ISU Grand Prix Assignments 2018/19 season

US Figure Skating has tweeted the following additions to Skate America:

Ladies: Megan Wessenberg
Men: Jimmy Ma
Pairs: Nica Digerness/Danny Neudecker
Ice Dance: Karina Manta/Joe Johnson

With the exception of Jimmy, ANL doesn't really know who any of these people are. Rare for me.

I kind of wished Amber would've done that early Houston competition and then peaced out after that so hopefully she would've gotten the TBD

BTW Did all four of these choices have the highest scores from the summer? I'm curious to know…
 
Last edited:
Manta & Johnson.. I had never heard of them but with 49 points...... They were the highest qualifying team for the TBD spot at SkAm?????

Trying to think who else could have potentially got an invite as well.....

P.S. This year I really am paying attention to the junior scene more than ever have so I can have a broader knowledge of who is coming up through the ranks.... yet they dont strike a bell with me from the junior scene..... I always knew who Parsons, and McNamara/Carpenter and C&P were...but not this team...
 
Last edited:
Well... from 2018 U.S. Nationals in Senior Dance (every team above 7th is either not competing this season -- Shibs -- or already have 2 GPs each):

7 Elliana Pogrebinsky/Alex Benoit (split; he retired)
8 Alexandra Aldridge/Daniel Eaton (split)
9 Karina Manta/Joseph Johnson
10 Julia Biechler/Damian Dodge (split)

Manta/Johnson have had creative programs through the years and I'm happy they are getting this Skate America opportunity in the post-Olympic season... they've earned it.
 
Well... from 2018 U.S. Nationals in Senior Dance (every team above 7th is either not competing this season -- Shibs -- or already have 2 GPs each):

7 Elliana Pogrebinsky/Alex Benoit (split; he retired)
8 Alexandra Aldridge/Daniel Eaton (split)
9 Karina Manta/Joseph Johnson
10 Julia Biechler/Damian Dodge (split)

Manta/Johnson have had creative programs through the years and I'm happy they are getting this Skate America opportunity in the post-Olympic season... they've earned it.
That's a really remarkable statement on the state of US Ice Dance that that many teams could get two invitations to the Grand Prix (yes, post Olympic season, but still).
 
Manta & Johnson.. I had never heard of them but with 49 points...... They were the highest qualifying team for the TBD spot at SkAm?????

Manta & Johnson are the only senior dance team in the U.S. International Selection Pool that needs the host spot on the GP. The Reynolds do not have the score needed to qualify for the ISP, and all the other returning senior teams are top 24 in the World Standings and earned two spots. We have lost three senior teams over the summer that could have competed for the host berth at Skate America: Pogrebinsky & Benoit, Biechler & Dodge, and Aldridge & Eaton. And Lewis & Bye, who could have elected to move up, are sitting out the season. If you were a senior dance team looking at going up against six or seven top-24 teams over the coming quadrennium, you too might think long & hard before dedicating the next four years of your life to this battle. Some of these athletes are moving on in their lives, and some may very well repartner and possibly try competing at the international level for other countries.

Manta & Johnson have been at Senior Nationals for the past three years. They have competed on the Challenger Series for the last two seasons as well--at the U.S. Classic and Nebelhorn--and at the Autumn Classic when it was not a Challenger event the year prior.

There are three junior U.S. dance teams with higher summer scores than Manta & Johnson, but these teams are young. Nguyen & Kolesnik and Gropman & Somerville are chasing down a shot to represent the U.S. at Junior Worlds for the first time. If you had been working your way up at U.S. Junior Nationals and on the JGP behind the likes of McNamara & Carpenter, the Parsons, and Carreira & Ponomarenko, you too might want to grab your shot and build your resume at the junior level before moving up to seniors.
 
Last edited:
If you had been working your way up at U.S. Junior Nationals and on the JGP behind the likes of McNamara & Carpenter, the Parsons, and Carreira & Ponomarenko, you too might want to grab your shot and build your resume at the junior level before moving up to seniors.
And try to get some World Standings points, because it's unlikely to get any in your first year as a senior, even if you get your GP(s).
 
Manta & Johnson.. I had never heard of them but with 49 points...... They were the highest qualifying team for the TBD spot at SkAm?????

Trying to think who else could have potentially got an invite as well.....

P.S. This year I really am paying attention to the junior scene more than ever have so I can have a broader knowledge of who is coming up through the ranks.... yet they dont strike a bell with me from the junior scene..... I always knew who Parsons, and McNamara/Carpenter and C&P were...but not this team...
What Dobre wrote + they are a better team than their recent US Classic scores indicate. They have also gotten higher scores as seniors in the old system (which in this system would probably be somewhere around 60 and 90 points or even higher, as I remember them getting close to 90 in the FD in some competition).

Their SD and FD at the 2017 US Nationals (as those programs were better than what they had last season):
https://youtu.be/PuG61F4xOeY
https://youtu.be/EOdf7J0fz_k
 
It isn't too great of a stretch of the imagination to suppose that Annabelle Morozov's father has more influence with the FSFR than Anastasia Shpilevaya's does. :p
I thought Annabelle skated really well at test skates. Bagin is another story....is he prone to falling all over or was he perhaps unwell?
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top
Do Not Sell My Personal Information