Based on his being in Group 2 coming in, it apparently wouldn't have mattered. He did skate a great SP as well.I do keep wondering where Vincent would have placed if his jumps had been called more strictly, as most of us observers thought they deserved to be. Who knows, the USFS might have spared itself all this.
Yes, but as was pointed out in the pbp thread in real time, by not correctly calling Jason & Vincent's rotations, Ilia actually lost points to both of them. If those guys had their jumps called correctly and the GOE applied correctly, as would happen internationally, Ilia's margin of win over them would have been higher. But, we all knew that jumps for the favorites were being casually reviewed, at best.
OK. Hold nationals minus the selected team, let the rest skate without an audience. Simply don't pretend it's part of some olympic selection criteria and that the selected team needs to risk its health when they'd much rather stay safe for the Olympics (a few of whom literally did get infected). And don't lie to people like they still have a chance, as with Malinin, at the cost of any health issues they might develop.
I think, for me, the issue is with that 3rd spot... why should a skater/team that hasn't elevated themselves to at least Group 2 status based on international scores get any sort of priority over someone who beats them at Nationals? Neither 2018 or 2014 in Men or Women are good comparisons, IMO, because even if you applied the current criteria to those selections (and I did do an analysis earlier in the fall of the 2018 Men with the current criteria), you had 2 spots up for grabs, and then 4-5 other guys who were all in Group 3. There is no doubt in my mind, had Green/Parsons beaten Hawayek/Baker at Nats that the USFS would have given them the 3rd spot. Yes, I realize Ilia's scores aren't quite as comparable to Brown as G/P are to H/B, but they both came into Nats in Group 4. And this wasn't even a close margin between Ilia's 2nd place and Jason's 4th place, like we saw in ID. I just don't think the USFS does themselves any favors in overriding Nationals results for that 3rd spot for a skater/team who haven't demonstrated the ability to score Worlds Top 3 or Top 5 even once during the season. What would the collective wisdom here been saying had it been Lindsay blowing Karen out of the water? I doubt there would have been any uproar. People would have said "well, Karen is already an Olympian, so she's fine staying home because she lost to the new girl." She doesn't have nearly as many vocal uber-stans as Jason.
I can see an argument for next time that there should only be two priority groups (with strict criteria or the same critiera as this year) and there being no need for priority groups 3 or 4 and to let Nationals decide who fills however many slots are available after we subtract skaters who were able to make it into groups 1-2 after Nationals results are in.
But Ilia is going to worlds, minimum pending. Post Olympic world is general a lower pressure event which isn’t a bad place to debut.
Enter Vanessa James and Eric Radford...
If there is no controversy, it is not figure skating.
Yep. Tell the Russian juniors who SHOULD have come in 3/4/5 at this year's Russian Nats about timing. All three of them will be "old" in 2026 and some current 11-year-old will outskate them. Who knows what would have happened if Asada could have skated in Turin?
Same here. I hope he pulls a Sotnikova at Worlds.
Not in Men's competition, though: generally, Men go through a growth spurt that derails them until they get through it.
He got 13th in the SP at Cup of Austria. He pulled up in the FS for bronze.
Yeah, I think that the problem was in having too MANY priority groups and in not having Group 2 also require a Top 3 Nats finish. And, I would remove the "score at least once equal to Worlds Top 3" as a way to get into Group 2 because we saw, as the season progressed, that Liu's Lombardia Trophy score didn't hold up and she was maybe scoring closer to Worlds Top 10 than Top 5. I have no issue with K/F, Zhou, C/B or H/D being in Group 2 because they showed consistent scoring at that level, but we all knew that the USFS had boxed themselves in with the Women by allowing that "at least once Worlds Top 3" option. It should be harder to get into Group 2 than it was. And it shouldn't be so reliant upon international scores to get a spot if you aren't consistently showing you can place in the Top 5 or contend for a medal.
And has Ilia gone through that growth spurt? He looks small but past puberty to me. Gogolev, Nam Nguyen and examples of kids who didn't get past it. Russia is littered with bodies of their prodigies who didn't make it -- some, like Gachinski, forced to skate injured to get there. If Ilia still has his growth spurt ahead of him, even more reason not to give him an Olys spot; Polina did nothing for American womens' skating.
Based on how small he was in 2019-20 when he made his JGP debut compared to now (he was such a baby!), I think he is done or close to being done growing. He will probably fill out a but more, similar to Nathan and Vincent, but he looks to be post-pubescent.
To be fair to Polina, she actually did decently for her Olympics debut in her Senior debut season. She was no Lipnitskaya or Zagitova or the Valieva, but who is? She did have a 12th place finish at the Worlds SP but she placed 5th in the Worlds LP that same season, which is pretty great. At 2014-15 she was going through some growing pains but did win Four Continents over the likes of future World medalist a month later Miyahara, Gracie Gold, and future world medalist Gabrielle Daleman. At Worlds that year, she placed higher than Ashley and Gracie in the SP, but both of them came back and managed to place three-four spots higher than Polina.
I think it is very unfair to say the Polina decision would only pay if if she became a world or Olympic medalist.
I think it speaks volumes that Mirai agrees since she was one of the ones passed over. Polina on the other hand probably identifies with ilia and was selected so hers seemed a little more biased.On their Insta show, Mirai Nagasu is saying she agrees with Brown for the Olympic Team. Polina is saying Malinin should have been selected. Their intensity and strong opinions matches much of what we're expressing here.
I think it did. Zhou planned and performed five quads, two 3A's (one in combo), and maxxed out his levels. His total tech score, without counting the fall deduction, was slightly less than total base value. Brown, with a fall on a quad, had a base value of nearly 14 points less, but had a total tech score of a little over 4 points more than Zhou, and that's with a 2-level loss on the final spin. Brown lost bronze by less than half a point. For better or worse, he was comparable to Zhou in this competition.
Say goodbye to gold
Nah. We have to operate under the assumption that Nathan & Raf haven't made a firm decision on the TE and won't make one until they're in Beijing.