State of the 2016 Grand Prix Final Predictions

Since the ISU Grand Prix Final happens in conjunction with the Junior GPF, the entire event—in Marseille, France this time) takes place over three days instead of two. Which means the pairs and men’s SPs are coming our way Thursday afternoon! (ET)

But first, a couple of announcements…

+      I finally got my Cup of China review up a couple of days ago, but the one for NHK Trophy is still at large. I’m hoping for next week, of course, as I’ll be too busy tracking this GPF to devote any other skate time to it.

+      You may have read that me and my book Skating on Air: The Broadcast History of an Olympic Marquee Sport are to be featured on an upcoming episode of The Skating Lesson (the brainchild of National and GP medalist Jenny Kirk and Dave Lease; currently anchored by Lease while Kirk focuses on law school). While I can confirm that I was interviewed at length by Dave a few weeks ago, I don’t yet have a date that the edited interview will be released. He was hoping for this week when I last checked. I’ll keep you posted! It was a fun interview, once I got over my being-on-camera nerves…

+      For anyone that was trying to keep track of my GP prediction accuracy—here are my point totals out of a possible 36: 20 for Skate America… 23.5 for Skate Canada… 24 for Rostelecom Cup… 28 for Trophee de France… 30.5 for Cup of China… 28 for NHK.

Now back to GPF predictions. As with last year, I’ve gone ahead and attempted to guess ALL the placements, though my 36 point scale still applies (No credit for correct 4-5-6 guesses though).

MEN PREDICTIONS:

GOLD: Javier Fernandez (ESP)

SILVER: Yuzuru Hanyu (JPN)

BRONZE: Shoma Uno (JPN)

4^th: Patrick Chan (CAN)

5^th: Adam Rippon (USA)

6^th: Nathan Chen (USA)

I don’t know if predicting Javi for the win is calling a full-blown upset (over Hanyu), but that’s how I’m calling it.

LADIES PREDICTIONS:

GOLD: Evgenia Medvedeva (RUS)

SILVER: Anna Pogorilaya (RUS)

BRONZE: Satoko Miyahara (JPN)

4^th: Elena Radionova (RUS)

5^th: Kaetlyn Osmond (CAN)

6^th: Maria Sotskova (RUS)

Medvedeva is far from my favorite skate right now, but she seems pretty darn unbeatable right now.

PAIRS PREDICTIONS:

GOLD: Duhamel/Radford (CAN)

SILVER: Yu/Zhang (CHN)

BRONZE: Peng/Jin (CHN)

4^th: Tarasova/Morozov (RUS)

5^th:  Seguin/Bilodeau (CAN)

6^th: Zabiiako/Enbert (RUS)

With no Savchenko/Massot in the mix (she’s still injured from their French GP appearance), it looks like a pretty straight shot for Du/Rad to continue their domination.

DANCE PREDICTIONS:

GOLD: Virtue/Moir (CAN)

SILVER: Papadakis/Cizeron (FRA)

BRONZE: Shibutanis (USA)

4^th: Chock/Bates (USA)

5^th: Bobrova/Soloviev (RUS)

6^th: Hubbell/Donohue (USA)

V/M has already proved they can outscore Papa/Ciz; I don't think that much will change in 2 weeks time.

The IFS page of GPF streams, links, broadcast times, etc. can be found here…

And if you’re on Twitter, don’t forget to look for me @KLBSt8ofSk8!