The most important competition of the season took place in Helsinki between March 29th and April 2nd. While the podium may have ended up as most people predicted, as well as the teams present in the top ten, there was a great deal of unpredictability in how these results came about. All in all, it was quite an exciting event. Here are the results:
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The most important competition of the year, the World Championships, begin on the 29th. However, the short dance takes place on the 31st of March, with the free dance happening on the 1st of April. Predictions of this event where extremely hard to come up with, since the field is deep and anything can happen. Virtue and Moir are chasing their 3rd World Title, but so are Papadakis and Cizeron. Many medalists are present, like Maia and Alex Shibutani, Madison Chock and Evan Bates, Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje or even the 2014 World Champs Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte. Here are my predictions:
Other couples to watch:
There are a couple of other couples I will be keeping an eye on. Starting with Guginard & Fabbri and Tobias & Tkachenko who may challenge the top 10. Also, I am extremely curious to see how well will the Spanish team of Olivia Smart and Adria Diaz place. Moreover, I really like the programs of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen of Denmark, particularly their short dance. The Chinese team of Shiyue Wang & Xinyu Liu is another one to keep an eye on, and so is the Korean team of Yura Min and Alexander Gamelin. The second French team of Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac is another one to watch: they have an amazing skating quality. Additionally, the Turkish team of Alisa Agafonova & Alper Ucar has been having great results this season. Lastly, I have really liked the British team ever since the Lombardia Trophy, so I will be watching Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson. The World Championships are right around the corner, so I decided to compile the median results that some of the most relevant teams on the field have achieved this season. Why the median and not the average? Because the median is less sensitive to outliers (either a really high or low score), being a better measure of what the couples may earn in PCS. On what concerns the short dance, no surprises occur in the top 3 teams. However, the most striking event is that Chock and Bates show up only in 7th place in PCS, with Hubbell and Donohue a point behind them. Also, Gilles and Poirier are placed below Stepanova/Bukin. This is somewhat enlightning to what may happen, since these values where obtained as the median of the most relevant competitions these teams entered (Grand Prix Events, Final, Europeans and/or Four Continents). However, since nothing is complete without the techinal component, all may change depending on the base values these teams are able to achieve. Nevertheless, a question I find relevant is what would happen is all teams achieve the same levels? Who will have the largest TES? Putting it differently, which team is receiving more GOE's by the technical pannel? For that, I came up with a simple formula: (TES-Base Value)/(Base Value). Why this and not simply looking at the amount of GOE? Well, because I would be comparing teams with different base values which may be the source of lower GOE's. Therefore, this formula is the "growth rate" that the panel of judges implements over the base value, being comparable across teams (and time, but that analysis I will save for another day). So here are the results from the median "GOE factor" that the couples achieved in the aforementioned competitions, along with the average: Here, there are surprises. The judges are giving a higher growth rate to Papadakis and Cizeron, followed by the Shibutanis and Virtue and Moir in the short dance. Moreover, Chock and Bates show up in 7th again and Hubbell/Donohue in 10th! And what to say about Gilles and Poirier in 12th... In this case, there is a somewhat relevant difference between the median and the average. Just look at Weaver and Poje, for instance. Hence, if things go smoothly, we may have the outcome of the first column. Let's look at the Free Dance statistics: On what PCS are concerned, there isn't a huge surprise. Maybe the placement of Weaver and Poje vs Chock and Bates, but that ordering is actually a plausible one to happen. What about GOE's? In the Free Dance case, it is not as surprising as in the short. However, Chock and Bates show up in 8th, which together with the sixth place in PCS may be evidence that things may not be in their favour this season. Another thing to notice is that here, Gilles and Poirier are aheah of Weaver and Poje. I am not going to take many conclusions regarding this (even though it did help me decide on my prediction of who will be in the top ten. The ordering still remains unknown. However, this may shed light on any surprising results that may take place.
In the deepest field of ice dance of a couple of years, anything can happen. And the data is showing us just that. A great competition took place at the Gangneung Ice Arena, the Olympic Arena for the Winter Games taking place next year. No surprises regarding the placement, with the outcome corresponding to what most people were expecting. Virtue and Moir got a new personal best in the free dance, as did silver medalists Maia and Alex Shibutani. Madison Chock and Evan Bates won the bronze medal.
Here are the full results: As many fans are anxious to take a look at the programs of most teams present at Korea, some videos have been showing up to satisfy the need to keep an eye on how practices are going. Here they are: Free Dance Run Throughs
Short Dance Run Throughs
This week Four Continents are taking place in South Korea, in the rink that will hold the Olympic Winter Games next year. The dance event is a good proxy to what will happen at worlds, because, with the exception of Papadakis/Cizeron, the top teams are going to be present. Sixteen teams from six countries (US, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia and China) will be competing. My predictions may not turn out true as most teams could medal with the exception that the first place is Virtue and Moir’s to lose. 1st: Having won both their Grand Prix assignments (Skate Canada and NHK), the Grand Prix Final and Canadian nationals after two years without competing, Virtue and Moir have surpassed their personal bests in both programs and hold the world record in the short dance. After this successful start of the season, they are being considered the team that will win Worlds. Here they will likely get the gold medal, without much competition from the other phenomenal teams competing here. They are just in a league of their own. If they don’t lose levels, they will be going at full speed ahead to Worlds. 2nd: Now, this was a big risk, but like Cappellini and Lanotte and European Championships, Weaver and Poje did not make it to the Grand Prix Final. I am expecting them to be fully prepared and ready. Putting them ahead of Maia and Alex Shibutani or even Madison Chock and Evan Bates was risky. The reason I am doing so is because I like both their programs more than the ones of the American teams. Moreover, if there is any team that I believe has a huge potential to win, but haven’t fully delivered yet at Worlds are these two. Unlike last season, I predict the Four Continents will not be the beginning of their worst results of the season, but rather the place where they will build the momentum going into Worlds. 3rd: The bronze medal was also a risk that I am taking, but I believe Chock and Bates have the ability to be ahead of Maia and Alex Shibutani. Actually, they won the free dance at the US Nationals and, in my view, they should have won also the short and overall (I guess I am just not fond of their short; still not over the fact that they are “ruining” Frank Sinatra for me). There is not a defined hierarchy in American ice dance and I expect the placements to change. At Skate Canada, Madison and Evan did amazing and I am expecting them to come back to that level. At the Grand Prix Final they were unfortunate at the short dance and they finished below Hubbell and Donohue. Here, I believe they will redeem themselves and take the bronze from the Shibutanis. 4th: Maia and Alex will have the fourth place due to my risky predictions so far. They have not gotten a great response to their short dance internationally with the exception of the Grand Prix Final (I still think the score they got for it there was a bit questionable, but I am biased because they are not my favorite team on the scene). Also, their free dance has not, so far, made the statement of being much better than the one of Chock/Bates or even the one of Hubbell/Donohue. I am just not putting them further down (in 5th) because they have great skating skills. However, I don’t think they nailed the choice of programs this season and I think that will cost them in the remainder of it. 5th: Madison and Zach are one of my favorite teams. I find their short dance to be fun and energetic and they were the only team to nail all the levels of that dance at US Nationals and they should have gotten credit for that even though people tended to dismiss it. I think they are being underrated. And so is their absolutely lovely free dance. I am waiting for them to performed it perfectly (they were great at Trophee de France and I am hoping for a performance like that). I would have loved to place them higher but I don’t think it will happen. I am hoping them make a statement here so that judges start perceiving them as a force to be reckoned with so that they have an even better result at Worlds. Last season they did not get enough points for their amazing short dance, so I think it is about time they are rewarded for the great improvement they have been making. 6th: Piper and Paul having been improving tremendously, particularly from last season to this season. They can challenge some of the teams above and evidence of that is how close their placement was of Weaver and Poje at the Canadian Nationals and how well they performed at Skate Canada. They have new personal bests set early in the season and had enough time to polish everything. Still, this is a tough field (basically the one they are going to encounter at Worlds). I am not excluding the possibility, though, that this team is the one who can surprise everyone at this event. 7th: From this team forward, my placements were mostly based on the personal best scores the remaining teams have achieved so far. Min/Gamelin are neck and neck with Muramoto/Reed. Still, from what I remember (I watched the programs of these teams long ago), I was impressed with Min and Gamelin so I am expecting them to edge out the Japanese team in this competition, keeping in mind that they are also skating at home. 8th: Muramoto and Reed are one of the best teams present (when you exclude the ones from Canada and the US). Accordingly, I am placing them on the top 10. Comparatively to last year, I am predicting they will fall one place because of the rise of the Korean team. 9th: The best team, in my opinion, from China, Wang and Liu will get the ninth place just like the previous year. They have done well at both their Grand Prix assignments and are showing great potential. Can’t wait to see how they have improved since Cup of China. 10th: Closing the top ten, Korea’s second team Lee and Kam. I have not seen them yet but their scores from Open d’Andorra were not that bad and I guess the coaching team they work with based my decision of placing them here (yes, they are training in Montreal with Dubreuil, Lauzon and company which also coach Virtue/Moir, Hubbell/Donohue, Papadakis/Cizeron, and the list goes on and on). All in all, I think this is going to be a team that I would want to watch and that is the reason why I believe they will be tenth. The other teams present are the three Australian couples Matilda Friend/William Badaoui, Kimberley Hew-Low/Timothy McKernan and Adele Morrison/Demid Rokachev, two Chinese partnerships Hong Chen/Yan Zhao and Linshu Song/Zhuoming Sun and one Japanese team Emi Hirai/Marien de la Asuncion. The best Australian team in terms of international scores is Hew-Low/McKernan and I am really hoping they do well. However, Friend/Badaoui are the national champions, so it will also be an interesting competition to see which Australian team will be the best here. It is nice to have three Australian couples in this competition and to see that ice dance in this country is developing successfully.
In the penultimate event of the Grand Prix Series, the couples taking place in the Final are beginning to secure their spots. In this competition, two teams were looking to do so: Canadians Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje and Americans Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani. Weaver and Poje needed a first place finish (due to their third place at Rostelecom), which provided an interesting competition among the top two teams here. On the other hand, there was the debut of Sinitsina/Katsalapov of Russia, who certainly wanted to outshine fellow Russians Stepanova/Bukin and, possibly, have great performance to have a shot at being in the final. The final results were the following: 4. Victoria Sinitsina/Nikita Katsalapov (Russia) – Total of 171.94 points
5. Natalia Kaliszek/Maksym Spodyriev (Poland) – Total of 150.78 points 6. Shiyue Wang/Xinyu Liu (China) – Total of 149.8 points 7. Anastasia Cannuscio/Colin McManus (USA) – Total of 141.17 points 8. Linshu Song/Zhuoming Sun (China) – Total of 130.9 points 9. Hong Chen/Yan Zhao (China) – Total of 117.32 points Alexandra Paul and Mitchell Islam (Canada) withdrew before the beginning of the short dance. |
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