Us Nationals: ladies free skate videos

1.Ashley Wagner 148.98

2. Gracie Gold 138.52

3. Karen Chen 135.13

4.Polina Edmunds 126.58

5.Samantha Cesario 123.61

US Nationals: Ladies short program videos

1. Ashley Wagner: 72.04

2. Gracie Gold 67.02

3.Polina Edmunds 66.04

4. Mirai Nagasu 65.28

5. Courtney Hicks 65.01

US Nationals 2015: junior and senior schedule

GMT -5

 TUESDAY, 20th January
6 pm: Junior Pairs short

WEDNESDAY, 21st January
1.45 pm: Junior Men's short
6.15 pm: Junior short dance
               Junior ladies' short

THURSDAY, 22nd January
10.30 am: Junior Pairs free
4.30 pm: Senior Pairs short
7.00 pm: Senior Ladies short

FRIDAY, 23rd January
10.30 am: Junior Men's free
                 Junior Ladies free
                 Junior Free dance
5.15 pm: Senior Short dance
8.15 pm: Senior Men's short

SATURDAY, 24th January
2.30 pm: Senior Pairs free
               Senior Free dance
7.00 pm: Senior Ladies Free

SUNDAY, 25th January
2.30 pm: Senior Men's Free

Olympic preview: Ladies (and thoughts on ongoing components scores...)

In the ladies event in Sochi, the competition will be incredibly unpredictable.

Three former world champions will fight for a medal: Yuna Kim, Mao Asada and Carolina Kostner.

Before going into details about each of these skaters, I would like to spend some words on the Russian skaters and how the “home advantage” is working for them. There have been a lot of criticism about the scores given to the Russians which seem to have been “raising to the occasion” to assure as many medals as possible to the host country. I have to say that I have never been keen on thinking that figure skating was all about politics and corruption and I am sure that this is not what is happening in Sochi right now, but some of the scores given in this week show at least a tendency to be quite generous towards those Russian athletes who might approach to the podium. That is what happened to Stolbova/Klimov, who got a components score of 71 against a 62 given just a year ago to the same program, or to Ilinykh/Katsalapov who bettered their free dance score of over 7 points in a week, a unprecedented improvement in ice dance. That has to be said that both these teams probably skated the programs of their lives and haven’t earned a medal undeservingly, yet their scores were so high that it would have been impossible for anyone else to challenge them.

Considering all these aspects, it would be foolish not to expect the young Russian girls to receive incredible scores. Both Lipnitskaya and Sotnikova have great results in their records and both of them might represent a gold medal threat. The two are very different one from the other: Lipnitskaya is less experienced and mature, yet very consistent on any technical element, Sotnikova has a more refined skating, brilliant transitions and skating skills, but she is more emotional and less solid on jumps. In my opinion, which is not guided by personal taste but by what ISU has always researched and declared to want from a skater, these two skaters’ components shouldn’t be ANY close to Kim’s or Asada’s. As much as the Russians have improved during this year, there shouldn’t be any doubt that both Kim and Asada are incomparable in terms of skating skills, interpretation, phrasing of the music, projection of the program and complexity of the choreography.

However, Lipnitskaya, who usually has a lower pcs than Sotnikova, received in the team event a pcs very similar to Asada’s in the short (Asada fell in that program, though) and was scored a 69 in that department in the free skate, just a couple of points less than the Worlds 2013 free skate performance by Yuna Kim.

To sum up, considering that Lipnitskaya, Sotnikova, Kim and Asada have more or less the same potential on the technical score, medals will come down to who performs the best, regardless of the artistry of the skater. If they all perform at their best, which might be difficult for Asada due to her extremely risky technical content, Kim and Asada should be in the top two. It has been reported that Mao is consistently landing her triple axel in practice, but any little mistake will be very costly and therefore out of the four named before, she is the most likely to finish off the podium. The same could be said by Sotnikova, who is not known for being incredibly consistent. She has an enormous potential though, and if she nails the short program she will receive way more than 70 points.

There are so many others who could fight for a medal, but none of them is as competitive as these four. Carolina Kostner equals or tops the others for maturity and artistry, but she doesn’t have all the technical difficulties; others like Gracie Gold, Kanako Murakami, Akiko Suzuki miss something to be on the podium as well.

PODIUM PICKS

Gold: Yuna Kim

Silver: Julia Lipnitskaya

Bronze: Adelina Sotnikova

Trophee Eric Bompard Men and Ladies Preview

In the Men event at Trophee Eric Bompard, Patrick Chan is the absolute frontrunner， as he demonstrated to be quite ready for the Olympic season at Skate Canada, where he wasn’t perfect, but good enough to win by a landslide. His main competitors are Yuzuru Hanyu, who came in second at Skate Canada, and Han Yan, who made history being the first Chinese man to win a grand prix senior competition ever.

As far as grand prix final qualification is concerned, both Chan and Yan are sure to achieve it as long as they reach the podium at Trophee Bompard , while for Hanyu the question is more complicated; he is bound to go to the final just if he wins the competition (result that he could pursue skating the way he did at Finlandia Trophy where he pulled off an incredible free skate) and he needs to get on the podium to have a chance to qualify, but even then he will have to wait to see how the Rostelecom cup unfolds.

Talking about the ladies, the competition, and therefore the battle for the final, will be between Ashley Wagner, Adelina Sotnikova and Anna Pogorilaya. Ashley Wagner, winner of the silver medal at Skate America and TEB defending champion, is the favorite for the gold. She usually is very solid and consistent during the fall season and with the new entry of the triple flip-triple toe she is the very probable winner of the next grand prix competition.

Anna Pogorilaya is the surprising winner of Cup of China. That has to be said that the quality of the overall competition wasn’t exceptional and Anna, debuting there in the senior grand prix, outskated Sotnikova and world champion Kostner with two clean programs filled in with triple-triples getting a 180ish total score. However, with her win, she is in a good track to get to the final since all she needs to do is to get on the podium this week (or even a fourth place finish will do).  Aiming to the final as well, Adelina Sotnikova got the silver at Cup of China. She was very solid in the short program, in which if she hits her jumps she gets a lot of points for the quality of her skating, her spins and steps. She is not that consistent in the free skate instead, where she usually struggles on several elements. As she has already won a silver medal, a second place finish should assure her the final.