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About incident with Hubbell/Donohue during the warm-up Nikita Katsalapov: I don’t remember exactly what I said to him. I don’t even remember in English or Russian, but I said something. The thing is, it’s been going on all day. Somehow accumulated, boiled. Just five pairs on the ice in a five-minute warm-up is quite a lot. And we’re all in the locker room always arguing about it. But it’s gotten a little personal here. Specifically to Donoghue? Yes, because it started in the morning. But all this remains only on the ice, there are no problems off-ice, they are cool guys. There is an ethic on the ice – we were the first to start making our own combination, they were already starting theirs and saw us. Gotta give a way.

From ISU: “Junior and Senior: Street Dance Rhythms: At least two different Rhythms from the following examples hip hop, disco, swing, krump, popping, funk, etc., jazz, reggae (reggae tin) and blues.”

Oh too happy to see S/K in second. Especially after Dikita showed up in the warmup.

It’s Ashley & Timothy, Kaitlin & Jean-Luc, Mariah, and Karen.

I HATE this tech box. I really hope they change for the individual events.

I couldn’t find anything in the rules to answer this. They do allow for countries to only have participants in three segments, but nothing as to the scoring. I would imagine they just get zero.

Yes. Peacock. It’s only $4.99/month and you can watch without commentary live and the replays are available just a few minutes after the event ended.

The John Nicks Challenge and Cranberry Cup are not ISU sanctioned events international events they didn’t have full international panels but multiple American judges. I don’t have a problem with Knierim/Frazier getting the nod but I do think Ashley/Timothy earned it at Nationals.

Women’s entries aren’t due until tomorrow morning. My guess is they’ll go with Marian but I’m hoping for Karen.

Nope.

Still no word on team entries, they actually delayed the time they have to be in 😬 Word on the street is that Roman Sadovsky will be doing the team event for Canada instead of Keegan, who is yet to arrive, and no one seems to have an update. And it also appears Alysa Liu is not flying in til Friday so she definitely won’t be in the team event.

Yes, literally one one competition the last two years had commentary (that was one of the domestic Grand Prix events in 2020). Everything else is commentary free or there is a commentary free feed if there are two live feeds.

Tom Z posted today that him and Vincent are training in the LA bubble and they’ve passed their first and second COVID tests. This is what Jackie Wong posted as the Beijing testing regimen: 1 nasopharyngeal PCR 96hrs prior to last leg to PEK 1 nasopharyngeal PCR 72hrs prior to last leg to PEK w 24hrs+ btwn 1st & 2nd 1 oro- & nasopharyngeal PCR at PEK on arrival (wait in hotel room until results) Daily oropharyngeal testing thereafter

Have you seen On Edge on YouTube? They’ve been following the Ice Academy of Montreal all season. It’s a pretty good glimpse into the training environment.

I think falls are penalized pretty fairly, you lose half the value plus a 1 pt fall deduction, if its underrotated, it loses 20% base value and if its downgraded, they lose a lot of value. Take the triple axel. I think if you can fully rotate it, include it, if you fall, it ends up worth 3 pts (8pts base value - 4 points for fall - 1 pt for fall deduction). Contrasted with a clean double axel, it averages 4.30 points (3.30 BV + 1 GOE), the absolutely best a 2A could get would be 4.95 (very hard to get +5 on a 2A), so in most cases someone loses 1-1.5 points for falling on fully rotated 3A. Now if its underrotated, it the base value is 6.40 so the loss of 3.2 plus a 1 pt deduction is 2.20, they are better off the doing the 2A. If it's a full downgrade, the net is 0.65. Let's take a quad salchow, BV 9.70, fully rotated with a fall, net is 3.85, less than a clean 3S and of course, less if its under. So falling on quads doesn't really help someone. Its landing them that racks up so many points. I understand the frustration with Trusova, who almost always falls on one or two racking up so many points, but that's because she inevitably lands 2, 3, or 4 clean quads to make up for it. If you take away base value completely because someone falls, remember that would also happen if someone fell on a triple in that same scenario so it would probably balance out. Current ladies could definitely make IJS work better for them by trying more difficult combinations or doing them in the second half vs the first half. I, too, would like to see spins worth more points and I'm SO SICK of Beilmann spins, can we give out level 4 for centered spins with more revolutions instead of just achieving hypermobile positions? I think revaluing 3A is a good idea, I think it's sad 30 years after Midori and Tonya we are just now getting to a place where there is more than one or two ladies attempting them. The gold standard in the men's event used to be the 3A/3T combo and that's such a rarity now. I'd love to see it make a comeback.

Triple axel and quads, it's a recent term.

There’s talk they’re going to allow quads in ladies short programs soon and that will be the kiss of death for everyone else as if it’s not hard enough already. I believe Korea has some girls doing some ultra C elements but if you saw Russian Nationals or the JGP you know there’s more Russian girls doing quads ready to take over when this batch is cooked.

I felt that way at the time. But years later, I get it. G/G’s moonlight sonata was beautiful and M/D were good but I don’t feel like Rach #2 brought out their best like their 92 Olympic free program, Liebestraum. Both G/G Moinlight Sonata and M/D Liebestraum are two of my top 5 fave pairs programs ever. Nancy over Oksana yes. But I was a FAN of Oksana/Pasha Grishuk, Torvill/Dean bored me to tears…shocking, I know.

I believe in the Second Mark, it was the federation or some high level Canadian figure skating official that told S/P to go back to Love Story. They said the judges weren’t responding as well to Rachmaninoff. I guess they didn’t talk about that in Meddling. Re: music choices. Russians historically have very little choice in their programs. I’m sure that Mishin’s do but definitely not Moskvina’s skaters (Elena Bechke has confirmed this, too) and traditionally not Eteri’s but I do know Kostornaia picked Lovely and maybe New York, New York, too.

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There are a few events in Europe for this specific purpose, the Bavarian Open is the most notable, but the rest are listed here: ISU Figure Skating Events

So he competed in the JGP in 2019-2020, he finished fourth and seventh at his two events and was 16th at Jr. Worlds, the lowest finishing American. He didn’t have quads then. He was injured and unable to compete at nationals in 2020 also. He was a big surprise at SA last year and his new quads put him on the map. Missing nationals and just being 16, sending him to JGP made the most sense. Although I’m hindsight, he would’ve greatly benefited from being in the senior GP over skaters like Camden or Tomoko.

I adore Jason as well and I also think Ilia should’ve been selected. I know a lot of people were looking for Vincent to be left off, but he had the international scores to medal at the Olympics. Inconsistent or not, he absolutely should go. IIRC, He was injured last year and couldn’t submit for virtual sectionals. I thought it was ridiculous he didn’t get a bye after finishing 5th at Skate America. So he wasn’t able to compete at nationals last year. He tore it up on the Junior Grand Prix winning both of his events and likely would’ve won the JGPF if it hadn’t been cancelled. He one senior event at Cup of Austria he was 13th after the short program. He rebounded in the free to finish 3rd but had he won that event, he very well might be going to the Olympics. Also, Junior men cannot do quads in the short program so his international scores are lower due to that.

What a fantastic day of skating! The men were on fire! The exact opposite of the Russian and Canadian men who were a collective mess. Performances of the day were Jason, Ilia, and Vincent. Pairs was depressing honestly. So many mistakes. My personal highlight was Spencer Howe, now that he’s ditched the ponytail, he’s just HOT. Dance: I am so, so thrilled for Madi & Evan. Their rhythm dance yesterday was ON FIRE. Their FD still hasn’t come together for me. I like the first half but something was amiss in the second half and that last lift was not good. They got pretty lucky with the judging there. H/D had a strong skate but I still hate that music, it’s so annoying and I find myself appreciating their athleticism but totally checked out of the performance. Performances of the night for me were Green/Parsons and Hawayek/Baker. I also really enjoyed Katarina/Jeff and Bratti/Somerville. I do think C/B winning solidifies both top teams splitting the team event which means TPTB have a tough choice with likely only one lady. Alysa makes the most sense but I wouldn’t be surprised if they felt more comfortable with Mariah (although I don’t).