Yuna Kim is set to win gold.
Time for some brain fluff! I’d like to start off with a disclaimer that I haven’t had time to really follow figure skating recently. Once I realized the Olympics were so near, I began frantically watching YouTube clips to try to catch up, or at least be familiar with the skaters competing in the games. (In my downtime, of course. I would never sacrifice schoolwork for YouTube. Or would I?) So this is based mostly off the few routines I’ve watched, competition results, and my personal biases.
Pairs
Shen/Zhao, Kavaguti/Smirnov, Savchenko/Szolkowy
My favorite discipline! This may be the Olympics where the Russian domination ends. The Russians are good…but the Chinese are better (this time around). The Russians’ best hope is Kavaguti/Smirnov, who are currently World bronze medalists, but that was against a slightly weaker field. Shen/Zhao are back in action, and they are my personal favorites to win gold, although I can see any of the three very, very strong Chinese teams up there. I don’t think there will be a sweep, since the German team Savchenko/Szolkowy is the 2009 world champions and placed third in the 2009 Grand Prix finals. In my opinion there’s no clear favorite to win gold, but one thing that is certain is that, barring any extraordinary circumstances, the gold will not go to a Russian team. The US has always sucked at pairs, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll change anytime soon, so I’m not going to say anything about them.
Mens
Lysacek, Chan, Plushenko
I don’t really have much to say about the men, since I’m not drawn to the discipline the way I am with the others. Though they do have the best, most exciting jumps, so that may change. American favorite Evan Lysacek faces competition from fellow Americans Jeremy Abbot (who actually beat Lysacek at Nationals) and Johnny Weir. I don’t know much about their international competition, but I do know that Canadian Patrick Chan (current world silver medalist) will be on home turf, having the home crowd advantage. And 2006 Olympic gold medalist Evgeny Plushenko has clawed his way back out of retirement and is as strong as ever, which will make things even more exciting.
Ice Dancing
Belbin/Agosto, Virtue/Moir, Davis/White
Ice Dancing is very pretty to watch, but I have to admit I don’t know enough about the discipline to be able to make any judgments about the quality of skating. For the first Olympics in a long, long time the North Americans are a force to be reckoned with, wresting some power back from the Europeans. Canadians Virtue/Moir are in a very good position to win gold, and Americans Belbin/Agosto are also very strong. It’s also their last competitive season together, so for their sake I’d like to see them medal again. But they face stiff competition from teammates Davis/White, who have actually been doing better than them this season.
Ladies
Kim, Asada, Nagasu
This is Yuna Kim’s gold to lose. She’s won gold in every competition she’s entered in the past couple of years (except for last year’s Grand Prix Final where she placed second to Mao Asada). When Kim wins gold, she usually doesn’t just win, she leaves the competition in the dust. Asada is probably her only real competitor, if the extraordinarily risky triple axels in her arsenal pay off. The US is sending their weakest field of women in recently memory. Ever since Sasha Cohen left competitive skating, no one has really stepped up to fill the void. Cohen did try to make a comeback, but failed to make the cut at Nationals, which is too bad, since Cohen would have been the US’s best hope against the Asians. Artistically, Cohen is light-years ahead of the current crop of Olympic hopefuls, even Kim. Nagasu and Flatt, the ladies representing the US, are okay but are still pretty new to the international competition, and I very highly doubt they can be considered serious medal contenders.
Davis and White are the most adorable pair on ice, ever.
