FYI Liu/Bedard have competed at Golden West and John Nicks so far, scoring 168 and 174. Honestly would have been a decent choice for this comp, Champs Camp or no.
Thanks! For some reason I missed that.
Looked at another way, it is benevolent for USFS to give the other countries a better shot at the open spots. Although I think China and Japan would/will likely not need our help in getting those spots. My assumption is that Chan/Howe have aggravated USFS somehow.
I'm not sure about that, but what I do think is the deck was stacked against them for this spot once the USFS made the decision to base the selection for this event on a simulated competition at Champs Camp because it's pretty clear Spencer was off the ice for several months post-Nats. I want to say I saw a rumor floating around that he had yet another surgery, but haven't ever seen confirmation of this - all we know for sure is that he wasn't back on the ice until the end of June. That tracks with them looking rough at Champs Camp if they only had about 5-6 weeks to train and then looking much better 3 weeks later at John Nicks. Maybe the USFS didn't think they would look as strong as they did by John Nicks.
I know DL used to insinuate that ShiNagy were politically favored by the USFS because they're both members of SCofNY. That doesn't make a TON of sense to me. Sure, Troy Goldstein is SCoNY and quite influential within the USFS, but Daniil Parkman is also a SCofNY member; and Emily & Spencer are members of SCoB which is just as influential within the USFS as SCofNY.
Shin/Nagy aren't a bad team that does look to have potential but I think it can be dangerous to be seduced by Nagy's good looks, youth, lack of injuries, and apparent strength vs. their actual results in competition...and Audrey seems to have a lot of good will with USFS, but this SP is just kind of a dud even with a clean skate. Still, I have hope for them. But it may be more of a slow burn than people were thinking it would be...
Definitely. I've never thought the potential wasn't there, but I've also not seen anything that made me believe they would be instantly as great as KniFraz or even as good as EfiMit. Audrey came into this partnership with ZERO pairs experience. That alone should have been enough to recognize this would be a slow burn.
Chan/howe likely have one of the two Olympic spots due to the citizenship limitations in US pairs. Sending shin/nagy makes complete sense to me, because as stated in that USFS article, they’re competing for their own spot and if they can’t claim it, they’re not going to the Olympics.
Well, at this point, I'd agree with you that ChanHowe are likely to have one of the 2 Olympic spots simply because, when healthy, they're easily going to outscore ShiNagy at this point unless ShiNagy miraculously put it all together and skate clean. But I don't trust the USFS judges to not screw ChanHowe at Nats.
Beyond that, I wholeheartedly disagree with the notion that you send the team that is perceived to be the 3rd best of the Olympic eligible teams to get the spot. You send the best possible team you have - which is what we did for Worlds and it got us the chance at earning the 3rd spot. There are multiple teams in the US who are eligible and all around the same level as ShiNagy - PlaFern, FlorWang when healthy, even the new pairing of LiuBed who were put on the ISP after early summer monitoring. Why deprive the other three teams of even a chance at the Olympics simply because you didn't send a stronger/better team like McBark or ChanHowe? That's silly, not to mention unfair and insulting to those other teams, this idea that if ShiNagy are 'competing for their own spot & if they can't claim it, they aren't going to the Olympics.' The arrogance of thinking they are competing for their own spot is maddening. They are competing for an additional spot that hasn't yet been claimed by any team.
I really don’t understand the crash out over this. Chan/howe are likely already going and mcbeath/parkman don’t have citizenship anyway. Why should the US claim another pair spot when there’s likely a smaller fed team that deserves it more and will likely out score that 3rd US team.
Because it's not just about ChanHowe. It's about all of the other US teams who would LOVE to have a reasonable shot at that 3rd spot. Both PlaFern and LiuBed are scoring in the same range as ShiNagy and they have no citizenship issues. Why deny them their Olympic dream simply because ChanHowe are probably already going and McBark don't have citizenship?
Do we know when the entries for this event had to be in? Because after what happened at the John Nick competition S/N would not have been sent over C/H. Does the team trying to qualify have to both have citizenship because if they don't i would have even sent McBeath/ Parkman before S/N. The USFS has a lot of explaining to do but since the teams that do have citizenship haven't exactly wowed anyone so far this season maybe the US doesn't need 3 spots. It looks like K/S and C/H will be the teams going to Milan unless something weird happens.
Entries by name were due before John Nicks, but the USFS covered their bases by entering 4 teams as substitutes (ChanHowe, FlorWang, McBark and PlaFern). There are no citizenship requirements for this competition. The USFS could have swapped in ChanHowe or McBark after John Nicks. They chose not to because they trusted the results from a simulated Champs Camp comp over actual competition results.
While I don't disagree that the other US teams that have citizenship haven't really wowed yet this season, I think there's a reasonable expectation of good improvement & a demonstration that we do have teams deserving of a 3rd Olympics spot. PlaFern are coming back from a long rehab for him and they looked really good in the SP at Kinoshita Group Cup. Stamina was a clear issue in the FS and I'm not sure I would have given them this assignment based off of that, but they're likely to look much better by the time they compete at SkAm in a few months. LiuBed are brand new and already beat ShiNagy at John Nicks, so they may have rapid development over the next few months - and he looks to be a much improved partner with her than he ever did with Martins.
11 46.95
10 50.82
9 53.09
8 53.14
7 53.99
6 57.17
5 57.17
4 62.68
3 63.85
2 64.28
1 66.68
