To Cup of Russia WIth Love: Pairs/Mens Picks

Brooke Castile and Benjamin Okolski are out again? Nooo!

And we did so well keeping most of the original competitors last week. I suppose it’d be too much to ask for two weeks in a row? Oh, well. As long as I get to see Daisuke Takahashi at next week’s NHK Trophy then all is well…

What? Out for the season?? Noooooo!

While I ponder how much that sucks, read over my picks for PAIRS at COR:

Gold- Zhang/Zhang (CHN)
Silver- Kawaguchi/Smirnov (RUS)
Bronze- Volosozhar/Morozov (UKR)

The Zhangs and V/M already competed together at Cup of China; the news there is not that the Zhangs won gold—it was expected they would—but that V/M edged Pang/Tong for silver. Still, there were 7 points between 1st and 2nd… which leaves plenty of room for Skate Canada winners K/S to sneak in there. Especially if they decide to unleash their throw quad in front of the home crowd.

The aforementioned Castile/Okolski were set to be the only other contenders for a medal; as it stands now, I can’t imagine any other names will truly challenge the three names I listed above.

Finally, for MEN:

Gold- Brian Joubert (FRA)
Silver- Jeremy Abbott (USA)
Bronze- Tomas Verner (CZE)

Wow! Welcome to last week’s disappointment vs. last week’s surprise vs. COC’s disappointment vs. COC’s surprise vs…well… Kevin Van der Perren. This was exceedingly difficult, but in spite of myself I went with Joubert for the second week in a row… the hope being that Joubert is angry enough at himself for last week to fight very hard for gold this week. I may be kicking myself in a few days for not going with Abbott, who was quite riveting at COC, but I simply haven’t seen him compete long enough to feel confident he can turn back-to-back great performances. Preaubert may well claim another medal, but I think Abbott and Verner are both more likely to outscore him artistically. Van der Perren is a definite dark horse, but I’m leaving him out of the medals because he’s the only one of these 5 that has yet to compete on the circuit this season.

With that in mind, here’s Van der Perren’s current SP (as seen at the Findlandia Trophy earlier in the season) as the Clip of the Day . Or with this costume, maybe it’s from Halloween on Ice. You be the judge.