Junior World Championships: Men results

Han Yan (CHN) won the Junior Worlds with a total score of 222.45. he had a very strong free skate including a quad toe, a triple axel and six other clean triples. His only mistake was a downgraded single toe and single loop in combo with a double axel.

Joshua Farris (USA) took the silver with 221.97. He did any jump well with two triple axels anf five more triples.

Jason Brown (USA) skated for the bronze. He did not do any triple axel or quads, but performed clean throughout the whole program with seven triples. (214.90 overall)

Junior World Championships: Dance results

Sinitsina/Zhiganshin (RUS) won the junior World Championships with a total score of 153.81. They received all level four except for two level three step sequences.

Another Russian couple, Stepanova/Bukin earned the silver medal with 147.74. They received all level four except for a level two and level three in two step sequences.

Aldridge/Eaton of U.S. got the bronze medal with 141.14

Junior World Championships: Ladies short

Julia Lipnitskaia (RUS) leads the ladies short program with 63.09 points. She did a double axel, triple lutz and triple toe-triple toe combo. All of her spins received a level four. She got the highest components score of the competition with 26.66

Gracie Gold of U.S. is in second place with 58.00 points. She performed a triple flip-triple toe combo, triple lutz, double axel.

Adelina Sotnikova (RUS), the defending champion, sits in third with 56.57. She nailed all of her jumps (triple toe-triple toe combo, triple lutz and double axel) but received just a level one on her combo spin.

Junior World Championships: Pairs results

Sui/Han won the junior worlds with a free skate scored 116.40. they tried both of their quads and nailed them. The throw quad salchow was not effortless, but the quad twist was perfect. Then they had troubles on sbs triple toe-double toe (the double toe was downgraded. Apart from that, any other element was nicely done, included a stunning throw triple flip in the second part of the program.

The other Chinese couple Yu/Jin placed second with 112.76 in the free skate. Their performance was very clean with a triple twist, a sequence of double axels sbs, a tiple toe sbs, throw triple loop and salchow.

Davankova/Deputat of Russia gained the bronze medal with a 103.16 free skate. They did triple toe-double toe sbs, throw triple flip and loop, triple twist and a struggled double axel sbs.

Junior World Championships: Men's short

Joshua Farris of  USA leads the short program with a technical content of a triple axel, triple flip-triple toe combo and triple lutz. He earned 75.43

Han Yan (CHN) is currently in second with the same jumping content of the leader, but with a level two on a change foot camel spin (while Farris was given a level four). However the gap between the two is under a point as Yan got 74.88. He also received the best components score of the whole (34.37)

Denis Ten (KAZ) sits in third after short program again with a triple axel, triple flip-triple toe combo and triple lutz. He earned 73.78

Challenge Cup 2012 Schedule

This year Hauge will host the Challenge Cup from 8th to 11th March.
Here is the schedule of the senior competition:

9th March
16.15-19.00 Men short program
19.26-23.00 Ladies short program

10th March
14.15-15.45 Men free skating
18.00-22.10 Ladies Free skating

http://www.schaatsen.nl/Upload/attachments/challenge-cup-2012/Challenge%20Cup%202012%20Preliminary%20Time%20Table%2014-02-12.pdf

Here are the entries
http://www.schaatsen.nl/Upload/attachments/challenge-cup-2012/Challenge%20Cup%202012%20-%20Entries.pdf

Official Site http://www.schaatsen.nl/challenge-cup-2012-en

Is Mao really back?

Liebestraum is one of my favourite program from Mao Asada. When I saw its debut at Japan Open 2010, I thought that would have been her masterpiece, despite all the technical imperfections of the competition. A beautiful and lyrical Mao was back after some seasons of strong Tarasova's choreographies. Everytime I watch this program, I can't stop myself from goosebumps when the music starts and she moves with it. But something didn't happen as I was expected. Mao started one of the worst season of her life, saying that her jumping disease was due to a back to basis strategy. 

This late season seems to be a rebirth of the Japanese champion, although there is still something not working.

Some days ago Asada won her second consecutive silver medal at Four Continents Championships. Last year gold was taken by Miki Ando, now the reigning champion is an emerging Ashley Wagner. Well, I looked back at 2011 competition, as I remember Mao did quite well there, and I got really surprised by seeing how she was better scored in 2011 than in 2012. Last year she got 132,89 against 124,37 this year. Then I tried to compare her protocols to understand what was missing last week.

	4CC 2011	4CC 2012
3A	9,79	4,71 (under-rotated)
3f-2lo	8,1	7,6
3lz	5,5 (wrong edge take off)	5,3 (struggled landing, negative goe)
Ccosp	4,5 (level 4)	4,5 (level 4)
2a-3t	7,03 (under-rotated triple toe)	8,84
3f-2lo-2lo	8,84 (under-rotated final double loop)	10,29
3s	4,02 (two footed, negative goe)	1.46 (doubled salchow)
Ssp	2,96 (level 3)	2.93 (level 4)
Slst	4,3 (level 3)	4,3 (level 3)
3lo	6,71	6,01
Fcosp	4,57 (level 4)	3,71 (level 4)
Chsp1	3,86	3,3
TES	70,18	62,95
PCS	62,71	61,42
Total score	132,89	124,37

This overview of her free skating score shows that Mao lost the majority of points on triple axel and general grade of execution. So, the matter is: does she really need to take that triple axel? Is it worth the effort of landing it?

Free skate at 4CC 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpZGFBDYc2w&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLFD43B1FDB47F336B

Free skate at 4CC 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWnS907QiRU