2010 NHK Results Overview

OK, pretend it’s Saturday… I was out of town a few days and am still trying to catch up. Ugh, I’m behind and it’s only the first event of the season!!!

So here comes the at-a-glance overview of NHK 2010, with more detailed observations to follow in the next couple of days…

Dance—Davis/White’s gold was one of the few predictions I got right at this event, so much thanks for that, D/W. Weaver/Poje did one better than I expected when they claimed silver (my prediction, Italy’s Cappellini/Lanotte, were a surprisingly hot mess all around and couldn’t do any better than 5th). And then with the bronze—look at that, it’s the Shibutanis—or, as they seem to be getting better known by, the Shib Sibs! On their senior GP debut! With a wardrobe malfunction in the Short Dance and all! How very impressive and exciting.

Pairs—My other two correct predictions (yep, I’m a pathetic 3 for 12 with this event) were the obvious Pang/Tong for gold, and Bazarova/Larionov for silver. Takahashi/Tran were my breakout pick, and breakout they did—all the way to bronze, though I was a little surprised by this given how many small errors they had. Denney/Barrett had what are commonly known as “uncharacteristic errors” (she fell on the SBS 3T, and they messed up a lift late in the program) and ended up 5th, actually being bested by their U.S. teammates Yankowskas/Coughlin.

Men—Well, forget what I said about Dice-K not being at his best—while that was still evidently true in the Free Skate, he was certainly good enough to easily win gold. Jeremy (earning his way back to “JeremEEE” status, despite a popped axel here) Abbott nabbed the silver, and Florent-the-Funkmeister-Frenchman Amodio roared into the bronze slot. (What did I say about him being subpar at French Masters? Suffice to say he’s cleaned up his act!) Yuzuru Hanyu definitely made the splash I expected, though in the end he settled for 4th this time around. Ross Miner’s senior GP debut went well enough; he finished 9th in the field of 12.

**** SPOILER ALERT… if you are waiting to watch next weekend on NBC and don’t want to see the Ladies’ results in advance, STOP READING NOW.****

Ladies—Oh, Ms. Asada! Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, and I (mistakenly) pick you to win NHK this year. With a dreadful 8th place finish, I can’t help but wonder if right about now she’s wishing she’d gone Kim Yu-Na’s route, and ditched the GP series. On the other hand, Carolina Kostner not only got her mojo back—she won a GP event for the first time in 2 years. Rachael Flatt took silver (and won the free skate); Kanako “A-Star-Is-Born” Murakami lost some ground with her Free Skate but still managed bronze. Ashley Wagner turned up in 5th, behind Finland’s Kiira Korpi. And Caroline Zhang—who, you may have noticed, looks like her physical maturity was shoved into a microwave over the summer— unfortunately could do no better than 7th.

As I say… more details and observations coming soon!