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I know I am in the minority, but I think the U.S. takes the gold over Canada in the Team event. U.S. may not be very strong but have the depth to beat Canada.

Canadian Men and Pairs have much more depth than the US does. The ice-dance is pretty much even but the I would agree in that the US ladies are stronger than Canada. It will be close.

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I am not sure there is a clear advantage in women's though either. Just because Gracie Gold and Kaetlyn Osmond will likely finish right next to each other if both skate to potential finishing 3rd and 4th behind Kostner and Asada.

There is one thing I am sure of though, Patrick Chan will finish 2nd in the men's competition.

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I am not sure there is a clear advantage in women's though either. Just because Gracie Gold and Kaetlyn Osmond will likely finish right next to each other if both skate to potential finishing 3rd and 4th behind Kostner and Asada.

There is one thing I am sure of though, Patrick Chan will finish 2nd in the men's competition.

What?? Gracie will need help from someone to even make the podium - for bronze, she needs errors from Lipnitskaia and Sotnikova definitely, and possibly also Kostner, Wagner, and Suzuki. Osmond certainly has potential to finish within the top 10 but I think the podium is out of reach for her.

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What?? Gracie will need help from someone to even make the podium - for bronze, she needs errors from Lipnitskaia and Sotnikova definitely, and possibly also Kostner, Wagner, and Suzuki. Osmond certainly has potential to finish within the top 10 but I think the podium is out of reach for her.

We were talking about team trophy, not the individual competition.

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The highest Kostner can make is 3rd. She's a boring, plodding skater who can never capture one's imagination. Her style is so workmanlike but really NOT top-drawer enough.

She skates really fast though and the judges really like that and reward it; however she does always bomb at the Olympics so I doubt she will make the podium.

Yu-Na Kim and Mao Asada have a lock on a podium spot, the third spot is a wildcard I feel.

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Still doesn't say if it is overall place or component place that awards points.

Placement in each phase determines final results. Its explained here:

http://skatingmagazineblog.com/2013/04/09/world-team-trophy-vs-olympic-team-event/

the key seems to making the podium seems to be getting all of your skaters in each discipline in the top 5 in the short program. You don't want to have someone in the bottom 5 as that placement will be a part of your final score.

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The thing that is significant here is that the margin of victory is apparently irrelevant.

You get 8 points for third place whether you're behind the second place finisher by .02 points or by 21 points. So having a superstar on your team doesn't necessarily pay huge dividends.

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  • 2 weeks later...

US Figure Skating tweeted that will announce their short program line-ups on 2/5 at 10:00AM local. l

Basically as it turns out, everyone is waiting until the last possible minute to announce their lineups. I kind of wonder if a few feds are going to overthink this whole thing and screw it up.

There are a bunch of rumors circulating the past few days on skating forums that Canada is going to use Kevin Reynolds for one of their skates in the team event instead of using Patrick Chan for both. Hope it's not true, seems like a terrible miscalculation on the part of SkateCanada if so.

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Basically as it turns out, everyone is waiting until the last possible minute to announce their lineups. I kind of wonder if a few feds are going to overthink this whole thing and screw it up.

There are a bunch of rumors circulating the past few days on skating forums that Canada is going to use Kevin Reynolds for one of their skates in the team event instead of using Patrick Chan for both. Hope it's not true, seems like a terrible miscalculation on the part of SkateCanada if so.

I'm sort of hoping they are trying to spread false rumours to throw off the opposition.

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I'm sort of hoping they are trying to spread false rumours to throw off the opposition.

Possibly. Like I said, I get the sense the big feds are really sweating this and possibly overthinking, so I wouldn't put fake rumors past them. At the same time, the rumor was also that the big feds are taking into consideration what their skaters want to do - basically asking their top skaters what they want to do. And supposedly Chan was not too high on skating both programs. I don't know, that's the world, that both Skate Canada and USFSA are really taking the top athletes' advice on how they want to skate it. For example, see this article:

http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2014/02/03/67385306/all-you-need-to-know-about-olympic-team-event

I think Skate Canada feels Reynolds is ready to perform at the top 5 level he showed at the worlds last year, which would put him second amongst the teams qualified.

What?? Chan and Yuzuru Hanyu both finished ahead of Reynolds at Worlds last year. Japan isn't going to be competitive for the Team event due to their weakness in pairs and dance, but they qualified. Hanyu will surely be skating at least one program in the Team events.

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What?? Chan and Yuzuru Hanyu both finished ahead of Reynolds at Worlds last year. Japan isn't going to be competitive for the Team event due to their weakness in pairs and dance, but they qualified. Hanyu will surely be skating at least one program in the Team events.

Chan would not be competing, therefore making him second.

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Cat's out of the bag for the US lineup.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2014/02/04/ashley-wagner-us-figure-skating-team-event/5198907/

Wagner makes me nervous. Kudos to White and Davis for skating both elements. They had the first option to decline.

It seemed pretty clear they were going to split the women's programs after Gold said she thought it would be a good idea. I'm not too worried about Wagner, especially with her short this year. She's been a lot more consistent skater this season than Gold.

I did wonder if they would actually give Wagner the opportunity to test out her new long since she's going with some crazy Frankenstein program that's been worked out in the last few weeks.

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It seemed pretty clear they were going to split the women's programs after Gold said she thought it would be a good idea. I'm not too worried about Wagner, especially with her short this year. She's been a lot more consistent skater this season than Gold.

I did wonder if they would actually give Wagner the opportunity to test out her new long since she's going with some crazy Frankenstein program that's been worked out in the last few weeks.

Wagner faltered twice at Nationals, and she said afterwards that the pressure got to her. Not exactly what you want to hear going into the Olympics. I'm sure USFA is praying that she doesn't melt down in the short, given how she made the team. I guess when you get down to it, the only ones I feel good about are White and Davis, which is why I'm only picking the U.S for bronze.

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It seemed pretty clear they were going to split the women's programs after Gold said she thought it would be a good idea. I'm not too worried about Wagner, especially with her short this year. She's been a lot more consistent skater this season than Gold.

I did wonder if they would actually give Wagner the opportunity to test out her new long since she's going with some crazy Frankenstein program that's been worked out in the last few weeks.

My understanding is that she's gone back to last year's long program, "Samson and Delilah" while retaining parts of this year's choreography. I've heard nothing about Frankenstein.

http://m.teamusa.org/Road-to-Sochi-2014/Features/2014/January/23/New-Program-Gives-Ashley-Wagner-New-Found-Confidence

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