2017-2018 Canadian Road to the Olympics | Page 83 | Golden Skate

2017-2018 Canadian Road to the Olympics

Shayuki

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 2, 2013
Team Canada for Olympic Winter Games
LADIES: Larkyn Austman, Gabrielle Daleman, Kaetlyn Osmond
Guess it was possible after all... I still think she'll be totally out of place. To think Chartrand would lose her spot to someone clearing TES requirements by less than a point.
 

Anni234

Ina Bauer
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 29, 2015
Country
Estonia
Just realised Chartrand never went to Olympics, I somehow thought she went to Sochi. Incredibly sad for her, I know she has it in her and when she's on, she's certainly better than Austman, but this season (and even the last), she hasn't been on much.
 

GGFan

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 9, 2013
Guess it was possible after all... I still think she'll be totally out of place. To think Chartrand would lose her spot to someone clearing TES requirements by less than a point.

Weirdly enough I thought Larkyn was completely out of place at Skate Canada. I cringed through parts of her performance :eeking: I feel like the Olympics are different. Neither Larkyn nor Alaine are doing anything to challenge the podium. To me the Olympics are about athletes of different abilities going out there and performing their best. There are no Worlds or Olympics spots at stake. Larkyn came out and performed better than Alaine this weekend--which is crazy but Alaine has regressed. I say godspeed Larkyn! Soak it all up :yahoo:
 

Alchamei

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2014
I can undersatnd the team for the Olympics, but the Can Fed made the same mistake as US Fed when it comes to Worlds. I/M deserved to go to Worlds, as well as Chartrand and also Nguyen/Reynolds/Balde (one of the three basically).
 

Anni234

Ina Bauer
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 29, 2015
Country
Estonia
Weirdly enough I thought Larkyn was completely out of place at Skate Canada.

I remember watching and thinking the same. I looked up some personal bests and Larkyn's PB in FS is 94.31 internationally (although truth be told, she has not had much international exposure). That being said, last Olympics the lowest FS score we saw was 75.20, so... not the worst situation atm.
 

Shayuki

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 2, 2013
I remember watching and thinking the sake. I looked up some personal bests and Larkyn's PB in FS is 94.31 internationally (although truth be told, she has not had much international exposure). That being said, last Olympics the lowest FS score we saw was 75.20, so... not the worst situation atm.
Right, I guess that's fair enough. There will be a wide variety of skaters at the Olympics. It's not like the GP series that just has the cream of the crop. Maybe it's not so bad, after all... And it's always just good to see a skater being rewarded for skating well at nationals rather than have that achievement essentially stripped off them.
 

ancientpeas

The Notorious SEW
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 11, 2014
I think all Alaine had to do was make a decent case for herself here and it wouldn't have mattered. But she skated terribly in the SP. Lets be honest it was a trainwreck. She'd been practicing fine and she has not be able to do a decent competition in ages. That to me is mental. She was also terrible in the GP season. This was Larkyn's first GP ever and she was apparently shaking in fear. Alaine has had years to deal with her nerves and for whatever reason it's just not working right now. I think Skate Canada looked at that and gave it to Larkyn because she really was better at Nationals. Remember all the heartbreak about Ross? Nationals should count and Larkyn outskated Alaine here by 5 points even without the PCS boost that Alaine gets.
 

sarama

Medalist
Joined
Apr 23, 2014
Clearly Larkyn as a skater isn't even remotely in the same league of Alaine. But unfortunately Alaine has been a trainwreck for two seasons and I think it would have been hard for Skate Canada to justify selecting her.
I don't know what went wrong with Alaine, but it's really heartbreaking to see her skate like that, and missing two Olympics while she was quite brilliant in between, must be tough.
 

TontoK

Hot Tonto
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Country
United-States
No drama. Thank you Canada :clap:

Having said that I'm still very sad for I/M :sad4:

Having watched nearly all of the national champs courtesy of the GS Canadian Mafia, I think there was no other way they could go with any of their selections.

Judging on the quality of the competition, as well as throwing an eyeball at the season's results, all of the choices seemed obvious to me.

I know people are upset about Chartrand, but, honestly, what choice did the Fed have? Austman made her case strongly for that third spot, I thought.
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
Having watched nearly all of the national champs courtesy of the GS Canadian Mafia, I think there was no other way they could go with any of their selections.

Judging on the quality of the competition, as well as throwing an eyeball at the season's results, all of the choices seemed obvious to me.

I know people are upset about Chartrand, but, honestly, what choice did the Fed have? Austman made her case strongly for that third spot, I thought.

Chartrand has had her moments and high scoring potential, but htat hasn't really translated to much of a body of work. She's only one 1 senior B medal and 1 GP medal in the last four years. She has actually done pretty well at Canadians, so it's a pretty bad sign when she couldn't even pull it off there.

Keegan Messing actually has the highest season's best score due to Patrick's poor performance at his only GP, so it was a no-brainer to give it to him. Nam Nguyen's score was close, but again, he did not have a compelling body of work.

The top 3 dance and pairs are easy picks too as they also are the top 3 on the season's best list.

Body of work decisions were not necessary because the ones who would have had a case actually finished where they needed at nationals.
 

Andrea82

Medalist
Joined
Feb 16, 2014
The criteria listed by Skate Canada for the "body of work" were:

Medalist at the 2016, and/or the 2017 ISU World Figure Skating Championships
Placement at the 2018 Canadian Tire National Figure Skating Championships
Top 10 placement at the 2016 and/or 2017 ISU World Figure Skating Championships
Top 6 placement at the 2016 and/or 2017 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships
Qualifying for the 2015/2016, 2016/2017, and/or 2017/2018 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final and/or the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final
Other relevant criteria deemed appropriate for selection



The last one is a nice way to keep their hands totally free...

Leaving the last one aside, Chartrand, who I agree is a better skater than Austman, didn't fit in any of them. Without GP Finals, top 10 at Worlds or top 6 at 4CCs in the last two seasons, it went down to placement at Nationals.

Also Nguyen didn't have any of them either. And Messing has beaten him twice this year anyway (Autumn Classic and NHK).

I/M actually fit in some of these BOW categories (2 top 10 at Worlds and 2 top 6 at 4CCs) more than MT/M (top 10 at Worlds 2016). I could have seen considering it if they were a close 4th but they were almost 20 points behind. Too far behind to overturn the outcome by BOW IMO.
 

sarama

Medalist
Joined
Apr 23, 2014
The criteria listed by Skate Canada for the "body of work" were:

Medalist at the 2016, and/or the 2017 ISU World Figure Skating Championships
Placement at the 2018 Canadian Tire National Figure Skating Championships
Top 10 placement at the 2016 and/or 2017 ISU World Figure Skating Championships
Top 6 placement at the 2016 and/or 2017 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships
Qualifying for the 2015/2016, 2016/2017, and/or 2017/2018 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final and/or the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final
Other relevant criteria deemed appropriate for selection



The last one is a nice way to keep their hands totally free...

Leaving the last one aside, Chartrand, who I agree is a better skater than Austman, didn't fit in any of them. Without, GP Finals, top 10 at Worlds or top 6 at 4CCs in the last two seasons, it went down to placement at Nationals.

Also Nguyen didn't have any of them either. And Messing has beaten him twice this year anyway (Autumn Classic and NHK).

I/M actually fits in some of these BOW categories (2 top 10 at Worlds and 2 top 6 at 4CCs) more than MT/M (top 10 at 4CCs 2016). I could have seen considering it if they were a close 4th but they were almost 20 points behind. Too far behind to overturn the outcome by BOW IMO.
You are absolutely right.
I/M have been consistently underperforming this season. Otherwise I think they would have got the benefit of the doubt and the Olympic spot, thanks to last season.
 

kevinVchicago

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 13, 2016
It'll actually be pretty heartbreaking if they don't send Larkyn because she sure sounded like she thought she was going in the interviews. Kind of crushing for her when she talks about destiny and how it was all she wanted.
The commentator dude on the Canadian TV broadcast last night pretty much forced the Fed's hand by naming the team himself! I think people would have been mad if the Fed had chosen differently after that.

We had people outraged in the US even after the NBC commentator said over and over that placement at Nationals doesn't guarantee a spot. [emoji23]
 

nocturnalis

Medalist
Joined
Jul 2, 2014
I/M would have made it if this competition was an outlier. SBS jumps have never been an ace for them, but I'm not sure they've had one clean pass this season. And Worlds last year was unfortunately an outlier. Their jumps have been a problem, and mostly overlooked by National judges because of their potential and it came back to bite them.
 

Seren

Wakabond Forever
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 21, 2014
I don't think the Fed really had a choice. Alaine has been regressing. She is more talented than Larkyn by far but that doesn't matter when you can't put it on the ice. And Larkyn is improving where Alaine is not. I hope Alaine skates a blinder at 4cc for some personal redemption.
 

anyanka

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 8, 2011
Having said that I'm still very sad for I/M :sad4:

Up in the stands, we were all sad at the end of their FS. My heart broke especially for Luba. But I knew something was up not just because they were placed lower in the SP, but I also saw Dylan walking around with some sort of bandage on his right hand which I hadn't noticed before. I think he injured it during the actual SP? This was just my observation and not sourced out anywhere, so no official report of an injury that I'm aware of ...
 

anyanka

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 8, 2011
I/M actually fit in some of these BOW categories (2 top 10 at Worlds and 2 top 6 at 4CCs) more than MT/M (top 10 at Worlds 2016). I could have seen considering it if they were a close 4th but they were almost 20 points behind. Too far behind to overturn the outcome by BOW IMO.

Luba and Dylan had visibly large errors while Kiki and Michael had smaller ones, and their speed was more impressive in person. It was a bit rough in the beginning but then turned into an absolute blinder of a FS a third of the way through. We were all on our feet in the end. I did see her warming up in the stands an hour before, and she had a look on her face of absolute determination. She meant business and was going to make the team no matter what, so I didn't bother her (she also had those noise-cancelling headphones on). Michael was more approachable, we nodded and smiled and I mouthed a quiet "good luck" at him and he thanked me.
 

GGFan

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 9, 2013
Up in the stands, we were all sad at the end of their FS. My heart broke especially for Luba. But I knew something was up not just because they were placed lower in the SP, but I also saw Dylan walking around with some sort of bandage on his right hand which I hadn't noticed before. I think he injured it during the actual SP? This was just my observation and not sourced out anywhere, so no official report of an injury that I'm aware of ...

One of the commentators (I believe it was Debbi) mentioned the hand injury but it was never elaborated upon, so I could not tell how much she knew. Perhaps I/M didn't want the press talking about it so as not to be seen as making excuses. Whatever the case is, I feel for them.
 

Manitou

Medalist
Joined
Jan 17, 2014
So Larkyn Austman, who would place 17th in Russia or 15th in Japan, goes to Korea, while Konstantinova or Tsurskaya stay home and will watch the Olympics on TV. That's great. The ISU system works perfectly. (sarcasm alert).
 
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