2013 World Team Trophy


What makes this year's WTT stand out (in the wrong way) are the big absentees: Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir, Meryl Davis/Charlie White and Nathalie Pechalat/Fabian Bourzat (yeah, they're still one of the best couples even though they made a mess at Worlds).

The ice-dance competition will suffer severely in quality due to these absences. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very much looking forward to it, but let's be honest: Kaitlyn Weaver/Andrew Poje are the only ones likely to be impeccable on ice, and if they don't take the gold medal, I'll eat my hat. So there's not much unpredictability there.

Team France probably took the biggest hit. Besides Nathalie and Fabian, they also lost Florent Amodio, who is probably the most cheerful skater out there.

As for the host team, Japan, there is no one registered in the pairs competition! Did anyone know you could do that in a World Team Trophy? Then again, I suppose Japan doesn't really have an option given that their main pairs are injured. But what this means is that they can kiss the gold medal goodbye, and with that, we can kiss unpredictability goodbye once more.

So, if not Japan, who is most likely to win the competition this year? The battle is pretty tight between Canada and Russia, given that their teams have been lucky enough to keep the champions in. But while Patrick Chan might get yet another astronomical score, Tatiana Volosozhar/Maxim Trankov are more than fit to rise to the challenge. But if I were to bet on anyone, I'd bet on team Canada.

Still, Adelina Sotnikova and Elizaveta Tuktamysheva are two names that give you goosebumps (dear God, they're only 16!), and if they do their best, who knows what can happen?

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