Entries for 2016 Four Continents

Four Continents will take place Feb. 16-21 in Taipei City. Website

Team USA for 2016 ISU Championships

Source. Entries still subject to change in case of withdrawals.

FOUR CONTINENTS

• Men: Max Aaron, Grant Hochstein, Ross Miner (Alternates: Alexander Johnson, Timonthy Dolensky)

• Ladies: Gracie Gold, Mirai Nagasu, Karen Chen (Alternates: Courtney Hicks)

• Pairs: Kayne/O'Shea, Scimeca/Knierim, Castelli/Tran (Alternates: Aaron/Settlage, Calalang/Sidhu, Pfund/Santillan)

• Dance: Shibutani/Shibutani, Chock/Bates, Hubbell/Donohue (Alternates: Cannuscio/McManus, Hawayek/Baker)

JUNIOR WORLDS

• Men: Vincent Zhou, Tomoki Hiwatashi (Alternates: Kevin Shum, Aleksei Krasnozhon)

• Ladies: Tyler Pierce, Bradie Tennell (Alternates: Emily Chan, Vivian Le, Megan Wessenberg)

• Pairs: Liu/Johnson, Weinberg/Fernandez, Weinstein/Simon (Alternates: Marvaldi/Dolkiewicz, Green/Newby-Estrella, Setoyama/Paradis)

• Dance: McNamara/Carpenter, Parsons/Parsons, Pogrebinsky/Benoit (Alternates: Carreira/Ponomarenko, Biechler/Dodge, Lewis/Bye)

WORLDS

• Men: Adam Rippon, Max Aaron, Grant Hochstein (Alternates: Ross Miner, Alexander Johnson)

• Ladies: Gracie Gold, Polina Edmunds, Ashley Wagner (Alternates: Mirai Nagasu, Tyler Pierce, Hannah Miller)

• Pairs: Kayne/O'Shea, Scimeca/Knierim (Alternates: Castelli/Tran, Aaron/Settlage, Calalang/Sidhu)

• Dance: Shibutani/Shibutani, Chock/Bates, Hubbell/Donohue (Alternates: Cannuscio/McManus, Hawayek/Baker)

Russian Team for 2016 Youth Olympics & Junior Worlds

Sources: 1, 2

YOUTH OLYMPICS

• Men: Dmitri Aliev

• Ladies: Polina Tsurskaya, Maria Sotskova

• Pairs: Borisova/Sopot, Ustimkina/Volodin

• Dance: Spilevaya/Smirnov, Skoptsova/Aleshin

JUNIOR WORLDS

• Men: Dmitri Aliev, Alexander Samarin, Roman Savosin

• Ladies: Polina Tsurskaya, Maria Sotskova, Alisa Fedichkina

• Pairs: Mishina/Mirzoev, Atakhanova/Spiridonov, Borisova/Sopot, Gubanova/Sintsov

• Dance: Loboda/Drozd, Popova/Vlasenko, Spilevaya/Smirnov

Canadian Team for 2016 ISU Championships

Source. Entries subject to change in case of withdrawals.

FOUR CONTINENTS

• Men: Patrick Chan, Liam Firus, Kevin Reynolds

• Ladies: Alaine Chartrand, Kaetlyn Osmond, Veronik Mallet

• Dance: Weaver/Poje, Gilles/Poirier, Paradis/Ouellette

• Pairs: Duhamel/Radford, Iliushechkina/Moscovitch, Grenier/Deschamps

JUNIOR WORLDS

• Men: Nicolas Nadeau

• Ladies: Sarah Tamura

• Dance: Bent/Razgulajevs, Lajoie/Lagha, Meng/Meng

• Pairs: McLean/Michaud, Hoffman/Chudak, Brasseur/Ostiguy

WORLDS

• Men: Patrick Chan, Nam Nguyen

• Ladies: Alaine Chartrand, Gabrielle Daleman

• Dance: Weaver/Poje, Gilles/Poirier, Paradis/Ouellette

• Pairs: Duhamel/Radford, Iliushechkina/Moscovitch, Moore-Towers/Marinaro

2016 Team Challenge Cup Official Announcement

The ISU has published the official announcement for the Team Challenge Cup taking place in Spokane, WA, USA on April 22-24. This is a new team competition that is a bit of a mix between Japan Open and World Team Trophy. There will be 3 teams - Europe, North America, and Asia. Each team will have 3 ladies, 3 men, 2 pairs and 2 dance teams. At least two countries must be represented in each discipline for each team - eg. two ladies on a team can be from the same country, but the third cannot. Two of the ladies and men and all of the pairs and ice dancers for each team will be chosen from the top-ranked skaters on the ISU World Standings as of January 1, 2016. (Basically, only competitions from the first half of the season count towards qualification.) If any invited skaters withdraw, the next-highest-ranked skater will be invited. The third singles skaters for each team will be chosen through a fan vote that will take place during 2016 Worlds. The third singles skaters for each team must be a participant at 2016 Worlds and will be chosen from a pool of 5 skaters nominated by the TCC organizers.

Going by those rules, these are the teams according to the current World Standings (last updated 12/12; there are no more relevant ISU competitions held between then and Jan. 1):

TEAM EUROPE

• Men: Javier Fernandez (ESP), Sergei Voronov (RUS), 3rd skater TBD

• Ladies: Elizaveta Tuktamysheva (RUS), Roberta Rodeghiero (ITA), 3rd skater TBD

• Pairs: Ksenia Stolbova/Fedor Klimov (RUS), Nicole Della Monica/Matteo Guarise (ITA)

• Dance: Anna Cappellini/Luca Lanotte (ITA), Gabriella Papadakis/Guillaume Cizeron (FRA)

TEAM NORTH AMERICA

• Men: Jason Brown (USA), Nam Nguyen (CAN), 3rd skater TBD

• Ladies: Gracie Gold (USA), Gabrielle Daleman (CAN), 3rd skater TBD

• Pairs: Meagan Duhamel/Eric Radford (CAN), Alexa Scimeca/Chris Knierim (USA)

• Dance: Kaitlyn Weaver/Andrew Poje (CAN), Madison Chock/Evan Bates (USA)

TEAM ASIA

• Men: Yuzuru Hanyu (JPN), Denis Ten (KAZ), 3rd skater TBD

• Ladies: Satoko Miyahara (JPN), Elizabet Tursynbaeva (KAZ), 3rd skater TBD

• Pairs: Wenjing Sui/Cong Han (CHN), Tae Ok Ryom/Ju Sik Kim (PRK)*

• Dance: Rebeka Kim/Kirill Minov (KOR), Shiyue Wang/Xinyu Liu (CHN)

(*If Ryom/Kim from North Korea decline the invitation (which…seems pretty likely), there are no other Asian countries with pairs teams on the ISU World Standings list, as Kim/Kam from South Korea have split. Japan’s new team Suto/Boudreau-Audet competed at 2015 Golden Spin of Zagreb, but placed 7th and did not earn any ranking points. In this case I’m not sure if the ISU will allow Suto/Boudreau-Audet to compete, another Chinese pair to compete, or if Team Asia will have to compete with only one pair.)

See the announcement for information on the format of the competition.

Japan Open 2015

2015 Japan Open (Oct. 3 in Saitama, Japan)

• Team Japan: Mao Asada, Satoko Miyahara, Daisuke Murakami, Shoma Uno

• Team North America: Ashley Wagner, Gracie Gold, Patrick Chan, Jeremy Abbott

• Team Europe: Adelina Sotnikova, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, Javier Fernandez, Brian Joubert

• Guests (will perform during intermission): Shizuka Arakawa, Meryl Davis/Charlie White

Japan Open will be aired by TV Tokyo. More information to come closer to the event.

New 2015-16 technical panel handbooks

Singles & pairs
Ice dance

Changes from last season are underlined in the text of the documents. There are no significant changes for singles and pairs, as far as I can tell. (I’m not as qualified to talk about ice dance, sorry!) Some minor changes:

• Flying spins that do not meet certain requirements will be labeled with only a “V” on protocols, instead of “V1” or “V2”.

• A few changes to step sequence requirements.

• A few changes to level features for layback spins.

• A few changes to lift requirements for pairs.

Required short program elements for 2015-16:

• Solo jump for junior singles: 2F or 3F

• Side-by-side jump for junior pairs: 2F or 2A

• Throw jump for junior pairs: 2S or 3S

• Death spiral for senior & junior pairs: backwards outside

• A pair spin for senior & junior pairs (instead of SBS spin)

2015-16 Singles/Pairs Scale of Values and Level/GOE Guidelines (ISU Communication 1944)

Base value changes for jumps since the 2014-15 season:

• The base value of a triple toeloop (3T) has increased from 4.1 to 4.3.

• The base value of a triple salchow (3S) has increased from 4.2 to 4.4.

• The base value of an underrotated (<) 3S has increased from 3.0 to 3.1.

• The base value of an underrotated triple axel (3A) has decreased from 6.0 to 5.9.

• The base value of an underrotated quad toeloop (4T) has increased from 7.2 to 8.0.

• The base value of an underrotated quad salchow (4S) has increased from 7.4 to 8.1.

• The base value of a quad flip or lutz that is both underrotated and has an edge call (e) has increased, from 7.4 to 8.0 and 8.2 to 8.4, respectively.

• For all quad jumps, the GOE reductions for -1, -2 and -3 are greater than before. Respectively, they are -1.2, -2.4, and -4.0 (previously -1.0, -2.0, -3.0).

Other changes are underlined in the text of the document.

Schedule of all 2015-16 international skating competitions

See the calendar on the ISU site for any future changes in dates.

2015 Grand Prix locations announced

• Skate America: Milwaukee, WI; Oct. 23-25

• Skate Canada: Lethbridge, AB; Oct. 30 - Nov. 1

• Cup of China: Beijing, China; Nov. 6-8

• Trophee Eric Bompard: Bordeaux, France; Nov. 13-15

• Rostelecom Cup: Moscow, Russia; Nov. 20-22

• NHK Trophy: Nagano, Japan; Nov. 27-29

• Grand Prix Final: Barcelona, Spain; Dec. 10-13

Source. Dates subject to change.