Pathological Flowers

Behold our predictions for the ladies event at Skate America.  Once again, these are based not only on prior performance, but on intangibles such as momentum and gumption.  (Skaters are listed alphabetically. ISU standings are current as of 10/15.)

To sum up: This one is a battle between Czisny and Kostner, and while Alissa has home-ice advantage, Carolina comes to the event with more momentum (closing last season on the World’s podium) and a consistent triple-triple.  It will be close, but we feel the edge goes to her.  The harder prediction is who will take bronze.  Elene Gedevanishvili has just demonstrated at Nebelhorn that she can deliver competitive scores; and Joshi Helgesson and Haruka Imai are both on an upward trajectory and could upset, but Ksenia Makarova gets the spot on this list for consistently placing higher. 

As a side note, if the assignment of Joshi and Viktoria Helgesson to Skate America has piqued your interest, there’s a nice article about them here: 

http://absoluteskating.com/index.php?cat=interviews&id=2011thehelgessons