Snapshot Stats: A State of Stasis?
Skate America provides an opportunity to follow up on our previous look at PCS trends for Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier -- as well as those for Americans Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker, who have seen some mixed results over their senior career. While last year marked a breakthrough in their scoring threshold -- their first 100+ international free dance scores, for example -- they’ve also battled technical inconsistencies, a factor that has, fairly or not, affected “second mark” reputation for other teams.
While both couples are scoring well relative to the vast majority of the field -- and relative to themselves, historically -- it’s also evident that little movement is happening here. For Hawayek and Baker, there may be a detriment to skating in the world’s deepest ice dance field, where for three straight years three teams have qualified for the Grand Prix Final and where the US has minimal need for any significant leaps among the next tier. For Gilles and Poirier, the question remains more intriguing, given the push in their scores even last season, after Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s comeback. If Canada’s top two veteran couples are suspected to retire in 2018, one might expect to see team #3 continue to improve in the rankings this year -- the conventional idea of promotions and pushes across the national levels, regardless of performance good or ill. This is especially key given the great drop-off after Gilles and Poirier in experience and scoring potential among Canadian seniors. But it is not, at the moment, the reality, and the team’s results this Grand Prix were the worst of their career since 2013.
Both the US and Canada may see departures at the top following the upcoming Winter Olympics, but to what extent will these couples -- both of whom are almost certain to have plans to continue -- benefit? One could imagine a higher scoring threshold for Hawayek and Baker, who are younger and still in the process of actively developing technical aspects of their skating, who tend to place more emphasis on program intricacy, and who are arguably stronger pure skaters as a unit than Gilles and Poirier, whose strengths lie more in the performance and interpretation aspects of ice dance but, as such, are also at risk of running afoul of the subjective aspects of judging. Likewise, Hawayek and Baker’s narrative may not be climbing, but it’s also not in decline.
However, for the foreseeable future, they will be fending off many very good, even younger couples among their national ranks; within the current Canadian senior crowd, Gilles and Poirier’s position is quite secure. But for how long? If Canada's additional senior couples are not in position to shake up the top ranks, Canada may be focused elsewhere, on Junior Grand Prix Finalists Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha who, contrary to prior rule and tradition, seem likely per section qualifiers to return to the junior national field to claim their second title. Their international scores so far put them in decent position to contend for a junior world medal; their skating and packaging epitomize the very popular Gadbois Centre style. While both skaters will remain junior age-eligible in 2018-19, it’s also not unlikely that they’ll be seizing a post-Olympic moment to advance, as 2010 Junior World medalists Alexandra Paul and Mitch Islam did to (momentary) good effect. And if this is a possibility, to what extent is it already making waves?