Although I’m afraid I slept through most of the pairs and wasn’t fully awake for the dance, I have a few scattered thoughts:
Just when you thought the Japanese Men’s Worlds team was ironclad settled as consisting on Hanyu, Machida, & Mura, out of nowhere a (sort-of) American import who the federation failed to actually enter into the first JGP event they shipped him to back in 2008 has inserted himself into the picture. We all thought a Japanese man was probably going to win the NHK Trophy, but noone expected said Japanese man to be Daisuke Murakami! Though I ultimately suspect the Worlds team will still be the aforementioned three. It’s even far enough away that I can feel less anxious about Hanyu there, at least should he make it through the Grand Prix Finale & Japanese Nationals intact.
Though oh, do I wish Jeremy had gotten that needed .16 to give the last spot in the Finale to Jason Brown instead. For Brown & Hanyu’s sakes both. That Hanyu’ll probably do Japanese Nationals even when he arguably shouldn’t need to(though the Japanese federation being the Japanese federation, they may refuse to bye him anyway) is bad enough, but now two events in December?
As for Jeremy himself, well, I’m just sad. Even if he’s still got as fair a shot at Worlds as any of the U.S.’s less than consistent guys right now, if he’s going to be dwarfed so badly technically, what’s the use?
Meanwhile, I think I may have to go off Twitter during all competitions involving Gracie Gold. I certainly will never like her much, but the virulence of the hatred towards her is downright disturbing. I think it’s even worse on days like this one, where she really did deserve to win, if maybe not with quite as high a score as she got.
Mixed feelings on Ashley making the GPF. On one hand, that indicates she’s still in the picture. On the other, how well can she actually do at it?
And in other news this weekend, they’re really looking to ban Carolina Kostner for twice the amount of time they banned her boyfriend for, when he was the one actually doping and she hasn’t done worse than obstruction of justice? There’s even talk of stripping her of her medals, but I don’t think there’s *really* precedent for that. Though practically I suppose it doesn’t matter much, since she was pretty much retired already anyway.
We Need More Fruit 