Men Free Skates

[SkateFiguring]

The reason Patrick Chan's falls are picked on more than other people's is that not only does he win everything--often over someone who doesn't fall--but everyone just carries on and on and on and on and on and on and on--about how great he is.

When Chan wins, "everyone" just carries on and on about his actual, imagined, and former falls. "They" don't look at his and others' whole programs.

When Evan won in 2009, Scott Hamilton couldn't believe that he had beaten Patrick Chan, who was then AN UNKNOWN TEENAGER, with one win at 4CC under his belt.

Many people, certainly most commentators, felt Patrick the CANADIAN CHAMPION was robbed at 2009 Worlds. But that was let go instead of being brought up over and over through the years, building up bitterness and resentment against Evan and judges. No Chan fans bash Evan for that or hold grudges. Certainly not Patrick himself, who defended Evan's Olympic win with very nice words.

Then as the Worlds Silver medalist, Chan fell 3 times with his delayed season debut at Skate Canada after an injury, he came in 6th, in Canada. When he underperformed at the Olympics, he came in 5th, in Canada. His worst results since 2008 have been in Canada, contrary to the constant accusation that he is gifted with guaranteed wins in Canada.

Patrick fell and still beat clean Johnny Weir in the Olympics. There may be reasons for it, but tell the Johnny Weir fans. Patrick's falls are often odd. I mean, not landing a jump or two, OK, but he crashes into walls, falls on footwork, goes off his music--and the announcers, rather than saying, "Tut, tut, not the skate he wanted" like they (mainly Scott) do/does for everybody else, but they make all these excuses. Like "he cares more than anyone else!" "He puts his heart and soul into it!" "His mistakes don't matter because he's the skater's skater." Then he wins, despite these mistakes, but he doesn't squeak by. No, he breaks a record. He's the best skater ever, ever, ever, ever!!! Meanwhile, someone else flutzes or underrotates something and the announcers (again, mainly Scott) are like condemning him/her for really choking.

Patrick wins by rules. That is what matters. Nothing anyone can do about your displeasure with other people's comments about him, however you perceive them.

Whatever Patrick's weaknesses are don't count. When he couldn't do the quad, well, the quad was out! Transitions were in. Unfortunately, it wasn't Patrick who benefited from this anti-quad sentiment, but Evan, so it all backfired. When Patrick learned the quad, now that's the most important thing. It's almost like someone decided that he's the best, and they will see to it that he wins no matter what.

You've got it reversed. The quad value and risk rewards were raised not to benefit Chan but to reduce his winning chances, together with cutting down the number of footwork sequences as well as their values. Patrick simply rose to meet the challenge. Change the rules again and I bet he would find a way to win with the new rules. That is what a champion does and everyone is welcomed to do the same. It's funny you resent the exact quality I admire.

The buzz about how wonderful he is and the often tepid and unclean performances that he wins with do not match up. When someone is considered not only the best of their field but the very very best ever ever--and that's how people carry on over him--they'd better deliver or they get booed.

Unfortunately such adolations only come from past and current great skaters, judges, other skating experts, and some brave fans. "People carry on and on over him" are mostly puzzled, or bitter and resentful of his success, cyber booing him every single day. You acknowledged with your opening sentence:

The reason Patrick Chan's falls are picked on more than other people's ........

followed by justification with things unrelated to his skating. You choose to react to some people's expressions about Patrick, real and perceived, and certainly well searched out from all the noises. Patrick has nothing to do with all your stated reasons of resentment against him.

[Becki]

Dai received more points for his spins in this competition than Chan did. He does not always center his spins as well as Chan, but his big combination spins are faster and he has more positions than Patrick (the Layback in particular).

Takahashi gave the overall best performance of his entire career in the LP at this World Championships. He lost to a skater who uses airplane arms throughout half of the program, messed up a combination jump, and completely omitted another element, falling.

:'( I feel for Daisuke....that performance left me speechless. That was a World Champion performance.

I just realized the top 4 is composed of three world champions. If Brian Joubert made it onto the podium, we would've had three former (and current) world champions on the podium! that's food for thought - not sure if this has ever happened before.

[Blades of Passion]

Chan's PCS is inconsequential to him defeating all other skaters.

Not it's not. Stop spouting off this ridiculous crap.

Posting a long breakdown of the scores the skaters received does absolutely nothing to show if the skaters DESERVED those scores either. Chan was overscored, as usual. He was not the World Champion this year.

[wallylutz]

Than why exactly was Hanyu's facial expressions for that part of the music, ridiculous and over the top. If Hanyu's facial expressions had been like that for the entire performance, I'd agree. But he only had it for one small part of the performance.

That was one example, not to say it's the only thing I noticed. To me, Hanyu's expressions remain at a superficial level throughout his skate. I'd be the first to acknowledge that what I am saying is fairly subjective - since you ask my take from a theatrical standpoint, I will give my personal take on this. Romeo's emotions are complex - at times out of control and as we say in French, un abandon total. But at times, his emotions, while expressive are delicate where the sadness is not always visible to the naked eyes. Romeo is a very young man, by today's standard, a teenager whose emotions are rich with different and contrasting ranges. I felt that Hanyu's interpretation maintained a rather superficial (lack of emotional depth) while being over the top way more than necessary without displaying the ranges of emotions that truly reflects Romeo's range of emotions. Someone said his stumble looked like falling in love. Let me ask this, which part of his skate shows he is madly in love (with Juliet) even without her being there? Can you find us that part? I certainly can't. Also, the costume, what the heck was that? It looked like a young slave being tied by both hands, who finally escaped and wanted to revenge. One way or the other, it doesn't remotely look or feel like Romeo.

[wallylutz]

Posting a long breakdown of the scores the skaters received does absolutely nothing to show if the skaters DESERVED those scores either. Chan was overscored, as usual. He was not the World Champion this year.

Tranlsation: <<I, BOP, know far more than the 9 judges and 3 members of the Technical Panel. They are all wrong, I, BOP, am the universal truth.>>

Too bad for you, the person I was responding to, yuki, already admits he/she has no issue with the TES as they are presented. Therefore, until you become the master of the universe, your words are irrelevant.

[yuki]

Chan's PCS is inconsequential to him defeating all other skaters. For the sake of argument, your claim is true, judges should have lowered his PCS a little more due to a fall which knocked him out for about 4 seconds, what other errors do you feel should have also lowered his PCS given that you said errors?

He was behind the music at times. He even admitted that he made the mistake on the 2A because he was rushing to catch up with the music. At least his PE (9.00) and his IN (9.21) should have been lower, especially compared to Takahashi. Actually, last year his PE and IN were not much higher for a visibly better performance. I'm not arguing his win here, as you seem to think I'm doing. I just wish he had been scored more accurately to what he actually did.

[Blades of Passion]

Let me ask this, which part of his skate shows he is madly in love (with Juliet) even without her being there? Can you find us that part? I certainly can't.

First of all, your entire premise is off-base for which you are judging. Hanyu is skating to music, he is not acting out the entirety of a play. What's important is that he is interpreting the music we hear, not your vision of what Romeo should be in Shakespeare's play. Your attempt to dismiss Hanyu's performance based upon his costume ("not looking like Romeo") is laughable at best and shows your poor understanding of what is being conveyed in this program.

As for displaying the emotion of love, that is something which Hanyu engages in and does very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA2Ks3osTS0#t=2m07s

The way he softly caresses with his arms and hands, and transmits that quality through his puppy-dog facial expression, is a beautiful interpretation of this section of the music. And look at the way he holds his arms and hands after that 3Lutz-2Toe. He takes a jump that was slightly off-center and turns it into a gorgeous moment of vulnerability and understanding.

[wallylutz]

*Edit:

I realized someone posted this video already. The EuroSport commentators are often quite neutral, and non-bias. I think Daisuke was seriously robbed.....
But life goes on, his ultimate goal is Sochi, and this is just preparation for the Olympic games.

Well, no, they are not neutral. These two guys have a strong preference for the dramatic. Also, they have long had a discomfort with Patrick Chan - not hatred, just discomfort. In past World Championships, they have said Chan seems to miss something and they couldn't quite pin point what exactly he is missing, despite clean skate. In another case, they felt Chan was skating without much emotions. The bottom line, Patrick Chan is not their cup of tea and this is no secret.

What's hilarious is they took it up a notch this time and suggested that ISU should investigate these results, on what basis? Chan bribing the judges or maybe Skate Canada threatened the judges? When it comes to $ or funding, nobody can compete against JSF and the huge number of major ISU sponsors which are full of Japanese corporations. So if it's not money or cheating, what should the ISU investigate? Finally, Takahashi is shown to have made at least 5 technical errors in his elements for both SP and LP combined. If any judge or any official were to defend their decision, this is like a piece of cake. Takahashi gave others way too many ammunition to build a case against him with all those errors, 3 of which resulted in overall negative GOE and 2 of which, near zero GOE, all are errors regardless. Compared to Chan's 3 and Hanyu's 2, all one had to do in an inquiry: "Skater A made more mistakes than Skater B, I went with the Skater who made less errors". Done. That's how hillarious the two Eurosport guys are, they seriously don't know what they are talking about but supposedly, they are veterans in the sport like many other commentators but if you count how often they erred while commenting, you have to seriously question the truthfulness of their credentials. I am being serious here, it's mind boggling how much errors commentators make.

[Boeing787]

British Eurosport Versions

Takahashi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOlXu...nPQnFzQmxmk%3D

Hanyu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0RBt...k8u0pHqtG4A%3D

Closing Comments for the Men's FS
Interesting comments by the commentators. Are either of them current coaches? Just want to know how reliable their comments are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m7xF...qcNiEAPZF80%3D

These are all that I can find for now.

This Chris guy, before Patrick's score came out, he said Patrick might just get away with it(the gold). After seeing the score, he changed his tune to "Takahashi surely deserved the gold".

My opinion: Patrick's LP might be overscored, but not much. He still deserves the gold especially considering Dai didn't get the one point deduction for his fall in SP and Hanyu only got one point deduction for his fall in steps but not GOE deduction.

[bekalc]

Wally Lutz, you keep on saying PCS are not the issues. But PCS was the major difference between Chan and Dai in the long, so it absolutely IS the issue. Lets say we give Chan higher SS and Choregraphy than Dai. Okay, but did Chan really perform and execute better than Dai in that long. Nope, and we have an entire audience to say no.

Did chan really have much greater interpertation when Chan fell behind his music. Nope. If Patrick and Dai had similar PCS than Patrick won due to the short, I think people could have lived with it. But that's not what happened its the close to five point lead on PCS that have people up in arms.

[Blades of Passion]

Finally, Takahashi is shown to have made at least 5 technical errors in his elements for both SP and LP combined.

Any skater getting less than +3 GOE on an element could be considered "an error", with the ridiculous way you are attempting to twist it around.

Takahashi made a mistake in the SP and that was it. His LP had a few jumps that were "less than perfect" but nonetheless were essentially clean. I wouldn't have given him any -GOE in that performance and his last 3Flip should not have been called as < either. Patrick Chan made much larger mistakes that cost him a lot of points and disrupted the performance.

Yet again - if you reverse the PCS that Chan and Takahashi received (so I won't even take into consideration the wrong calls Takahashi received), which is what almost everyone is saying would be the ACCURATE scoring of this competition, then Takahashi is the World Champion by a comfortable margin.

[wallylutz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA2Ks3osTS0#t=2m07s

The way he softly caresses with his arms and hands, and transmits that quality through his puppy-dog facial expression, is a beautiful interpretation of this section of the music. And look at the way he holds his arms and hands after that 3Lutz-2Toe. He takes a jump that was slightly off-center and turns it into a gorgeous moment of vulnerability and understanding.

Sorry, I see none of what you described above. He is not soft, in fact rather stiff if not stunned facial expression. What puppy-dog? That's like a deer stunned by red lights. You are seeing and reading emotions on Hanyu when none exists. Please forgive the judges and many of us who don't share your crush on this school boy.

[wallylutz]

He was behind the music at times. He even admitted that he made the mistake on the 2A because he was rushing to catch up with the music. At least his PE (9.00) and his IN (9.21) should have been lower, especially compared to Takahashi. Actually, last year his PE and IN were not much higher for a visibly better performance. I'm not arguing his win here, as you seem to think I'm doing. I just wish he had been scored more accurately to what he actually did.

As confusing as this may sound, I am actually agreeing with you. Would I have given Chan 9s for PE or IN, no, I wouldn't. Earlier, I have also stated that the PCS of this competition is rather "curious", it was a polite way for me to say that I don't entirely agree with the outcomes. That said comparing scores from two different competitions with different judges, let alone one year apart when some rules and trends would have surely changed - is a risky business. I am sure you'd agree it can be like comparing apples and oranges given the different circumstances. Then the only question left is to ask should Takahashi being given higher PE and IN scores? Keep in mind, being behind the music affects mostly PE but not so much the IN. Sure, one can argue that when Chan hit his flying combination spin, he didn't hit while at the music's crescendo but the impact is limited. The trouble is Takahashi had several shaky landings of his own during the LP, which should also lower his PE as well. Whether Chan won by 6 points or 2 points, he still wins. Maybe, the scoring of the PCS was questionable, just keep in mind, judges are humans too, they get nervous and no one is perfect. So long as the end result is correct, does it really matter?

[wallylutz]

Wally Lutz, you keep on saying PCS are not the issues. But PCS was the major difference between Chan and Dai in the long, so it absolutely IS the issue. Lets say we give Chan higher SS and Choregraphy than Dai. Okay, but did Chan really perform and execute better than Dai in that long. Nope, and we have an entire audience to say no.

We have gone over this before, for the nth time, this is not American Idol nor People's Choice Award or else Joubert would have won the World Championship here.

Did chan really have much greater interpertation when Chan fell behind his music. Nope. If Patrick and Dai had similar PCS than Patrick won due to the short, I think people could have lived with it. But that's not what happened its the close to five point lead on PCS that have people up in arms.

Most of 4.5 points lead in PCS comes from the first two components, SS and TR. The contributions of PE, IN and CH are fairly limited, barely significant. My earlier post has already demonstrated that mathematically, I am not going to repeat myself.

[Blades of Passion]

Sorry, I see none of what you described above. You are seeing and reading emotions on Hanyu when none exists.

Nope. It's all there, you're just blind. Trying to degrade my assessment as a "crush on this school boy" is yet another example of how desperately ignorant you are and also how biased you are. Why do you call Hanyu a "school boy"? What does his age have to do with the quality of his skating? Everything you say is a big pile of nonsense, in an attempt to defend your Canadian pride.

Why do you think everyone has responded so strongly to Hanyu? Audiences everywhere and every commentator in the World gushes over him. YOU are the one who is failing to see the performance correctly and grasp it, not everyone else.