What Happened at Skate America: Part I

LADIES:
YU-NA KIM!!!!! This girl was absolutely, positively breathtaking. There's been all of this hype about the next generation of American ladies, but a lot of them were there at SA and just could not compare once Yu-Na stepped onto the ice. She singled a loop in her long program and stepped out on a double axel in her short, but there were no falls and she just looked so much more confident. Keep those fingers crossed for an injury-free season for her--it hasn't happened quite yet on the senior circuit. She won by twenty points in what might be one of the strongest ladies fields in the individual Grand Prix events. I think that she and Mao Asada will be going head to head all summer. As far as the rest of the ladies go, the competition was okay, but not great. No quad from Miki Ando, which isn't exactly a surprise. Yukari Nakano still has that wrapped leg that makes me cringe. Mirai Nagasu has some growth issues to work out, but I think that she'll be the one to watch for the Americans this year. I like Rachael Flatt, but I don't love her. As far Kimmie Meissner, well, she made me almost want to cry. She obviously has mental issues to work out--what she did land looked very good, but this competition was not a great way for her to start out the season.



Men:
Okay, so I understand why Evan Lysacek came in third--it was all technical stuff that they found with a sloooooooooow motion camera. His step sequences also apparently hurt him. However, the fact that he didn't win is making me lose some faith in the CoP. Yes, the quad kind of failed. However, everything else looked amazing (to my eye), and Kozuka just did not have the charisma that Evan had--he didn't draw you into his program. Johnny came in second with two programs that were good, but will probably get better. I think that he'll be landing that quad by the end of the season--he's very close now and mostly two-foots it or steps out, so he's not getting the one point deduction for falls. The rest of the men were slightly disappointing. Adam Rippon hada rough start to his senior career, but this was his first competition at this level, and I'm sure that we'll be seeing more from him.