It's definitely gonna be a tight event. Have to imagine Chan/Howe have the best shot at top three there of the US options but they're gonna have to be healthy.
I wouldn't assume anything about Sui, nor would I assume her new partner can actually land any triples consistently.
They haven't been healthy for a while. My prediction is Mcbeath/Parkman
We'll see. I wouldn't send McBPark over even ChanHowe in their current state. McBPark aren't as consistent - Nats was the fluke great skate for them. ChanHowe usually outscore them. Plus, ChanHowe have 5 months to get it together.
No one seems to know Parkman's citizenship status, but I'm not sure I'd send them if he's not Oly eligible. I feel like having the extra motivation of trying to earn your own spot at the Olympics is kind of important. I know that's not how spots work, but it has to feel that way when you're competing there. At the very least, earning an extra spot for your country significantly increases your chances of making the team because it makes the team 50% bigger. Whoever competes at the OQE has to train to peak in September, which kind of sucks when you consider how long the season is. It's only worth doing if there's a decent chance you're earning your own spot at the Olympics, a la Vincent Zhou & Alysa Liu in 21-22.
Yes, I already said this on X last night, but I expect Glacier Falls will be the test/qualifying event for that spot - and they'll let all the pairs teams we have know they need to show up for it if they want to be considered. Chan/Howe, McBeath/Parkman, ShinNagy, Plazas/Fernandez & even Digerness/Sadusky should be in the mix, IMO.
FloresWang are going senior and could be in the mix, too.
They may be in the mix for an Olympic spot, but based off of what they did this season as juniors, they're going to be lucky to get a single GP.
Not a 'journalist', but as someone who has talked to him about other topics before including when he ditched the Georgian Fed, I asked and didn't get a reply.
I, too, do not understand why it is 19, not 20. Either way, its five warmup groups. I've asked and the only answer I get is the IOC and ISU don't communicate well with each other.
What irks me is the IOC keeps taking away spots from one of its most popular Winter Olympic sports - all in the name of adding other, oddball sports that aren't as popular. And, I really question why ANY of the skiing sports need umpty-gazillion athletes. It would be nice if the IOC left figure skating at 30 each for men & women, 25 for dance & 20 for pairs - that's 5 warm up groups; and agreed to an "additional athlete" quota number of at least 10 athletes to ensure that all 10 of the countries in the team event can add a competitor in the 4th discipline if they only have 3 disciplines qualified for the individual events.
