, and if you're following along with the play-by-play in KnC then you'll know that at least two of these options can probably be ruled out already...

 

[Scott512]

Waited til the last minute since there were so many withdrawals...

Why? Virus? Arent Mariah and Bradie supposed to be there? I mean if Amber is there why aren't they there?

 

[Karen-W]

Why? *****? Arent Mariah and Bradie supposed to be there? I mean if Amber is there why aren't they there?

Bradie is still injured. No idea why Mariah w/d - didn't want to travel? There were a lot of other withdrawals since the original entry list was posted last month, in all the disciplines. It's pretty typical.

 

[haribobo]

In this world health climate, I think a withdrawal from a Zagreb-type competition from a very experienced skater like a Mariah or a Jason Brown truly needs no explanation. Them going really made no sense in the first place- they don't need the experience, the travel is exhausting and potentionally fraught with health consequences. I have always thought that USFS misuses their Challenger spots and over-assigns their GP level skaters whilst ignoring others like Sierra, Gracie, and Jill Heiner who came on strong towards the end of National qualifiers. Also Liam Kapeikis in Men had a very worthy skate at his last qualifier. Let's assign them! I'm ok with Amber Glenn going since she had quite a disappointing season so far and kinda needs to make up some ground to be viewed as an Olympic contendor. And Izzo and Harrell are good assignments. Bradie was more out of desperation since she hadn't competed anywhere else. But Mariah, that one never made much sense to me personally. Especially since she had a very solid outing at Rostelecom Cup, although I think Zagreb had been assigned to her prior to that event, so perhaps if she was in more of an Amber situation after Rostelecom, she might've gone.

 

[Karen-W]

In this world health climate, I think a withdrawal from a Zagreb-type competition from a very experienced skater like a Mariah or a Jason Brown truly needs no explanation. Them going really made no sense in the first place- they don't need the experience, the travel is exhausting and potentionally fraught with health consequences. I have always thought that USFS misuses their Challenger spots and over-assigns their GP level skaters whilst ignoring others like Sierra, Gracie, and Jill Heiner who came on strong towards the end of National qualifiers. Also Liam Kapeikis in Men had a very worthy skate at his last qualifier. Let's assign them! I'm ok with Amber Glenn going since she had quite a disappointing season so far and kinda needs to make up some ground to be viewed as an Olympic contendor. And Izzo and Harrell are good assignments. Bradie was more out of desperation since she hadn't competed anywhere else. But Mariah, that one never made much sense to me personally. Especially since she had a very solid outing at Rostelecom Cup, although I think Zagreb had been assigned to her prior to that event, so perhaps if she was in more of an Amber situation after Rostelecom, she might've gone.

I don't disagree with this, but I do think the USFS has done a better job, this season, of using their Challenger spots. The early Challengers are a good vehicle for skaters with GP assignments to get their programs out in front of international panels with time to make necessary tweaks before the GPs start. This season was also hampered by the fact that Nepela was cancelled, the flight situation prevented the US from sending any skaters to Asian Open, and they didn't assign anyone to Denis Ten, plus ACI turned into a Canadian domestic event in Men, and Nebelhorn was limited to just 1 skater per country (and none for the US in pairs or dance) as the OWG qualifier. Entrants are due for the Challengers 4 weeks before the event and the USFS did the best it could based on the way the season had gone for all of their skaters, both internationally and domestically, when they made the initial assignments.

The biggest error seems to be in not having at least a 4th woman assigned as an alternate when the initial entry lists were due because they had to have known Tennell wasn't doing all that well, and they should have also assigned at least a 4th man as an alternate for Warsaw Cup (plus a couple of other men to Cup of Austria, IMO). They seem to have corrected this error with their Golden Spin assignments.

Cup of Austria - Malinin, Tennell, Andrews, Shin, Bratti/Somerville, McNamara/Spiridonov, Wolfkostin/Chen
Warsaw Cup - Ma, Sjoberg, Zhou, Thorngren, Izzo, Tennell, Calalang/Johnson, Chan/Howe, Liu/O'Shea, Green/Parsons, Pate/Bye
Golden Spin - Brown, Ma, Naumov (Sjoberg alt), Tennell, Bell, Harrell (Izzo & Glenn alts), Knierim/Frazier, Calalang/Johnson, Lu/Mitrofanov, Hawayek/Baker, Cesanek/Yehorov, Bratti/Somerville

I agree, it would have been nice if Kapeikis, Venetta, Gold and Heiner had been assigned to Golden Spin after their excellent showings the last weekend of the NQS events but that was past the deadline and based on how these skaters had performed at their first events, they hadn't really made the case for assignments, unlike Harrell, Izzo, Sjoberg, Bratti/Somerville, Pate/Bye or McNamara/Spiridonov. And, to be fair, it isn't as though the US is lacking skaters who have the TES minimums in any discipline.

 

[Scott512]

Bradie is still injured. No idea why Mariah w/d - didn't want to travel? There were a lot of other withdrawals since the original entry list was posted last month, in all the disciplines. It's pretty typical.

Maybe it was the long travel but Amber is there going for the gold and trying to build momentum before nationals.