Who are contenders for 2022 Oly team event? | Page 2 | Golden Skate

Who are contenders for 2022 Oly team event?

Colonel Green

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 3, 2018
Country
Canada
If we had a situation like at Nationals, where there would be a tough choice to go with the skater who had the better season (Bradie) or the higher finisher at Nationals (Mariah), I could see them going with Alysa for both just to avoid having to make a pick between two close contenders.
The USFS by default would undoubtedly want Alysa to do both to begin with, the issue is that she probably wouldn't want to do that, and it's not like they can force her to compete against her wishes.
 

brightphoton

Medalist
Joined
Jan 23, 2009
Oh yeah, McKayla, that's her name. She was super funny :D I'm sure she's disappointed by silver, but for a lot of people, it's one of the few things they remember from the London Olympics, so that should cheer her up

The team event is so new in figure skating, I hope that it gains prestige in the future. I would really like Ashley and Gracie's Olympics medals to "count" in the way it counts in gymnastics
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
The USFS by default would undoubtedly want Alysa to do both to begin with, the issue is that she probably wouldn't want to do that, and it's not like they can force her to compete against her wishes.

I think they take the selected athletes' needs into account. Adam being able to skate was probably a factor Nathan, who would have been happy to give his training mate a medal opportunity while getting rested up for the main event. But while fatigue might have played a role for the men, the ladies have plenty of time between the team event and the individual one.
 

Tahuu

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 3, 2014
Though it's way too early to think about it. Seeing the hot discussion of the Olympic team event in the US ladies thread got me interested in the US men's participation in the team event in Beijing. Nathan should be a lock-in, likely to the SP. Who would be the other man, Vincent or Jason likely, for the FS? If most of the qualified teams are to put up their best skaters either for medal/placement or just for warmup, it may look approximate to this (MS LS PS RD MF LF PF FD Total):

RUS
Aliev 6 KOSTORNAIA 10 BOIKOVA/KOZLOVSKII 9 SINITSINA/KATSALAPOV 9
Aliev 6 Trusova 10 TARASOVA/MOROZOV 8 SINITSINA/KATSALAPOV 9
67

USA
Chen 9 Liu 7 S-KNIERIM/KNIERIM 6 CHOCK/Evan BATES 8
Zhou 8 Liu 9 CALALANG/JOHNSON 7 CHOCK/Evan BATES 8
62

FRA
AYMOZ 7 SERNA 3 JAMES/CIPRES 8 PAPADAKIS/CIZERON 10
AYMOZ 7 MAZZARA 7 JAMES/CIPRES 9 PAPADAKIS/CIZERON 10
61

CHN
Jin 8 Chen 1 SUI/HAN 10 WANG/LIU 6
Jin 9 Zhu 6 SUI/HAN 10 WANG/LIU 7
57

JPN
HANYU 10 KIHIRA 9 MIURA/KIHARA 2 KOMATSUBARA/KOLETO 2
UNO 10 SAKAMOTO 8 MIURA/KIHARA 6 KOMATSUBARA/KOLETO 6
53


Team USA and Team FRA may be very close in scores and fight for the silver. So the team members' selection could be critical.
 

TontoK

Hot Tonto
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Country
United-States
Who knows if Cipres will even compete in Beijing?

I was holding fire on the post you are referencing for fear of derailing the thread. But what the heck.

In addition to the issue you cite with the French team, I have doubts that at least some of the proposed members from USA and Russia will even make their teams, and I doubt Hanyu would compete in an obviously losing effort when he will almost certainly need to conserve energy for his singles run.

Who knows who will burst onto the scene? I'm always hopeful for new faces... and for familiar faces to suddenly catch fire.

It's a fun fantasy exercise, but really not much more than that this far out.
 

concorde

Medalist
Joined
Jul 29, 2013
^^
In the team event, the same entrant couldn’t be used in more than 2 disciplines. For the U.S., that was pairs & dance. So Nathan couldn’t have been used twice unless the Shibs were used only once. (IIRC, the U.S. had only one pairs spot, so the Knierims had to be used twice.) Really, the Shibs were much more likely to get 2 high rankings than anyone in U.S. men or ladies.
Since the Team event is only about placements, I never figured out the strategy for putting Nathan in the short and Adam in the long. I loved Adam's long program but without quads, it never got the points (hence low placement). Adam's short tended to get higher placements (like Jason's short this year).

I think I heard that the 1st place finisher got to choose which program they want (not USFS). Maybe that is the why?

Anyone know
 

lusterfan

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 23, 2018
I guess to bring the topic back to the ladies, if we assume the 2022 team would be 3 skaters (Alysa, Bradie, Mariah), how would you assign them for the team event?

My initial thought is to have Bradie in the SP and Alysa in the FS. Bradie consistently does well in the SP, but seems to miss the mark when it comes to the FS. Alysa will also have an arsenal of quads, so she's the ideal competitor for the FS. With a 3A, Alysa might be the higher scorer in the SP too, but a 3A in the short program (where there are more competitors and therefore more risk for a low placement) could be too risky. If Alysa solidifies that 3A program and gets enough reputation though, not using her in the SP might be silly ... but USFS seems to like splitting the ladies to share the wealth. I might be selling Mariah short, but her SP is weaker than Bradie's and her FS is weaker than Alysa's ... so she would have to make vast improvements to get selected in that kind of format.
 

NanaPat

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 25, 2014
Country
Canada
Since the Team event is only about placements, I never figured out the strategy for putting Nathan in the short and Adam in the long. I loved Adam's long program but without quads, it never got the points (hence low placement). Adam's short tended to get higher placements (like Jason's short this year).

I think I heard that the 1st place finisher got to choose which program they want (not USFS). Maybe that is the why?

Anyone know

There are twice as many teams in the SP as in the LP. Since only the placements count, you want to put your weaker skater in the LP, where they are guaranteed 6 points (worst they can do is 5th) instead of the SP, where they can can wind up 10th, with only 1 point. O course, if you have two nearly equal skaters (like the Italian pairs DellaMonica/Guarise and Machei/Hotarek or the Russian women Medvedeva and Zagitova) you don't have to worry about the "weaker" one, and can use other criteria like their strengths or preferences in deciding who does which part of the event.


In your example, Adam wound up 4th among 5 skaters in the FP. Do do an equal number of points in the SP, he would have needed to be 4th among 10. In fact in the (individual) SP he was behind Uno and Chan. Bychenko also did an outstanding job in the team SP, so it's likely Adam would have finished behind him. So in fact he may have finished 4th if he had done the team SP, but he might have done worse, especially if he felt a lot of pressure.

Another factor that has been mentioned is that Nathan was a legitimate medal contender in the individual event, while Adam was not. Giving him the SP meant he was less tired for the individual event.

Note that Canada handled their men similarly in 2014; Chan did the SP and Reynolds the FP in the team event.
 

Colonel Green

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 3, 2018
Country
Canada
I guess to bring the topic back to the ladies, if we assume the 2022 team would be 3 skaters (Alysa, Bradie, Mariah), how would you assign them for the team event?

My initial thought is to have Bradie in the SP and Alysa in the FS. Bradie consistently does well in the SP, but seems to miss the mark when it comes to the FS. Alysa will also have an arsenal of quads, so she's the ideal competitor for the FS. With a 3A, Alysa might be the higher scorer in the SP too, but a 3A in the short program (where there are more competitors and therefore more risk for a low placement) could be too risky. If Alysa solidifies that 3A program and gets enough reputation though, not using her in the SP might be silly ... but USFS seems to like splitting the ladies to share the wealth. I might be selling Mariah short, but her SP is weaker than Bradie's and her FS is weaker than Alysa's ... so she would have to make vast improvements to get selected in that kind of format.
I don't think the USFS' choices with its ladies in the past has been about "sharing the wealth", per se. They didn't have a clear favourite in either of the team events so far, and opted to split amongst skaters with roughly similar track records in the given year. If Mirai had had a consistent short program triple Axel (or triple Axel, period), she'd probably have been selected to skate that segment, for instance.

For 2022, if you assume the skaters have followed roughly similar trajectories to what they're on now (I know Bradie is trying to get a 3A, which would change things), Liu definitely does the short program to try to rack up as many points as possible. As I said earlier, she probably doesn't want to do both parts; unless the short program standings suggest the US has a real shot at gold in the team event (which would probably require, at a minimum, the Russian man to completely tank the short program similar to Kolyada in 2018 and Samarin at the 2019 WTT,), I wouldn't press the issue and give the free skate to whatever other girl has the more consistent free that year. In a lot of ways Liu isn't needed as much in the free, as there's only four other skaters there, and probably only the Russian and Japanese ladies will have the big tech; the other countries who look to be in the running to make the free skate cut are Canada, China, France and Italy, none of whose ladies have anything above the basic triples. So at worst Tennell or Bell would finish third, in all likelihood.
 

frida80

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
It all depends. Right now for SP, Russia would get 35 points and USA 33. To make up for any points in the FS, it would be better to use Alysa then as she has Quads she can use to rack up more points and get a higher rank than Rika.

With the SP this time is very difficult because so many ladies will already have the 3A and will have established themselves with PCS scores. I imagine the rankings will be 1st Alyona, 2nd Rika, 3rd Young. The only way for Alysa to squeeze herself into these rankings is to improve her speed, jump height, transitions, and presentation so greatly that it can make her on par with a top senior lady by next year otherwise her PCS will weigh her down. For that reason, I would give it to the 2nd ranking America. There’s no harm in letting them be forth here.

As for the FS, Korea probably won’t qualify for the final round and Japan will try to rest Rika and switch her out. They’ve historically been uninterested in winning a medal in the team event and don’t have the pairs to make up the points. China is much more likely to make bronze because of their improvement in dance.

Here Alysa can use her quads and 3As to her advantage by boosting her BV over the remaining skaters.

What would change everything is if either Bradie or Ting got a consistent 3A. They have the qualities that could lead them beating both Rika and Young.
 

Tahuu

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 3, 2014
No, and I wager he'll never compete internationally again. ***

I would actually flip the US men, Tahuu - Jason to do the SP and Nathan the FS. Jason's SP ceiling is high enough to keep him in touch with or ahead of the other top men, and then Nathan has a very high FS ceiling.

Regarding Cipres, the victim didn’t press charge with the police; USOC’s Safe Sports has no jurisdiction over him; ISU and FFSG won’t investigate him; James won’t discard him, they are more than likely to compete and aim for an Olympic team medal.

Regarding Jason, there’re 5-6 other skaters in the 10-skater SP who could score higher than or around him, therefore it’s riskier for Team USA to use him in the SP. In the 5-skater FS, the chance of him skating clean and getting 7-8 points is high. The question is: will he or Vincent be selected for the team event? Vincent will be in his prime age-wise and likely won’t be worse than Jason for the FS. He may be the new leader for Team USA after Beijing, as Nathan and Jason may retire. Thus, politically USFS may incline to help him get an Olympic medal, which Jason has had.
 
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Colonel Green

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 3, 2018
Country
Canada
With the SP this time is very difficult because so many ladies will already have the 3A and will have established themselves with PCS scores. I imagine the rankings will be 1st Alyona, 2nd Rika, 3rd Young.
South Korea doesn't have any pair teams, at present, that I'm aware of; as things currently stand they wouldn't make the team event.
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
South Korea doesn't have any pair teams, at present, that I'm aware of; as things currently stand they wouldn't make the team event.

Just to play devil's advocate: The rules for the OWG team event have permitted a country to compete in only three disciplines.

Each Team must participate in at least three (3) disciplines (Ladies Single Skating /Men Single Skating /Pair Skating/Ice Dance) of the Team Event.

https://isu.org/docman-documents-li...-qualification-system-figure-skating-v11/file (see p. 3)​

ETA (on Feb 27):

And the rules for 2022 OWG team event once again are permitting a country to compete in only three disciplines.

https://isu.org/docman-documents-li...tion-systems-3/22994-figure-skating-v1-0/file


And Israel, for example, qualified in ninth place for the 2018 OWG team event. (With Korea as the tenth qualifier.)
I do not remember the details of which individuals did or did not contribute to Israel's qualification points for the team event, but Israel's 2018 Olympians were: Aimee Buchanan; Tankova/Zilberberg; Conners/Krasnopolski; Bychenko and Samohin.
(Buchanan was allowed to compete only in the team event -- Israel had not qualified for a spot in the individual ladies' competition.)

Off the top of my head (without doing any hypothetical number-crunching), it does not seem completely unthinkable to me that Korea could qualify for the 2022 team event with the contributions of Cha, You, and Min/Eaton?
And that if Eaton gets citizenship in time, that Korea could compete in the 2022 team event?


I think you are really selling China short in 2022. ... Their new dance team has really caught my eye. ...

If you are referring to Wang/Liu, I agree that they are great. :luv17:

But I would not call them "new."
 

Osmond4gold

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 27, 2013
while Canada and Italy have to rely on Ice Dance and an okay-ish Pairs to keep up.

For real lusterfan? Yes, the US Pairs is a problem child when it comes to the US chances in the Team event, but I and others consider MT&M a Worlds podium contender, or more than an 'okay-ish' team, for that matter. Too bad you don't.
 

lusterfan

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 23, 2018
For real lusterfan? Yes, the US Pairs is a problem child when it comes to the US chances in the Team event, but I and others consider MT&M a Worlds podium contender, or more than an 'okay-ish' team, for that matter. Too bad you don't.

Okay not gonna lie, my wording was pretty subpar so I apologize! Having Italy lumped in there too affected the wording as they do not have a standout Pairs team.

My point was that with a general look at how the field is now, Russia has #1 for Ladies, and #1/2 in Pairs & ID. US has #1/2 in Men & ID. Japan has #1/2 in Men, #2 in Ladies. Canada has great ID (G/P) and Pairs (MT/M) but neither are quite #1/2 yet. In the team event field where there's only 5 competitors, being #3 is okay-ish in this context. They have non-existent Ladies and unstable Men currently, so they really need a solid #1/2 discipline from ID/Pairs to make up the deficit. Didn't mean to call them only okay-ish, so my phrasing was definitely off.

A lot can change in the next few years though! Roman/Gogolev may blossom. Nam/Keegan may find some consistency. G/P might surge on ahead of the Russians/Americans. Gabby might make a resounding come back. MT/M might overtake the Russians/Chinese. But as it currently stands, not having any close-to-gauranteed top disciplines hurts.

And as a side note, I know people have been saying the FS only has 5 slots so it's fine to have a weak finish anyway because you won't lose as many points. I think that's fair to say for countries like Japan (ID & P won't lose them too many points, so their Men & Ladies can hold the team up), but the strategy should always be to gather as many points as possible. The finishes could come down to 1 or 2 points, so you should always be maximizing if you can. Understandably, if a skater doesn't want to skate both segments then that's totally reasonable, but if they are completely willing to skate both, then there's no reason to swap in a weaker skater because they "won't lose as many points."

For example, if Rika were willing, I'd put her in both segments rather than Rika in SP & Kaori in FS. Rika could win 10 points, rather than put in Kaori and potentially settle for 7 or 8 points. If we assume Alysa stays consistent and earns more reputation, she could fight for 10 points in the FS with her BV, rather than put in Bradie who has less BV and might not be able to challenge the Russian/Japanese.

However, I totally understand the reasoning behind resting skaters for their individual events. It just wouldn't maximize the team scoring.
 

Roo87

Medalist
Joined
Nov 12, 2017
^^
In the team event, the same entrant couldn’t be used in more than 2 disciplines. For the U.S., that was pairs & dance. So Nathan couldn’t have been used twice unless the Shibs were used only once. (IIRC, the U.S. had only one pairs spot, so the Knierims had to be used twice.) Really, the Shibs were much more likely to get 2 high rankings than anyone in U.S. men or ladies.

This is incorrect.
They can switch up 2 disciplines, but they don't have to. Canada used V/M, D/R, and Chan for both events, they only switched out the ladies (most likely because Daleman was the current national champion). It was pretty bad of them not to switch out the dance. I know V/M were golden, but not giving W/P the chance for a medal (for the second Olympics in a row) was pretty rude. They still would have won gold.
 

lusterfan

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 23, 2018
This is incorrect.
They can switch up 2 disciplines, but they don't have to. Canada used V/M, D/R, and Chan for both events, they only switched out the ladies (most likely because Daleman was the current national champion). It was pretty bad of them not to switch out the dance. I know V/M were golden, but not giving W/P the chance for a medal (for the second Olympics in a row) was pretty rude. They still would have won gold.

I mean in hindsight, they could've swapped in WeaPo and still likely would've won the team gold, but it's hard to know prior to the competition. They were gunning for the gold, so I'm not sure it's necessarily rude for them to rely on their far more dominant team. It sucks WeaPo missed out both years, but V/M were so dominant that I see the argument for including them to guarantee the 20 points.
 

NanaPat

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 25, 2014
Country
Canada
This is incorrect.
They can switch up 2 disciplines, but they don't have to. Canada used V/M, D/R, and Chan for both events, they only switched out the ladies (most likely because Daleman was the current national champion). It was pretty bad of them not to switch out the dance. I know V/M were golden, but not giving W/P the chance for a medal (for the second Olympics in a row) was pretty rude. They still would have won gold.

I'm tired of this whining about not using Weaver/Poje in the team event. There are a lot of athletes who didn't skate in that event. What about Keegan Messing, Gilles/Poirier, Moore-Towers/Marinaro, Seguin/Bilodeau, and Larkyn Austman? they didn't get to skate the team event either. Skate Canada wanted to win the gold medal and they went with the skaters who made that most likely. At the point that they had to name the skaters for the free skates, it was not at all clear that they could win with additional substitutions. By the time it was clear that they could have won with another dance team, it was too late to make the switch. And it only became clear because dance was last. If it had been first, and pairs last, would people be moaning about poor old Marinaro (his partner got a team medal in 2014, but he didn't even get a chance for one in 2018, boo hoo hoo).

There is nothing rude or unsportsmanlike in using your best players/skaters. Italy did the same thing; they didn't use all the subs they were allowed.
 

Ice Dance

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 26, 2014
The announcement of USFSA's policy for the team event prior to the Olympics & U.S. Nationals was that the top 2 ranked competitors on the team would have the choice of whether they wished to compete once or twice. Based on overall results prior to the Olympics, those athletes would have been Nathan & the Shibs. Nathan could have done both portions of the event if he had wished to do so. Seeing as Adam trained at the same rink & both trained with Rafael, it isn't surprising that Nathan was good with having Adam compete also. If USFS has a shot at a team gold in 2022, I'll be surprised if they don't take every opportunity to grab it--just as Canada did this past Olympics and as Italy attempted to do in shooting for bronze there. There's also nothing surprising about V&M skating twice. There was money raised to bring them back. A big part of that had to be in the hope of winning an Olympic team gold medal. It was the medal V&M didn't have. It was the one discipline in which Canada could be confident about defeating Russia. Any wise dance team would elect to compete in both portions of the event. Back in 2014, Russia split their dance entries for the team. The FD was the weaker portion of the competition, and Ilinykh & Katsalapov made a splash in it that helped them win Olympic bronze over their teammates. In 2018, no country split their dance entries. The dancers went up last. All the final pressure on them. The federations competing for medals put up their most experienced athletes. While, in hindsight, it is true that Canada could have won with W&P instead; it is not clear that V&M would have performed as well as they did in the dance event if they had not skated the team competition. It certainly didn't help Papadakis & Cizeron to skip it.
 
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