Ladies' LP

[Kitt]

Yu-na's going. She just said so She will return to Toronto soon, in order to prepare for the Worlds in March.

She really needs to work on straightening her knee and pointing the toe in the spiral. She and Brian should look at Sasha pictures. That is the only thing that spoils her perfection.

[iluvtodd]

Congrats to Yuna, Mao, and Joannie!

I hope Japan is proud of Mao winning the silver medal. She has had such a challenging season, and I'm ready to give her a big hug.

I want to give Joannie a big hug too for putting it all together, along with her courage, grace, and dignity.

Congrats to Yuna and her marvelous coach, Brian Orser!

I am so proud of our US ladies, Mirai and Rachel.

[ARipp42014]

I think the entire final flight should get a massive huge group hug for giving us one heck of a memory fans will never forget!

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((RACHAELMIKIYUNAMAOJ OANNIEMIRAI))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) )))))

[prettykeys]

And I would like to extend a note of appreciaton to CTV and TSN in Canada (and Debbie Wilkes and the team at Skate Canada for their promotion of the sport) - for their extensive and continuous coverage of the skating. It was wonderful to have access to the feeds.

The coverage we had was great. I appreciated watching YuNa, Mao, Joannie, Mirai, and Laura Lepisto (she did have a very good LP) the most.

One thing I would like to point out is that most of the talk around YuNa is based around:
1) Medal
2) Score
3) Scoring
4) Technical goods/so-so's
5) Her "muted" performance

Is anyone else not stunned that she was able to deliver her cleanest competition at the pressure-filled Olympics, coming in as the favourite, and without compromising her programs (i.e. last-minute downgrades to play it "safe")? Whatever happened to appreciating sporting excellence and competitive nerve? I have never seen anything like this from any woman in Olympics Figure Skating (the only one who compares in FS in this regard that I can think of is Alexei Yagudin in 2002. But if he didn't make it, Russia had the comfort of knowing it would be Plushenko who won, so it's more personal pressure than national.)

So yes, chide the "gushfest" all you want by the enthusiastic YuNa uberfans who want to call her the "best ever" (I know I have fuchsia-tinted glasses, too.) But I can't believe most people, especially YuNa's detractors, are shrugging that off. YuNa seems one of the "best ever" at least in that regard. The programs she managed were not easy.

Not to mention it looks really sour.

[CdnSkateWatcher]

I like that Joannie Rochette has given us a role model and an inspiration for skaters and non-skaters. She's been dignified and classy throughout, and has not milked her tragedy for press or media attention. She did not use it as an excuse or a "request for special treatment", and she went out and did her job and represented her country. She let no-one down, including her family and her home town, her supporters and her team members.

Full credit and admiration to her father for coming to see her skate last night. What a difficult week for the entire family, and how impressive they are in their strength.

[ARipp42014]

Cool thing nbc has the entire event online. Gonna see how in the heck Laura performed so well and Caro "Hubert"ing herself off the Top 10.

[CdnSkateWatcher]

The coverage we had was great. I appreciated watching YuNa, Mao, Joannie, Mirai, and Laura Lepisto (she did have a very good LP) the most.

I would like to point out that it was quite nice in Canada to see all of the skaters. It gives you a more balanced perspective on what is out there in the world at this level, as well as letting us see the potential "new stars" of the sport. When you see only the top few, or the spectacular "fails", or primarily the country's own skaters, you lack persective and basis for comparisons.

[Tinymavy15]

Yu-na gave one of the best Olympic performances of all time. I am so proud she skated her best. She did not have to be that good, but skated with freedom and this effortless quality that combined Tara's jumps and Michelle' grace at Nagano. Wow. Score well deserved.

I can't believe Mao landed those beautiful triple axels after hearing Yuna's score. She is amazing. My heart broke for her with the triple loop. Sure, she would have been silver anyway even if she had been 100% perfect but her dissapointment in the kiss and cry was tough. Mao should have had her Olympic moment in 2006. ISU messed it all up.

Joannie. So proud of her. To be honest it was not her best skate, she looked tired and at times I think she just wanted to cling onto 3rd place....like the way she did not even try thr second double Axel in her sequence at the end. Overscored, but great skate anyway.

Mirai charmed us again. This girl is magical. As for the sacrfical lamb... and for the mirai/Sasha comaprison. Sasha skated to Carmen, robbed of a medal, placed fourth.

Racheal was also robbed. No way her flip should have been downgragded but it just goes to show how these results are all based on who should win not who deseves it. I am not her biggest fan, but deserved better. She was the only lady other than yu-na to land a 3/3 in both programs. That is is behind miki is a joke.

Miki. Very dissapointing. She played it very safe, somthing i think would have changed if she skated after Mao. Painfully slow. Boring.

Elena G. Looked completly off, such a pity. I can't believe NBC did not show Laura Lipisto who seems to have skated great nor Akkiko nor Caronlina Kostner! Instead we get Tuba and the Aussie girl that nobody ever heard of!

[Jo1]

I didn't manage to wake up in the middle of the night, I just finished watching the last group up to Joannie so far, so I'm only going to comment on Mao/Yuna for now.

First of all, my impression from this Olympics is that the COP did a lot of good things but also a lot of bad things for skating. The good thing is that the ladies used to bore me to tears before but anymore, the programs have become so much more interesting, there wasn't one skater in the top 15 (of the short program) whose program I didn't enjoy (didn't see the rest), and the same is true for what I've seen of the long so far.

But on the other hand the scoring is beginning to turn me off figure skating big time, because IMO it has taken dishonest scoring to a whole new level. At least under the 6.0 system, you could only give a skater a relative advantage, now they can be given an absolute advantage so big that noone has any chance to catch up to. I also think with the COP you can almost place the skaters anywhere you want with the component/GOE scores, and sometimes some skaters are very blatantly under/overscored in a way that I've not seen before, and this is a HUGE turnoff for me.

Yuna was absolutey brilliant and she completely deserved her win, but the 20 point advantage is ridiculous.
I really can't imagine how Mao felt when she heard the scores for Yuna, that score was so huge that I think Mao had zero chance to win no matter what. I was really afraid she would collapse under the pressure, so RESPECT to her for landing both triple axels, just wow. Of course, she also made some mistakes, so I don't have any issues with her second place, and actually even if she went clean, I would still be ok with second place, but not with a score difference of 20 points which is just absurd. I feel Mao wasn't given even a theoretical chane to win this and that leaves a very bad taste for me.

I liked both Miki and Rachel, and I have to say I'm very pleasantly surprised by the US ladies because every performance I've seen from them was very enjoyable with good choreo and great musicality, so congrats to them as well.

I so totally agree with you!!! She was very good but that score IS RIDICULOUS!!!!

[silverlake22]

Mirai is awesome and blah blah Sasha Cohen, Mirai is not like Sasha Cohen, Mirai is UNIQUE and that's what I love about her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiXBCHq2f4Q

That was Mirai four months ago, yes 4 months ago, she has improved SO much, Frank really turned out to be a great coach for her, she is skyrocketing! And she seemed so happy, she mentioned that Evan was 4th at his first olympics and then won this year, so cute that they are friends . So proud of her and all the ladies last night! That was some competition!

[fairly4]

great skate from all--yu-na wow-terrific
mao--great skate
joannie good skate
mirai--great skate-
laura great skate
miki--good skate--great job-best this year
akiko--great skate--greatjob
rachel--steady as usual--personally i don't think rachel was robbed-lacked speedof of the women skaters, low jumps--to me at first glance looked ur --i had look reallyclose-also mulekicked for me in triple triple,but otherwise steady as usualy--but great job in olympics.
the rest--for decent job from all.

[ARipp42014]

Finally watched Lovely Laura's LP and now I kinda understand why she finished higher than Rachael. I really loved it! It reminded me of Joannie back in 2006 when she was around 10th and came back to finish 5th overall.

Caro, OTOH....

Gonna watch Mirai (aka Mini Kristi/Sasha). Best Carmen I've seen in a while!

[Phoenix347]

I have to agree that Flatt's downgrades were puzzling. It was close but I thought they were suppose to give the benefit of the doubt if it was close. I'm not even a fan of her skating. Otherwise the technical judging was fine.

I feel very sad for Kostner. I cannot believe that she bombed as badly as she did. It might be the worst bombing I've ever seen her do and that's saying quite a lot. I wonder if this will cause her to quit figure skating. It was interesting because initially she buried her face in her hands after the skate than she was laughing (it looked that way anyway.) Maybe that's the only way for her to handle the situation. I wonder if she'll be at the worlds. Since it's in Italy, I'm assuming that she'll be there but who know. Maybe she'll let Marchei take a shot at it.

Anyway, it was a fantastic night of skating and perhaps the most compelling figure skating competition of the games. What a performance by the final flight. The best competition I've seen in a long time. It had everything. Fierce competition, emotional drama, etc.

[Layfan]

She really needs to work on straightening her knee and pointing the toe in the spiral. She and Brian should look at Sasha pictures. That is the only thing that spoils her perfection.

Can one of the skaters around here please answer the pointed toe question? It's always bugged me about Yuna not just that she doesn't point her toes in her spiral but EVER in her program. And I noticed the other day that Ekaterina Gordeeva didn't either in 1988. both of these women are incredible skaters and their perfection only makes this one small flaw all the more noticeable.

Now, I know how hard it is to point your feet in pointe shoes. It is actually very hard. The first time you put out a pointe shoe you basically can't arch you foot inside it at all. I can only imagine how difficult it must be in wearing skates! On the other hand, maybe arch isn't even as imortant wearing skates... simply pointing your foot, if not your toes would do, I'd imagine... correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, when I studied ballet there were some girls who were way better than I could ever have hoped to be but for some reason they just couldn't really point their feet well. Their feet just wouldn't do it. So my question: Maybe Yuna just has those kind of feet? Or is it really that she neglects to point her toes?

[Mrs. P]

RE: Yuna's lead was too high

To look at things technically, strictly on base score: Mao did two 3A, but she only completed four clean non-downgraded triple jumps. The rest of the top 10 did at least five and two (Alena and Joannie) did 7. And most of the top 10 (Ksenia was the only other one, I think) did at least one triple lutz, if not two. With a lutz being worth 6 points, Mao lost 12 points just by not doing two triple lutz jumps (and more since Yuna did one of those Lutz jumps in combination and the other in the second half of the program). Without the 3A, she would only have one triple flip (in combo) and one triple loop in her LP. Those 3As, in both the SP and the LP, is what helped Mao have a secure hold on the silver, so Mao still needs to be proud that she did what she needed to do to stay in the hunt.