I wonder if USFS must finally deal with how to identify talent. Aside from Liu US ladies jusst seem in the top 10 pack somewhere. Russians and Japanese have been consistently placing above North Americans (yes, there are exceptions). Now I think Koreans are edging ahead.
The problem isn’t the skaters. They issued out JGP spots by looking at last years results at Novice, Junior and Senior nationals, post national international competitions, and this year’s summer competitions. Calista won Spring Egna Trophy with a score of 159. Gabbriella won at Senior level with a score of 182. It makes sense that they would get JGP spots. Each lady has shown that they show good potential at some point in the last eight months. The problem is that’s not enough for the JGP.
Most of these girls have never gone on an international competition. The first time an US skater goes abroad, they often underperform compared to their domestic performance. After they become contenders, the struggles with living up to their federations expectatations. This is a lot for a kid to deal with. Beforehand, they only had to skate for themselves, now their skating for their country against some insanely talented competitors. Ting fell apart when she had to live up to expectations last JGP season. It took her several competitions to finally slay those demons.
I find that there are several things that impair US ladies ability to be competitive this early in the season. First, most of them still have very green programs. It takes an average of 2-4 months to break a program in, and it goes faster the more intense the competition. Alysa competed 5 times before her first JGP, twice against ladies with 3As. The other girls, much less.
Second, skaters sometimes try to make upgrades to their programs between club competitions and the JGP. This adds a lot more stress and pressure on them. Jessica added a lutz to her FS. Gabriella added a brand new 3F+3T.
Third, they just weren’t doing all that well in the summer to expect them to do well in the JGP. Gabriella got a 169 and 166 senior. That translates to about a 162-165 junior. Her scores are well within expectations. I feel like there are several people fans, officials, coaches, and skaters alike that expect skaters to magically score 20 points higher than they did at summer comps.
The mentality at summer comps is very different that qualifying competitions. Skaters are trying out new layouts, seeing which jumps work, where spins and steps should be and adjusting as neccessary. I seen so many girls bumble and fall during these comps, but still giddy. They’ll still make the podium even if they do make major errors. I don’t think all that involved realize that the stress of being in the JGP will make it harder for girls to focus. They need to finalize their layouts earlier and compete strictly for getting as high scores as possible during the summer.
The final reason is that the top girls are already competing in senior instead of junior level domestically. In the US, skaters are not allowed to skater in lower levels after you’ve passed your qualifying test. The layout is often completely different than your senior layout. I know Gabriella’s and Hanna’s layout her different from their senior layout. So it’s like your skating a brand new program, instead of one you’ve been training all summer. Emmy managed to get past this by using her junior FS for her JGP season and won bronze. Alysa has been skating her junior versions of her FS as well.
Truth be told if they simply encouraged girls to compete at more summer comps, gave them a cut off for their changes, allowed them to skate at the junior level, and held a test skate it would probably have dramatic effect on these results.
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