|
I just don't think it's possible. Emily is 9 full points separated from the top 3 (Cohen, Slutskaya, and Arakawa), and those 3 are separated by less than 1 point. Emily can certainly move up a few places if she has a great skate Thursday, but I just don't see those top 3 screwing up badly enough to effect their medal contentions or that would allow Emily to advance to a medal.
I also think that Emily's stronger performances in the last two years have been in the Short Program. She tends to have problems with consistency and endurance in the Long/Free Program, whereas Sarah was the opposite. Most of Sarah's SPs, while mostly technically proficient, were rather boring and light on choreography. But Sarah tended to shine in the LPs with her consistent endurance, well structured programs, and a coach/choreographer who was skilled at creating programs that played down her weaknesses and really played up her strengths. Emily's coaches have taken a very different approach in pacing her skating career more slowly and to work on her consistency and to ensure better skating technique (her triple jump technique, esp. the Lutz, is far and beyond better than Sarah's). I do think that if Emily places well (top 10) both here in Torino and at Worlds next month, she'll stick around to skate through the next Olympic year.
As for who will win the overall gold medal, I truly think the judges were throwing Cohen a figurative bone placing her in first by 0.30 points in the SP so that there can't be allegations that Slutskaya was held up in the SP, making the other skaters almost incapable to catching up to her in the LP as was complained about during the Grand Prix events this past season. Because the point spread between first through third place is so very narrow (less than a full point!), it's only going to take one error from either of these ladies to determine who will be awarded the gold medal. Considering her history, I'm willing to bet that Cohen will have at least a turn-out, hand down, and/or outright fall on a jump which will be the difference in determining what color her medal will be.
I voted Slutskaya and I think the podium order will be Slutskaya, Cohen, and perhaps Arakawa. Arakawa is a bit of a dark horse, in that she's been extremely inconsistent the last two years. Nerves may get to her (or perhaps the Black Mark of Tarasova) and that may remove her from medal contention if Suguri or maybe Meissner have the skate of their lives.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
