- Joined
- Jan 25, 2013
I don't think she was gifted the bronze. Her PCS was monstrously high in both.... but I think she still did enough to beat Karen (who herself was arguably gifted on tech calls, particularly her combo in the short.. and some of those 'q's were a bit kind too) - -if anything Karen was gifted 4th over Hendrickx (which also gifted the US 3 spots, pending).I think politics plays into this a lot. I adore Sasha, but she was gifted bronze at Worlds. Her SP was a disaster and her scores were insulting to the skaters that should’ve beaten her in that portion. Many feel Rika should’ve been 1st in the SP. it’s all about who had the most political pull with the judges.
I also don’t see the Japanese federation backing their own skaters, which baffles me.
I think there are many skaters with the potential to beat the Russians if the judging was fair.
A comment was made about a non competitive Zagitova winning US Nationals. Hmmm....Let’s not forget that Bradie beat Zagitova and Mariah Bel beat her in the LP also. I don’t think Zagitova would be winning any US Nationals in the last 2 years. Not in the current shape she is in, nor does she seem to want to retire to a competitive form.
As for the SP I think Trusova should have been 14th with about 32 PCS. But her SP was not a "disaster" - she made a costly technical error, and was rightfully hammered in points (no combo, lost BV, -GOE etc), but PCS wise it wasn't an egregious error like a fall. It was 10 points shy of her personal best, although I'd still have had her behind Ryabova/Saarinen - who both had pretty much clean skates with a triple-triple. In the FS I'd have had Trusova's PCS in the low 60's with the errors and the lack of commitment to the performance. But the technical advantage still would be enough to put her over Chen. The gap would have been more like 2-3 points.. but then again if Chen's combo had been correctly scored in the SP the gap would be back to about 6-7 points.
I also agree that the Zagitova comment was a bit sus - she's not the skater she once was. In Canada she would win but not the US. The US isn't on par with Russia but let's not pretend like they are chopped liver.
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