Austria Hosts Third Stop on the JGP Series

This week, 17 teams representing 14 countries will take the ice in Linz, Austria, for the third stop on the 2012-13 Junior Grand Prix series. Austria has hosted the JGP three times before; an event was held in Graz in 2007, in Vienna in 2010, and in Innsbruck in 2011. Austria also hosted junior-level skaters earlier this year for the inaugural Youth Olympic Games. 

So far, the JGP series has been marked by low scoring, especially in the short dance. Many teams have had trouble earning high levels for the Blues patterns, particularly on the timing. All eyes will be on the technical panel this weekend to see how this event is called.

Linz will mark the season debut for the 2011 JGP Final silver medalists, Anna Yanovskaya & Sergey Mozgov.  The Russians, who are only beginning their second season together, will look to build on their results from last year, which included a win at the Youth Olympic Games, as well as gold and bronze medals on the JGP series.  Though several teams in Russia switched coaches in the off-season, Yanovskaya & Mozgov have remained under the tutelage of Svetlana Alexeeva and Elena Kustarova.  The team is joined by Russian teammates Marina Simonova & Dmitry Dragun, who won the bronze medal at the 2012 Youth Olympic Games. This will be their second JGP assignment. They finished sixth last year in Romania.

France’s Gabriella Papadakis & Guillaume Cizeron have had a couple of weeks to enjoy their gold medal from the first JGP event in Courchevel. They rebounded from a second-place short dance to win the free dance and their first JGP title in their home country. After a fifth-place finish at last year’s World Junior Championships, Papadakis & Cizeron are setting their goals even higher this year. A place in the top two should guarantee them a spot in their first Junior Grand Prix Final.

Shari Koch & Christian Nüchtern (pictured, right) of Germany narrowly missed medaling on the JGP series last season, finishing fourth at each of their events. They did, however, pick up a couple of international medals last year at NRW Trophy and Pavel Roman Memorial. Koch & Nüchtern finished ninth at the 2012 World Junior Championships and are definitely a medal threat at this event. This season marks their final year of JGP eligibility.

Canada has won bronze at the first two JGP events on the series, and Mackenzie Bent & Garrett MacKeen will look to keep this streak alive.  Bent & MacKeen have been skating together since 2004 and train at the Scarboro Figure Skating Club under coaches Carol Lane, Jon Lane, and Juris Razgulajevs. Last year, they won bronze at the JGP event in Romania and finished fifth in Estonia. Bent & MacKeen scored a sky-high 132.04 at Minto Summer Skate last month, and it will be interesting to see how close they can come to that mark with an international panel.

Ukraine’s Alexandra Nakarova & Maxim Nikitin were actually named to a Senior Grand Prix event this year, but they elected to return to the JGP series. The 2012 Youth Olympic Games silver medalists are just 15 and 17 and still have two more years of JGP eligibility after this season. The youngsters did not skate on the JGP last season, but finished 11th and 7th at two JGP events in 2010.

The United States is sending a pair of training mates to Austria.  Siblings Rachel & Michael Parsons debuted on the JGP series last season, finishing ninth in Poland.  The 2012 U.S. pewter medalists finished fourth at the Youth Olympic Games and 15th at the World Junior Championships.  Parsons & Parsons are joined by 2012 U.S. novice silver medalists, Whitney Miller & Kyle MacMillan.  Miller & MacMillan are making their international debut in Linz.  The teams train in Rockville, MD, and are coached by Alexei Kiliakov, Elena Novak, and Dmytri Ilin. Both teams chose to skate to hip-hop rhythms in the short dance.

Competition begins Thursday morning with the short dance. The free dance will be skated on Friday afternoon.