Here are the judges for this event in alphabetical order:
Amanda can be found on Twitter!
Jennifer can be found talking about her newest book or posting pictures from her most recently attended skating event on her website and Twitter.
Mara can be found editing and formatting everyone's answers right here or whining about how much reading she has to finish on Twitter.
Patrick can be found commentating past skates on YouTube or current ones on Twitter.
Tiffany can be found blogging about food (and so much more!) on her website and on Twitter.
Find out more about the judges here!
LET'S GET JUDGING. When you're finished reading, leave a comment to let us know what you thought about Skate America, how you think the real judges did, and how you think our judges did. If you disagree, sign up to judge an event later in the year and share your thoughts!
Amanda: The whole thing
Jennifer: Every single skater!
Mara: Definitely not enough to be commenting on it! I missed a lot of SPs/SDs.
Patrick: Every. Single. Performance.
Tiffany: Everything but the short dance.
Gracie Gold has no connection to her music when she skates. Giving her 8.75 for Performance Execution and 8.79 for Interpretation is a real head-scratcher. She does skate with a lot of speed and flow, but compared to other ladies in the event, her performance and interpretation is not really there, so in my opinion, those marks should be much lower than they are. As for Jason Brown, giving him the highest PCS out of all of the men in the event seemed to be more about "how can we get Jason on the podium" and less about giving accurate marks in all 5 PCS categories.
PCS are being used more and more to hold certain skaters up when their TES are not high enough to contend for medals. Patrick Chan was crucified for this, but when the same tactics are used for other skaters that everyone loves, the complaints are not as loud. I HATE THAT.
Gracie is asked to move her arms around a lot, which is not inherently problematic. But she needs to have more intention in those movements so she doesn't look floppy, and the choreography doesn't give her that opportunity. I'm pleased that Gold's choreographers have stopped trying to frame her as Sleeping Beauty or whatever other princesses she picked in the past. That was NOT working for her. Gracie Gold's skating is POWER. She needs a stronger vehicle for it than this Firebird program. This choreography doesn't do her intensity any justice. She looks frantic and confused and uninterested. All 8s for PCS was completely unwarranted.
While Jason Brown is a lovely skater, this program is too busy for me. A bunch of transitions unrelated to the music does not make a program, though that seems to be the formula Jason's choreographer(s) have been using the last couple seasons. The program has extraordinary potential, if it can be toned down a bit. The music is simple and beautiful, and the choreography should match that. In my opinion, his PCS were far too high.
Gracie Gold's free skate is even more of a hot mess than Jason's. While she was technically solid (with the exception of a double salchow instead of a triple at the end of the program), many of her movements don't match her music selection. It honestly shouldn't be that difficult to hit the rather obvious accents in Stravinsky's Firebird, but Gracie continues to have difficultly connecting to her music. It was, however, a technically impressive performance.
I also loved Julianne Seguin and Charlie Bilodeau. Their free skate was very strong and I think they deserved to win the silver over Scimeca/Knierim.
Denis Ten is clearly still injured, and probably should not have competed at Skate America. I hope he skips his next GP so he can fully recover in time for 4CC and Worlds.
Oh and Julianne Seguin is a beast. Some of the stuff she landed seemed nearly impossible from her position in the air. They have world podium potential in the not too distant future.