US Nationals 2016- Men

I need to be honest here. I don't see the artistic improvement in Max Aaron that so many people seem to see. I've never really seen the appeal of his skating. Does he have good jumps? Sometimes, but not always, and when the jumps fail him, he's got nothing left. I will note that at the beginning of the season I said that I was happy he was making an attempt, and that I was starting to see the improvement. I had applauded him for working on his second mark, the reason I'm no longer saying that? It hasn't gotten better since the beginning of the season, it might have gotten worse. The thing about his choreography and transitions is that it's the skating equivalent of hairography. I've not so lovingly nicknamed this armography and poseography. There's obviously some of this in most programs, but Max has nothing else. If you're going to be the technical guy, fine, but to do that you have to do more difficult elements than your competitors, and do them better than everyone else. This isn't something Max does.

I fundamentally disagree with him beating Nathan Chen overall. Nathan Chen may have won the freeskate, but not by nearly as much as he should have. He had more technical difficulty than Max, and on top of that he also has better PCS and spins than Max. This came down to politics and skating order. Had Nathan skated last, he almost certainly would have won.

I also don't think Adam Rippon should have beaten Nathan Chen. Not only did he not have the jumps Nathan did, but the other elements of the program were not nearly that much better than Nathan's to more than make up the technical difference (even if Nathan did have an invalidated spin, and I'm still not sure why it was invalidated).

I'm really happy with some of the results of some of my favourite US men, but Sean Rabbitt, Grant Hochstein, Alexander Johnson, and Ross Miner were far overshadowed by not only all the other skating that weekend (and the following week) but also my anger with the final result of the top three.

Honestly, I'm mostly just glad they're actually going to send Nathan to worlds, because he more than deserves it. Had they named Jason Brown (who I love, don't get me wrong) instead, I would have been even more angry than I already was.