U.S. Men 2021-22 season news & updates

bardtoob

Well-Known Member
Messages
14,559
He chose to skate in juniors and all of the limitations and disadvantages of skating in juniors, when it came to the Olympic selection criteria.
I don't think the criteria was meant to be gamed such that a super senior that never had technical content necessary to put him in medal contention could discourage the rise of a Jr. Skater (ie a skater that have a whole senior career after Nathan) who has the physical capacity to do competitive content.
But they do believe in Ilia because they are sending him to Worlds, so they are telling the world that they believe in him
No, they don't. If they did, then they would have treated him like Vincent in 2018 and "built for the future".
 

lurkz2

Well-Known Member
Messages
143
Well this Russian article from Sports-Express is certainly going to stir the pot in its Malinin vs. Brown selection analysus. They believe that Malinin's peak skating ability based upon his scoring trails only Chen and Hanyu, so they are highly critical of the USFS on that basis for not supporting its 17-year old prodigy. Especially for selecting the inferior Brown as his "swan song" instead.


Here's the final paragraph where the Russian author doesn't hold back on his views on the bias in the selection process:
Here's another Russian article
 

VGThuy

Well-Known Member
Messages
41,020
I don't think the criteria was meant to be gamed such that a super senior that never had technical content necessary to put him in medal contention could discourage the rise of a Jr. Skater (ie a skater that have a whole senior career after Nathan) who has the physical capacity to do competitive content.

No, they don't. If they did, then they would have treated him like Vincent in 2018 and "built for the future".
If Jason Brown skated at 2018 Nationals the way he did 2021, he most likely would have made the team. Especially with all the calls Vincent got. The tech panel hammered him worse than at the Olympics. The truth was that Brown skated his way out of contention and out of the top 5 into 6th place at Nationals while Vincent did the senior GP and although didn’t set the world on fire, he scored very close to what Adam and Jason were scoring. Different situations and different BOWs at play here.
 

bardtoob

Well-Known Member
Messages
14,559
Jason should have notation on his 2022 Nationals SP protocols for the rotations on his Axel and Toeloop.

I haven't watched Jason's LP yet because I didn't have the stomach to watch another extended display of his undercarriage.
 

Vagabond

Well-Known Member
Messages
25,378
I'm not sure why some posters are suggesting it's a good idea for him to throw a temper tantrum and leave the US, miss the Olympics AND 2 years of skating, only to resurface in another country and have to reestablish himself in a new environment w. new coaches, etc. Really smart move :rolleyes:
I attribute it to a kind of xenophobia that fetishizes Americans with "exotic" looks or "foreign" names.

Here on FSU, there has been much discussion about whether such skaters as Mirai Nagasu, Camden Pulkinen, and, lately, Ilia Malinin, might sacrifice all of the advantages of continuing to skate for the U.S. and skate for a different country. Both country-hopping and this forum have been around long enough that people could have speculated about Keegan Messing, for example, but they did not. Why not? Because his name doesn't sound "foreign" and because you could never tell he was part Canadian just by looking at him.[/RANT]
 
Last edited:

sk9tingfan

Well-Known Member
Messages
7,651
Well, there's a time and place to clutch your pearls about grammar, but a 2 minute Andrea Joyce interview right after the US Nationals is not one of those times.

And ... poor grammar is not a moral issue.
I never indicated that it was a moral issue. So don't ascribe such to my comments.
 

Trillian

Well-Known Member
Messages
962
According to the Hersh article, after the live interview where he said he felt he deserved a place on the team, Ilia was more muted backstage and said it was in the committee's hands. It gave me the impression that he got a talking to.

Or the second interview reflects that he had a little more time to think about it and he realized it was more complex. He’s a teenage boy, there’s a zero percent chance he’s going to come up with exactly the right thing to say every time someone sticks a microphone in his face at an emotional moment. Let alone with perfect grammar.

Nathan, Vincent, and Jason have all said things that people might take issue with at different times over the years - but in general I think they’ve all set a really good example for the younger skaters. I appreciate that all three of them tend to make a point of complimenting one another, and they all spoke highly of Ilia post-nationals as well. They’ve cultivated a really sportsmanlike dynamic between the three of them and I’m sure it will be a positive influence on all the kids coming up behind them.
 

becca

Well-Known Member
Messages
21,619
If Jason Brown skated at 2018 Nationals the way he did 2021, he most likely would have made the team. Especially with all the calls Vincent got. The tech panel hammered him worse than at the Olympics. The truth was that Brown skated his way out of contention and out of the top 5 into 6th place at Nationals while Vincent did the senior GP and although didn’t set the world on fire, he scored very close to what Adam and Jason were scoring. Different situations and different BOWs at play here.
and once again ilia more than likely didnt have the opportunity to
Skate in the Senior Grand Priz because there were no junior Grand Prix competitions last year.

People keep on saying that he shops have done the Skate America but no talk he has was even offered that.

Jason and Ilia were not given the same competitive opportunities to his year to make this a fair comparison.

To create a situation where a talented young rookie who who has clearly passed a Senior skater technically and technically they two aren’t close isn’t not even given the opportunity to earn a body of work isn’t right or fair.

It’s stupid. No other federation would pull the this
 

skipaway

Well-Known Member
Messages
10,693
WaPo article on Olympic Team
This part cracked me up…
But Brown’s crowd-pleasing style and ebullient personality are strong points for a sport struggling with relevance, and he continues to get stronger years after his “Riverdance” long program went viral. A strong showing from Brown is likely to land him between fifth and 10th place, while Zhou can find himself anywhere from third to last. At a disastrous 2021 world championships, he finished 25th.
 

On My Own

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,010
I think what's being lost here is that athletes can peak later in the season, especially in the Olympic season.

I find the argument that Zhou beat Chen and Uno earlier in the season to be extremely flawed. They're both better skaters, it was very early in the Olympic season (meaning they might have wanted to slowly build towards the Olympics), they literally did do much better at their respective nationals, and they both will be doing MUCH better than they did at Skate America at the Olympics. Zhou looks like he is on a downward trend, and won't be doing as well as he did. This is the second time he has cracked under pressure at an incredibly high stakes competition.

Malinin, OTOH, seems to be peaking at the right time. Why, then, shouldn't he be sent, and why doesn't Nationals get the most priority? It's the highest pressure situation before the Olympics, and if you do badly here, what faith can be put into you to do better at a competition that has even more pressure?

Brown skated as well as can, and won't be scored as generously as at nationals, but he can skate the SP at the team event if needed, and he has the argument of "artistry". Still think I'd kick him out if we were to use the tier criteria, but I disagree with them anyway, so I'd kick Zhou.
 

screech

Well-Known Member
Messages
7,409
Honestly people treating this like a scandal and USFS is horrible and saying Ilia should go to another country and stuff are totally overreacting. I'm sure there was firey debate in that conference room. I wouldn't doubt that was part of the many delays in announcing the team.
I don't know how many people were in the decision-making, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being like a 4-3 split or something on who to choose.

Ilia's dad was a strong skater but got penalized for not being from a big federation. One male skater of that era told me that Roman would have been ranked much higher if he had come from another country.
Misha Ge was a (IMO) mediocre skater who managed to place top 6 at Worlds, skating for Uzbekistan. So it's safe to assume that a superior Malinin could surpass that, if he chose to do switch.

The only thing I can think is that there must be some discussion going on with regard to the TE and whether or not Nathan can skate it. Maybe the plan is to use Jason in the SP because Nathan's ongoing hip injury has caused Team Raf to reevaluate his participation in the TE. I suppose if everyone else bombs their SP then Jason could win that segment. :rolleyes:
If, god forbid, I was USFS, I'd have Jason do the SP and Nathan the FP. If not Nathan, then Vincent FP. If he has one of his good skates, Vincent is the better bet for the FP over Jason, who consistently nails a high scoring SP.

I know Jason has the clout, but since Ilia doesn't have the SP minimums yet, and Jason is more reliable, I'd send Ilia to Beijing and Jason to Worlds.
Also, Ilia could potentially make history at any competition, with his smooth, easy quad-quad combinations - you'd think they'd want to promote that.
 

olympic

Well-Known Member
Messages
10,892
I don't think the criteria was meant to be gamed such that a super senior that never had technical content necessary to put him in medal contention could discourage the rise of a Jr. Skater (ie a skater that have a whole senior career after Nathan) who has the physical capacity to do competitive content.

No, they don't. If they did, then they would have treated him like Vincent in 2018 and "built for the future".
Maybe not having his minimums was another issue
 

Vagabond

Well-Known Member
Messages
25,378
I don't know how many people were in the decision-making, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being like a 4-3 split or something on who to choose.
The Selection Criteria left the Selection Committee with no choice. As long as Brown finished in the top three and Chen, and Zhou finished in the top five, they had to be selected because they had higher international scores than Malinin.

The Selection Criteria are more fair and transparent than the old Body of Work rules, but much less so than USFS's original practice of sending the top eligible finishers at Nationals.
 
Last edited:

becca

Well-Known Member
Messages
21,619
The Selection Criteria left the Selection Committee with no choice. As long as Brown, Chen, and Zhou finished in the top five, they had to be selected because they had higher international scores than Malinin.

The Selection Criteria are more fair and transparent than the old Body of Work rules, but much less so than USFS's original practice of sending the top eligible finishers at Nationals.
Once again how is a young skater suppose to have body of work.

No is guaranteed a Senior GP that’s earned.

This is a young kid who had no opportunities to even compete against Brown till his this weekend and he demolished him technically it wasn’t close.

It’s not like Brown has a chance of an individual Olympic medal
 

VGThuy

Well-Known Member
Messages
41,020
I think what's being lost here is that athletes can peak later in the season, especially in the Olympic season.

I find the argument that Zhou beat Chen and Uno earlier in the season to be extremely flawed. They're both better skaters, it was very early in the Olympic season (meaning they might have wanted to slowly build towards the Olympics), they literally did do much better at their respective nationals, and they both will be doing MUCH better than they did at Skate America at the Olympics. Zhou looks like he is on a downward trend, and won't be doing as well as he did. This is the second time he has cracked under pressure at an incredibly high stakes competition.

Malinin, OTOH, seems to be peaking at the right time. Why, then, shouldn't he be sent, and why doesn't Nationals get the most priority? It's the highest pressure situation before the Olympics, and if you do badly here, what faith can be put into you to do better at a competition that has even more pressure?

Brown skated as well as can, and won't be scored as generously as at nationals, but he can skate the SP at the team event if needed, and he has the argument of "artistry". Still think I'd kick him out if we were to use the tier criteria, but I disagree with them anyway, so I'd kick Zhou.
A lot of skaters look like they were on downward trends only to peak at the Olympics so you never know. All I know is that you don't ignore the scores Vincent can achieve, has achieved multiple times. He's the only other for sure medal contender when he's on. We all know Vincent bombed 2 out of 3 Worlds trips but he also did well at the Olympics and one other Worlds, where he medaled. Ilia Malinin will be battling to overcome Jason Brown's PCS and GOEs internationally and his last international senior competition was poor with 4 rotation calls and much lower scores than Brown and Vincent has scored on the senior level. People love harping on Vincent's past scores and performances but they're totally ignoring Malinin's past scores this past season as well.
 

kwanfan1818

RIP D-10
Messages
37,641
The Selection Criteria are more fair and transparent than the old Body of Work rules, but much less so than USFS's original practice of sending the top eligible finishers at Nationals.
Was the last.time that happened in 2010, four Olympics ago? And in 2006 they accepted Kwan's petition. Arutunian has since said that there were days she could practice, and days she could show up and barely do laps. She had also had a weak third in 2004 and was off the podium in 2005, so she wasn't coming in as a reignig medalist, let alone champion.
 

CassAgain

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,434
Well this Russian article from Sports-Express is certainly going to stir the pot in its Malinin vs. Brown selection analysus. They believe that Malinin's peak skating ability based upon his scoring trails only Chen and Hanyu, so they are highly critical of the USFS on that basis for not supporting its 17-year old prodigy. Especially for selecting the inferior Brown as his "swan song" instead.


Here's the final paragraph where the Russian author doesn't hold back on his views on the bias in the selection process:
I guess not surprising, but good lord. And leave Timothy's greenhouse out of it! :scream:
 

VGThuy

Well-Known Member
Messages
41,020
Well this Russian article from Sports-Express is certainly going to stir the pot in its Malinin vs. Brown selection analysus. They believe that Malinin's peak skating ability based upon his scoring trails only Chen and Hanyu, so they are highly critical of the USFS on that basis for not supporting its 17-year old prodigy. Especially for selecting the inferior Brown as his "swan song" instead.


Here's the final paragraph where the Russian author doesn't hold back on his views on the bias in the selection process:
Crazy how the quickly that journalist is citing their sexual orientation and gender identity. For those who hate "identity politics" they're always the first to invoke identity to undermine the credibility of someone's placement. It happens all the time to POC or other minorities students in elite universities or those who reach certain promotions within big corporate settings, but they're the ones who get accused of playing the "race" or whatever "card" or invoke identity politics when they push back in some way or advocate for themselves.
 

screech

Well-Known Member
Messages
7,409
The Selection Criteria left the Selection Committee with no choice. As long as Brown finished in the top three and Chen, and Zhou finished in the top five, they had to be selected because they had higher international scores than Malinin.

The Selection Criteria are more fair and transparent than the old Body of Work rules, but much less so than USFS's original practice of sending the top eligible finishers at Nationals.
But (deserved or not), Jason did not finish in the top 3. And the scores were not even close. Also, Jason had higher international scores because Ilia was competing junior, meaning he wasn't able to reach the same scores. Yes, he had one international senior event and skated poorly, but that's ONE event compared to the multiple that everyone else got.

IMO not sending Malinin to Olympics but sending him to Worlds actually puts a whole lot more pressure on him - he has to scramble to get the Worlds minimums, which in theory he could easily get, however the YKW situation makes it unknown whether he'll actually have the opportunity, meaning there's a chance he might not even make Worlds. And people saying he HAD the chance - he had ONE competition where he barely missed it. And saying 'he could have done the senior GP but chose to do junior' - we don't know if it actually WAS his choice. USFS may have insisted he do junior, since he has such little international experience and missed an entire junior season.

I agree with those who said that there was basically no point in having the US nationals be a deciding factor in the O's teams, because it seems like it was essentially a pre-determined outcome. There was clearly zero hope of anyone outside of those 3 making the team, no matter what they put on the ice here.
 
Last edited:

kwanfan1818

RIP D-10
Messages
37,641
I agree with those who said that there was basically no point in having the US nationals be a deciding factor in the O's teams, because it seems like it was essentially a pre-determined outcome. There was clearly zero hope of anyone outside of those 3 making the team, no matter what they put on the ice here.
You can blame that on Jason Brown, too, because he would have dropped out of Group 3, had he placed 6th like he did in 2018. You might argue that the only reason they held Nationals was to see if Jason Brown wouldn't fail.

Skaters had to place Top 5 at US Nationals to qualify.

But that's the case at many competitions, where scoring is culumative and there are substantial leads going into the final phase. If you don't compete the final phase, it doesn't matter what you've scored through then. It was even the case in many of the small Euro Feds pure math-based qualification schemes.
 

becca

Well-Known Member
Messages
21,619
Was the last.time that happened in 2010, four Olympics ago? And in 2006 they accepted Kwan's petition. Arutunian has since said that there were days she could practice, and days she could show up and barely do laps. She had also had a weak third in 2004 and was off the podium in 2005, so she wasn't coming in as a reignig medalist, let alone champion.
Michelle Kwan was fourth in the worlds the year prior. And barely missed the podium. She was a 5 time world champion. She was also coming in that season as the reigning senior national champion.

Jason was 7th in the worlds that year. He has never even made a GPF podium let alone a Worlds or Olympic one .

Furthermore Emily wasn’t showing the dazzling content Ilia was.

To say that Jason body of work deserves the same kind of consideration as a skater who has brought in major titles….
 

concorde

Well-Known Member
Messages
636
Ilia's first JGP year did not happen due to the funk. That meant he would get no GP assignments so there was no choice but for him to finally do the JGP circuit this past fall. And USFS did not select him due to lack of Senior international experience. Basically the perfect storm was working against him.

He did all that was expected from him and then some. Any skater in that position deserves better.
 

olympic

Well-Known Member
Messages
10,892
Except for the fact that Malinin absolutely does have his minimums for the Olympics. It’s the world championships, which has a higher standard, that he is missing the minimum short program score for.
Why are people upthread saying he didn’t have them?

——————-

ETA - I want to make it clear to everyone that I am completely on the fence re Jason or Ilia. I actually would have been fine with sending Ilia. I am not in 1 skater’s camp or another. I just think we need to stop being childish, suggesting that Ilia should get up and leave for another country based on one decision or making Jason out to be somehow undeserving of an Olympic spot, while making sure that Jason fans completely understand that quads and high tech values for the future do matter, and so it is a true debate.

Unpopular but I think that splitting the difference and giving them each an assignment is the only solution.

And I really am sensitive about Russia and their news articles. After 2016, I am suspicious of Russia. I see meddling
 
Last edited:

Jammers

Well-Known Member
Messages
7,558
Ilia's first JGP year did not happen due to the funk. That meant he would get no GP assignments so there was no choice but for him to finally do the JGP circuit this past fall. And USFS did not select him due to lack of Senior international experience. Basically the perfect storm was working against him.

He did all that was expected from him and then some. Any skater in that position deserves better.
Ilia had one JGP season under his belt from 2019.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top
Do Not Sell My Personal Information