Friday, January 25, 2019

2019 U.S. Figure Skating Predictions (Dance and Men's)

DANCE PREDICTIONS

GOLD: Madison Hubbell/Zach Donohue
SILVER: Madison Chock/Evan Bates
BRONZE: Kaitlyn Hawayek/Jean Luc-Baker
PEWTER: Rachel Parsons/Michael Parsons

In a season that has been without the Shibutanis and Chock/Bates (and continues to be without the former), it’s been a bit of a mystery how this year’s podium would shake out and who might be new to it. And as excited as I am to see Hawayek/Baker finally get there, I’m putting them behind C/B out of some concern that H/B might crack a little under the podium pressure. Also because I saw C/B’s debut of their free dance a few weeks back, and yeah… they’ll be plenty competitive.

MEN'S PREDICTIONS

GOLD: Nathan Chen
SILVER: Vincent Zhou
BRONZE: Jason Brown
PEWTER: Andrew Torgashev


Nathan may be at Harvard now, but his LDCR (Long Distance Coaching Relationship) with Rafael Arutyunyan is going GREAT so far. So an upset seems unlikely… but of course, Zhou should never be counted out completely (though his technique/under-rotation issues of earlier in the season had better be a thing of the past for that to happen). Brown has been working his way back from last year’s crushing 6th place finish all season long, so bronze definitely seems within his reach even without a solid quad. As for who comes after that… well here’s the thing. In deciding between three relative rising stars—Tomoki Hiwatashi, Andrew Torgashev, and Alexsei Krasnozhon—I initially gave Krasnozhon the nod for the 4th place medal. But when I went to type out my initial list of predictions, I kept typing “Torgashev”. So I took it as a sign. We shall see. 

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