Grand Prix Assignment Speculation, Pt. 1: Ladies

The release of the Grand Prix assignments is just over a month out, and due to the irritating lack of live results pages (the one thing the ISU always gets right) for RG events, I have no sports to follow. And what do we do when we have no sports to follow?

Speculate!

I have decided which ladies skaters I want to/think will be assigned to each GP and I am going to post it to relieve my boredom facilitate discussion. Or something? Well, here goes.

SKATE AMERICA 

Since Skate America and Skate Canada are the only events that are never at obscene hours of the morning/night in my time zone, I have a lot of opinions on who I want to see at them. Skate America should, in my mind, kick off the season with these skaters:

1. Medal seed: Ashley Wagner US
2. 4-6 seed: Elena Radionova USA
3. Mao Asada
4. Wakaba Higuchi
5. Maria Sotskova
6. Tyler Pierce
7. Nicole Rajicova
8. Da Bin Choi
9. Zijun Li
10. Alaine Chartrand
11. Roberta Rodeghiero
12. Host pick: Bradie Tennell

MY REASONING: the US finally has a medal seed in ladies, so Ashley seems like the obvious choice. Since I doubt they’d put Ashley and Gracie in the same event and Satoko went to Skate America last year, I chose Elena for the 4-6 seed. I chose some unseeded personal favorites-Mao, Zijun, Tyler, Maria, Wakaba, Alaine, Nicole-to make it interesting, and since SA always has some new seniors, it seems like a good Grand Prix debut for Wakaba and Maria. I chose Bradie as the host pick because she did very well at Nationals, and I’m pretty sure she’s going senior. The rest are…kind of just there.

SKATE CANADA 

Skate Canada is one of the more unpredictable events for ladies, IMO, so I am just going with my gut here.

1. Medal seed: Anna Pogorilaya
2. 4-6 seed: Gracie Gold
3. Kaetlyn Osmond
4. Gabrielle Daleman
5. Elizaveta Tuktamysheva
6. Adelina Sotnikova
7. Da Bin Choi
8. Mirai Nagasu
9. Rika Hongo
10. Yuka Nagai
11. Mae Berenice Miete
12. Host pick: Veronik Mallet

MY REASONING: Evgenia, medal seed #1, is definitely getting Rostelecom, and I doubt they’d give Ashley back-to-back assignments, so that left Anna-which I though was kind of cool anyway because she won this event in 2014. Of the 4-6 seeds (I’m going to call them “potato seeds”), Gracie will probably get SC because the 2nd-ranked American at worlds usually does. Gabrielle Daleman has cemented herself as the #1 Canadian lady and will almost assuredly get a spot here, as will Kaetlyn Osmond. I threw in two unpredictable but potentially-competitive Russians-Elizaveta and Adelina-for interest, and rounded out the medal contenders at this event with Rika Hongo. I feel like the US might want to send Mirai here, so in she went. Veronik is literally always the SC host pick and I don’t think that will change. Again, the rest are just there.

CUP OF CHINA 

Cup of China is, traditionally, the GP that nobody wants, but last year it turned out to be one of the best events of the series. Since China has few ladies skaters, this could be kind of tricky, but I think I have an idea of who’ll go here.

1. Medal seed: Ashley Wagner
2. Potato seed: Satoko Miyahara
3. Zijun Li
4. Ziquan Zhao
5. Elizabet Tursynbaeva
6. Maria Sotskova
7. Maria Artemieva
8. So Youn Park
9. Polina Edmunds
10. Courtney Hicks
11. Miyu Nakashio
12. Host pick: Xiangning Li

MY REASONING: sending Ashley to this event was the only way to avoid having one medal seed do back-to-back events, which is exhausting and usually leads to meltdowns. Satoko will definitely get NHK, so I chose COC for her other event so she wouldn’t have back-to-back events. Zijun and Ziquan are extremely obvious choices and Xiangning Li (who I have never heard of) was the only other Chinese lady who even had a Wikipedia page, so I picked her for the host pick. Maria and Alena are here because almost nobody sends their top skaters to COC (sad but true)-same with Courtney and Polina (okay, maybe not so much Polina) and Miyu. Elizabet and So Youn, two of my favorite small-fedders, are in it for interest.

GRAND PRIX DE PARIS (Or whatever they changed the name of the one in France to) 

Two things: one, I don’t actually know the order of the events this year, so I’m just going by last year’s order. Two, I have no idea if I got the name right, only that it used to be Trophee Bompard and that it is now Grand Prix De Something. Hopefully I can be more accurate with my predictions than I was with my fact-checking…

1. Medal seed: Evgenia Medvedeva
2. Potato seed: Gracie Gold
3. Mae Berenice Miete
4. Laurine Lecavelier
5. Adelina Sotnikova
6. Rika Hongo
7. Kanako Murakami
8. Elizabet Tursynbaeva
9. Nicole Rajicova
10. Gabrielle Daleman
11. Alaine Chartrand
12. Host pick: Alizee Crozet

MY REASONING: to avoid back-to-back spots, Evgenia had to get this event. Gracie won it last year, so I sent her here for luck ;). Mae Berenice and Laurine are both 98% guaranteed to get this event. I don’t know if Adelina is going to do two GPs, but if she is, I can see her doing this one. I had Japan and Canada sending some of their top skaters to this as well. Alizee Crozet was apparently the 2016 French bronze medalist (thank you, Wikipedia), and I’d never heard of any other French ladies skaters, so in she went. Several of the other skaters are on

ROSTELECOM/CUP OF RUSSIA 

1. Medal seed: Evgenia Medvedeva
2. Potato seed: Elena Radionova
3. Polina Edmunds
4. Hannah Miller
5. Kaetlyn Osmond
6. Elizabet Tursynbaeva
7. Angelina Kuchvalska
8. So Youn Park
9. Viveca Lindfors
10. Ivett Toth
11. Kailani Craine
12. Host pick: Yulia Lipnitskaya

MY REASONING: Evgenia and Elena were fairly obvious choices, and I really want to see Yulia at Rostelecom. The rest are not particularly competitive, but I wanted at least one event where a bunch of lower-ranked skaters would get a chance to compete and this was it.

NHK TROPHY 

1. Medal seed: Evgenia Medvedeva
2. Potato Seed: Satoko Miyahara
3. Mao Asada
4. Yulia Lipnitskaya
5. Elizaveta Tuktamysheva
6. Serafima Sakhanovich
7. Mirai Nagasu
8. Tyler Pierce
9. Amy Lin
10. Nathalie Weinzierl
11. Angelina Kuchvalska
12. Host pick: Wakaba Higuchi

MY REASONING: Satoko for the seed, Mao for the non-seed, pretty obvious. Wakaba for the host pick, fairly likely. I really want Yulia to get NHK and for Tyler to get anything other than an SA host pick. Many of these skaters are kind of only on here because their SB and the amount of age-ineligible juniors on the SB list got them a guaranteed GP. So…hopefully this was less of a failure than I think it might be.

 

 

Well, that’s a wrap. That was fun and I might do these kinds of posts for other disciplines.