Friday, January 14, 2011

Countdown to US Figure Skating Championships: 8 Days!

Caroline Zhang (All Year FSC)
  • 2006 Junior Grand Prix Final Champion
  • 2007 US Jr. Silver Medalist
  • 2007 Jr. World Champion
  • 2008 US Pewter Medalist
  • 2008 Jr. World Silver Medalist
  • 2009 US Bronze Medalist
  • 2009 Jr. World Silver Medalist
  • 2010 US Nationals 11th
  • 2010 Four Continents Bronze Medalist

Caroline is a skater who enjoyed great success as a Junior and many expected she would make the Olympic team in 2010. When she moved up to the senior ranks nationally, she made the podium twice and continued to have success internationally as a junior, winning gold once and silver twice. Unfortunately she fell off a bit in the past two years, some of which can be attributed to technical issues, but most of which is mind and confidence-based. Caroline was a little jumping machine with amazing flexibility when she was younger, but when it came time to show maturity in her skating, some technical deficiencies were revealed and she began to suffer downgrades and under-rotation calls on her jumps. She is taking this season to revamp her jumping technique, much like World champion Mao Asada. I wish her well at Nationals this year and truly hope she can make a comeback. It would be so unfortunate for her to go down in history as the skater that could have been great. Fortunately she is only 17 and she still has time to regain her skills and mature as an artist in time to make a splash internationally and qualify for Sochi in 2014.

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