LLL felt a little undercooked to me and I can't help but wonder how it might have gone down if she stuck with MR. Everyone's sick of that program but that genius music cut makes it much easier to sell. The popped salchow killed her because with even a double salchow and that two footed lutz she would have given more of an illusion of a clean skate which would probably have boosted her Performance PCS a bit.
I think 3rd/4th could have gone either way without controversy but the international judges have cooled on Ashley and the US judges are just taking their cues from them.
Well, Ashley got 33.47 for her SP at SC, 33.68 for it at SA, and 32.94 at Nationals, and imo Nats was the best performance of that program this season. So it's a little more than that. I think this performance would have got at least a bit higher PE and IN than her GP scores if she'd done this at the GP, in front of those international judges. And then you normally see inflated PCS at Nationals, and the other top ladies had that. I'm not arguing about what scores are actually deserved, but she got lower PCS for a better performance (imo) at Nationals than she's been getting internationally. Which is very weird to see, at least for me.
I don't think that's necessary. Ashley and Karen didn't do too hot in the GP series this Fall despite Ashley's medal at Skate Canada, and Karen has already beaten Ashley in front of an international panel at the biggest competition of the season after people wrote her off saying she could never replicate her Nationals success and would surely lose to Ashley.
I mostly agree with you. I mean, coming into this, I didn't think that Ashley had a strong enough BOW to bump anyone. The only thing that makes it iffy for me is that Ashley's PCS seemed to be held down here - when you get lower PCS nationally than the same program with even a somewhat worse performance got internationally, well it seems weird.
After I saw Ashley's scores, I was hoping Karen would either bomb or rock it. Not that I wanted her to bomb, but I just really didn't want to see Karen beat Ashley but very close, given the weird scoring here. I'm not really going to feel good about the results here no matter what the committee does. I'd rather Karen had made it decisive, so that any weirdness with the PCS wouldn't have affecting the final result anyways. But the difference was ~2.5 points, and there's at least an argument that normal (Nationals normal) PCS for Ashley might have closed that.
The whole thing is just very unfortunate to me. Because on the one hand, it's seems clear to me that politics played into Ashley's scores - that something weird went on there - and since the final difference between the two was small, it's possible Ashley might have beat Karen (in which case she should have been sent ahead of Karen, since neither had a strong BOW imo). On the other hand, based on the official selection criteria, I don't really feel that there's a strong argument for bumping Karen for Ashley, so if they did, that would also be behind the scenes politics. The only way I can see the committee putting Ashley on the team would be if they think something was going on with the scoring and don't agree with it, then they might feel that Ashley should have beat Karen in the first place. But again, that's not in the official criteria.
Either way, I just have a bad taste in my mouth. And I want to be clear that I'm not just saying this because I'm an Ashley fan. I enjoy watching her, but I'm not really invested in any US lady in particular (my favourite ladies are Kaetlyn and Evgenia), and I like Karen about as much as Ash.
I agree Karen is inconsistent and a wild card. I wouldn't put her in the team event at all (I'd honestly make Bradie do both since she can get her triples ratified and maybe Mirai can Sotnikova Pyeongchang) even if I do believe Karen earned her Olympic berth.
