The next in a long line of Russian wonder babies makes her arrival in China. Julia Lipnitskaia (RUS) is the reigning Junior World Champ and also the Finlandia champ. She is even better that Tuktamysheva & Sotnikova in my opinion. Her flexibility is out of this world and she will be the next Sasha Cohen in terms of "she never hits a bad position." Nerves and expectation are the X-factor as we saw with Gracie Gold at Skate Canada, but if this little one does what we all know she can do, she'll win by a mile.
A former wonder baby also makes her season debut here. Mao Asada (JPN) is doing Gershwin for her short and Swan Lake for her free. I may die of happiness if she aces both of these. I think we have seen Mao go through several levels of transformation over the past few seasons, so let's hope she's coming out on the good side of that heading into 2014.
Kiira Korpi (FIN) is one of the most gorgeous skaters around if she could hold it together. She won Silver at Europeans last year and finished 2nd to Lipnitskaia at Finlandia. I'm excited to see what she's bringing to the table this year and I think she can certainly medal here.
The skater I'm actually most excited to see is Mirai Nagasu (USA). She left Frank finally and that could be the best thing she's ever done. I just don't think that their styles meshed...ever. This is a do or die year for her. She needs to get back on world podiums and back on the Nationals podium this year, or USFSA will have totally forgotten about her when 2014 and Sochi roll around.
My Podium Predictions:
Gold: Julia Lipnitskaia (RUS)
Silver: Mao Asada (JPN)
Bronze: Mirai Nagasu (USA)
The Rest of the Field:
Amelie Lacoste (CAN)
Bingwa Geng (CHN)
Zijun Li (CHN)
Ying Zhang (CHN)
Sofia Biryukova (RUS)
Joshi Helgesson (SWE)
While I think your analysis is spot on, I'm a diehard Mirai fan and I really really REALLY want her to do well here, especially since it's her only GP. The odds are quite low of that happening, but nothing would make me happier! She really deserves a good result!
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