Ladies LP | Page 19 | Golden Skate

Ladies LP

R.D.

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I think Ashley Wagner might have a good chance to win the US title. She looked pretty good today even if she had some UR's and a flutz. At this rate Czisny may not even make it to the Olympic squad. That will also depend on how Cohen's comeback pans out. Hopefully Cohen will actually skate at Skate America next month. US women's championships should prove very interesting.

Assuming she skates like she did in Moscow (or better), yes, her chances are quite good. But I would not want the pressure of National champ to be on her. Better for her to finish in the 2nd position and have the national champ title go to someone else (Flatt, for instance)
 

PROKOFIEV

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 1, 2009
As much as I love to see Rachael win at the olympic, I know it is almost impossible for her. But I believe it is still very possible for Mao to win. I believe that Mao is the best skater right now. (whether I am her fan or not is irrelevant).
She has a problem of flutzing, but all other jumps are great and she is able to do all the triples. Her spin positions are beautiful.I love her one hand beillman. She shows great flexibility in her spiral position and edge change is pretty stable. Her footwork is amazing with a lot of edge changes and turns. In her program, she shows a lot of stamina. She can keep on going all the way till the end without stopping. I think her lack of confidence is causing problems. I hope she will recover from it. I just do not want her to listen to too many people.


As for Ashley, I thought her dresses are beautiful and she did skate well compared with others. I have seen her skating in person at the competition in Pennsylvania about 3 years ago and I thought she had much cleaner jumps with a lot of hights that time. I feel as she improved on her artistry, she lost clean jumps. I am sorry to say that her basic skating skills such as stroking and footworks were not good at all and I can still see that in the on tube video of today. She was lucky to get the second today, but the luck is a part of game, too!!
 
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figurejennah

On the Ice
Joined
Jun 27, 2009
So Tarasova said :
' I don't go to Japan that often because of my family and health issues. To get to Nagoya I have to fly to Tokyo and then go 3 hours on a train and 1 hour on a car. The last time I was there it was in August and on the way back on a plane I felt very sick, something was wrong with my heart.
Jeanna Folle, my assistant works permanently in Japan but sometimes she also has to go away. In this case Mao's Mum puts all her energy in Mao's training and tries to finish all the work I've done with Mao.
Mao works very hard, sometimes too hard. Her body has formed for about 70%. Now it's a hard time for this girl. I respect Mao for such a hard work and I hope she will get positive result in the future. Unfortunately I can't work with her as much as I do with my skaters. I have to ask myself many questions when the situation with her skating is like this.
I don't want to spoil her results. We have communication difficulties because of language barrier. I'm only her consultant and I feel lack of connection with her. She is not close to me maybe because of her age and different culture. '

Ahhh...it was a lot of work for me to translate it. Hope it helps to understand the situation. Personally I would recomend Mao to get full time good technical coach which can live and work with her in Japan.


If this is true, then why didn't Mao go to Russia to train with her full-time? I was reading previous posts including posts from other threads, and many people mentioned that Mao needs a full-time coach who can take care of Mao, like how Yuna has Brian Orser. However, if Mao really needed and wanted a full-time coach, she needed to fly to Russia to be with Tarasova. I think it's absolutely Mao's fault that she did not do that. Brian Orser is not in Korea to train Yuna, Yuna is in Canada being separated from her family to train with him. Mao has a beautiful ice rink for her in Japan and it might have been more comfortable for her to stay there, but Mao made a big mistake for not going to Russia. Yes, it is true that many people dislike TAT's style with Mao, but no one can deny that TAT is a capable coach and produced numerous legendary skaters. I think it would have made a huge difference if Mao went to Russia and trained with TAT full-time. I can't even describe my feelings for Mao right now. I watched her LP... and my heart is filled with a huge ... huge disappointment. She is not the same person who I saw 2 years ago, and she didn't even seem like she had the will to finish the competition...That's what upsets me. I thought no matter what, Mao would finish the competition with her strong wills, but she didn't. Where were her desire and will for higher challenges? A real champion knows how to face these challenges, no matter how difficult they may be.

Also, I mentioned this earlier, but Mao's PCS is WAY too high. I think this competition should be a wake up call for her, and she should have received a lower score. Her PCS is higher than the top 3 ladies including Miki, and that is just unacceptable. Mao needs to go back and figure out where she went wrong. Focusing on 3A is not working for her anymore. She needs to go back to the basics and restart everything.
 
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bmelanie

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 16, 2008
As much as I love to see Rachael win at the olympic, I know it is almost impossible for her. But I believe it is still very possible for Mao to win. I believe that Mao is the best skater right now. (whether I am her fan or not is irrelevant).
She has a problem of flutzing, but all other jumps are great and she is able to do all the triples. Her spin positions are beautiful.I love her one hand beillman. She shows great flexibility in her spiral position and edge change is pretty stable. Her footwork is amazing with a lot of edge changes and turns. In her program, she shows a lot of stamina. She can keep on going all the way till the end without stopping. I think her lack of confidence is causing problems. I hope she will recover from it. I just do not want her to listen to too many people.

While I don't doubt that Mao is a very talented skater, I simply don't agree that 'flutzing' is the only problem she faces right now. At this point, she has very few jumps - or even none - that she can absolutely count on to bring in the scores; certainly not her triple axel, which as of this season has a less than 30% chance of success (and even when landed has either been URed or two-footed); her triple salchow and lutz are no-shows; her triple flip was doubled today in the free skate; her triple loop and double loop received DGs at TEB; her toe-loop has not been generating lots of GOEs either. The choreography in her programs leaves me wanting, particularly at the beginning of the programs where she's packed the triple axels - they're just consuming everything that's good about her.

It's hard for any of us to judge whether Mao's recent scores have stemmed from the back-to-back competitions or mental stress or perhaps something even more fundamental, but it's pretty clear the best thing for Mao to do right now is a) find a FULL-TIME technical coach IN JAPAN who can put her back through the steps for the axel and the lutz (and polish the other jumps for good measure), b) stop thinking of the triple axel as the greatest weapon in her arsenal and start thinking smartly about all the other great strengths she has, c) re-vamp both her programs, choreographically and musically. While I'm not completely against her using heavy music like the Rachmaninoff piece, I am completely against heavy music for both her programs ('Masquerade' and 'Bells'? srsly?). I think she'll benefit from seeing a sports psychologist while she's at it, she has a slight tendency to melt after a big mistake.
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
Mao did that with her last coach (maybe last two?) and felt very homesick (which is a depression I don't wish on anyone)... so I think that is teh main reason she doesn't move to Russia

and I think TAT was more of a choice on the Japanese Federation than anything else... or so it seems... otherwise the relationship just doesn't make sense.
 

Medusa

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
While I'm not completely against her using heavy music like the Rachmaninoff piece, I am completely against heavy music for both her programs ('Masquerade' and 'Bells'? srsly?). I think she'll benefit from seeing a sports psychologist while she's at it, she has a slight tendency to melt after a big mistake.
Why can't she just go for the piano version? It's so beautiful. And there are also very light, fresh moments in the Masquerade Suite.
 

Phoenix347

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 24, 2009
I wonder what Tarasova means when she says Mao's body is only 70% formed? Is Mao in the middle of a growth spurt? Isn't she a little too old for that? If this is true, perhaps Mao is having issues adjusting to her body changing and haven't figured out how to make her jumps work with the changes in her body.

As for the choice of music and costume, I rather like her costumes (it's a departure from others) and music, while a little heavy and serious, is quite good and I think she'll figure out how to express it totally as the season continues.
 

hikki

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 18, 2007
Country
Japan
Just for the record, most Japanese fans on the net are expressing disagreement with the PCS for Mao.
 

figurejennah

On the Ice
Joined
Jun 27, 2009
Just for the record, most Japanese fans on the net are expressing disagreement with the PCS for Mao.

Can you explain more about this? PCS score of 59.28 is VERY HIGH for any performance. For your record, when Mao won 2008 world championship, her PCS was 60.57 after falling on her opening 3A.
 

Enthusiast

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 21, 2009
Hi CharlotteElizabeth, could you please give a brief translation of what Morozov said of Mao? I don't speak Russian and cannot understand a word he says:scratch:



I think Mao's PCS was right on.
 

figurejennah

On the Ice
Joined
Jun 27, 2009
Hi CharlotteElizabeth,


I think Mao's PCS was right on.


..... So... you think that her performance was just as good as her 2008 world FS performance???? huh? I think that she needs a realistic view on herself to fix everything. Mao Mao... where is my nocturne Mao...??
 

Enthusiast

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 21, 2009
..... So... you think that her performance was just as good as her 2008 world FS performance???? huh? I think that she needs a realistic view on herself to fix everything. Mao Mao... where is my nocturne Mao...??

her knees, edges and posture are as good as ever, so yes. I can ssee why us armchair fans also associate PCS=performance, however, doesn't the performance mark ALSO measure clarity of movement, line, good body alignment...?
 

Bennett

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 20, 2007
Mao said after SP she is not tired and may be mental.

I agree that switching to piano is the easiest way to address people's concerns about LP. The team also seems to be thinking of changing SP. But I wonder how willing Mao and TAT really are to make many changes after having decided that these should be the best choices when skated cleanly.
 
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