Ladies LP | Page 29 | Golden Skate

Ladies LP

sleepymom

Rinkside
Joined
Aug 11, 2009
This thread is so interesting... all the different opinions and "I think" and "I don't want to hear..." in relation to the first competition of the season where the winner skated a five triple program, the silver medalist is clearly trying to work out the details of two programs that aren't clicking just yet and may switch out her expo for the short and the bronze medalist popped her shoulder out of socket a couple of weeks ago.

And quiite frankly - the early GPs are always fraught with overscoring. Its become a tradition. By February the judges will have gotten over their individual crushes and group think and calm down. The skating peaks will begin and competitors will start to emerge.

The season is early and we're well into a January tone and texture of the Olympic year on GS... Should be an interesting year for us fans and an extremely busy one for the mods...Yay! Fun for girls and boys! :laugh::laugh:

:laugh: You're so right.
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
I sort of agree re: TEB, although I think her Danse Macabre was a definite "masterpiece"-level performance. And yes, her Sheherazade at Worlds was more refined. If YuNa had performed her 3Lutz-3Toe with it, as well as not missed her final spin, then that performance would have scored ~139.

She deserved her scores for Danse Macabre, yes.

I'm really annoyed that she has had to switch to this 3Lutz-3Toe combo, though. She should not have been receiving that ! mark for her Flip. So dumb. Her 3Flip-3Toe combination is the best of any woman in history. Only Midori Ito would have been able to match the same level of quality as Yu-Na on that element.
 

figurejennah

On the Ice
Joined
Jun 27, 2009
..

She deserved her scores for Danse Macabre, yes.

I'm really annoyed that she has had to switch to this 3Lutz-3Toe combo, though. She should not have been receiving that ! mark for her Flip. So dumb. Her 3Flip-3Toe combination is the best of any woman in history. Only Midori Ito would have been able to match the same level of quality as Yu-Na on that element.

I completely agree with you. I don't understand why she got that "!" mark, after
years of receiving GOE for her 3Flip-3Toe jump. Every single commentator said her jump was text-book perfect. (Even Yamaguchi said if Yuna's flip was to be downgraded, there was something wrong with the judges. :chorus:)

Moreover, the rules were changed this season so that if you received "!" marks, your points would be taken off. I guess it was very smart on yuna's part to go ahead and change her jump to 3Lutz-3T combination, but the fact that she "fixed" her "problematic" flip jump so easily shows that she didn't have any problem with her flip jump in the first place. In her interview, Yuna said that jumping flip without the combo was so much easier than she had expected, and she could lean more inward to make it look more apparent that she was using the inside edge, not outside edge. As you all know from Mao's and Caroline's case, fixing a wrong edge jumping is extremely difficult, and Yuna somehow managed to fix that allegedly "wrong-edge" jump without any problem.

Now, I see on youtube that Yuna is underrotated, and I honestly don't see where this is going. Whoever is posting these ridiculous videos, shame on you really.
 

evangeline

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
I'm really annoyed that she has had to switch to this 3Lutz-3Toe combo, though. She should not have been receiving that ! mark for her Flip. So dumb. Her 3Flip-3Toe combination is the best of any woman in history. Only Midori Ito would have been able to match the same level of quality as Yu-Na on that element.

I agree. Yu-Na's 3Lz-3T is good, but her 3F-3T was a thing to behold...it's a pity she's replaced it, because the speed, the height, the distance of her 3Lz-3T is not nearly as good as her 3F-3T.
 

evangeline

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
But I see a decline in the programs across the board. Yes, they are loaded with difficulty. But because the coaches and skaters are trying to pack difficulty into the program, they are sacrificing the overall beauty and choregraphy that used to make them works of art. During the golden epoque of Michelle, skating was an art form as well as a sport. Since then, it has become a checklist of "to do items." All the programs have a definite sameness about them. Michelle, herself, was doing some of that towards the end of her career. But the vast majority of her career and Sasha's and Irina's was spent putting unique and new competitive programs before the public. it was always exciting to see what they would come up with.

I hope I don't come off as sounding rude, but I completely disagree with you. I think the issue here is that you seem to have enshrined Michelle Kwan's time in competitive skating as "the golden epoch," the be-all-and-end-all of figure skating. Nearly everything that comes after and that is different, by definition, is bound to be inferior. Is that why you've dismissed programs like Lambiel's Poeta LP as mediocre, because it just wasn't during the vaunted 6.0 era?

And really, skating was not an art form as well as a sport in Michelle's era any more than it is now. Sure, Michelle had some breathtaking programs, but I found that she was more of the exception, not the rule. Because for every beautiful program Michelle produced, there were 10 other programs which were empty, filled with nothing but jumping with stroking in between each jump, along with a few half-hearted spins and step sequences thrown in somewhere in the program when the big jumps were done. Oh yeah, and a bit of posing during the rest period of the program to demonstrate the 'artistry' of the skater.
 
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schiele

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 13, 2009
I completely agree with you. I don't understand why she got that "!" mark, after
years of receiving GOE for her 3Flip-3Toe jump. Every single commentator said her jump was text-book perfect. (Even Yamaguchi said if Yuna's flip was to be downgraded, there was something wrong with the judges. :chorus:)

Moreover, the rules were changed this season so that if you received "!" marks, your points would be taken off. I guess it was very smart on yuna's part to go ahead and change her jump to 3Lutz-3T combination, but the fact that she "fixed" her "problematic" flip jump so easily shows that she didn't have any problem with her flip jump in the first place. In her interview, Yuna said that jumping flip without the combo was so much easier than she had expected, and she could lean more inward to make it look more apparent that she was using the inside edge, not outside edge. As you all know from Mao's and Caroline's case, fixing a wrong edge jumping is extremely difficult, and Yuna somehow managed to fix that allegedly "wrong-edge" jump without any problem.

Now, I see on youtube that Yuna is underrotated, and I honestly don't see where this is going. Whoever is posting these ridiculous videos, shame on you really.

Yea, I think this is getting to a stage, where it is really bothering the ppl trying to be objective and non judgemental about this sport.
I didnt think Yuna's LP was good choreographically (and it left me cold) compared to what I have seen from her. And I didnt like the Bond as much as I loved Dans Macabre or especially Tango (Roxanne).. But, you have to be really biased to see Yuna's technique questionable or her jumps smth you can discuss and put down. She is simply the best out there technically. Period.
Asada has great potential (and my favorite), granted, and I actually enjoyed her LP when seeing live (actually more than Yuna's) but she is having problems technically and I am not sure when or how she can fix it.
So all we can do is adore someone for being so ahead of the game. Yes the judges may be inflating the GOE's, but thats the weak point of this sport. Reputation marking will always be a problem given the nature of the judging this sport requires so why whine about smth that is not new or unique to Yuna..
 

schiele

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 13, 2009
I hope I don't come off as sounding rude, but I completely disagree with you. I think the issue here is that you seem to have enshrined Michelle Kwan's time in competitive skating as "the golden epoch," the be-all-and-end-all of figure skating. Nearly everything that comes after and that is different, by definition, is bound to be inferior. Is that why you've dismissed programs like Lambiel's Poeta LP as mediocre, because it just wasn't during the vaunted 6.0 era?

And really, skating was not an art form as well as a sport in Michelle's era any more than it is now. Sure, Michelle had some breathtaking programs, but I found that she was more of the exception, not the rule. Because for every beautiful program Michelle produced, there were 10 other programs which were empty, filled with nothing but jumping with stroking in between each jump, along with a few half-hearted spins and step sequences thrown in somewhere in the program when the big jumps were done. Oh yeah, and a bit of posing during the rest period of the program to demonstrate the 'artistry' of the skater.

Yes you are right, once in a while we have always been blessed with great artistic programmes and Poeta is definitely the first that comes to my mind. But I think the original poster has a valid point because with the way PCS are distributed, there is really very little incentive for choreography and interpretation, as we see only real variation in transition and skating skill scores and the rest of the PSCs are basiaclly distributed to the group in which the skater skates. In the old days, due to mere simplicity of marking, I believe we had more fair artistic marking (in contrast to technical marking which was very unfair sometimes). That doesnt mean we get great artistic programmes by many skaters if it is fixed, cos that is another talent on its own but I belive the skaters should be provided with more incentive to work in that direction instead of relying a skaters natural born talent to bring forward the artistry.
 

steyn

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 28, 2008
Yeah, I have to agree. I preferred Sherezade to Gershwin, but at worlds somehow the entire last spin did not even count and she only did a 3 flip/3toe, not a 3 lutz/3 toe. However, at worlds i think the axel/3 toe combo was in the second half while here it was not.

This is exactly the opposite. At Worlds, 2A/3T combo was in the first half and she got 7.50+1.0GOE = 8.5 points. On the other hand, at TEB she did it in the second half which gave her whopping 10.05 points (8.25 + 1.8GOE). This alone makes 1.55 point difference. I guess the reason she got 0.8 point more in GOE is probably due to difficult coreographies before/after the jump such as spread eagle in this case. This kind of small details add up to such a huge score. I think Orser and his company really understand COP very well and did an excellent job.
 

*Sniper*

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 17, 2006
Yea, I think this is getting to a stage, where it is really bothering the ppl trying to be objective and non judgemental about this sport.
I didnt think Yuna's LP was good choreographically (and it left me cold) compared to what I have seen from her. And I didnt like the Bond as much as I loved Dans Macabre or especially Tango (Roxanne).. But, you have to be really biased to see Yuna's technique questionable or her jumps smth you can discuss and put down. She is simply the best out there technically. Period.
Asada has great potential (and my favorite), granted, and I actually enjoyed her LP when seeing live (actually more than Yuna's) but she is having problems technically and I am not sure when or how she can fix it.
So all we can do is adore someone for being so ahead of the game. Yes the judges may be inflating the GOE's, but thats the weak point of this sport. Reputation marking will always be a problem given the nature of the judging this sport requires so why whine about smth that is not new or unique to Yuna..
:thumbsup:
 

yangjie

On the Ice
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
okey
guys, lets see how things are going on around other skaters when they performed the nice performance like yuna at SA.
imean, lets see whther other top skaters can get high score when they performe a nice skating.
if they cant get a score over 200 at that time, it would be surely XXXX
 

demarinis5

Gold for the Winter Prince!
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 23, 2004
At least we all agree that YuNa was the clear winner at TEB. As for her scores people have been questioning judging/scoring from the beginning of time, to high, to low, outrageous PC's, ridiculously low PC's etc. It goes hand & hand with forum discussions. I take it all with a grain of salt because in the end it is what it is. Many skaters have been the subject of over scoring discussions not only YuNa.

At the end of the day the fact remains that at TEB YuNa skated 2 technically strong and artistic programs which was the complete package. No doubt she worked very, very hard to achieve her results.
 

cosmos

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 2, 2007
At least we all agree that YuNa was the clear winner at TEB. As for her scores people have been questioning judging/scoring from the beginning of time, to high, to low, outrageous PC's, ridiculously low PC's etc. It goes hand & hand with forum discussions. I take it all with a grain of salt because in the end it is what it is. Many skaters have been the subject of over scoring discussions not only YuNa.

At the end of the day the fact remains that at TEB YuNa skated 2 technically strong and artistic programs which was the complete package. No doubt she worked very, very hard to achieve her results.

Great post.:clap::clap::clap:
 

prettykeys

Medalist
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
It's American culture.

O.k. for those of you that lack historical perspective and don't see the difference in the sport since Michelle skated, I can only assume that you didn't watch figure skating then or you were visually challenged. Take a look at tapes of all Michelle's competitions, nationally and internationally, the arenas were either full or just about full.

...I have watched figure skating for 47 years and I can honestly say, the programs are predictable (thank you ISU for this unGODLY point system which ensured that) and the skaters going through the motions in order to get the points. It's a tragedy and while you all sit here offering your opinions on how wonderful everything is, the sport is going to hell in a handbasket everywhere except in two countries in Asia. I sure hope some of you can get a Korean t.v. station in 2 years.
Umm... American stars tend to do very well internationally because American culture is the most exported culture in the world, and not nearly to the same extent are cultures and other nations' sensations imported into the U.S.

I'm happy for you that you have been watching figure skating for longer than I have been alive, but my interest started with Kristi Yamaguchi (as a kindergartender) and then waned with the Kerrigan/Harding drama. When I saw Michelle Kwan I only felt like I was missing Kristi, so I lapsed out until I caught glimpses of Irina and Sasha.

I imagine if YuNa or Mao had been American, their popularity would have exploded in the U.S. and the resultant waves would have hit the international scene. It's a product of American culture, its power and exportability. I don't think it was Michelle Kwan was a star only because it was Michelle Kwan; if she were, say, a national Chinese, figure skating in the U.S. would have been magical, thriving, and swooning over her?? Oh, please. Highly doubt it.

I can still watch bits of Michelle performances and they don't really impress me. By all means, she is an extraordinary performer and had a long, consistent career, but her spirals were not like Sasha's, her athletic power was not like Irina's, her jumps were not as amazing as either YuNa or Mao's. And I am likewise unimpressed with a certain Sarah Hughes who outperformed Michelle at the last Olympics she went to. Nay, I was quite content to follow men's figure skating when Michelle was at her peak. Imagine Yagudin or Plushenko as Americans, and tell me they would not have blown up the American figure skating scene either.
 

Tinymavy15

Sinnerman for the win
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 28, 2006
Honestly, this is the second time I've come across someone making the ridiculous assertion that YuNa deliberately and pre-meditatedly skipped her 3flip, and it's only come from posters who are clearly prejudiced against YuNa in the first place.


I meant my comment more as a joke.
 

Wicked

Final Flight
Joined
May 26, 2009
I finally finished watching all of the ladies' LPs. I really liked Yukari. I thought her music, costume, and choreo really worked well.
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
Prettykeys, you poor thing.

Michelle had some of the best programs ever and the strongest skating skills of ANY modern female skater.

Criticizing her Spiral really makes me question what you are watching. Her blade control on that move is superior to every other woman in the history of skating.
 

silverlining

Rinkside
Joined
Dec 8, 2007
What I meant was, even the most casual skating fan, someone who watched figure skating for the first time in his/her life, after Yu-na's LP, could not have looked around the room and said "...so that's it?", unless he/she was expecting some kind of nudity.

Oh boy. That is an incredibly bold and highly subjective opinion, not a fact.
Care to back it up?
Did you take a poll?
Do you speak for the ENTIRE "casual skating fans" that watched this program?
If you do, you forgot to ask me, because I've been one of them for about 15 years.

I was looking forward to watching her skate again in SA and reevaluating my take on her LP with some useful pointers I gathered from this thread, but I feel kind of stupid and perverted after your post, so maybe I shouldn't bother.

You see, I don't have to substantiate my claim because I said,
"... could not have looked around...", which means it's not factual.
It's what's called the "subjunctive mood".
Had I said, "... did not look around...", then I would have to present you with all my raw data and survey results, etc.

Hey, sniper, this is a friendly forum and I didn't mean to offend you and sorry if I did. Nobody thinks that you were really expecting Yu-na to skate in her birthday suit.

It was just a rhetorical question because I couldn't imagine anybody saying, "so that's it?" after seeing Yu-na skate, or after anybody's performance for that matter.

And please watch Yu-na's LP when she performs in Lake Placid, it's a good program. And Sasha and Fumie and Rachel, and the rest of the bunch. They will all be skating their hearts out to please figure skating fans like yourself.
 

prettykeys

Medalist
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
I meant my comment more as a joke.
I'm sorry! That was dumb of me. Someone genuinely made that statement and said YuNa was "complacent" and deliberately skipped the flip, which ticked me off the first time, and hearing it again (in jest) by you made me pounce you. My bad.

Prettykeys, you poor thing.

Criticizing her Spiral really makes me question what you are watching. Her blade control on that move is superior to every other woman in the history of skating.
What am I watching? I'm watching Sasha's spiral leave Michelle's in the dust. Michelle may have been a very strong, passionate skater (with almost no weaknesses), but she wasn't quite the best at any individual component. As a YuNa fan, I should be the last person to criticize Michelle's spiral, but alas, it's going to be criticized vis a vis Sasha's better positioning, higher flexibility, and more pointed foot (although Michelle does have good blade control and speed.)

No one's going to call me blind on this one:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Sasha_Cohen_2009_SOI_Halifax_Spiral.jpg

http://content2.myyearbook.com/zenhex/images/quiz22/107777/107777_res1.jpg

One is very good; the other is outstanding.

I suppose if Michelle had just the best programs ever, excuse my deprived childhood and/or brain damage. I've been able to do just about everything except realize that. :agree:
 
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