Men Free Skates

[sweetskates1]

Patrick Chan will continue to win until he retires. It is pathetic.

Hanyu is beautiful, I hope the skating gods protect him and allow him to rise above the black clouds of chanmania.

Daisuke made me fall in love with figure skating all over again, HE is an artist. Every time I watch him I fall in love with his magical quality, his art..

Abbott deserved higher PCS marks and despite the mistakes, he did not fall, and he landed a clean quad, great for him.

The rink seemed very small, I think this is why many athletes did not do as well as expected.

[SkateFiguring]

I linked to that particular article to demonstrate that Milton clearly enjoys Chan's skating and is thus a fan. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, as Milton could be a fan of Chan's skating and still write about figure skating objectively. We all have our favourites, after all.

And with all due respect, I sincerely doubt that is high-level English. It's some of the purplest prose I've seen in a long time...."He’s so artistic he could make a Stevedore cry; his foot touch is as light as any male’s in skating history; he holds the world points record; and ever since he’s got that rebellious triple axel sitting up straight with its hands folded on its lap, his confidence in his technical repertoire has gone through the roof." COME ON. I'm not doubting the content of his words, but those overwrought metaphors are a bit too much, IMO.

I write often about Patrick's mental state, and sometimes others', but just don't have the writing skills to be so titillating.

[evangeline]

The rink seemed very small, I think this is why many athletes did not do as well as expected.

I was wondering about this, as I noticed that quite a few skaters were jumping very close to the boards. But...don't rinks that World Championships take place in have to conform to some very specific criteria vis-à-vis size?

[SkateFiguring]

Small rink or not, Patrick, who skated last with the worst ice condition, offered no excuse for his fall but went further than necessary to explain how it was his fault.

[Mathman]

^ No excuse necessary for the fall on the double Axel. Ice is slippery. Stuff happens. Also no need to criticize the officials or the scoring system. No jump, no points.

What hurt me more was the miscue on the 3Lz/3S combination. To me, that is the biggest highlight of Patrick's program this year. After doing those first three huge jumps perfectly I though, oh boy, this is going to set a new record. And then...aw... it didn't.

[Becki]

Just watched Kevin Reynolds (Canada) FS again - he did a very good job. However, I think he should consider another coach. When he got off the ice, Joanne McLeod (is that her name?) didn't look too thrilled and started to comment on his 'errors' =S If he wants to be a serious contender for anything, 'cause he does have the potential to crack top 10, Kevin should consider another coach. Besides Patrick Chan, he is Canada's best hope for a top 10 finish next year. I can't see Jeremy Ten (he doesn't really have a solid 3A...) or Andrei Rogozine (unless he has better performances at Nationals) cracking the top 10. Andrei can be closer tho...but Jeremy is a far cry (sorry!)

[Boeing787]

That's why Patrick said he hates to skate the last. I also blame the shaky landing of the 3Lz on the bad ice. Patrick looked good in the air then ... Sigh!

I just rewatched Dai's FS and noticed that he was too footed landing the 4T and got +0.14 GOE for it! should be a -1. His 3A+3T was also too footed. Half of his jumps didn't have good quality. One (3F)underrotated, the loop seemed to be underrotated as well.

Now I think I know why Judges gave Patrick 9 for PE. Maybe because he was the only one that landed two 4T's in the LP competition? I know PCS is scored separately, but you always see higher PCS when the skater's TES is higher (For Patrick too, but not this time).

And out of nine judges, only one gave Patrick 8.25 for IN, the rest gave him scores from 9 - 9.50. There must be a reason for that. I don't think Patrick or Skate Canada bought all eight judges.

[SkateFiguring]

^ No excuse necessary for the fall on the double Axel. Ice is slippery. Stuff happens. Also no need to criticize the officials or the scoring system. No jump, no points.

What hurt me more was the miscue on the 3Lz/3S combination. To me, that is the biggest highlight of Patrick's program this year. After doing those first three huge jumps perfectly I though, oh boy, this is going to set a new record. And then...aw... it didn't.

He looked spent and not his jovial self, like he picked himself up to do what he had to do. He said as much in interviews, having a rough 2 weeks before when he even thought of quitting. So he was happy to overcome that, whatever it was. It was a rough season for him, something stressful at every competition. I'm glad for him it is over.

[skatinginbc]

"To the layman’s eye, Chan’s work did not look nearly as laudable as it did to the practised one. But every member of the skating cognoscenti contacted by The Spectator said there was no doubt that Chan was the best skater of the day. Some even added “by far.”

Apparently, Steve Milton (the Hamilton Spectator, Ontario, Canada) didn't contact Elvis Stojko or Eurosport commentators.

This is Toronto Sun's version (http://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/31...n-once-again): "The crowd thought that howler should have handed the title to 2010 champion Daisuke Takahashi for his hypnotising ’Blues for Klook’ free skate. The judges did not agree. They rewarded Chan for being the only skater out of the 24 finalists to land two quads cleanly." That explanation reminded me of the scandalous 6.0 system, in which the podium was largely determined by how many quads executed. It did not mention that Chan's base mark, even including his two quads, was lower than Dai's, and that his huge GOEs only made him about even with Dai in TES (Chan's 88.56 vs. Dai's 88.16). His "convincing" win was largely due to PCS (Chan 90.14 vs Dai 85.78).

Milton sounded like a big Patrick fan in that infamous "six inches" article

Indeed, national biases might have played a role in the Canadian media in this case. I'm curious what the media of other countries (e.g., Japan, Russian, France) said about the boos that Chan received that day.

[let`s talk]

Patrick wins by rules.

A lot of sports require the audience to know the rules about the sport concerned.

It's just pathetic to see how some people are never tired of presenting themselves ignorant and arrogant by repeatedly claiming that they are the ones and the only who know the rules and all the rest if just dumb paying crowd. The audience does know the rules. Patrick doesn't win by rules, neither by ISU rules nor by the general rules of fair play and sportmanship. The requirements of PCS are crealy written, like feeling the music, expression, emotional impact, charisma, connection with the audience, etc., the right wording of rules is available on ISU site. Go and read he rules, my dear Chan ubers before saying again how smart you are and how stupid are all the rest of us. The problem is judges don't apply rules when Chan is involved and that is exactly what makes people and audience boo the World champon, first time in my memory ever. No sport needs such a shameful champion.

Yet Hanyu's weird fall was cute and good IN. And no usual endless cries that a program with fall(s) should not win over a clean skate from the usual victim Takahashi.

Hanyu didn't win LP with the fall. He is not a World champion, who is not supposed to be with the excuses of his "weird fall", as Mr. Chan put it, a priori. As for the win in LP over Takahashi, it happened because judges first time in years gave Dai lower PCS than his TES. And the reason why they did it has noting to do with Hanyu. It has everything to do with Chan, whose final BV, the most more or less objective thing in scoring where judges can do a little to nothing, was much lower than Dai's and Hanyu's. They considerably reduced Dai's PCS in order to assure Chan's win since at that moment they didn't know how the last would skate and if he would be able to keep the highest BV that was orginally declared. Their intuition was right and Chan lost in BV seriously to his both competitiors. So, knowing that they had already reduced Dai's PCS, they to make it show gave a star-fish-hand frigid elements-for-money skating the highest PCS imaginable in order to give him the gold medal that he didn't deserve. People are sick of all these games. If judges need to have a pet so much, they al least could choose someone whose skating and talks don't make people puke.

I don't think it's good for the sport, and I don't think he should have won the LP at this event. He would still have won overall, of course.

He wouldn't have won overall either. Dai got << instead of < and was underscored in PCS in SP. After SP Brezina should have been 1st, Dai- 2nd, Chan- 3rd. After LP- Dai, Hanyu, Chan. Dai is the true World champion and Chan should have got silver the maximum thanks to Hanyu's lower place in SP.

[SkateFiguring]

^^^The link does not work but your quote is from Eurosport which exposes itself as clueless with

He even added in an unscheduled triple toeloop at the end of the second quad, a decision which almost backfired as he glided dangerously close to the boards on his landing.

Accident averted, it seemed as if Chan would at last produce the longed for "clean" skate he has struggled for throughout the season.

eta: This is referring to skatinginbc's post and quote.

[Boeing787]

Hanyu didn't fall on a step sequence. He fell just going inbetween elements on stroking.

Compare the videos yourself.

His LP at COR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCe-A...ailpage#t=176s

At WORLDS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...b3f9gIw#t=175s

[FTnoona]

Compare the videos yourself.

His LP at COR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCe-A...ailpage#t=176s

At WORLDS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...b3f9gIw#t=175s

But by the time he fell on that counter(?) wasn't his circular step sequence already finished. He reached the beginning of where he started the step sequence when he did that sit spin position twizzle didn't he? Wouldn't that counter(?) then qualify as linking moves? Correct me if I am wrong because I am a little confused at what they mean by the "pattern of the first part of the sequence". The way I understand that part is that the sequence ends when you reach the same point in which you began the sequence.

http://www2.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page...-0-file,00.pdf
Page 2
End of the pattern
In Free Skating however the pattern of the Step sequence is unlimited; the call will
be according to the pattern of the first part of the sequence.

[Kunstrijdster]

I was a circular step. He had already closed the circle and finished the sequence and was transitioning on. These judges, they do get things right now and then :D

Edit: now that isu wording gets me thinking again. I should think that a skater can actually do any kinds of crazy patterns but it's called after the first part to get it into some of the categories. So if it you start doing half a circular sequence then it's called as such and would likely conclude when you close the circle or abandon the sequence after doing other random pattern stuff.

[Boeing787]

Patrick Chan will continue to win until he retires. It is pathetic.

Be optimistic, I see Hanyu coming. He might dethrone Patrick next year.