How do the top men rank now that the season's begun? | Page 2 | Golden Skate

How do the top men rank now that the season's begun?

ImaginaryPogue

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Joined
Jun 3, 2009
Hanyu was third in the FS. He was not even close to winning the event with that FS. And Hanyu was not only marked down considerably in TES, but PCS losing to Kozuka, Abbott (who had a meltdown himself) AND Machida, someone that has no political capital whatsoever. That program did not only evaporate the 10 point lead he had on Kozuka, he actually ended up losing to him by a considerable margin (7.70 points). He was not even close to winning with three falls.

Chan lost a lot of points on TES, but his PCS score remained relatively high to his TES (14.35 point gap). He would have actually won if he did not zayak the last combination, i.e. just did the 2A instead.

I have no skin in the game for either, but it makes sense to me why Hanyu's meltdown did not get the same outrage from fans.

ETA: Of course in the Hanyu scenario it did help that Kozuka had an amazing skate and Machida kept it pretty clean aside from the fall on the quad.

If Kozuka at Skate America had given the skate Verner did at CoR, Hanyu would've won, (not almost win, won) fwiw, as the short program lead would've been greater than the long program lead.
 

Bluebonnet

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
Patrick also had other issues other than just falls at 2011 Japan Open. So, once again, if Patrick Chan rotated all of his planned content and fell 3 times, he still would have beaten Takahashi at Japan Open this year. Which is not how it should be.

How? Numbers please! You've just kept asserting this but there is no proof.
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
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Dec 27, 2009
If Kozuka at Skate America had given the skate Verner did at CoR, Hanyu would've won, (not almost win, won) fwiw, as the short program lead would've been greater than the long program lead.

Which is why I noted that Kozuka's performance -- amazing so lucky to see it in person!!! -- was a factor.

But Hanyu also lost to Machida in both TES and PCS as well, whose program was more equal to Verner's at CoR. And I agree with that. Machida's version of the Firebird was pretty awesome.

I suppose yes if both Kozuka and Machida skated like Verner did Hanyu would have won because of his short program lead. But Hanyu skated a flawless SP; Patrick didn't.

As I said, I don't really care to win this argument, but simply just logically explain why I think there is less outrage. So I'll leave my comments on this at that.

ETA: I realize that we ought to add apples to apples with the SP. So let's take out the BV from the new 1.1 rule. So Hanyu's base value w/o the bonus is 41.50, higher than Patrick's (40.80). So with the +GOE his TES was 49.85 + 43.86 PCS = 93.71. Of course this whole exercise is pointless since you can't compare scores across competitions....
 
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Bluebonnet

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
Hanyu was third in the FS. He was not even close to winning the event with that FS. And Hanyu was not only marked down considerably in TES, but PCS losing to Kozuka, Abbott (who had a meltdown himself) AND Machida, someone that has no political capital whatsoever. That program did not only evaporate the 10 point lead he had on Kozuka, he actually ended up losing to him by a considerable margin (7.70 points). He was not even close to winning with three falls.

Hanyu was basically giving up on performance. I was actually surprised that Hanyu even got 148.67 in total and 79.56 in PCS. To me, it was a gift. Abbott did not give up on performing despite of his jumping problems.
 

drivingmissdaisy

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Joined
Feb 17, 2010
I do think it's somewhat interesting how much of a free ride Hanyu has gotten from people given that he gave virtually the exact same performance as Chan did in CoR 2010 (three falls, discounted element in the LP) but Chan was eviscerated alive for it whereas Hanyu's disaster was somehow less of an affront to figure skating enthusiasts. I won't deny that what I see as double standards leaves a bitter after taste in my mouth.

I don't think people blame Chan when he falls multiple times and still wins. I think people get frustrated with the system and when we express it the Chan uberfans act like we're too stupid to understand the scoring and be able to identify good skating. Chan is far superior IMO to Hanyu at this point so I also wouldn't score Hanyu as high as the judges did at SA.
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
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Joined
Dec 27, 2009
I don't think people blame Chan when he falls multiple times and still wins. I think people get frustrated with the system and when we express it the Chan uberfans act like we're too stupid to understand the scoring and be able to identify good skating. Chan is far superior IMO to Hanyu at this point so I also wouldn't score Hanyu as high as the judges did at SA.

Chan has the potential to break that record pretty easily, me thinks. Chan has always had COP friendly programs, and it wouldn't surprise me if that record is broken by him at some point in the season.

The audience at SA certainly did not object to Hanyu's score, though. That said, I think EVERYONE, including Orser and Hanyu (Orser himself told me he expected a score in the high 80s.) did not expect the judges to give that high of a score.

ETA From the GS article on the Men's SP:

“The rules have changed since last season, so I was able to take advantage of the bonus for landing the jumps late in the program,” he explained. “I am really surprised by the score, but I don’t want to think about it too much. It’s only the first Grand Prix, and I don’t want to get too excited and let my emotions get the best of me.”

Hanyu’s program was chock full of choreographic nuances which he executed with flair and excitement. As a result, the leader was also rewarded with the highest program component scores of the night (51.71/43.36).

“I was focused on my technical score, so I was very surprised,” said Hanyu. “I wasn’t really focused on the artistic score, but now that you told me the performance score was high as well, I am very surprised. I have been doing very well in practice, so I’m pleased.”
 
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Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
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Sep 14, 2008
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How? Numbers please! You've just kept asserting this but there is no proof.

As has been said a million times, a skater receives 6.3 points for falling on a rotated Quad Toe. That is wrong. The scoring system needs to be changed across the board for the -GOE penalty given to jumps.

The PCS were really too skewed as well, with Patrick receiving huge numbers for that kind uninspired performance. He wasn't 10 points better on PCS than Gachinski.
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
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Dec 27, 2009
As has been said a million times, a skater receives 6.3 points for falling on a rotated Quad Toe. That is wrong. The scoring system needs to be changed across the board for the -GOE penalty given to jumps.

The PCS were really too skewed as well, with Patrick receiving huge numbers for that kind uninspired performance. He wasn't 10 points better on PCS than Gachinski.

Playing devil's advocate, since it's being brought up -- do you have a problem with Hanyu received scores of 7.30 and 7.50 for falling on a Quad Toe and Salchow at the SA LP?

Actually my husband, being the non fan he is, found that to be the weirdest thing about the scoring system. He went on and on about that on the way home on Monday.
 
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Buttercup

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
No, that would be Kurt Browning.
it's well deserved! :rock:
I vote yes!
I knew I'd get support in this! And, speaking of top men and where they are now, wasn't it great to see Kurt competing again, and reviving Singin' in the Rain, no less?

This got me thinking that one of the reasons Kurt is so great and so liked by many fans (in addition to natural talent) is that he had the opportunity to really hone his abilities not just as a pro skater but also as a competitive pro skater. I hope events like the MWO and Scott Hamilton's planned competition will provide such opportunities for more skaters.

As for this year, I agree that it's a bit early to tell. My hopes continue to lie with Daisuke, but at this point in the year, a goodly number of the men could turn out to be splendid. I'm really pleased to think of Oda on the list of promising skaters going forward. One more person I'd love to see on the list, and that's Jeremy...I can dream, can't I? When he's on (in Grand Prix and/or Nationals), he's heartbreakingly superb--artistry and quad capabilities! But he never seems to pull it together at worlds. I've almost given up having wishes about the fate of American male skaters.
Well, that's why I added Richard Dornbush to the list of interesting stories to follow re the top men - his score from Finlandia was so impressive! I haven't seen the performance itself but I'm sure it must have been pretty good to be rewarded like that; maybe he's on his way to a real breakthrough season?

I wish we could actually discuss the top men and their prospects without it descending each time to "who is more overscored", which has been done to death. But apparently I am in the minority.

p.s. if we don't punish other serious errors on a jump with a zero score, why should falls be different? They may need to receive a lower score than they do now, but certainly not nothing.
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
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Dec 27, 2009
Well, that's why I added Richard Dornbush to the list of interesting stories to follow re the top men - his score from Finlandia was so impressive! I haven't seen the performance itself but I'm sure it must have been pretty good to be rewarded like that; maybe he's on his way to a real breakthrough season?

I wish we could actually discuss the top men and their prospects without it descending each time to "who is more overscored", which has been done to death. But apparently I am in the minority.

p.s. if we don't punish other serious errors on a jump with a zero score, why should falls be different? They may need to receive a lower score than they do now, but certainly not nothing.

Buttercup, I'm in total support of talking about other broader stories beyond Chan vs. everyone else. Here's some of the narratives I'll be following..

** Tatsuki Machida is looking really strong this year. He was my new favorite coming out of Skate America. It's going to be really tough for him to get on the world team (wah!), but I think he can still establish himself this year. His SP is so awesome (and not surprising as Lambiel choreographed it) and while he doesn't have the speed and power of the Japanese men, I think he will be consistent enough where we might get to enjoy his skating some more this year!
** Dornbush, I agree, will be an interesting story this year. Here's his long from Finlandia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QbIOTN7EVQ&feature=related
** I would also watch for Ross Miner. I feel like he gets underrated on this board. He's working on a quad, not consistent yet, but Ross has a tendency to peak later in the season...and I think he's hungry to be at Worlds.
** Fernandez, of course, is always interesting to watch and it will be interesting to see how his programs look after his breakout season. Also it will be interesting to see if he can sustain good skating all season long so he can get a Euros medal.
** Meshnov, old or not, looked quite nice at Skate America. His quads were actually quite nice! It would definitely be interesting if he can beat Gachniski (and Plushenko) this year.
** Oda, Oda, Oda! He looked soooo good at Nebelhorn. I missed that guy's skating and I'm glad he's back! I hope he can workout his math problems. ;)
 

pangtongfan

Match Penalty
Joined
Jun 16, 2010
Early on Takahashi looks the best after Hanyu's Skate Canada meltdown and Chan's Japan Open one, but I am sure Chan will be gifted both the GP final and World Championships as usual even if he falls 5 or 6 times and Hanyu and Takahashi both skate spectacularly with quads, all triples, and great artistry. The mens is a write off and not worth talking about until Chan retires.
 

pangtongfan

Match Penalty
Joined
Jun 16, 2010
I do think it's somewhat interesting how much of a free ride Hanyu has gotten from people given that he gave virtually the exact same performance as Chan did in CoR 2010 (three falls, discounted element in the LP) but Chan was eviscerated alive for it whereas Hanyu's disaster was somehow less of an affront to figure skating enthusiasts. I won't deny that what I see as double standards leaves a bitter after taste in my mouth.

Hanyu didnt win the event and he placed only 3rd in the LP even in a weak field that saw the #5 or #6 Japanese man today complete a sweep (and beat Hanyu's relative disaester in the LP portion). Kozuka not known for his strong presentation also easily beat Hanyu in PCS after Hanyu's performance. Hence why the discussion naturally wouldnt be the same as Chan extending his never ending win streak and notching the events highest PCS with a similar performance.
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
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Dec 27, 2009
Hanyu didnt win the event and he placed only 3rd in the LP even in a weak field that saw the #5 or #6 Japanese man today complete a sweep (and beat Hanyu's relative disaester in the LP portion). Kozuka not known for his strong presentation also easily beat Hanyu in PCS after Hanyu's performance. Hence why the discussion naturally wouldnt be the same as Chan extending his never ending win streak and notching the events highest PCS with a similar performance.

Machida is currently No.4 in Japan.
 

Buttercup

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
** Dornbush, I agree, will be an interesting story this year. Here's his long from Finlandia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QbIOTN7EVQ&feature=related
Thanks! I can't say I much like the program - it feels pretty cookie-cutter CoP - but I can't blame him for doing what needs to be done, and there's no question that (apart from the fall) he skated it very well indeed. It'll be interesting to see whether he can 1. deliver at the bigger events 2. skate two strong programs at the same event and 3. improve artistically.

** Oda, Oda, Oda! He looked soooo good at Nebelhorn. I missed that guy's skating and I'm glad he's back! I hope he can workout his math problems. ;)
Maybe he can learn together with his son? ;) I can never get my hopes up with Oda because he has long shown that he's an early-season skater. I don't know if it's difficulty handling pressure or some issue with the training that makes him peak too soon. But there is one thing that I'd be interested in following in his case: if Oda can somehow beat Chan (and the rest of the field) at SC and CoR, he'll have won every GP at least once!

As an aside, I'd love to see Stephane Lambiel work with more skaters. Id' especially like to see Florent Amodio head his way instead of wasting his talent with Morozov.
 

doctor2014

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
I do think it's somewhat interesting how much of a free ride Hanyu has gotten from people given that he gave virtually the exact same performance as Chan did in CoR 2010 (three falls, discounted element in the LP) but Chan was eviscerated alive for it whereas Hanyu's disaster was somehow less of an affront to figure skating enthusiasts. I won't deny that what I see as double standards leaves a bitter after taste in my mouth.
If Kozuka at Skate America had given the skate Verner did at CoR, Hanyu would've won, (not almost win, won) fwiw, as the short program lead would've been greater than the long program lead.
This reminds me of some people questioned why there was not much complaint about Daisuke’s win at the 2011 Japanese Nationals with 3 falls in the FS but there was outrage against Patrick’s falls at CoR 2010. I think it’s because that Patrick also had a fall in the SP at CoR and still placed 1st, some people were already unhappy about that. Then the next day he had 3 more falls in the FS, so totally 4 falls at one event and almost won. He also gave up on the performance in the FS but got 81.30 on PCS. Remember at that time it was rare to score more than 80 on PCS.

Daisuke and Hanyu, OTOH, skated perfectly in the SPs and lost the FS due to 3 falls. Daisuke still had extremely high PCS (86.90) despite the 3 falls and thus beat Kozuka at Japanese Nationals. At SA, Hanyu’s FS PCS dropped below Machida, who also had a fall and whose TES was merely 75.03 (only 2.92 points higher than that of Hanyu) but got 80.14 on PCS. The scoring made some people feel better.

BTW, I kinda understood why Patrick had more falls than others in 2010 because he was skating more difficult programs. When most others did not attempt 4T in SP, he was one of the few doing quads in both SP and FS. And he had more transitions than most other skaters. I’m glad that he continued to try the quads, otherwise we won’t see so many quads now.

Playing devil's advocate, since it's being brought up -- do you have a problem with Hanyu received scores of 7.30 and 7.50 for falling on a Quad Toe and Salchow at the SA LP?

Actually my husband, being the non fan he is, found that to be the weirdest thing about the scoring system. He went on and on about that on the way home on Monday.
I think Hanyu received 6.30 and 6.50 for falling on the quads. Remember there are deductions for falls. I’m fine with the current scoring system because I like to see athletes pushing the boundaries and attempting quads. I’m excited that 2014 looks like a repeat of 2002. I don’t want skaters to play it safe and regress to 2010 technical standard.
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
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You don't need to reward bad Quads that highly for the athletes to be pushing the technical envelope. As long as clean Quads within a good program result in a win over another competitor if that other person doesn't have a Quad, this is enough to make people do it. Falls on Quads should still be worth some points, but only enough to make it so that attempting a Quad and falling doesn't ruin your score in comparison to an easier layout. Falling on a Quad should be worth about as much as a Double Axel, since that's the jump you have to put into your program if you don't have a Quad.

To do the math for you, that means falling on a Quad is currently worth about 3 more points than it really should be. The issue isn't just falls, though, but mistakes in general. Stepping out of a Quad really badly can get you 8.3 points, which is just insane. The penalty for falling should actually be decreased and the -GOE penalties should be vastly increased. If you do a jump with -3 GOE quality, but don't fall, that's very nearly as bad as falling anyway. In some cases it's worse, actually...landing a fully-rotated jump on one foot and falling still shows greater accomplishment than landing a barely-rotated jump on two feet, plus stepping out of the landing, plus putting both your hands down on the ice.
 
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doctor2014

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
You don't need to reward bad Quads that highly for the athletes to be pushing the technical envelope. As long as clean Quads within a good program result in a win over another competitor if that other person doesn't have a Quad, this is enough to make people do it. Falls on Quads should still be worth some points, but only enough to make it so that attempting a Quad and falling doesn't ruin your score in comparison to an easier layout. Falling on a Quad should be worth about as much as a Double Axel, since that's the jump you have to put into your program if you don't have a Quad.
No, this will make people not doing the quads. What you suggest is similar to the 2010 system that gave Daisuke no points for attempting a 4T. He really should not have attempted 4T in Vancouver. He would have gotten more points without the 4T and probably would have won. I respect Daisuke for still going for the quad. He was such a warrior!

And notice that most skaters would fall many times before they can get the quad consistent because it’s just so difficult. If Daisuke hadn’t tried 4T many times and fallen many times, then he wouldn’t have improved. Now his 4T is more consistent than before.

OTOH, I don’t like how Tatsuki won the bronze at SA by playing it safe. Out of 10 skaters, 8 tried quad in SP. Only Tatsuki and Majorov did not try a quad in SP. Tatsuki was able to give a clean performance by leaving the 4T out and got a high 37.13 on his PCS. If Jeremy and Armin didn’t do 4T then they would’ve been clean as well and should’ve outscored Tatsuki. I think there should be some rules to punish skaters such as Tatsuki for playing it safe and to reward skaters who push the boundaries.
 

WeakAnkles

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 1, 2011
I don't think people blame Chan when he falls multiple times and still wins. I think people get frustrated with the system and when we express it the Chan uberfans act like we're too stupid to understand the scoring and be able to identify good skating. Chan is far superior IMO to Hanyu at this point so I also wouldn't score Hanyu as high as the judges did at SA.

This x a zillion.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Playing devil's advocate, since it's being brought up -- do you have a problem with Hanyu received scores of 7.30 and 7.50 for falling on a Quad Toe and Salchow at the SA LP?

Actually my husband, being the non fan he is, found that to be the weirdest thing about the scoring system. He went on and on about that on the way home on Monday.

I have to admit it, I'm with Mr. P. :)

The skater straps on his skates. "Hey, everybody, look at the awesome trick I can do! ... Oops. :eek:: Never mind."

Figure skating judging should go like this. "You, you and you -- you all fell down. Now, of the guys who are still standing, you got first, you got second, you got third." :yes:
 

Bluebonnet

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
I wish we could actually discuss the top men and their prospects without it descending each time to "who is more overscored", which has been done to death. But apparently I am in the minority.

You see, Buttercup, who always drags the topic to Chan? The people who don't like Chan! Most of the times, Chan supporters just simply replies to the posts which they thought were unfairly put. I thought it could be a time to discuss the top men with balanced views on all since the time has changed. But it soon ends up with Chan at the center of bashing. Why is Chan so important and so focused on by his detractors?! So many skaters have had multiple falls. So many skaters have had three falls in one program. Yet, they could all be spared and forgotten, or just intentionally ignored. But Chan's three falls or even just one fall wouldn't escape from their pens and minds.

p.s. if we don't punish other serious errors on a jump with a zero score, why should falls be different? They may need to receive a lower score than they do now, but certainly not nothing.

As I've said in other threads before, I'm all for more punishment on multiple falls. But giving 0 on a fall is not fair. Skaters could all do just triples but no quads, so they could avoid a possible 0 effort. That is not right.
 
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