by Jacquelyn Thayer
Before proceeding to the next topic in our PCS series, let’s take a moment to look at the national ranking trends suggested in entry #1 as applied to our other discipline of interest — pairs.
This analysis, it must be cautioned, does not take into consideration technical performance, and given the greater obvious impact of error on performance quality in pairs versus ice dance, this factor should not be overlooked. However, teams who did face deductions at the Olympics or Worlds also tended to see similar problems in at least one earlier outing, suggesting that changes from the fall season to later events may still have relevance outside of pure performance.
Contributing to difference is the size of field: while six nations at the Olympics entered at least two teams in both dance and pairs, only two nations (Canada and Russia) qualified a third pair versus three such nations in dance. The dance event there also hosted four additional entries, providing a wider range of national leaders from which to observe trends.
Even with these caveats, it’s worth comparing these statistics to those for dance: in each case, an average increase in PCS from the Grand Prix/Nebelhorn to the Olympics is proportional to national ranking, with the two third-ranked pairs teams in fact averaging a decrease. But woes at Worlds for several teams actually meant several equivalent dance couples who saw a boost at that event were here severely hit, reflecting the more tumultuous role PCS plays in a discipline so dependent on the obvious clean skate. A quick comparison of the data can be found here.