what has happened to men competition and the thread keeps expanding? I mean I watched the youtube vids, but didnt see anything off ice, I was ready with my morning cofee to read the thread and now it got bigger, can someone make me a resume?
Well, representing Japan, he is going to do some waiting no matter what. I love his passion, but I just keep thinking about how much better he would be with some polish & control.Originally Posted by Blades of Passion
Not much to say about these fellas that I didn't already say in my previous post.
I just hope that as these two get older & have more life experiences to draw from, they'll be able to be more expressive &/or artful, because they both clearly have the technical capacity to do so effectively.
I hope that Chan will actually do as he says he does, and use his extreme score cushion to be more creatively adventurous. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening, at least not for a long time.
I think Brezina is on his way. He clearly very much appreciates the intangible side of the sport; he remains one of the few skaters I've seen list Buttle as a favorite, so I don't worry about a lack of taste. Also, whenever I watch footage of skaters standing around during the galas, he is always the one I see who is semi-or-not-so-semi-jamming to whatever music is being played. This is all to say that there is definitely something there! I think working with Camerlengo has really helped bring this out & I hope things continue in this direction.
And that, essentially, is most people's problem with Chan; he's all ego, no heart. With him, it's all about, "look everyone, see how busy my programs can be and how many tricks I can cram into 4 and a half minutes." His fans are in on the act too with their proclamations about how much more difficult his programs are in comparison to his competitors. Whatever, I don't get any kind of emotional connection with him; he completely sacrifices heart and human connection in exchange for maximum points accumulation and super busy programs. That is why he will never be an Abbott or Takahashi or Savoie or Lambiel or Kozuka and so on. That is also why I believe many do not appreciate him in the way that he wants to be appreciated. Well, that, and the way this judging system constantly rewards him gold medals even when he makes more mistakes than others. Browning connected with the audience on an emotional level with his programs. Chan has a long way to go to learn this trait. JMO.
Last edited by museksk8r; 12-11-2011 at 06:24 AM.
Well said. The CoP is definitely partially to blame, but so is the judging. However, I respectfully disagree with your placement. Based on my personal score sheet, Chan would have still come out in first, but no way did he deserve to win the free.
Last edited by MrScroogeMcDuck; 12-11-2011 at 06:55 AM.
Wow. That is an extremely vile comment.
I agree that Hanyu needs more time to grow. I do think the judges are making him wait his turn just a bit, but he still lacks finesse.
That having been said, he is truly one of the most talented teenage male skaters the world has seen in years. Seldom do we see such a combination of athletic ability and artistic sense at that age. He will be one of the greats.
Edit: BTW, sorry for the multiple post. Forgot to multiquote.
Last edited by MrScroogeMcDuck; 12-11-2011 at 07:06 AM.
I'm super-late and I've not read the whole thread yet, but you can't even start to imagine how big is what Javi has just got. I mean, this country has less than ten ice-rinks, no more than 7 skating clubs, etc. Javi is brilliant, and I really hope people (blinded by other sports) in Spain start to notice it.
I have a workmate from Spain. She specializes in tennis when she contributes news articles. I'll point her toward Javier. I'm sure she'll be very proud to have such a wonderful athlete taking Spain in an entirely new direction in sports.
I have read enough of this thread to wonder why there's so few attention to why Chan won the free: his tariff. With two quads to Takahashi's one it was higher enough than Takahashi's that the latter had to spend all his GOE catching up. If the quad hadn't been raised so high in value, Takahashi would've had enough of a tech lead the PCS difference wouldn't have matter. Chan would've still won overall, of course, but it's the same story in the short; Chan had such a lead over Abbott because he had the quad and Abbott didn't. And you can't blame Patrick for that; he wasn't even doing the quad when we saw Plushenko's tantrum that led to the tariff being raised. Patrick's merely seen an opportunity and taken advantage by focusing on the quad(possibly to the detriment of his other jumps).
I can't believe I'm defending Chan, I don't even like him that much...but the problem's not him, and it's not CoP overall; the GOEs certainly worked exactly as they should have in the free. It's that the quad's worth too (censored) much.
I think it's rather that the falls are punished way too little. I would deduct 1 for the first, 2 for the second, 3 for the third, etc. I think a good skater has to strive for a clean skate when in competition. Also, presentation mark should suffer, falls do affect the presentation (at least for me personally), say if one falls it cant be out of 10 any more but rather out of 9 or something like that.
I did skate singles for a long time in the past, hence for me figure skating is a sport first and foremost. The best skater for me is an all around skater but that skater has to be consistent. Waiting for Han Yan to grow up, see how he'll do. So far men's field doesn't do it for me, lots of good skaters but none are outstanding.
Nice try, how about finally giving us your take on why Chan is extremely overmarked based on CoP? Could it be that you really can't but instead is trying to create distraction with these baseless accusations?
For what it is worth, Javier was completely surrounded by young girls right after the Junior Men's LP. He made the "mistake" of showing up in the stands with the medal on his neck so a mass of girls literally mobbed him and demanded pictures. He was very nice with his fans but eventually he had to try to escape because there were too many of them.
For what it is worth, Javier was completely surrounded by young girls right after the Junior Men's LP. He made the "mistake" of showing up in the stands with the medal on his neck so a mass of girls literally mobbed him and demanded pictures. He was very nice with his fans but eventually he had to try to escape because there were too many of them.
I'm sure he does appreciate the support.
He's finally making it to the Spanish press and that makes me feel so proud
wallylutz, did you watch the LP live as well?
I just saw your report about the SP. Although I didn’t watch the SP live, I’ve seen all the 6 skaters skating live—and more than once for some of them. I’m surprised how your feelings are similar to mine even though we watched different competitions. So I guess when one sees these skaters live he/she is likely to feel the same way even if he/she watches different competitions.
I’m going to quote and reply to some of your comments:
1) I personally think Chan is THE FASTEST skater I’ve ever seen, and he deserves those high SS marks. Yes, you have to see it in person to believe it, and I was shocked to see him skating so fast.
I still hope he can work on PE and IN though. I see him improving in his Aranjuez program this season, but he’s still not up there with Takahashi and Jeremy yet. JMO.
2) This is exactly what I felt when I saw Javier skating live. He was certainly slower than the rest, and his jumps were not as high, either. But I doubt he’d have the incentive to work on his SS, since he’s already so generously marked on PCS this season.
I also think he should work on his spins, but again he’s already receiving generous GOEs for his mediocre spins so I doubt he’d have the incentive to work on those.
3) I really like Brezina’s huge jumps, but don’t you think Brezina’s also kind of slow compared to Chan, Takahashi, Jeremy, and Hanyu? I also noticed that Brezina receives low and even “0.00” GOEs for his spins, whereas Fernandez’ spins aren’t that much better but receive much higher GOEs…
4) I barely knew this guy before I saw him skating live, but after watching the competition live I started to like him. I agree that his skating skills and artistry are very good already. After seeing him and Javier live I’m wondering why Javier receives a much higher PCS than Hanyu.
It surprises me that Javier has lost to Hanyu on TES four consecutive times (in both SP and LP at COR and GPF), yet was still able to win the GPF event with a 5-point margin on PCS. This is not like Chan or Takahashi beating Hanyu with their even superior SS; on the contrary, Javier’s SS are just not as good as Hanyu’s. Comparing scores of these two skaters, it’s obvious that Javier is overscored on PCS, and Hanyu is lowballed.
TES are self-explanatory most of the time once you examine the protocol. Although Javier has a higher base mark, his execution (GOE) has had issues, causing the overall GOE to be lower. It's easy to overlook the fact that Javier did two Quads to Hanyu's one but counting just Quad is just as wrong as counting just falls because both are making the mistake of "focused on the tree but missed the forrest".
As for why Javier scored higher PCS than Hanyu. Again, SS is not the only component - it merely counts for 20% of the total PCS. I know Serious Business and others have questioned why Javier is getting such solid SS mark in the LP - I already took the time to do an in-depth review of Javier's SS, comparing both his SP and LP, based each criterion of SS breaking down individually from another competition. Suffice to say, SS isn't static and can very improve from SP to LP. In Javier's case, that is indeed the case. While he was noticeably slow in the SP, he had better speed in the LP.
As for other possible explanation why the Spaniard may score better in the PCS overall, I think Javier projects his expression more directly and outwardly than Hanyu. Hanyu is expressive in his own ways but for him, it's personal and towards himself (inward). An argument can be made that Fernandez did a better job in engaging and interacting with the audience than Hanyu, which is important for the 2nd mark. Also, Fernandez's LP is choreographed in a way that has lots of content that judges are told to reward. For example, while some complained about split jumps having no base value, that was impressive and easily noticed by the judges who will likely add that for the TR, CH marks as bonus. Hanyu needs to do more with his feet, right now he comes across a little like skate and pose.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks