Men Free Skates

hikki said:

You seem to be insinuating that the negative reaction towards Chan was mostly from the Japanese, but I can tell you that in the section I was in, where about 1/5th of the audience was Japanese (southwest corner, second row), the booing was coming from the non-Japanese crowd. The Japanese were sitting rather awkwardly. Well except I booed loud when the score came out (defo not during the interview/ medal ceremony), but I've been living overseas too long. A French lady sitting next to me with a Canadian husband and I talked, and she was booing and I told him no disrespect to Canada. So that's that in my section.

Being amongst the passionate crowd was the best experience of live skate events I've ever had!! I cried and had goosebumps for one skater after another. KVP, Joubert, Hannyu and Takahashi. This is after all why I'm a fan of this sport!

I admire Chan's skating, I spoke to him on Friday and seemed like a super nice guy. I felt goosebumps watching him and Takahashi fly so fast in the 6-minute warm-up on Friday. But last night, I felt disconnected. Blame my potential patriotic bias etc, but that's how I felt. And seeing PE and IN in the protocols now, I'm thinking were the judges in the same building last night, really?

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Thanks for the in-person report! And I'm glad to hear that it wasn't the Japanese who were booing. (I had just assumed it was the locals, or the general audience, not a particular nationality who were booing, but I'm glad to get confirmation of that.) One of the lovely aspects of skating is that people who attend live events might have a chance to meet the athletes, or at least to see them close up. I once went to Wimbledon, and there was no question of meeting any of the players. And that was long enough ago so security wasn't an issue.

Becki said:

Using your argument, Chan shouldn't have won with his falls too, right?

It's call CoP. It wasn't a major fall, and he lost a mark for it already. The rest of his program just racked up the points very well, and he's a very expressive skater.

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I know it's COP, but that's one of the problems with the COP system, and one of the reasons the audience was booing tonight. It's also part of the more serious problem of why viewership is declining for figure skating and why t.v. coverage has also been cut. The mainstream networks in the U.S. (eg. NBC, ABC) didn't even cover the Worlds this year.

Ryan O said:

Sorry, but I agree with the crowd on that. Hanyu was the most over-marked skater of the night - he got Patrick Chan level inflation. No way should he have moved up from 7th all the way to 3rd and surpassed Joubert considering Joubert skated a flawless program and Hanyu fell in the middle of his.

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Hard to call what Joubert did a program. All I saw were a bunch of jumps and 4 minutes of skating on two feet.

I'm totally disgusted with the crowd's reaction to Chan. How dare they, or anyone, boo a skater? These are all extremely talented athletes, and they deserve nothing but respect. Disagreeing with the results is one thing, but that was just rude. I've never seen any skater booed anywhere before. And it's not like Chan won by 30 points, or like he fell four times. He also had much more jumping content than Takahashi, and he didn't skate badly at all. That was so uncalled for.

Ryan O said:

Sorry, but I agree with the crowd on that. Hanyu was the most over-marked skater of the night - he got Patrick Chan level inflation. No way should he have moved up from 7th all the way to 3rd and surpassed Joubert considering Joubert skated a flawless program and Hanyu fell in the middle of his.

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It's not like Brian Joubert was completely clean either. He tripled his 4S and under-rotated a 3 Lo, which decimated his base value (Joubert's BV was 71.68 while Hanyu's was 79.25). Hanyu also put higher-scoring jumping passes (notably: the 3A-3T, 3Lz-2T-2T in the second half of his program, which gave him a lot more extra points due to the 10% bonus. To contrast, Joubert's second-half jump elements were 3S-2T, 3Lo<, 3Lz and a 3F-2A sequence. Then there is also the fact that fact that Hanyu had a LOT more transitions and connecting moves than Joubert throughout his LP.....that boosts his GOE and also the TR and CH mark.

Ryan O said:

I know it's COP, but that's one of the problems with the COP system, and one of the reasons the audience was booing tonight. It's also part of the more serious problem of why viewership is declining for figure skating and why t.v. coverage has also been cut. The mainstream networks in the U.S. (eg. NBC, ABC) didn't even cover the Worlds this year.

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Agree. I think the ISU has pretty much abandoned the idea of figure skating as a spectator sport any more.

Agreed. I don't care what anyone thinks of the judging system, the athletes should be off-limits for that kind of behavior.

There was one incident of booing that I have seen footage of from years ago. It was in 1974 or thereabouts, and a skater preceding Dorothy Hamill was given low marks. The audience started whistling, which in Europe is equivalent to booing, and Hamill thought they were whistling at her. She started to cry and had to leave the rink. Finally she pulled herself together and came out to skate. So booing might not just distress the particular skater but might also upset another skater completely unrelated to the first one. It's bad sportsmanship on every level.

Puchi said:

Wasn't it “American beats Kwan.” ?

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Probably. I don't remember the exact, so I didn't use the quote " ".


I haven't finished reading this loooooooong thread yet. But I just like to say this for now: Congratulations to Chan, Takahashi, and Hanyu! I love all these three's skating! Proud for Chan. Highly respect for Takahashi. Thrilled for Hanyu! Sad for Joubert that he didn't get onto the podium. But he skated the way he could be proud of himself.:thumbsup:

If we step back i wonder if how childish and silly we all look. First, who really cares about figure skating compared to most sports - sad to say but true. Second, this isn't life or death. Third, do we forget we are dealing with real people with real feelings. Patrick had 1 fall and a deduction for the music issue. But he did 2 quads and a 3 axel along with some great spins and footwork. As has been argued he does COP well Some of the things I think the judges can see but not the average joe or josephine is that he did skate faster than Takahashi, he has wonderful transitions and skating skills and it is not like he killed Hanyu, Takahashi - it was close. Takahahsi skated extremely well and |i like his performance better but if you break down what the judges see I can see what Patrick won. I doubt all these judges could constanatly be wrong. The problem is we don't understand cop We are but mere armchair coaches.

Just wondering, is it because the sport is figure skating that people are so shocked by athletes getting booed? Talented athletes in other sports are booed all the time, ie basketball. I mean Lakers' fans boo their own team all the time, not just opposing teams. I saw only tv versions of the medal ceremony and no fancams yet, but from the tv versions it didn't sound so much like booing just more like loud noise. Was it that more audible live or on other live streams? How is the crowd's reaction different from all the fighting about Dai and Chan? The way I view it is that we are just booing these skaters behind their backs and some people sure do meaner things than just boo them...

pangtongfan said:

both French guys royally gifted on PCS, would have scored atleast 5 points lower anywhere else.

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evangeline said:

I don't know how any plausible judge judging fairly could give Amodio a 9 for categories like SS and CH like that one judge tonight. If Amodio receives a 9 in those categories, a skater like Takahashi should receive an 11 or 12.

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The most overmarked skaters at this competition were Amodio and Joubert, esp. Amodio. So much posing in their programs, even performing to music with words but not getting deductions! Such home advantage!!! They did much easier programs than Patrick, Hanyu, and Daisuke, so of course it was much easier for them to skate seemingly “clean” programs, and yet they were still not really clean.

I understand that the home crowd wanted French skaters to podium, and I’m sooo glad that P/B won bronze, but Amodio and Joubert… Come on, they did not deserve those scores they got!

Ryan O said:

I know it's COP, but that's one of the problems with the COP system, and one of the reasons the audience was booing tonight. It's also part of the more serious problem of why viewership is declining for figure skating and why t.v. coverage has also been cut. The mainstream networks in the U.S. (eg. NBC, ABC) didn't even cover the Worlds this year.

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NBC is going to give 3 hours to recap worlds on April 8....They actually aired part of the GPF live but they won't even show worlds on the same weekend it happened...Does USN have a claim on this weekend or something....

I just watched the medal ceremony and felt so sorry for Patrick, who is another hard working skater just like Daisuke. The people who should have been booed there were Cinquanta and the judges, not Patrick....

Bluebonnet said:

What do you mean? I thought Chan is a Canadian. This made me think about 1998 Olympics when Lipinski won gold and Michelle Kwan got silver, some American medias wrote: American beat Chinese.

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It was actually "American beats Kwan"

Does USN have a claim on this weekend or something....

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USN is owned by NBC (NBC/Universal). The reason figure skating got bumped was it happened the same weekend of a major PGA tournament. Golf gets higher ratings, therefore golf gets the live coverage.

Becki said:

Using your argument, Chan shouldn't have won with his falls too, right?

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Chan had one fall not fall(s)

It's call CoP. It wasn't a major fall, and he lost a mark for it already. The rest of his program just racked up the points very well, and he's a very expressive skater.

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Hanyu's fall was very disruptive as it took him at least 7 seconds to get back into his program, see this timed clip here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA2Ks3osTS0#t=3m9s

If a skater takes more than 5 seconds to come back into their program, the fall is considered disruptive and should be penalized in the PCS. For comparison, here is Chan's only fall in the competition and watch how quickly he recovers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Nzn0K7yc4#t=4m35s

He went down at 4m37s, and got back into his program at 4m41s ~ less than 5 seconds.

The so called "freaked falls" can happen to best of the skaters. Just because Hanyu fell on a step doesn't mean he is incompetent or his skating skill is poor. For that matter, no one should doubt Chan can't do a Double Axel, something even novice skaters can do because other great skaters like Yu-Na Kim or Joannie Rochette have fallen on that too in show or competition. This is pretty straight forward common sense but of course, if you want to nitpick on something or someone, anything goes, right?

That said, Hanyu's PCS was unusually high considering the significant disruption in his skate. To me personally, I found his facial expression over the top for his chosen music for example, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA2Ks3osTS0#t=4m27s Watch his face, you can see it's as though he is about to kill someone. That's his personal way of interpreting the music and it's fine. However, it's a fine line between expressive and over the top.

Should Joubert have won the Bronze, I don't know. I do find the PCS of most skaters yesterday somewhat curious, not just the top 3. It's also a relatively "younger" panel who judged yesterday's men competition, less veterans and mostly from countries with no significant history of figure skating. Maybe that's why they were more cautious about PCS but it's only human. I also knew Chan would win before he even left the ice. It was obvious he had done enough, even though I knew he was behind his music as early as he entered his flying combination spin. Losing 5 points on that Axel really isn't going to break him knowing the kind of score Takahashi got, who had issues of his own (albeit not easily discernable like a fall). I also knew at that time, some people will instantly use this lame error to hold it against Chan even though - I guarantee you, every single of them know it's just a freak error for being human and the element doesn't worth much anyway. As for the blame on the wacky PCS, why didn't someone add the TES from both SP and LP and minus all deductions, ignoring the PCS entirely, you know who still ends up 1st, right?

Effectively, the World Championship wasn't decided by the PCS because TES alone shows who won this competition. Of course, facts don't matter when they get in the way of some people's irrational logic and emotions and that is to be expected.

FTnoona said:

Just wondering, is it because the sport is figure skating that people are so shocked by athletes getting booed? Talented athletes in other sports are booed all the time, ie basketball. I mean Lakers' fans boo their own team all the time, not just opposing teams. I saw only tv versions of the medal ceremony and no fancams yet, but from the tv versions it didn't sound so much like booing just more like loud noise. Was it that more audible live or on other live streams? How is the crowd's reaction different from all the fighting about Dai and Chan? The way I view it is that we are just booing these skaters behind their backs and some people sure do meaner things than just boo them...

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There was clearly booing during Patrick's interview and the medal cermony on my live feed. When I rewatched the video of the the medal cermony I could not hear the booing.

I was impressed by Chan‘s French in the winner interview. lol
What a smart guy. He is maybe semi-trilingual?

I haven't got a chance to post here yet..

I just finished watching all the mens free programs last night. I feel like some of you do on this board that Daisuke should have won the gold medal, but Chan did skate quite well and I can see why the judges did give him the win. I really wanted Brian Joubert in 3rd, and I thought in general his skate was better than Hanyu's, but what can you do? I hope he sticks around until Sochi though. I know KVDP is probably retiring, so I'm glad he had a good skate here. I'm also glad that Canada got three spots back for the men, I guess Jeremy Ten will probably be making a trip to Worlds next year (or Andrei Rogozine? Elladj Balde?). I was horrified by the abysmal performance of Artur Gachinski after his bronze medal last year. I guess Plushenko will likely be using Russia's one spot for next year's competition.

WallyLutz said:

For that matter, no one should doubt Chan can't do a Double Axel, something even novice skaters can do because other great skaters like Yu-Na Kim or Joannie Rochette have fallen on that too in show or competition.

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Did anyone say that Chan can't do a double Axel?

I do not see any controversy here. In this competition Patrick missed his double Axel, got zero points for it, and ended up with 5 fewer points than he would have had otherwise. Just as it should be.

What would have been wrong is if he had missed the jump but still got some points because, oh well, at least he tried and we know he can do it.

Agree Mathman the crowd is dumb and knows nothing about figure skating, the should be grateful they got a medal for their overrated dance team and robbed weaver and poje in the process.

demarinis5 said:

There was clearly booing during Patrick's interview and the medal cermony on my live feed.

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You are not the only one:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/31/uk-figure-skating-world-men-idUKBRE82U0BA20120331

romanoff81 said:

Agree Mathman the crowd is dumb and knows nothing about figure skating, the should be grateful they got a medal for their overrated dance team and robbed weaver and poje in the process.

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All these repetitive attemps to call everyone who disagrees with Chan's wins as some dumb crowd in fact proves nothing but one thing: insulting unnamed public is the only desperate means of defense left for Chan ubers. Have fun.