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Training mates Jeremy Abbot and Adam Rippon have so far
lived up to the pre-competition hype that the Men's event would be all
about them. So far it is. Armin Mahbanoozadeh took third in
the short, while Ross Miner, the 2011 bronze medallists sits in four.
None of the top men attempted quads, and of the three attempted by lower
placing skaters, one was successful -- but only partially so. Max
Aaron landed a quad Salchow, with five judges going to negative GoEs, and
one at +3. Overall his scores for the jump ran from -2 to +3.
Go Figure.
 Jeremy Abbott's
performance to "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen was pretty much spot on. The
only rough spot was a clumsy looking entry into fis flying upright spin
which three judges scored -1. His performance was fast, lively and
confident, completely engaging the audience. His components ranged
from 7.00 to 10.00, which an average score of 8.90. Before the event
we were day dreaming that the judges should score Abbott above 300 just to
show up the Canadians. After seeing the performance, it seems to us
that with the addition of a quad to the Short Program, Abbott could easily
take this routine above 100 points without any help from the judges.
Without one he earned 90.23.
Abbott placed fourth at the 2011 Championships, so
preparation this year was as much mental as physical. On preparing
he said, "Well I think this question can be directed at
the three of us because the three of us were the Four Continents team last
year and we were four-five-six and now we’re one-two-three. But after Four
Continents last year I was actually thankful that happened with World’s
getting pushed back so late. I felt like I had extra time to set a plan
for this season and make sure all the details were covered so that nothing
was missing. Yuka, Jason and myself really made sure to put everything
into my training this year so that nothing would happen like last year. So
we took the plan and I’ve been working really hard with them and it’s been
really nice having Adam and all the other people who come to work with us.
It’s really made an incredible atmosphere at our rink. There’s lots of
energy and it’s exciting to train every day. Having Adam there and having
such a strong plan with my coaches has really helped my training and
helped my competing."
 Adam Rippon
gave a clean performance to "Korobushka" to place second with 82.94
points. "I’m really happy with how I skated today,"
he said. "It’s just
been a culmination of a lot of hard work and changing my mindset and
everything so, I’m really proud of what I was able to do and I’m looking
forward to skating on Sunday.” Asked whether he was surprised
with his results he said, "No. I knew that if I skated well that I would be up at
the top of the leader board. I was really confident in what I was able to
do and I’m really satisfied with what I did. I think it puts me in a
really good place for the long program.”
Rippon skated a clean program, with only one -1
GoE among the elements. He landed a strong triple flip - triple toe
loop combination, a nice solo triple Axel (a jump he has sometimes
struggled with, and a nice triple Lutz (except for that one pesky -1).
He skated with good speed and energy in a nicely choreographed program.
His component marks averaged 7.77.
In preparing this season he said, “I’ve had a busy few months. I recently moved to Detroit
over the summer and Jeremy and I train together. I think it’s really
affected my whole skating in a positive way. After the Grand Prix season,
I just put myself in their [Yuka Sato and Jason Dungjen] hands and to be
able to train with Jeremy is an honour. It’s a great experience. I feel
like we’re kind of coming in here as a team and I really happy for him
today and I’m sure he’s really happy for me.”
It was a strong start for the event, something that he
has not always had in the past. He said, "Yesterday before Ashley (Wagner) skated we ran into
each other and she said ‘you know, sometimes we do the same thing here and
I’m just going to do you a favour and I’m going to skate really well
tonight.’ So when she was skating I was really happy for her because I
knew it was such a monkey on her back. It really gave me a lot of
confidence to know that if she could overcome it, I could overcome it.
It’s definitely a huge step forward for me and I’m really happy with how
tonight went.”
 A
strong performance was also given my
Armin Mahbanoozadeh, skating to "Kashmir." He too
had a clean program, with only one -1 GoE among the elements, on his
opening triple Axel, The jump was landed slightly on the toe, making
the -1 a bit of nit picking. The reaming judges had it at 0 or +1.
Mahbanoozadeh also landed a triple flip - triple toe loop combination and
a solo triple Lutz. His levelled elements were all called level
four. His performance displayed good musicality and interpretation,
and was scored in components with an average mark of 7.22.
“I was really excited to skate well today,"
he said. "The crowd’s
energy was up after Jeremy skated so well, and I tried to take advantage
of that. [Mahbanoozadeh skated immediately after Abbott.] I skated how I’ve been training. I moved to Colorado about a
month and a half ago and training has been going well. I was happy to just
show that to the audience today.”
 Ross Minor attempted the same jump
elements as the other top skaters. On his triple-triple comb ination, the flip was landed on the toe which threw
off the toe loop which was poorly landed. The element was scored
with -1s and -2s and one 0. His performance to "" showed nice
expression and good choreography earning him the third highest PCS of the
group, with an average component score of 7.68.
Brandon Mroz currently sits in 12th place. He
fell on a quad toe loop attempt, but even had it landed it it would have
only moved him up to perhaps 9-10th. He was also marked down on
triple Axel (landed roughly on the toe) and on his triple Lutz - double
toe loop combination. But, he was also weighed down as much by the
overall performance and component marks as anything else.
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