- Joined
- Jun 16, 2010
And I'm mainly argueing for him being underscored when he skates really well. (I'm even among the people who think he should have been a lot closer to Chan in the 2011 worlds LP, and maybe he should have even won that).
But still, Chan was always inconsistent too. Still, he kind of managed to get a reputation. I couldn't even say it was because of his wins, because it already started back at the beginning of the 2010-11 season, when he wasn't as decorated as he is now. Hanyus PCS shoot up like crazy too from wolds 2012 to SA 2012, and besides his worlds bronze, he had nothing. Kozuka has a worlds silver and it didn't help him at all.
Chan did have two seasons of very consistent skating when he was young in 2007-2008, 2008-2009, culminating in the best overall season of anyone in 08-09 and the World silver. His reputation was already set. Coming back from injury he went on to skate well at the Olympics and Worlds in 2010, not absoltuely perfectly but far from a meltdown either. After some horrible multi mistake performances in fall 2010 (and yes some horrible judging of them) he righted the ship and skated much more consistently for the next 2 years. His only truly bad performance in that time was the LP of the 2011 Grand Prix final (where yes he was held up) and 2012 Skate Canada, and the inconsistency did not really start up consistently again until the LP of the 2012 Grand Prix final (and even that was rectified again this year minus the short program at the GPF and LP at the Games). I don't think he is as inconsistent as potrayed, and heaven knows I am no Chan fan, and I do think on the whole he is much more consistent than Kozuka. Either way he established a much large reputation in the sport so he is more likely to be forgiven for mistakes and I do NOT agree with his PCS when he makes a lot of mistakes anyway, but he is one of the few that will be given that kind of kindness in those situations.
Kozuka vs Hanyu? Well Hanyu really established himself at the 2012 Worlds, and he skated super consistent in the 2011-2012 season. Kozuka had already become inconsistent in the 2011-2012 season backpedaling the respect he had earned himself in 2010-2011. The talk he was underscored that season, despite his strong showings, would likely have seen his PCS and scores rise further in 2011-2012 had he stayed on course. He seemed to be getting back on track in fall 2012 but then missed Worlds with a disaesterous Nationals, and by now Hanyu and Takahashi were much bigger names in Japan heading into the Olympic year. Reputation and especialy national pecking order will always be a factor in the scoring, whether we like it or not. I do still agree he should get very good PCS when he skates very well, cleanly or with few errors, but I honestly cant think of many times that happened recently. The last time was a grand prix event in 2012 and he won that one. He skated well at Nationals this year but made too many mistakes to beat Machida for 2nd and secure a spot on the team, and his PCS were higher than Machida and Oda by a good margin IIRC.
It's not just Chan, Hanyu or Fernandez, but just from memory speaking and without looking it up, Machida got the short end of the stick compared to others like Reynolds, Aaron or Kovtun sometimes too. That doesn't mean I think he was ever robbed, but that's not what I mean when I talk about being underscored (and I agree with his 5th place finish at Sochi too, the only thing I'd like to argue with is Ten beating Fernandez, especially because it was due to that absolutely ridiculous combination of Zayak rules).
At first glance I was upset at Ten beating Fernandez but then I broke the protocol down and saw Fernandez actually had 6 mistakes or 6 places he gave up several points or more in jump passes, either with a miss, leaving something out, downgrading something, or something being discounted. That is too many mistakes to make, so now I have to agree with Ten's bronze. The Zayak rule is ridiculous but even that could be negated by saying Ten was too low in PCS. Ten is a very elegant skater, with good musical sense, and strong basics so to be barely over 80 for a virtually clean skate with Fernandez, Takahashi, Hanyu, and Chan were all around 90s for their mistake ridden programs was just wrong. It is not like the judges would ever go out of their way to give Ten a gift, the most unfair result in mens skating of the quad was his loss to Chan at Worlds last year after all, so he is no judges favorite.
I think if Machida skates cleanly or even well at home in Japan, he will atleast on this occasion more than get the marks he deserves and certainly not be robbed of a medal if he earns one.
Aaron is not scored well on PCS. He lost a spot at the Olympics despite skating brilliantly and near perfectly at Nationals with many quads to quadless Brown all based on a chasm in PCS (perhaps justified, but he certainly gets no gifts on PCS). A shame as he likely would have been the top American man at the Games, and could have even maybe won the bronze given the other performances there.
Reynolds has improved his PCS hugely for himself, but still got significantly lower PCS than Machida in the Team event at the Games. I believe Brown was given lower than Machida too. Plushenko's PCS well it was the Russian Mafia games when it came to skating basically.