by Jonas » Sun Jan 07, 2018 7:43 am
WOW!!
Before the final group skated I thought the US Olympic Team would be Nathan Chen, Adam Rippon, and whoever between Jason Brown and Vincent Zhou would finish higher. Pretty straightforward I thought it would be...
...until I was quickly reminded how slippery ice is and that it ain't over until it's over.
Vincent Zhou started off w/an awesome 4Lutz-Rippon 3toe, but none of the subsequent quad passes received full base value. I will say that technical panel could've given him the 4flip, but with some of the selective calls, I suspect that this was done to give Jason Brown a real fighting chance later in the group. The rest of Vincent's performance just continued to flatten with each missed quad attempt.
I've written off Ross Miner for Pyeongchang like I suspect many people have. He skated a really nice short here like he did in Minneapolis and Kansas City, but I honestly thought he'd flub the free again here like he did then. Nope -- Ross, in a clutch, delivered the FS of his life complete with a clean, swishy 4Salchow!! Last time I've seen Ross land a clean quad was at '13 Nationals in Omaha. Ross took us on quite the unexpected thrill ride and was just an absolute joy to see. I'm torn about Ross's silver medal finish here. On one hand, Ross's overall performance, IMO, was far greater than the sum of Vincent's technical elements and components. On the other hand, instant replay showed me that the 4Sal had an underrotation that was not called and I've bee griping about the selective, inconsistent technical calls. Had Ross correctly been given the carrot, he woulda finished behind Vincent. But then again, should Vincent's PCS be that close to Ross's since Ross far better demonstrated the bullet points of the PCS. Tough one.
I've seen Adam skate this FS a lot better. I found him to be tight throughout tonight. Then the two disasterous pops -- on a 3Sal and a 3Lutz -- that sucked the life out of the arena. What was practically a sure thing for Adam became a very precarious situation in a matter of seconds.
Jason Brown had a wide open opportunity now to assure himself of a return Olympic trip, but he was an even bigger disaster and took himself completely out of contention.
So, who's going to South Korea w/Nathan is the nightmarish question the USFSA will have to be prepared to answer.
I can make valid arguments for each of the three possible combinations. If I were personally selecting, I'd split the difference like it was 4years ago: Nathan, Ross, and Adam for South Korea; Nathan, Vincent, and Adam for Worlds.
I predict, however, that the US Olympic Team will NOT have BOTH Adam and Ross on it.
Your thoughts...