Skate America 2008: Ladies short program results

The ladies short program just ended at Skate America and South Korea's Yu-Na Kim is in first place with a commanding lead of 69.50 points. I think the crowd was surprised at how high her score was compared to the rest of the field. Japan's Miki Ando is second with 57.80 points and both programs were pretty great. Yu-Na skated to Danse Macabre and Miki skated to Memoirs of a Geisha. Mistakes were made by both -- Yu-Na touched down on her double axel, Miki fell during a footwork sequence, but I don't completely understand the ins and outs of the judging system yet to understand why there is nearly a 12-point differential between their scores.

I will say, though, visually, Yu-Na's jumps seem to soar through the air and she alone has that distinctive look. Yu-Na also completed the only clean triple-triple combination of the night, a triple flip-triple toe. Judges downgraded Miki's triple lutz-triple loop to a double loop.

Japan's Yukari Nakano is sitting in third place after the short with 57.46 points. And then it's all USA, with national champion Mirai Nagasu (see right), world junior champion Rachael Flatt and former world champ and U.S. champion Kimmie Meissner following. 

Standings after the short are below. (Note: The Segment Score is a total of Technical Elements + Presentation Score.)

Pl	Name	Nation	SP segment score
1	Yu-Na Kim	South Korea	69.50
2	Miki Ando	Japan	57.80
3	Yukari Nakano	Japan	57.46
4	Mirai Nagasu	USA	56.42
5	Rachael Flatt	USA	54.92
6	Kimmie Meissner	USA	54.90
7	Annette Dytrt	Germany	48.32
8	Susanna Poykio	Finland	47.82
9	Yan Liu	China	46.96
10	Mira Leung	Canada	45.74
11	Tugba Karademir	Turkey	41.26
W/D	Valentina Marchei	Italy

Comments

[becca]

At first I didn't understand either. But apparently Miki's triple loop (in her triple lutz/triple loop combo) was underrotated so that probably cost her 5 points right there.

Then on her step sequence, she probably lost levels/and/or got negative GOE as well so Miki's mistakes may have cost her as much as 8 points.

In Yu-na's case her mistake probably cost her at most -2 points. She always gets plus 2 GOE for her combos because she has the best triple/triple in the world, never a question if that's rotated. And then probably plus one or two for her lutz, and that likely did it for Yu-na.

[Susan at Lifeskate]

Thanks Becca! Now I understand a lot better. Can't wait for the free skate today...