Major Withdrawals Just Before the Grand Prix

Skate America and Rostelecom Cup events hardest hit by multiple withdrawals, even as details for next year’s Skate America and Grand Prix Finale are announced.

After much anticipation and the junior series gone by, the Grand Prix of Figure Skating starts this weekend. Right now skaters are already traveling to Chicago for Skate America, the first event. But the week before has been a flurry of news, and most of it of the not good variety. There was the announcement of location and dates for two of next year’s events. But there has also been a deluge of withdrawals. Not all of the skaters pulling out were the top contenders, but multiple ones were. A run down of the Grand Prix related news:

Locations for 2017 Skate America and Grand Prix Finale

For the Olympic season, Skate America and Grand Prix Finale will both be in former Olympic venues. Skate America will be held in Lake Placid, New York, 24-26 November, 2017. The Finale will be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, 5-9 December, 2017.

Neither choice of city is very remarkable. Lake Placid is a common enough location for American skating events. Vancouver has hosted more than one high-profile international, including the 2001 World Championships. Former Olympic hosts do often find skating competitions returning to them. After all, they usually have state-of-the-art venues on hand. The Finale also hasn’t been on North America soil since 2011, when it was in Quebec City. The ISU was probably glad to give the Western Hemisphere a turn at it.

What is more remarkable that the former was announced this early. Usually the location for Skate America is announced much closer to the event. But even more intriguing is the dates involved. Skate America being only two weeks before the Finale means it’ll probably be the last event of the series. Most years it’s the first. This indicates possibly a huge shuffle of the normal event order. However, that is not unprecedented in the Olympic season either. The 2009-2010 Olympic season similarly saw the North American events that usually begin the series instead end it, and that was when for years before the events had inevitably always gone in the order of America, Canada, China, France, Russia, and Japan.

How drastically different next fall’s schedule will look has likely been negotiated behind closed doors. We may get a better idea of it next week, during Skate Canada. The location for next year’s Skate Canada is often announced at the event. It’ll be interesting to see if they announce unexpected dates too.

Stolbova & Klimov Out of Both Events

Most of this week’s withdrawals were from skaters who either have not yet pulled out of their second event, or weren’t in one in the first place. But Russia’s top pair has withdrawn from the series all together, pulling out of both the Rostelecom Cup in Russia and the NHK Trophy in Japan.

This is the worst loss of the week, but not an all together surprising one. Russian news already reported that Stolbova needed medical treatment on her shin, due to trouble with her new skates. (Issues with new boots are sadly far from rare. They usually don’t go to this extreme, but it happens.) She is spending most of October in America receiving it. Their coach, Nina Mozer, previously said she would return to Russia on the 24^th, only 11 days before the Rostelecom Cup. Mozer also said they would work out a timetable for her recovery then, but it seems they’ve already decided not to do the Grand Prix.

Their withdrawal from Japan is a hard blow for that competition, as it is unlikely any of the remaining pairs will challenge World Champions Megan Duhamel & Eric Radford. This is even more true because they may soon lose another one of the medal contenders, who have already also pulled out of Russia.

BOSTON, MA – APRIL 1: Denis Ten of Kazakhstan competes during Day 5 of the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2016 at TD Garden on April 1, 2016 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Billie Weiss – ISU/ISU via Getty Images)

Skate America Loses Two Top Singles Skaters

Within the past few days, the men’s competition at Skate America has lost Kazakhstan’s Denis Ten in the men, and Russian Julia Lipnitskaya in the ladies. Ten, the reigning Olympic bronze medalist, does his second last-minute withdrawal of the season; he pulled out of a Challenger event in the same way. He is likely dealing with injuries, although as of Wednesday no actual reason has been given.

Alexander Gorshkov, head of Russia’s skating federation, has spoken about Lipnitskaya. According to him, Lipnitskaya aggravated an older injury while competing at the Ondrej Nepala Memorial a couple of weeks ago. She is still listed for the Rostelecom Cup, and he insists she won’t miss the season. It is worth noting that she has been forced to rework her long program, to the point she or the federation may have decided she should skip this competition to buy more time. This doesn’t even necessarily mean she’s lying about the injury. It may be the excuse rather than the reason.

As both pulled out only this week, they will both almost certainly go unreplaced. Ten’s withdrawal makes China’s Boyang Jin pretty much the favorite in the men’s event, but there are enough other strong men there to challenge. The USFSA cannot be sorry to lose Lipnitskaya. She is one less skater who could possibly prevent Ashley Wagner and Gracie Gold from going 1-2 and being able to do a showdown with each other without jeopardizing their chances of making the Finale. They might have been a little more troubled by losing the third American skater, Angela Wang, who pulled out of her only event due to an ankle injury. However, she withdrew early enough for them to replace her with Mariah Bell, who had been the other major contender for her spot on the roster. This should not affect the top skaters.

Rostelecom Cup Loses Two Pairs

Stolbova & Klimov aren’t the only pair out of Russia. So are Canadians Kirsten Moore-Towers & Michael Marinaro. For the moment they remain on the roster for Japan. As of Wednesday no official reason has come out. However, earlier this year, Moore-Towers revealed she’s been dealing with a concussion. It would have to be a very long-lasting concussion to still be affecting her now, but concussions being what they are, it may still be. Their waiting on the NHK Trophy would also make sense, if they’re just waiting for some last lingering symptoms to finally go away.

Another Canadian pair, Camille Ruest & Andrew Wolfe, has already replaced them. A new team, they were not even the most eligible Canadian pair, and aren’t likely to be factors for the podium. Choosing weaker pairs would be expected behavior from the Russian federation if Stolbova & Klimov were still in. They have often tried to give their stars easy fields to win in. As it is, they may not be hoping those home teams who do attend have a shot to medal. The odds will remain against that, but the combination of withdrawals has considerably weakened the previously loaded pairs field. Germans Aliona Savchenko & Bruno Massot have defaulted into being slight favorites.

As if that wasn’t enough, the ladies field has also lost a minor contender. American silver medalist Polina Edmunds has pulled out, citing the bone bruise that took her out of Worlds last year. At one point during the summer she thought herself recovered, but then the pain returned. Nonetheless, she, too, remains on the roster for the NHK Trophy. Her withdrawal would greatly increase the already high chances for a home sweep of the medals, except that would require Lipnitskaya to be a position in participate in it. Her replacement, Armenia’s Anastasia Galustyan, should be merely glad to suddenly have two events when a week ago she had none!

Jan 22, 2015; Greensboro, NC, USA; Tyler Pierce in the ladies short program in the U.S. Figure Skating Championship at Greenboro Coliseum Complex. Mandatory Credit: Evan Pike-USA TODAY Sports

Young American Out of France

Galustyan is in fact replacing two different American girls in two difference events. Although the roster for the Trophée de France suffered no major loses this week, Tyler Pierce has been forced to pull out of her only event due to a lumbar sprain. It is a hard blow for Pierce. This should have been her major reward for last year’s success. Now, with her prospects this season uncertain, she may never even get a shot at the Grand Prix again.

China Switches Their Home Skaters

The Chinese federation has finally bowed to the reportedly inevitable and pulled Wenjing Sui & Cong Han out of Cup of China. They went with the expected replacement of Xuehan & Lei Wang(no relation). They also pulled out one ice dance team, Xiebi Li & Guangyo Xiang, and replaced them with another, Linshu Song & Zhuoming Sung. Nobody is entirely sure why. It is unlikely to matter much to the other teams competing. The Wangs, on the other hand, have an outside shot of medaling, but they would need other teams to do badly.

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The NHK Trophy has lost only Stolbova & Klimov so far, though as it is the final event in the series, there is plenty of time. Skate Canada alone remains unaffected by the week’s fracas. Skate America starts on Friday.