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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

USFS should have named both Ashley and Mirai to the team with Gracie.  All three have international senior records.  Polina Edmunds, who finished second at Nationals, does not.  If Ashley was named to the team because her record was better than Mirai's, then Mirai should have been chosen over Polina for that same reason.  But again, USFS hates Mirai, so the poor girl got dinged.  (And please, 10th at Four Continents?  No one cares about Four Continents one week before the Olympics, least of all, the skaters who aren't going to the Olympics.)[/quote]
Giving 98% for an Olympic athlete is lazy, especially in a field as competitive as US ladies singles.  That's why Carroll had no time for this nonsense.

As to who should have been selected to the team, USFSA isn't a charity or a lifetime award outfit. They select people who have a good chance of placing high enough to earn spots for the next year's athletes. They said to Mirai, I don't think you will place. That's what it means when you aren't selected. [/quote]

Gee, thanks for the information.  Slight problem with your argument: Polina is a juniors skater.  Nationals was her first senior competition.  Ever.  Did she do well on the Junior Grand Prix circuit this year?  Yes, two golds and a fourth in the Grand Prix Final; she was also the Junior national championship last year.  But that does not a senior skater ready for the Olympics make.  Again, Mirai has a senior record, arguably second to Ashley this year.  (Mirai had one Grand Prix bronze, so did Gracie.)  That's current, not a "lifetime award."  Polina was not selected over Mirai because of "current"; she was selected because of "future potential."

And stop with the lazy nonsense.  Mirai won a national title at 14.  I'm going to give the girl 2% to have some semblance of a normal life.  You know, for things like school.  Christine Gao spends her 2% on her studies at Harvard.  In 2010, Rachael Flatt spent her 2% winning a national title, going to the Olympics, and getting into Stanford.  Michelle Kwan spent hers going to college, setting the stage for her master's degree and State Department gig.  So, stop.

Frank Carroll has had his problems with skaters before.  Tiffany Chin.  (Actually, Tiffany's mom.)  Nicole Bobek.  Chris Bowman.  Even Michelle Kwan in the season leading up to the 2002 Olympics.  (Who was in the kiss and cry with Michelle in Salt Lake?  Her dad.)  It happens.  To interpret a break with a coach as "Oh, the girl must be lazy," is, well, lazy thinking.[/quote]
Well, since USFSA has a close-up view of skaters you and I will never have, we will just have to assume that their guess as to the future potential is a bit more educated than yours and mine. They have discretion in choosing the team, other than the National champion, and they exercised it.

I don't think you understand what I am trying to say with "lazy".  Neither one of these skaters are lazy in average human terms.  But Olympic medal contenders aren't average humans.  To be a medal contender, you must commit a superhuman amount of energy and time to the pursuit of that goal.  If you don't have that, you aren't a contender. I don't fault Mirai for wanting to have a "semblance of normal life." It's her life. She should do whatever she wants.  But let's not pretend that you can do whatever you want and still be in the running for the Olympic medal. That's not the way the game works.  You want a normal life, you can have one, but you will pay.  The price is "not going to the Olympics."

I will also say, with all my kindness, that when you bring Nicole Bobek and Chris Bowman into the discussion of work ethics and "normal life", you make yourself sound silly.  None of these skaters, while undeniably talented, ever had the sustained work ethic to be a real contender. Christine Gao and Rachael Flatt understood quite early on that the career in skating ain't happening for them, and very wisely, refocused their energies on life after skating.[/quote]

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