Grand Prix Final: Ladies LP

[colleen o'neill]

I'm still suffering from sitting up squinting at my monitor half the night, so I haven't read everything posted yet, just a random peek here and there, and I don't want to get involved in any knee-jerk Miki Vs. Yuna rantings.. but I think it's a buttercup post fom some pages back that I want to second here..GET MIKI AWAY FROM MOROZOV !..What a hideous , hideous costume. Is he trying to humiliate her ? It only makes it more sad and cruel that she has to go head to head with Yuna, who ( leaving aside their relative skating skills) has a beautifully sophisticated, elegant costume and program.

Good for Ashley and Akiko ...Who can doubt Leonova will bounce back ?...Joannie better bounce back...Someone mused after the SP that not placing well here might take the pressure off her. I wish I could say I agreed. Hope she finds a way to fight through...

[R.D.]

Someone mused after the SP that not placing well here might take the pressure off her. I wish I could say I agreed. Hope she finds a way to fight through...

Actually I think that person has a point. However, the Olympics ARE in Canada...I still say she has an advantage because of that. I do think Ando is more likely to be a spoiler than Rochette though.

[ae9177]

Congrats Yuna, Miki and Akiko! I'm SO happy for Akiko! Good for Ashely, this will give her another confidence boost at the Nationals. My money will be on Rachael and Ashely to make the Olympic team. (Although I still hope Mirai can make a miracle...)

[DragonPhoenix]

I'm still suffering from sitting up squinting at my monitor half the night, so I haven't read everything posted yet, just a random peek here and there, and I don't want to get involved in any knee-jerk Miki Vs. Yuna rantings.. but I think it's a buttercup post fom some pages back that I want to second here..GET MIKI AWAY FROM MOROZOV !..What a hideous , hideous costume. Is he trying to humiliate her ? It only makes it more sad and cruel that she has to go head to head with Yuna, who ( leaving aside their relative skating skills) has a beautifully sophisticated, elegant costume and program.

Why the heck should she get away from Morozov ???

So far, he has worked out pretty well for her, and the record stands for itself.
Morosov is working out fine for Oda as well.

Also, nothing wrong with her trying out different costumes. Perhaps, I prefer her gold color Cleopatra costume from earlier this season to this one, but that is subjective anyway.

But words like sad and cruel ? Please, don't make me laugh

[colleen o'neill]

Oh, I agree ,generally, that getting the spotlight off a skater ( for whatever reason ) or a sudden lowering of expectation around him/her can work that way. But the pressure will still be on Joannie in Canada because unlike Japan or say, the US, we don't have a deep field of contenders of comparable calibre. I do think that she'll have that home advantage in Vancouver..but there'll be two months of unrelenting pressure leading up to it....be strong, Joannie

BTW, I'm not talking about an advantage to win..just to skate her best..let the chips fall where they may.

[viv]

... Yeah, I know haters wouldn’t listen to whatever I say, but I still shared my opinion because I saw someone else (who didn’t seem to be anti-Yuna) complaining she was always making excuses. So, my post was for her/him/them as well

Thanks!

I'm not anti-Yuna at all, in fact I think she is a great skater and I didn't say any "horrid" things about her, as someone above wrote. I just don't like her attitude of making excuses, and I noticed that she tends to do that whenever she didn't skate flawless - and very often she says she doesn't want to make excuses when she is doing exactly that. IMO she could just have played the incident with her blades down when asked by the press. I'm not an uber of any other female skater, that's just my opinion.

[Tinymavy15]

I think if Miki had done that 3/3 she would have won. (or should have won). She must be kicking herself. I hope that Joannie can pull it all together, she is not handling the pressure on being a medal contender at all well...in a way that silver last year was the worst thing for her because not her country' s expectations are sky high. Two beautiful programs, but if she can't skate them clean.....

nice job Ashely, but she still is a question mark for the international judges, something that USFSA should consider when choosing the olympic team. A short like that in Vancouver will leave her down in 13 place or so.

[Basics]

huooooooo~ finally it's over. What a fight for Yuna! Congrats to all the medalists!

[YN fan]

Man, I'm really liking this podium look (not saying that I didn't want other skaters to be on the podium). Congrats to everybody....I mean everybody. There are so many wolrd class skaters. I think that making it to the GPF itself is a huge accomplishment.

[chuckm]

Yep, Ashley may have just helped her case with the USFS, to be assigned one of the USA's OG spots. And Akiko to get preference over Fumie for a spot...though Akiko vs Yukari might be a tougher call.

Hmmm. If Rochette and Leonova had skated merely mediocre performances, Ashley would have been last, because her SP score was so low. She finished 4th only because those two skaters utterly and unexpectedly bombed.

What tells the story is that Ashley was 12 points out of the medals. Why? Because in the SP, she got gigged on all 3 jumps: She two-footed the flip in combination and the flutz (which got "e") and URd the 2A. In the FS, she URd the flip in the 2A sequence and again got a 2-point deduction for her flutz.

Ashley needs to do the 3Lo in the SP in place of the lutz, and in the FS replace the lutz with a 3T. A clean 3T with +GOE will score higher than a lutz with an "e".

[R.D.]

Hmmm. If Rochette and Leonova had skated merely mediocre performances, Ashley would have been last, because her SP score was so low. She finished 4th only because those two skaters utterly and unexpectedly bombed.

True, but it's not like Ashley pulled the rug from under them or something

(IOW, it's not her fault they bombed...it's about who's the best on THAT NIGHT- you either bring it or you don't. Also, that's exactly how she got to the GPF in the first place- she benefited from skaters bombing- e.g. Asada)

[Iscariot]

akiko's program its a beauty, love the last moves in her step sequence such a shame that even with 7 triples she is still having pcs of a junior
glad to see miki dealing with the pressure at home, its a shame she ur her salchow she could have won even without the 3-3 or 2-3
contrats to yuna for winning again, its seems that her pcs dependes of her combinations, she got the same at skate america
i really liked this podium , altthoug i miss mao

[Trewyn]

Hmmm. If Rochette and Leonova had skated merely mediocre performances, Ashley would have been last, because her SP score was so low. She finished 4th only because those two skaters utterly and unexpectedly bombed.

What tells the story is that Ashley was 12 points out of the medals. Why? Because in the SP, she got gigged on all 3 jumps: She two-footed the flip in combination and the flutz (which got "e") and URd the 2A. In the FS, she URd the flip in the 2A sequence and again got a 2-point deduction for her flutz.

Ashley needs to do the 3Lo in the SP in place of the lutz, and in the FS replace the lutz with a 3T. A clean 3T with +GOE will score higher than a lutz with an "e".

I don't think Ashley's SP was a disaster as people make it out to be; the flip was fully rotated (but two footed) and the axel wasn't badly underrotated (very strict tech caller). But Ashley has got to stop two-footing jumps! She didn't two-foot any jumps in Russia and I was so hopeful she had done away with that bad habit and it pains me to see it re-emerging. But her LP was very convincingly skated so she 'earned' that placement; 107+ is a very respectable score.

I also feel that as long as Ashley's not capable to get the lutz on the correct edge she should leave it out of the SP because it's killing her score! Her technique on the lutz looked totally weird in the SP so I do believe she's working on it, but it's far from competition ready. And where's that triple-triple you say you're working on, Ashley? It's reported that she landed it multiple times in the GPF practices but we've yet to see it...

But all in all I think Ashley pretty much made the best of her GPF outing. She also tweeted that she had the flu (she did look pale in the SP) so I still believe she can very well peak in January .

[inside edge]

Joannie becoming a lot like Alissa in that she can't be counted on to land more than 3-4 clean triples in the long. Also, I like how her LP here was comparable to the one she put down at SC and she got a 95 here and a 112 there ....hmm Canada. Plus if her scores were 2/10 of a point lower she would have been last.

I agree
Joannie is one of my fav , but
PCS boost for Joannie at SC was just ridiculous.
:frown2:

[chloepoco]

After watching the ladies short and long programs, these are the words I would use to describe the skaters:

Yuna - Ethereal (What more is there to say? Such a beautiful and talented skater!)
Miki - Gorgeous (Another beautiful skater!)
Akiko - Effervescent (Love her cheeriness! And her long program!!!)
Ashley - Spunky (Full of energy)
Joannie - Mature (Calm and passionate)
Alena - Spirited (Carefree)

Love them all!