- Joined
- Mar 18, 2013
The USFA and its criteria to select world and 4cc team is certainly different and right or wrong very based on getting more spots. You can easily rationalize things or argue things so that Brown should go, Zhou should go or heck look how they bumped up Aaron.
Brown will always do fairly well because he has great style, skating skills (PCS) Aaron as a jumper is sadly duplicitous and not as good as Chen of course or Zhou. I think Chen by the way could win olympics pending what Hanyu does. He has more quads than Boyang and Fernandez who is still prone and Chan doesn't have a chance with his inonsistency - though I could watch him just glide on the ice - the scoring system now does not give Chan and Brown really enough room to get scores that maybe they deserve.
I think you have Chen and Brown as I always said as your safe bets and the third spot open but if Zhou starts getting consistent then Aaron, Rippon, Abbott, Rabbit,Dolensky, Minor et al can say farewell. My guess is nats may have sealed the deal hat Abbott won't return. He can see the quad issue. I think it is very brave of Patrick Chan and Jason Brown to stick around. I think because Jason is younger and is really well liked there is more hope. But Hanyu really has it all and wants it all - he Hanyu the king of kings really has the advantage over Chen still because of pcs. Who would ever think 5 quads in a program would be possible. I do think this is exciting and maybe a bit sad for skating. Jumps can do it all!
I would agree all of this EXCEPT the part about Chan. Did you see his Free Skate at Canadian Nats? Chan did 2 Quads in the Free AND two 3 Axels (something he's eschewed for a good portion of his career.) While the just may be a bit less consistent than Fernandez, Chen, and Hanyu, the programs and the PCS are still RIGHT up there. In my opinion, his PCS if he goes clean should be above ALL others, including Hanyu. Don't sleep on Patrick.
The USFSA picked Jason knowing that if he is 100%, he's a sure bet to get in the top 10, and with Nathan, the shot to bring back three spots for next year is pretty secure. Vincent will get 2 spots in the Grand Prix for sure, and good showings there will definitely help him on the senior level.
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