ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Entrants
The 2015-2016 Grand Prix final in figure skating will be held in Barcelona, Spain from December 10 through December 13. Due to the cancellation of the long programs and free dance at the Trophée Bompard in Paris because of the terrorist attack, the International Skating Union made an exceptional provision since the scores for the short programs were used as the final results and prize money was awarded accordingly.
The Russian Federation submitted a proposal to allow the top eight skaters/couples (instead of six) to advance to the Grand Prix final, but that proposal was rejected. If that proposal was adopted it would have benefited and American (Max Aaron) and a Chinese in the men’s event, a Japanese and a Russian in the ladies’ event, the Canadian and the Chinese in the pairs event, and Russian and Canadian pairs in ice dance.
The ISU decided to permit a seventh entrant into the Grand Prix event provided that entrant skated at the Trophée Bompard event in Paris. The only beneficiary of that special provision is a Canadian pairs team as the seventh entrant.
The entrants in order of their point ranking (1st=15 pts., 2nd=13 pts., 3rd=11 pts., 4th= 9 pts., 5th = 7 pts.) for the event in Barcelona :
Men
Javier FERNANDEZ ESP
Yuzuru HANYU JPN
Shoma UNO JPN
Boyang JIN CHN
Patrick CHAN CAN
Daisuke MURAKAMI JPN
Hanyu looks to be the favorite based upon his dominating score at the NHK Trophy.
Ladies
Gracie GOLD USA
Evgenia MEDVEDEVA RUS
Satoko MIYAHARA JPN
Mao ASADA JPN
Elena RADIONOVA RUS
Ashley WAGNER USA
This is probably the most difficult discipline to handicap since each of the ladies won one event in the Grand Prix. However, Gold and Radionova were the two ladies that improved as the season continued.
Pairs
Meagan DUHAMEL / Eric RADFORD CAN
Yuko KAVAGUTI / Alexander SMIRNOV RUS
Wenjing SUI / Cong HAN CHN
Ksenia STOLBOVA / Fedor KLIMOV RUS
Alexa SCIMECA / Chris KNIERIM USA
Xiaoyu YU / Yang JIN CHN
Julianne SEGUIN / Charlie BILODEAU CAN
Duhamel/Radford won both of their Grand Prix events and they are the current world champions. Sui/Han are the silver medalists from the 2015 World Championships.
Ice Dance
Kaitlyn WEAVER / Andrew POJE CAN
Madison CHOCK / Evan BATES USA
Anna CAPPELLINI / Luca LANOTTE ITA
Maia SHIBUTANI / Alex SHIBUTANI USA
Madison HUBBELL / Zachary DONOHUE USA
Ekaterina BOBROVA / Dmitri SOLOVIEV RUS
This should be a battle between the Canadian couple and the American couple at the top of the list. They are currently ranked first and second in the world.
Write-up based upon results page, http://www.isu.org/en/single-and-pair-skating-and-ice-dance/series/isu-grand-prix-of-figure-skating .
