2011 Junior Grand Prix of Italy: Preview

The 6th of 7 Junior Grand Prix events begins official competition tomorrow (Thursday October 6th) in Milan, Italy. The official event schedule in Eastern Standard Time is below:

Thursday Oct 6th              Friday Oct 7th                    Saturday Oct 8th
7:50 a.m. Men's Short       9:15 a.m. Short Dance         5:50 a.m. Free Dance
12:00 p.m. Ladies Short    12:15 p.m. Men's Free          8:55 a.m. Ladies Free

As with the first 5 JGP events, we can expect live scoring on the ISU website and almost immediate videos posted on the ISUJGP2011 youtube channel. There will be no pairs event in Italy, but there should be more than enough to keep us interested in the Ladies, Men's, and Ice Dance events, including some key battles for spots in the Junior Grand Prix Final.

In the Men's fields, Jason Brown & Han Yan each have a gold from their first JGP and Artur Dmitriev has a silver. All 3 can make the final but they each need a medal in order to keep Japan's Keiji Tanaka out of the final.

The Ladies event will feature a showdown between two gold medalists, Julia Liptnitskaia and Courtney Hicks. Lipnitskaia won her gold with a higher score than Hicks so she is the favorite, but there is room for both in the final if they medal here. Japan's Satoko Miyahara also has a shot at making the final, but she'll need to win gold here which is quite a tall order in this field.

Stepanova & Bukin have the edge in ice dance, having won gold at JGP Romania. Nipping at their heels will be JGP Australia silver medalists Bonacorsi & Mager and JGP Australia bronze medalists Zenkova & Sinitsin. The JGP final situation in ice dance is quite messy and though there is a chance all 3 of these teams can make it, tie-breakers based on total points may come into play.

Warm-Up Group 1
1	Adil ZHARBOLOV	KAZ
2	Marco ZAKOURIL	CZE
3	Luiz MANELLA	BRA
4	Victor BUSTAMANTE	ESP
5	Oliver PORTER	AUS
	Warm-Up Group 2
6	Artur DMITRIEV	RUS
7	Julian Zhi Jie YEE	MAS
8	June-Hyoung LEE	KOR
9	Krysztof GALA	POL
10	Leonardo MAEKAWA MORENO	MEX
	Warm-Up Group 3
11	Jason BROWN	USA
12	Igor REZNICHENKO	UKR
13	Christophe BELLEY-LEMELIN	CAN
14	Noah SCHERER	SUI
15	Han YAN	CHN
	Warm-Up Group 4
16	Ondrej SPIEGL	SWE
17	Suchet KONGCHIM	THA
18	Jay YOSTANTO	USA
19	Shu NAKAMURA	JPN
20	Filippo AMBROSINI	ITA
	Warm-Up Group 5
21	Martin RAPPE	GER
22	Lap Kan YUEN	HKG
23	Vlad IONESCU	ROU
24	Yoji TSUBOI	JPN
25	Saverio GIACOMELLI	ITA
26	Maurizio ZANDRON	ITA

Warm-Up Group 1
1	Denisa SANDU	ROU
2	Eveliina VILJANEN	FIN
3	Brooklee HAN	AUS
4	Kate CHARBONNEAU	CAN
5	Ziquan ZHAO	CHN
	Warm-Up Group 2
6	Aislin ROSADO	MEX
7	Deirdre FAEGRE	IRL
8	Alexandra KUNOVA	SVK
9	Sabrina SCHULZ	AUT
10	Ashley BRICKMAN	PHI
	Warm-Up Group 3
11	Laurine LECAVELIER	FRA
12	Anna SHERSHAK	RUS
13	Anais CLAES	BEL
14	Courtney HICKS	USA
15	Romy BÜHLER	SUI
	Warm-Up Group 4
16	Caterina ANDERMARCHER	ITA
17	Tsz Ying Crystal CHIK	HKG
18	Isabella SCHUSTER	GRE
19	Victoria MANNI	ITA
20	Isabelle OLSSON	SWE
	Warm-Up Group 5
21	So-Youn PARK	KOR
22	Sandy HOFFMANN	GER
23	Satoko MIYAHARA	JPN
24	Elena MANGAS	ESP
25	Mimi Tanasorn CHINDASOOK	THA
26	Anita MADSEN	DEN
	Warm-Up Group 6
27	Hannah MILLER	USA
28	Julia LIPNITSKAIA	RUS
29	Isadora WILLIAMS	BRA
30	Saya UENO	JPN
31	Micol CRISTINI	ITA
32	Nika CERIC	SLO

Warm-Up Group 1
1	Laura ABTS / Maarten BUCKENS	BEL
2	Victoria HASEGAWA / Connor HASEGAWA	CAN
3	Alessia BUSI / Andrea FABBRI	ITA
4	Valeria ZENKOVA / Valerie SINITSIN	RUS
	Warm-Up Group 2
5	Sarah COWARD / Avidan BROWN	GBR
6	Caelen DALMER / Shane FIRUS	CAN
7	Yiyi ZHANG / Nan WU	CHN
8	Jasmine TESSARI / Stefano COLAFATO	ITA
	Warm-Up Group 3
9	Lindsay POUSSET / Louis THAURON	FRA
10	Lolita YERMAK / Alexander LIUBCHENKO	UKR
11	Estelle ELIZABETH / Romain LE GAC	FRA
12	Lauri BONACORSI / Travis MAGER	USA
	Warm-Up Group 4
13	Cortney MANSOUR / Daryn ZHUNUSSOV	KAZ
14	Alexandra STEPANOVA / Ivan BUKIN	RUS
15	Shari KOCH / Christian NÜCHTERN	GER
16	Sofia SFORZA / Francesco FIORETTI	ITA