Some lingering thoughts, a few weeks removed, about Nationals:
LADIES... From the “love it when I’m wrong files”... Ashley Wagner throwing it down and kicking last year’s Nationals in the face with her
toepick. Should have seen that coming but I totally went the other way. Now I’m
back to being excited to watch her skate rather than nervous...
Karen Chen—I didn’t pick her to do as well as she did because my
note on her after watching Sectionals was this: TINY.
Tango-ish music. (wearing) Red/black. Fast. But falls derail her a bit. I
believe she hit just about everything jump-wise at Nats, so my theory shall go
untested this year...
I picked Hannah Miller (who finished 9th) as the
out-of-“nowhere girl”; this honor instead goes to either Chen or Mariah Bell
(who finished 6th). Fun fact: on Twitter I gave a shoutout to Bell
and joked that it was high time she got a Wikipedia bio page... then Bell
herself “favorited” my tweet... and sure enough, a couple days later bloomed this! (I’m sure I had soooo much to do with it, heh)
MEN... For the second year in a row, it was all about the
guy who came in second! Lucky for Jason Brown (one of my few accurate predictions), HE was that #2 guy last year and
surely understands the he-won-the-free-and-he-should’ve-won-it-all hubbub that
now surrounds current silver medalist Adam Rippon. But my goodness, what a fine
collection of performances for our U.S.
podium! Now, if at least two of those guys can re-deliver at Worlds... and yep, a
quad (and/or a decently credited attempt) could help as well. But I’m not
getting into that whole discussion today...
I chose Nathan Chen for bronze, so obviously I need to
improve my Chen-choosing (with Karen Chen—no relation—on the ladies podium). Apparently
a heel injury put his breakout-senior-year plans on hold, and with a pair of
triple axel-free programs he finished a very respectable 8th. Let’s
root for him to get the best of what sound like fairly chronic injuries for
such a young guy. Similar best wishes abound for Stephen Carriere, who took my
“nowhere man” prediction a little too seriously when he had to withdraw from
Nationals at the last minute.
One more quick thing... I predicted Max Aaron for the
podium, but as you know by now, he had to settle for 4th despite
very solid SP and FS outings. It’s such an irony, at least on the international
front, that our most reliable quad man (or really, ONLY reliable quad man)
competes at a time when three of the most artistically gifted guys in the world
happen to share national ice with him. Given that Brown once again outscored
him with zero quads, and Rippon and Farris did so with majorly flawed versions (so say Rippon's scores, at least),
I have to wonder where Aaron will go from here. Got to be pretty frustrating.
PAIRS... Like the ladies, I got these predictions just “off”
enough to be completely useless! But no complaints; the judges got this right.
It was nice to see Scimeca/Knierim step up their game with the quad twist and
generally perform better than they have all season. Now, if they and ALL the
top pairs teams can just stay together
and build some momentum... (and yes,
I’m aware S/K are engaged!)
DANCE... No real surprises here in the top placements, but the
individual scores told a couple of interesting tales. Chock/Bates and the Shib
Sibs were very close points-wise in
the SD, though the Shibs ultimately stayed in second by a fair margin.
Meanwhile, as I indicated in an earlier post, bronze medalists Hubbell/Donohue were
the only top team to LOSE overall points this season compared to 2014. Plus,
while they are scheduled to attend Worlds next month, it’s the 4th
place team (Hawayek/Baker) that was chosen to compete at 4CC this week...
meaning, among other things, that H/D cannot defend the title they won there last
year.
What did YOU love the most about 2015 Nationals? What left
you shaking your head in disbelief? What do you hope you never see again?!
Leave it in the comments!
