My Long Lost Skate Canada Recap

Luu / Wikimedia Commons

Ugh, sorry real life got in the way of blogging, But I'm back!

Sadly, I didn't get to watch much of Skate Canada this weekend, but I did catch the tail-end of the ladies competition. Looking at the results, I can say proudly that my Fantasy Skating team killed it this week—I called the gold or silver medalists in every event, woohoo!

See all results here.

A few thoughts about the ladies competition:

Russia's Anna Pogorilaya, who won last weekend in Kelowna, is not the strongest of the Russian ladies. In fact, she's far below the rest of the pack in quality, in my estimation. She looks like she's lumbering through her program from one jump to the next with no connecting moves or feeling. There was nothing exciting about her, except for maybe her loudly colored Firebird costume. She did land her jumps, which I must say are technically good, but she just left me feeling blah.

The third place finisher, Japanese skater, Satoko Miyahara, is cute and good, but totally cookie cutter. She'll do decently in the rankings if she continues to perform well, but she needs to set herself apart with more personality or something. Again, I'm just blah.

And finally, some thoughts on Ashley Wagner, who won silver. I was impressed with her Moulin Rouge program. I thought it was great music for her and her presentation was strong. But her jumps are still not that great. She shied away from doing a 3 lutz in her program, worried that the deduction she would get from "flutzing" (taking off on the inside edge instead of the outside) would hurt her. Frankly, I think not trying it hurt her more. You still get points for an attempt, and in this league where everyone is throwing down as many points as possible, Wagner is not doing herself any favors by keeping points off the table. The flutz deduction is not that much, fer cryin' out loud! Also, the fact that she didn't do a triple-triple combo of any kind is going to hurt her too.

Competition is not about staying on your feet anymore, one of the things I actually like about the modern judging system. Ashley Wagner stayed on her feet, but that alone is not going to vault her to the podium at Nationals and Worlds.

Next stop, Shanghai for Cup of China, where we're probably going to see some really stellar skating.