Do you think Kimmie could ...

chuckm said:

Tweaking won't do a thing for Kimmie and Emily unless they fully rotate and land all their jumps. Emily falls a lot because of underrotation. Both of them were given the benefit of the doubt in Junior events (and of course, Nationals) but their bad habits have to be broken NOW if they expect to place well internationally as Seniors.

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Has anyone looked at the breakdown of the scores. I know lots of fans see things that the judges do not. Did the judges actually score Kimmie's and Emilie's jumps down due to underrotation or was it just some fans who saw these?

Joe

~Muffin~ said:

I don't think Kimmie stands a chance of even making the Top 20 at the Olympics nor the Worlds even if she has the skate or skates of her life. Simply she doesn't have the talent nor the full package. Not only that but she bores me stiff and watching her skate once was enough for a lifetime for me.

Thankyou.

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That's as it should be. You should not watch anymore but remember that Lipinski was 21st in her first Olys and no one thought she should continue because of her immaturity.

Joe

Joesitz said:

Has anyone looked at the breakdown of the scores. I know lots of fans see things that the judges do not. Did the judges actually score Kimmie's and Emilie's jumps down due to underrotation or was it just some fans who saw these?

Joe

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At TEB, Kimmie's two 3/3s in the FS were ratified. However, at NHK, she had a stepout between the 3F and the 3T and it was rated as a sequence with the second jump downgraded to a 2T. Her 3Z3T was downgraded to a 3Z2T. Even worse, her 3L was downgraded to 2L and the 3S, to 2S. That was pretty severe. I recall Paul Wylie commenting that many of Kimmie's jumps were downgraded in that FS.

Emily's problem is somewhat worse. When she underrotates a jump, she often falls on it. That's what happened with the 3L at Nationals. At Skate America, she fell on a 3T in her SP and it was rated as a 2T. In the FS, she fell on the solo lutz, which was rated as a 2Z. At CoR, in the SP she fell on the double axel, which was rated as a 1A. In the FS, she fell on the lutz and the flip, and both were rated as doubles. Not only does she get a -1 for the fall, but the base value of the jump becomes negligible.

At CoR, for instance, the lutz and the flip were each rated as 1.9 points with a -1 for the GOE, leaving 0.9 points. Then when the -1 deduction is taken, Emily actually had a net loss of 0.1 for each underrotated jump she fell on. Emily also has a tendency to pop jumps towards the end of her program.

All of this information is available in the protocols for each competition.

eurterpe - Thanks for the reply. I hate the idea of branding skaters because of an accident. The posters pick this sort of thing up as Kimmie and Emily ALWAYS underrotate their jumps whether or not the judges see it or not.

If they actually overrotated their jumps and the judges did not catch this error, then we should be complaining about the judges.

If the judges did catch the accident then they were marked down appropriately.

We should be judging the skaters (and judges) in each competition only.

Joe

Well if history can repeat itself: you have a skater who repeatedly goes for 3-3s with the second jump slighly underrotated and an extremely ambitious coach.... I see Kimmie cleaning up her technique enough on those 3-3s (which looked good at Nationals) to get credit on them at the Olympics with hte help of hr coahc, the EVILLE Pam Gregory. I wouldn't be surpised if Pam is having Kimmy train that 3 axel for the games as well. Forget about medalling in a watered down worlds, Kimmie might wind up medalling or winning the Olympi Games.

On Kimmie....

It does not appear that the technical panel downgraded any of her jumps at Nats. IMO, Kimmie still has a LOT of work to do on all things other than jumps to get the difficulty levels up, and also the execution up. I agree with Doris that she was more "juniorish" than I expected. But she's still young and there is no reason to think she can't or won't improve these areas in the future.

I did not notice Kimmie attempting any 3A's in either practices or warmups. Did anyone else? There's always a lot going on and it's easy to miss things. Of course that doesn't mean she's not working on it at home, or won't be working on it for Oly's and World's. I have no idea if this was the strategy, but it would make sense given the circumstances at Nats to focus on nailing the 3/3's and not risk the 3A in order to make the teams.

As noted by others, Emily certainly has her jump issues to work on. Her non-jump element levels are higher than Kimmie's, and she is certainly another "bright hope" for the next 4 years. I think Katy Taylor is another important one to watch for the future. I was also impressed with BeBe - I wonder what her future will hold? Is there any hope for Alissa to fix her jump issues? In terms of a gorgeous skater to watch...I think she is the best of the young bunch if she could fix that. But it will never happen for her if she can't find some consistency.

As far as Kimmie's medal chances at World's...It's hard to tell without knowing for sure who will / won't be there. IMO she is nowhere close to beating the current top 6 or 8 or maybe even 10 in the world unless she skates "perfect" for her (right now) and there are mistakes by others. Right now anyway, Kimmie's only weapon is 3/3's, and if she makes mistakes there, she's not got much else to fall back on to "make up" for any jump errors. That said though, I think she jumps a lot like a cat - she manages to land on her feet (well, foot ) most of the time. And that will serve her very well as she works to improve the other stuff.

DG

I agree that Kimmie has 'cat feet' and can land jumps even if she feels insecure in midair. But I think sometimes she lands them at the expense of complete rotation, and that's what the judges caught her on at NHK. I think Kimmie was under pressure to medal there and make the GPF, and that made her nervous.
Unfortunately, she is apt to be even more nervous at Torino.

I don't think we will see a 3A attempt there. I think Kimmie is having less and less success with the 3A in practice because she is growing and beginning to fill out. She is smart not to try it in competition if she isn't sure she can fully rotate it and land it cleanly. What good is it to fall on it or have a stepout if it is downgraded to a 2A then dinged on the GOE.

She probably will try her 3/3s at Torino and hope that the judges will ratify them. However, unless she can magically improve her spins (which have been weak in her GP events), do her spiral sequence without wobbling, and upgrade her footwork (she's fallen on it during the GP), she can't hope to challenge the top ladies for a medal.

Doggygirl said:

It does not appear that the technical panel downgraded any of her jumps at Nats. IMO, Kimmie still has a LOT of work to do on all things other than jumps to get the difficulty levels up, and also the execution up. I agree with Doris that she was more "juniorish" than I expected. But she's still young and there is no reason to think she can't or won't improve these areas in the future.

I did not notice Kimmie attempting any 3A's in either practices or warmups. Did anyone else? There's always a lot going on and it's easy to miss things. Of course that doesn't mean she's not working on it at home, or won't be working on it for Oly's and World's. I have no idea if this was the strategy, but it would make sense given the circumstances at Nats to focus on nailing the 3/3's and not risk the 3A in order to make the teams.

As noted by others, Emily certainly has her jump issues to work on. Her non-jump element levels are higher than Kimmie's, and she is certainly another "bright hope" for the next 4 years. I think Katy Taylor is another important one to watch for the future. I was also impressed with BeBe - I wonder what her future will hold? Is there any hope for Alissa to fix her jump issues? In terms of a gorgeous skater to watch...I think she is the best of the young bunch if she could fix that. But it will never happen for her if she can't find some consistency.

As far as Kimmie's medal chances at World's...It's hard to tell without knowing for sure who will / won't be there. IMO she is nowhere close to beating the current top 6 or 8 or maybe even 10 in the world unless she skates "perfect" for her (right now) and there are mistakes by others. Right now anyway, Kimmie's only weapon is 3/3's, and if she makes mistakes there, she's not got much else to fall back on to "make up" for any jump errors. That said though, I think she jumps a lot like a cat - she manages to land on her feet (well, foot ) most of the time. And that will serve her very well as she works to improve the other stuff.

DG

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Well Kimmie and her coach is going to push her to do everything. This nationals was the best I've ever seen Kimmie sell that LP and her skating skills are very smooth.

In terms of Emily's jump issues...well unless she miraculously shrinks 4 inches and loses 20 pounds, well she's not going to resolve them. She has wonderful jump technique but her biggest enemy is her body. I'm not sure what Emily can do to improve her consistency b/c from my vantage point, she's doing everything right. Nerves were probably the biggest factor in Emily's performance at Nationals , but a bigger body combined with some nerves could be a recipe for disaster on any jump.