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Interesting article. (1.) Alysa sleeps ten hours every night; and (2.) her coach said, "I know when to give her easy days and when to push her."
2018-19 U.S. Ladies' figure skating
- Thread starter Spirals for Miles
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Interesting article. (1.) Alysa sleeps ten hours every night; and (2.) her coach said, "I know when to give her easy days and when to push her."
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- Feb 27, 2012
BTW: During GPF, Skate Canada's Instastory had a photo of Patrick Chan (in his ambassador role) in the stands with two "anonymous" youngsters. The hashtag was something like #fanphotos (I don't remember exactly, but part of the hashtag was "fan-").
One of the youngsters was Alysa, who was not tagged.
I remember wondering whether Skate Canada or Patrick had any awareness that one of the "fans" with Patrick was a reigning U.S. junior champion -- who has triple axels under her belt, no less. (I'm still wondering, LOL. [ETA: But no judgment if Patrick did not know.])
In the Vancouver photo later posted on her own Instastory, Alysa was by herself. She indicated that she was at JGPF/GPF (although I forget whether via hashtag and/or locator or what).
No mention of USFS at the time, so until Hersh's reporting, I had wondered how it came to be that Alysa was there as a spectator.
Anyway, USFS sending Alysa to get a taste of JGPF/GPF is sorta reminiscent of USFS sending Nathan and several others to Boston to get a taste of Worlds.
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Anyone else thrown off by this part of the article: "...and the leading title contender, Mariah Bell..."
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- Feb 27, 2012
The full sentence is: "Defending champion Bradie Tennell turns 21 a week after nationals, and the leading title contender, Mariah Bell, is 22."
Perhaps the intention was to juxtapose Bradie as holder/defender of the title and Mariah as (leading) contender for the title?
:agree:
The wording is a bit weird. Calling Mariah the "leading title contender" would make me think she's the favorite to win. Bradie may be the defending champ but Mariah is the favorite this year. At least that would be my automatic impression on first reading without thinking.
Grammatically I think you're right. (Even as the defending champ Bradie is also a contender for this title). I think, though, that he meant to say "challenger" rather than contender. I doubt he meant that Mariah is favored over Bradie. Word choice is important!
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If Bradie continues the adjustment of taking the 3LzLo combo out of the short and can keep her URs under control, I don't see why she won't win here. Again, Mariah needs the triple-triple.
Internationally Bradie has had some REALLY close calls that for one reason or another the judges didn't want to give her. They could have gone her way without controversy but they didn't (and consistently so). She won't have that problem at Nationals.
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- Jun 21, 2003
I'd be willing to bet that Patrick Chan knows who Alysa Liu is. :yes: Maybe the Skate Canada person who put up the photos didn't.
Or maybe they didn't want to say, "Here's Patrick Chan with Alysa Liu and some random pal.
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Well ... in my opinion, that's not necessarily a sure thing. If Mariah could actually put two clean programs together, with her sparkle and style of performing, it's just possible the judges could go her way. That's a big "if," though. (And what do I know, anyway!)
Defending champion Bradie Tennell turns 21 a week after nationals, and the leading title contender, Mariah Bell, is 22.
https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2018...3-is-using-the-present-to-avoid-future-shock/
https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2018...3-is-using-the-present-to-avoid-future-shock/
It didn't seem ambiguous to me. The sentence states that Mariah is the contender, while Bradie is the champion. Mariah is the one who seeks the title that Bradie already has. So it implies that chances of retaining that title are slightly in Bradie's favor.
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- Feb 25, 2014
I think that's right. And judges at Nationals have sometimes made examples out of skaters with UR calls (see Karen). They'll have no problem putting Mariah over Bradie in PCS, so Bradie would want to make sure her tech is clean to not chance it.
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Phil has been pushing for Mariah for national champ on his twitter for a while now (and tooting the "Bradie better watch her back" horn too) so yeah...he meant he sees Mariah as the favorite despite Bradie being the defending champ. He hasn't been subtle about it. His stance on that has been pretty straightforward.
Exhibit A: https://twitter.com/olyphil/status/1066042223261872128
But then when Bradie won GS, he tweeted this: https://twitter.com/olyphil/status/1071437585980030976
So he's a bit back and forth, but it's obvious he's pulling for Mariah.
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I think Phil likes Mariah's on-ice personality. (Who doesn't?)
He liked Mirai Nagasu, too, but more for her off-ice personality. He included Mirai as one of his top ten "funnest" interviews.
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I like that USFS set up the opportunity for Liu to see the GPF/JGPF at the venue. I believe she already met Kihira, Sakamoto, and Yelim Kim in 2017 and saw Kihira's 3A in person back then but it must be a great experience for her to see how Trusova and Shcherbakova approach their 4Lz in practice right in front of her eyes. At the Asian Open 2018 she was interviewed by Fuji TV about who her favorite skaters were and she listed four Russian ladies including both of them
(she probably just forgot to mention Kostornaia at the top of her head):
https://youtu.be/T1jYWRWcvc8?t=77
At the Nationals I don't know how her jumps will turn out in terms of completing rotations and how strict the tech panel will be, but I hope judges don't underscore her on the PCS side just because she's not senior internationally.
(she probably just forgot to mention Kostornaia at the top of her head):
https://youtu.be/T1jYWRWcvc8?t=77
At the Nationals I don't know how her jumps will turn out in terms of completing rotations and how strict the tech panel will be, but I hope judges don't underscore her on the PCS side just because she's not senior internationally.
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I don't agree that Phil overall has been pushing for Mariah over Bradie.
You neglected to mention his tweet of Dec 4:
@bradie_tennell and @MariahSk8rBell, two favorites to win the U.S. title in January, have a showdown at this weekend’s Golden Spin of Zagreb. ...
And in Phil's lengthy Nov 8 article about Bradie, he never even mentioned Mariah:
… With three-time U.S. champion Ashley Wagner and 2018 Olympian Mirai Nagasu on (permanent?) competitive hiatus and the third 2018 Olympian, Karen Chen, struggling with an injury and lingering confidence issues, Tennell’s national pre-eminence going into this season looks even greater. ...
I'd be willing to bet that Patrick Chan knows who Alysa Liu is. :yes: Maybe the Skate Canada person who put up the photos didn't.
Or maybe they didn't want to say, "Here's Patrick Chan with Alysa Liu and some random pal.
Well, reasonable people can have different opinions on this topic.
It would not surprise me if Nathan would not have recognized the Canadian junior women's champ. YMMV.
Or even if Alysa is assumed to have unusual potential a la Gogolev, it would not have surprised me if Ashley or Gracie would not have recognized Stephen until after his first JGP. YMMV.
(Apologies to Patrick/Nathan/Ashley/Gracie, if I am underestimating any of you.)
I did not intend to go into it in this thread, but if(?) I am not mistaken, Ilia Malinin -- whom I would not consider to be "random" -- was the other unnamed "fan" in the photo with Patrick and Alysa.
(And I now would guess that USFS made a point of sending Ilia to Vancouver, as it did with Alysa.)
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I recorded in 2013 worlds, Gracie was 6th and Ashley was 5th.
In 2014, Gracie was 5th and Ashley was 7th.
In 2015, Gracie was 4th and Ashley was 5th.
In 2016, Gracie was 4th and Ashley won the silver medel.
In 2017, Karen was 4th and Ashley was 7th.
Plus in Sochi Olympic, Gracie was 4th again and Ashley was 7th.
I am really missing Gracie, she has the pure talent and despite those 4th placements finish (she missed the poduim by very small margins which made me sad), she had her moments and helped US to gain and maintan these 3 spots during all these years.
