Ladies LP | Page 22 | Golden Skate

Ladies LP

Kinga

Medalist
Joined
Feb 15, 2008
Katha, I'm with you on both counts! Maybe the judges, knowing Mao's capacities and wanting to keep her in the game, gave her the unusually high PC numbers. It's not as though they deprived anyone of a gold medal. They were probably playing favorites, yes, but Mao is such an unusual skater (at least she was) that I think they were trying to preserve some shred of her hopes to keep her going.

The judges are probably giving Mao the benefit of the doubt, because they know what she has been and is capable of. I am not sure why people are obsessing about it for, because her PCS was not completely outrageous, and it doesn't change the the medalling outcome.

The arguments that Mao's PCS did not change the medalling outcome, therefore she could have been gifted high mark is ridiculous. It is still not fair, and judges should never think along these lines. And if only one of the ladies was deprived of 5th place because of inflated Mao's score, it would be sad and unfair.
Any way, I can agree that her SS score is ok. Interpretation and Performance, definitely NOT.

First, Let me make it clear that I am not particularly interested in Mao's PCS. I just hope that she will recover soon.

That said, I don't agree with you. I believe I fully understand your point but your argument is incomplete, IMHO. I know many people think that way but I never agree. The reason is very simple. Skating skills, performance/execusion, choreography, interpretation and so on, these program components have to be all related to how a skater executes the technical elements. You can say that it is not linearly related but it does not mean that they are totally unrelated. If a skater fails some of his jumps, then the performance score should be lower because his whole performance is worse. It should also make bad effects on choreography and interpretation. Otherwise, the program should have no contents from the very beginning.

For example, If success or failure of a jump does not make any difference in performance or interpretation, then the program must be very badly choreographed because the jump is not effectively positioned in the right place of the program to make it look spectacular.

The whole performance including technical elements, transitions, flow, edge quality and so on, all should make a single complete program. You cannot simply detach technical elements in evaluating PCS. They do make huge difference. The better a program is, the more PCS should depend on TES. If not, something is wrong; either the score is wrong or the program itself is empty.

I agree with everything you said.

Just rewatched Leonova - she is the best bet for the European title. If she skates like this weekend or a bit better at Europeans, she should win. Between Carolina Kostner, who seems totally lost, and the Finnish girls, who rarely land more than 3 or 4 Triples in their programs - and those are often the easy ones, Leonova is the best European Lady out there. I just enjoy seeing her skate. Yes, she is not refined or anything, her edging is rather mediocre, her spins average - but she gets the job done, and delights large portions of the audience with her job.

I would not count Sarah Meier off. :) She can definitely challange Leonova and others. I would actually be thrilled if she finally won that title!
 

Wicked

Final Flight
Joined
May 26, 2009
I would not count Sarah Meier off. :) She can definitely challange Leonova and others. I would actually be thrilled if she finally won that title!

Me too.
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
Very disappointing LPs.

Miki's program could be so good. Her problem is really that she thinks too much while performing. She can't seem to let the music take her over.

Wagner skated well but the program is kind of boring.

Alissa deserved a medal over Leonova. The deduction she received on the Loops was too severe and she doesn't get enough credit for those spins.
 

PolymerBob

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2007
I've been off the computer today, so I'm a little late. But .........

!!!!!!! GREAT JOB ASHLEY !!!!!!! :rock: ... :clap:
 

Basics

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 8, 2009
Any way, I can agree that her SS score is ok. Interpretation and Performance, definitely NOT.

:agree: Second that! It's really unfair to give a skater the best Performance/Execution score while she only completes two easy triples.
 

Basics

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 8, 2009
Exactly, skating and basic skills are a part of the PCS too, too many of us armchair fans associate PCS=performance + failed jumps.

:yes: Well, most of us surely know that. LOL I do agree that Mao has one of the best SS of all the ladies. But then how can you explain the fact that Mao still received the highest PE score while she only completed two fairly easy triples? (3Lo,3T) I don't think spins and spiral played a big factor here because there are many other skaters with beautiful spins and spiral,like Alissa Czisny, who do not always get the good PE score due to the lack of jumping ability.
 
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Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Blades of Passion, I'm interested to hear you say that you think Alissa should have gotten higher scores than Leonova. I always wish that Alissa would get better marks for the stuff she excels at, but it's nice to hear someone else say it!

You're not the first person I've heard say that spins aren't given enough weight in the scoring system. My feeling is that when someone is so clearly above par in a significant skill, as Alissa is in her spins (despite other weaknesses), there should be some attention paid. She's up there with Lucinda Ruh and Stephane Lambiel in terms of quality but also in terms of interest. Her spins aren't just tricky contortions--they're beautiful and interpretive of the music. They make her skating matter. They make me respond to her music. In fact, her entire skate is harmonious to a degree that's uncommon even in the top skaters. Her movements flow from one to the next as the music flows from one note to the next. Of course she needs steadier jumps. But to me, Alissa is one of the skaters whose good skates are worth waiting for. Fortunately, she had two pretty good ones this weekend.
 

Medusa

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
Spins are valued, and enough I think. E.g. Lambiel gets 5 points with his final spin in his programs. That's the same value you get with a Triple Loop. Joubert will never get 5 points for a spin, fortunately he knows how to land a Triple Axel, though. But there are only three spins in a program, so naturally the jumps are still more important. More spins in the program would severely limit movement over the ice, footwork, moves in the field etc.

And I still don't get the fuss over Czisny. She is slow, her edges are nothing special, she looks like a scared rabbit before every jump. But yes, her spins are very nice.
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
Alissa isn't as slow, from what I remember, LIVE... and she's captivating... there's just something girl next door about her that makes a person want to watch her...

she'll never be a cutthroat competitor... kinda reminds me of Josee Chouinard (though she was more spunk than flow)
 

prettykeys

Medalist
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
About the correlation between technical scores and program component scores...
Agree with your whole post! Some Program Components depend more on hitting the technical elements, and others depend less.

And I still don't get the fuss over Czisny. She is slow, her edges are nothing special, she looks like a scared rabbit before every jump. But yes, her spins are very nice.
:rofl: your comments are hilarious. I just had the cutest vision...
 

mel66

Rinkside
Joined
Oct 15, 2009
:agree: I agree with your post goPC2018.




I don't think her movement of the body and lines were great there either. And you think jumping is unrelated to PCS that much? So... Basically you are saying that no matter how much you mess up the entire performance by popping the jumps, you can still make up the points in PCS.... That doesn't sound right to me because jumps are the most critical parts of the program. According to that logic, a skater who can't do any triple jump could get on ice, and then end up on the 1st position because she gets tremendously high pcs. Hmmmm.. I really enjoyed Mao's jr years, and I thought she was talented. But receiving such high PCS when she messed up the whole program is not fair to the other ladies, who executed their programs so much better by completing their required elements much more successfully. It was painful to watch Mao on the ice, and it looked to me as though she wanted to run away from the ice. Moreover, her spins were slower than usual, and her spiral looked like she was gonna stop on the ice. Don't forget that she didn't meet the 6 second requirement on her spiral in sp, and she still received that ridiculously high pcs.



............... See, this is what I am talking about. We are talking about Mao's PCS being inflated, and you again have to bring in Yuna. Sigh. Some fans say that Yuna's PCS is inflated, but Yuna always received PCS that is LOWER than her TES. On the other hand, Mao here received PCS that was 18-19 points HIGHER than her TES. So, applying that calculation, since Yuna got 43.80 on her sp TES in France, then she should have gotten around 52 on her PCS, which would make her SP to come to a total of 95. WOW. You think that makes any sense???

In reality, Yuna's PCS in sp was 32.28 with a clean performance, whereas Mao's sp PCS was 28.84 with a fall, and 2 jumps missing.... Not even 4 point difference.

Now, let's look at their LP programs. Yuna missed one flip jump, but everything else was flawless. Her TES was 67.55, and her PCS was 66.40, again her PCS being lower than her TES. I remember reading on this forum that some people were saying that her PCS was too high, since she missed that one jump. On the other hand, Mao missed.... gosh I don't even know how many jumps she missed... She missed more than 5... Her TES was only 40.06, but yet her PCS was 59.28.... HUH???

I am sorry, but I cannot agree with you on "whose score is clearly inflated." With a performance like that, Mao should not have gotten a high PCS such as that, and you really cannot compare Mao and Yuna's PCS on the same level.
I just feel bad for Miki, Ashley and Alissa, who performaned so much better than Mao. Especially Miki, I respect that she fixed her edge problems, and she is now clearly improving herself tremendously with her fairly new coach. I don't think Miki deserves any less than Mao. When I saw Mao's PCS, I really doubted what I was seeing.

And for your info, Mao also opens her mouth in "O" shape during bells of moscow...........And during her interview, the media praised her to be extremely expressive...




omg... I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU.
I don't have any doubt on the score Mao got for her skating skills. But the rest of components? I'm not sure. I don't understand how her FS score is more than 10 points lower than Miki's yet her PCS is higher than Miki's.

And like you said, I just remember last week how people were saying yuna's PCS is inflated because she missed one flip. Then how about Mao, huh? This is really funny.

I don't like Mao vs. Yuna thing but see who's score is inflated?



I really respect Miki's decision to fix her edge problem too! I am happy to see Miki being rewarded. She really deserves it :clap:
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
Spins are valued, and enough I think. E.g. Lambiel gets 5 points with his final spin in his programs. That's the same value you get with a Triple Loop.

Actually, no it's not.

A Triple Loop in that part of the program would be worth 5.5 points base value. Add a +1 GOE and it's worth 6.5.

Almost every top competitor can do a Triple Loop.

But an extremely small amount of people can do a spin with the same level of quality as Lambiel at his best.

Spins are not given enough credit.
 

yangjie

On the Ice
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
everyone should agree that
If mao wins,korean would say MAO WAS CHEATING
If yu-na wins,Japanese would say YUNA WAS CHEATING

wow fantastic right?

sports always inspire the nationalism.

I hope other people who are not neither Japanese or Koreans are fede up.

but we have nothing to do.

Japanese and koreans have always have conflicts.
 

James R

Match Penalty
Joined
Oct 26, 2009
This has nothing to do with Mao or Yu-na. It has to do with the very future of this sport.

What happened with Mao's PCS is disgusting and shameful. SHAMEFUL. Same with Yu-na's inflation last week. They've forced this code of points system on us, talking about the evils of 6.0, and here it is again proven in both of the first 2 GP events this season that nothing has been fixed, only made worse. Code of a points is a joke, an utter travesty. A complex mess of numbers the public can't understand, all of which are there simply to cover up the same bias and unfairness that still exists. What's the point of any of these competitions if they aren't being judged fairly? There is none.

Why don't you think about all the years of work and sacrifice all of these skaters endure. And for what? Why don't you think about how much better figure skating could be if it was finally judged fairly, and how many times we've been let down by the judges, again and again, over and over. Get mad. Then do something about it. Complain to the ISU, or USFSA. Tell other people what needs changed and why. Because unless people do this, nothing will ever change, and our sport will never be a real sport.
 

ann918

Rinkside
Joined
Oct 24, 2009
This has nothing to do with Mao or Yu-na. It has to do with the very future of this sport.

What happened with Mao's PCS is disgusting and shameful. SHAMEFUL. Same with Yu-na's inflation last week. They've forced this code of points system on us, talking about the evils of 6.0, and here it is again proven in both of the first 2 GP events this season that nothing has been fixed, only made worse. Code of a points is a joke, an utter travesty. A complex mess of numbers the public can't understand, all of which are there simply to cover up the same bias and unfairness that still exists. What's the point of any of these competitions if they aren't being judged fairly? There is none.

Why don't you think about all the years of work and sacrifice all of these skaters endure. And for what? Why don't you think about how much better figure skating could be if it was finally judged fairly, and how many times we've been let down by the judges, again and again, over and over. Get mad. Then do something about it. Complain to the ISU, or USFSA. Tell other people what needs changed and why. Because unless people do this, nothing will ever change, and our sport will never be a real sport.



I seriously dont get why everyone's dragging Yuna into this...
I agree that Mao's PCS was inflated this time, but Yuna in TEB???

Didn't she have an absolutely clean programme apart from that missed flip?
I thought the whole point of skipping the jump was to save her PCS b/c otherwise
she would've failed the jump and that would make everything even worse..

Apart from that, I also think the reason why everyone feels that Mao's PCS was inflated is b/c of her programme itself

Like Kurt and Tracy said, Bells seems like it's mainly programmed about the jumps, so when she fails the jumps, I couldnt concentrate on her other skating
components and got the impression that the programme was unsuccesfully skated.
 

figurejennah

On the Ice
Joined
Jun 27, 2009
No...as we saw at CoR, if Mao misses her jumps, her TES is severely impacted, dropping her into 5th out of medal contention and out of the GPF. You say that rank can be determined by very little score difference, and that PCS is the determining factor. So you're saying the TES for both skaters is nearly identical, no? In that case, PCS SHOULD be the determining factor.

In short, by saying the PCS is the determining factor in a win, you're basing the assumption that the TES among the 2 skaters are identical. ie. if Leonova & Mao tie in the TES (which clearly wasn't the case yesterday).

I don't think you understand what I wrote. I did say that in order to win, Mao does have to get her jumps right; however, giving her high PCS whether she messes up the program or not gives her a huge relief. In other words, she is guaranteed to have an advantage over others who has the pressure to perform clean to receive high PCS. You keep saying that TES and PCS factors are irrelevant, which means, even if Mao messed up 2 jumps let's say, she is easily capable of winning over other skaters who performed clean because of her high PCS. At cup of russia, Mao messed up so badly that receiving PCS 19 points higher than her TES seemed irrelevant, but that does not mean that she was clearly favored over others. I don't understand why you can't see the simple logic that it is unfair to receive high score when the skater does not perform well. Whether Mao had a hiccup or not, admit it, IT WAS A TERRIBLE performance, I don't understand why you keep saying that she deserved that high PCS when she looked like she didn't even have the will to finish the whole performance.

Also, I brought up world 2008 because so many people dragged Yuna into this, and then criticize her for receiving high PCS after her clean performance. We all know that world 2008 champion was determined by 1 point difference. PCS can determine the ranks, and when you have both amazing performances by two incredible skaters, why should one receive PCS lower than the other? Everyone knows that Yuna is well capable of receiving a high PCS score, and also many people here in the forum criticize yuna for receiving high PCS that she does not "deserve." Nevertheless, when you look at 2008 world, Yuna's FS' TES was 64.82, and PCS was 58.56 after she singled her lutz. In comparison, Mao's TES was 61.89, but her PCS was 60.57, after she fell on 3A. Can't you see what receiving high PCS can do affect the ranks, and I feel uncomfortable that Mao almost always receives PCS higher than her TES, when others DO NOT.

And I guess that makes me uncomfortable, because to my eyes, Miki, Alissa, Ashley deserved more at Russia, but it also showed what more can be done with these scores...
 
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Kinga

Medalist
Joined
Feb 15, 2008
Well Leonova has a nice smile and charming personality, but her skating is nothing to swoon about. The polish isn't there, it WILL be there by 2014 but still, flat. Now as for Rachael Flatt (who i find extremely non-thrilling and just plain out flat) has like zero speed (sorry Rachael!) and just no charisma. Whatsoever.

Now both these ladies are workhorses so I'm sure they wil improve by the end of this season or next. Flatt needs more speed, style, speed, better lines, speed, better posture, speed if she wants to be World Champion. And also not to be so boring. (sorry Rachael!)

I still dont understand why you drag Rachel into this. Of course she needs to improve on many aspects of her skating, but what we discuss here is not HER inflated PCS. She was not crowned World Champion...

Any way, no matter how much charisma (if any), charm and polish Mao has, it is not the GENERAL capacities that are judged, but the actual performance. In Moscow Mao did not show her musicality and charm, simply because she looked scared, she did not skate to the music, she did not shine. All her skating skills to me are lost in such performance. And this is what should be judged. But it was not.
Leonova, instead - she might not be polished skater, yet she has tones of charisma, and you cannot deny that. She showed much more attitude in her skating than Mao did. I like Mao a lot, and so do you, but what is different between me and you is that you are obviously biased.
 

bekalc

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
I don't know. I was telling my mother how bad terrible Mao's performance was, so she finally watched it last night.

And she was like it's not nearly as bad as you were saying, I was expecting her to fall all over the place. And I actually think my mom was making a fair point here.. Mao's PCS were down for her performance in TEB.

What happened with Mao's PCS is disgusting and shameful. SHAMEFUL. Same with Yu-na's inflation last week

You cannot compare Yu-na's scores and Mao's scores. Yu-na gave two wonderful performances, and really had only one hiccup. Her PCS for the short were deserved and while I thought her long PCS were high, you have to figure in that Mao got 60 PCS for a performance that was much shakier.

Besides Yu-na went last after all of the rest of the competitors, and out performed them. So she was going to win regardless.
 

evangeline

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
Can't we say BOTH Mao's and Yu-Na's PCS may have been inflated, and leave it at that? :disapp:

It's not always either/or, people! And contrary to what some may think, score inflation/PCS padding exists in other disciplines as well (e.g. Savchenko/Szolkowy at TEB).....sure, it's not fair but it's not a problem exclusive to Mao or Yu-Na.
 

SerpentineSteps

On the Ice
Joined
Aug 18, 2009
Can't we say BOTH Mao's and Yu-Na's PCS may have been inflated, and leave it at that? :disapp:

It's not always either/or, people! And contrary to what some may think, score inflation/PCS padding exists in other disciplines as well (e.g. Savchenko/Szolkowy at TEB).....sure, it's not fair but it's not a problem exclusive to Mao or Yu-Na.

See? Everything would have been all said and done had Tiger Woods won.
 
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