Firstly, I wondered why "the Japanese" skaters even bothered with Skate America. Well, firstly, "the Japanese" skaters actually avoided Skate America like the plague: only Miki Ando and Mai Asada from Japan competed in Skate America. That answered my second question as well: why Miki Ando, the currently reigning ladies world champ, did not avoid the early confrontation with Kimmie Meissner, the just previous world champ ("the battle of the world champs" as US media billed it)? Easy: in intelligently avoiding Skate America, Mao Asada of Japan scheduled her two Grand Prix competitions at Skate Canada and Skate France. Similarly, Yu-Na Kim of South Korea scheduled her two competitions in China and Russia. I do believe that Miki Ando saw Kimmie as the least of all the threats.
That's not the end of Miki's concerns still: Mao Asada took gold (and 15 Grand Prix points) in both her events; Kimmie has one gold and one event to go; Yu-Na has one gold and one event to go. Another fall like her fall in the short program at Skate America, and Miki could well miss out altogether on the Grand Prix final, considered by most as essential to preparedness for the world figure skating competition in March.
Mai Asada seems to have accepted the mathematical improbabilities of Grand Prix final participation associated with her eighth place finish at Skate America and apparently (from the table) has dropped out of the series altogether.
There's much more to be gleaned from the table, but, like most of the world, I am into sports for the entertainment value: statistics is my life. So, let's just wait and see how the table fills itself out. You can obtain the full results at each Grand Prix event by clicking on the country in the "designated event" row in the link above.
And lest I end without using my invention- the HTML table- here are some photos from Skate America:
 Miki Ando of Japan skates during the Ladies Short October 27, 2007 at Skate America |
 Miki Ando of Japan falls during the Ladies short program at Skate America |
 Mai Asada of Japan during the Ladies short program at Skate America October 27, 2007 |
 Elene Gedevanishvili of Georgia competes in the ladies short program at Skate America |
 Emily Hughes competes in the ladies short program at Skate America |
 Caroline Zhang of the US surprised all with a third place finish at Skate America |
 Emily Hughes of the United Sates competes in the Ladies Free Skate at Skate America October 28, 2007, finishing fourth |
 Mika Ando took silver at Skate America |
1 comment:
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