I will be happy just to see Hanna skate more clean programs. Developing some consistency on landing her jumps in competition would be a great achievement for her.
I enjoy Starr very much. Think she has something special in her performance ability that makes her stand out from the crowd. But, for now, I think it's better to look at what she has actually done in competition rather than raise expectations to what we hope she can do.
If she or anyone else breaks through, I plan to appreciate it for the huge achievement that it would really be.
I’m a bit different. Figure skating is one of the hardest to predict sports, because it’s so mental. It’s hard to say if a athlete can duplicate a good performance, will improve or regress during the season. But after monitoring a lot of skaters, I find that just understanding the backgrounds of each skater, how they develop over the season, and what could affect their performance each competition is a good way of judging how a skater will perform.
I guessed Emmy would perform well because she was using the same long program as last year, so it would be far more consistent that someone with new program. She also had a much more basic layout. She had strong components and spins, which would gain a lot of points. And she would be under the least pressure to perform. She was US junior Pewter medalist last year. Kaitlyn, Starr, and Ashley were 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively. She also wasn’t expecting a JGP slot, but really wanted one. So she went into her JGP event with better results. Her second JGP, wasn’t as good because she now had to deal with pressure of performing again.
Often skaters peak late. Not too surprising, since the qualifying system ask that skaters peak in January for nationals. I’ve seen so many kids with low scores that suddenly peak at regionals and sectionals. So it’s not a suprise that some US juniors are peaking later, rather than on the JGP. I doubt anyone could have predicted Vincent’s suprise win from his weaker performances on the JGP earlier last season.
Hanna has a lot of question marks for me still. She’s rising rapidly, indicating she’s a quick learner. She wasn’t bad at all internationally. While Audrey and Angelina crumpled, she held her own. The question now is consistency and will those components hold internationally. I’ll be watching her very closely at nationals. She’ll be under a lot of pressure to perform. However, if she does win, within 5 points of her sectional score, her score should hold steady for JW.
I also have question about Starr. She was attempting a 3A in her FS, which lead to errors on her 3F+3T. And her layout for her Junior program was not well planned. Starr will often pop her flip or lutz if they are place next to each other. With her senior layout, they were separated. Her junior layout, they were together and she popped her flip. She also botched her loop at the end. The last jump should be an easier jump, since you mentally exhausted and are relying on muscle memory. With more experience with her junior layout, they could’ve rearranged things to avoid so many major errors.
Last weekend, Starr couldn’t compete with her flip or Lutz due to injury and also took out her 3A. Instead she competed with jumps that were very consistent. She had no pops, underrotations, or falls and also a PB score of 120. If she uses a similar layout at JWs, based on the consistency of the jumps included in her program I’m more optimistic that she can duplicate or even improve this result. Just exchanging the 2Lo with a 3F will result in a 4 point increase. It’s four months until JW. So I will be watching Starr closely to see if regains her lutz and flip with some consistency by nationals, keeps this more optimal layout rather than a more ambitious one from before, and also gets a total score with in 5 points of her sectional score.
Of course I’m watching all the other skaters from other countries too. Naturally, the JGPF will tell me if Rika’s 3A is more consistent now. Also nationals and Junior nationals for both Japan, Russia, and Korea will show if any skaters have improved and how they’ll perform at JW.
The question will not be how far US ladies are from the top, but how far they are from 6th and 7th place. We’ll know a lot more by January.
