US Nationals practices and Canadian Nationals CD

So, thanks to KHQ I was able to see some of the practices (Men's and Pairs') this afternoon at Spokane. I couldn't watch all of the skaters (it's just that when there is a skater/s on the ice performing and I have no idea who he/she/them is/are and what they are doing is not impresive, I get bored and start doing other things... problem is that then I miss the ones I do care about) but I did see a couple of the skaters I think have a good shot at making the Olympic team.

Evan Lysacek

Wow, just wow. A really solid run-through of his LP. He left out a couple of moves, not surprising, but the jumps were great. I couldn't see his triple axel (the camera guy thought it was a good move to show Frank Carroll instead of Evan's jump...), but apparently he landed it. In fact, according to @FSOnline, he's landed it quite a few times during practice (yay for Evan!). He's been landing quads, too, but I don't think he'll go for it at Nationals, maybe at Worlds or at the Olys if he feels he needs it.
Anyway, back to the practice, he looked confident and really well-trained. If he is able to skate like this when it really counts, he will be for sure in the Olympic team and, why not, take back the National title he won in 2007 and 2008.

Jeremy Abbott

Oh, Jeremy Jeremy. He had a really hard time during his run-through of the SP (which I find absolutely jeremazing! The music just moves him). He fell on the opening jump, then he fell again during one of the step sequences, the landings of the jumps were off... let's just say this wasn't his day. He got a little better towards the end of the practice session though, he even landed a quad. You know, it's better to look on the bright side... he got this out of his system today, at a practice and not during the actual competition. I really really reaaaaaally hope he skates lights out tomorrow. Go Jeremy! I just love this boy :)

Adam Rippon

Can he get any cuter?! Oh my, that triple tano lutz is just beyond amazing, so smooth, so easy, makes me feel like I can go to the rink now, put on my skates and jump it (yeah right, I wish). I didn't see all of his run-through (if I'm not mistaken, he chose to skate his LP) but he just moves so nicely. He hit all the jumps I saw (and for the tweets I'm reading, he skated the whole program clean), so I'm really hoping he has a better experience this time than the one he had last year.

Johnny Weir and Ryan Bradley

Well, I was very excited to watch them skate, it was almost their turn... and the signal got lost. And then it came back, then got lost again, then came back, but all I could see was the Press Conference room. It would have been a good thing if there was actually a Press Conference going on, but no! They were checking the mics! All I could think of was ".. um.. OK? They work, that's great, I get it. Now, can we go back to the rink, PLEASE!?"
Anyway, all I can tell you (and thanks to Twitter) is that Johnny had a rough skate (he skated the SP) and Ryan made some fans laugh out loud (like that's something new coming from him).


Can't USA send 5 men to the Olympics(or 6, I really like Brandon Mroz but didn't see him practice, that's why I didn't comment on him)? It's going to be heartbreaking :(
But boy oh boy, we have a great competition going on here!



To be honest... I didn't see much of the pairs. I missed Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker (I didn't know there was a live stream), but apparently their jumps looked solid and they were a little off on their side-by-side spin (not that this is new, but they've been really working on it and you can tell the difference, just watch their SP at the Rostelecom Cup). I also missed Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett, but for the comments I've been reading (again from Twitter, don't you just love it?), their jumps and throws are strong, had some trouble with a lift and lost some speed towards the end of the run-through.
I did see Brooke Castile and Ben Okolski's run-through of their SP. Jumps weren't quite there, the landings were shaky, they had some serious problems trying to get the triple salchow done well. The step. seq. was really nice, very Ice Dance-ish, and lifts were good, too. Amanda Evora and Mark Ladwig skated their SP set to "Love Actually" (love the music). Again, jumps weren't there but their lift is just breath-taking, I truly admire Amanda for trusting so much in her partner.
And that's pretty much it for pairs. As you can probably tell by know, I'm way more into Men skating than Pair skating (blame it on the new scoring system).


Canadian Nationals - Compulsory Dance (thanks to @icedancecom)

1. Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir - 43.98 pts

1. Vanessa Crone & Paul Poirier - 37.27 pts
2. Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje - 36.87 pts
3. Andrea Chong & Guillaume Gfeller - 34.11 pts
4. Allie Hann-McCurdy & Michael Coreno - 33.59 pts
5. Mylene Girard & Jonathan Pelletier 33.45

(Sorry for my English :P)