Coming off of US nat'ls and looking ahead towards worlds I'm feeling a bit deflatated. The veterans are flagging and the youngsters are still struggling to find thier way. I could say the same about 2011 and 2012. If YuNa rocks it maybe I'll feel differently....hmmm. Am I just over romanticizing the past?
Last edited by ivy; 02-01-2013 at 10:41 AM. Reason: spelling
Well, I feel differently! I'm pretty excited! YuNa, Mao, Carolina, Liza, Adelina, Julia, Gracie, Kaetlyn, Kanako...so many interesting challengers stepping up to the plate. 2011 and 2012 were meh, I agree. But things are getting heated.Originally Posted by ivy
2010 to 2014 is the worst. There is no comparison to the bottom that this quad has reached in skating history for ladies. I am talking about jumping! The jumping regression has no comparison in history in ladies. It is so bad! This is the bottom. It has to be rescued from it's horrible nature by Yuna Kim winning everything from worlds 2013 to Olympics 2014. I am very concerned about a 3 or 4 triple Mao or Carolina winning everything. There is no reason to believe Mao or Carolina will become respectable jumpers. Pcs has given Mao and Carolina wins that involve the least difficulty in jumping in decades. People defend then saying jumps aren't everything but can they be something? Lol!
2011 and 2012 were definitely boring as far as ladies were concerned. But 2013 and Sochi will be really interesting. I'm not just saying this as a big Yuna fan. We're about to see an attempt to defend a women's Olympic title for the first time since Katarina Witt. And it's not a given either. Yuna faces stiff competition from both veterans and youngsters. The youngsters have even adopted Yuna's layout to a great extent: 3lz+3t, 2a+3t etc. in the free program. She's still ahead in the SP, though. For some reason even Gracie, Adelina and Liza seem to be too timid to go for both a 3lz+3t and 3f in the SP.
Gracie could pull it off , Liza will go for the 3Lz-3T but her 3F isn't stable enough. However the point difference between 3L and 3F is insignificant. Adelina's 3Lz is a flutz and this combo isn't yet stable for her, plus she gets huge GOE on her 3T-3T to make up for the lower TES a bit. Still, a clean Yuna has the the TES advantage and the PCS anyway. But if others are clean also she might not be unreachable which is exciting!
This is what happens when the sports doesn't have new young talent infused every so often. Since the Olympics it's been basically the same old veterans skaters vying for the title because the youngsters were to young to participate and obviously were not ready. Think about how after the 2006 Olympics in the very next season Mao and Yuna went to Worlds and had over 3 years of experience before Vancouver or even Oksana Bauil the year after the 92 Olympics and how it instantly made the Ladies division much tougher. This time it's taken 3 years just for the Russian girls to be old enough to go to Worlds for the first time. As it is they will probably not medal at the Olympics since they don't have enough experience and will only be around 17, 18 and haven't hit their peak form yet. If the Olympics were in 2015 or 2016 i bet those Ladies and Gracie and Kaetlyn would be the ones to beat.
Last edited by Jammers; 02-01-2013 at 08:57 AM.
^^I agree. It just seems like it was all bad timing for the newbies. Liza and Adelina are only on their 2nd season as seniors and are still establishing themselves; Kaetlyn, Julia and Gracie just made the jump to seniors this year and are establishing themselves, granted it's little quicker than most due to the hype they all received but it's still a process.
Unlike the last quad where there was an immediate change of the guard following Torino, the newer stars of this quad are a little late to the party. As a result skating has evolved...in a somewhat regressive manner, but that's what happens. Things constantly change in this sport.
People complain a lot but I think we've seen some really beautiful skating in the last two years; the trade off has been a reduction in technical content. Carolina, Mao, Akiko and Ashley have really lovely programs in terms of music, interpretation, choreography, expression and presentation. However, none of them have anything harder than a 3T-3T. Some people see that as bad but personally I have no problem watching a beautiful, well-choreographed, mature program with easier but cleaner jumps. People who want an athletic display a la men's skating find the ladies boring to watch but, being a huge fan of 6.0 skating, I'm fine with it.
With the newer girls finally eligible for senior worlds, I think we may see an inverse of this current trend. Skaters like Liza, Adelina, Gracie, Julia and Kaetlyn don't have the level of maturity the other ladies have. Their programs aren't strong in terms of the aforementioned categories but what they lack in presentation or artistry they make up for in technical content. They have 3-3s, 2-3s and know how to stack points. The hope is that those who are weak in presentation and artistry will develop, grow and mature...but there's no guarantee of that. Besides, oftentimes the PCS they receive don't accurately reflect the level of skating they deliver, particularly in PE, IN and CH where their excellent technical displays sway the judges' opinion of these marks. Without accurate (ie. lower) scoring of these areas the skaters have no incentive to work to better them. So I think we'll see a reduction in the amount of amazing overall programs in favor of cookie cutter COP tailored programs packed with difficult technical elements and very little else. I pray I'm wrong...
Because these girls are so new and the older skaters are still established with the judges, as of right now, roughly a year out from Sochi, none of the newer girls are looking like podium contenders...but things can change very quickly between now and the beginning of the GP season for 2013. The last few years have been kinda "quiet" but I think next season is going to be amazing...
Last edited by kwanatic; 02-01-2013 at 09:48 AM.
Gracie has 3F+3T, 3Lz in her SP (with the intention of a Rippon Lutz if it feels right going up)
Another difference from past cycles is that a lot of veterans came back after Vancouver. Most Olympics it seems like the 3 medalists retire soon after but not this time. Not only did Mao come back but Kim of course seems serious about being in Sochi and Suzuki and of course Kostner. In years past a two time Olympian like Carolina in her mid twenties who hadn't come close to medaling would have retired.
No I would like an athletic display a la ladies skating!! lol! Jumps have devolved in a regressive way!
Interesting, and I'm wondering if this is actually true. Sure, it feels like the jumps are the worst they've ever been re: women's skating, but haven't we been seeing 4-6 triple programs winning everything for the past decade or so? Maybe yes, maybe no, but I think there are two reasons why triple counts are lower than they have been in the past 2 quadrennials.
1. TES: I think this has less to do with jumping ability and more to do with the IJS and its penalties for underrotations and incorrect edge takeoffs. It leads skaters to avoid unnecessary penalties. I think this is a good thing. I rather see a 5 triple program with two clean 2As than a 7 triple program with 2 flutzes. Meissner's 7 triple program from 2006 worlds would get destroyed by the version of the IJS now in use. Same with Arakawa in 2004 (worlds) and Slutskaya in 2005 (worlds), but certainly to a lesser extent.
2. PCS: With all that IJS requires re: spins, footwork, choreography, transitions, etc., skaters don't have time to work on 3-3s or adding that pesky 3loop. The hit that their PCS would take simply is not worth it. Sure, they could telegraph a 3Lz, train that 3lz, and spend lots of practice time working on that telegraphed 3lz, but is it worth the drop in PCS? I don't think it is.
A big part of it really involves how both Mao and Carolina are so below their best capabilities. You know what they have done in the last and for both it is a spectacular collapse in jumping ability. And under IJS too! Their jumps spins and steps under IJS got them great Tes! And their pcs marks were good too. Now they rely on pcs and their Tes relies on spins and steps! Jumps are filler for both of them. They still want to be successful in competitions but use jumps as filler stuff now with seemingly no interest in even coming close to do what they used to do. That is Yuna is so great. She is coming back with basically the same jumps as when she left!
Here is the number of triples landed by the 3 medalists in every world championship since the adoption of CoP (this includes both SP+LP):
2005: 25
2006: 23
2007: 25
2008: 25
2009: 23
2010: 19 (plus 2 of Asada's 3A<s)
2011: 20
2012: 25
I don't see a regression here. A little slump that's already picked up. The focus has changed from the harder 3-3s mostly because CoP does not reward it. Why go for 3Lz-3T when you can do 3Lz-2T and 2A-3T, instead? With the exception of Kim and Kostner pre-2010, hardly any lady did a 3-3 in the SP - they would all do 3Lz-2T. It took them a few years to realize a 3T-3T is worth more. It's not about the talent - it's about the math.
I also don't buy the "veternas staying on caused regression". Sure, all the top ladies retired after 2006 (OK, not Suguri) but after 1998 Kwan, Slultskaya and Butyrskaya stayed on, and after 2002 Kwan and Slutskaya, as well as Cohen and Suguri, stuck around. That hadn't hurt the technical difficulty, either.
I'm sorry, but I have to agree with the decline in this sport in ladies. I think in the junior ranks the level of jumping is excellent and what it should be in the senior ranks, but it seems when skaters move up to seniors, they rely on PCS to win competitions and rarely bring the same level of technical content. It's weird when a Junior World champion like Lipnitskaia lands 7 triples in her long, but horrible when Kostner or Ando lands 5 triples and wins Worlds. Since when is 5 triples the standard for women's skating? And since when is 3F-2X, 3L, 2A the standard of short programs?! At this point, a cleanly executed 3-3 should be as mandatory as a triple axel in men's to put yourself in the final flight at Worlds. The fact that being a veteran as soon as they step on the ice immediately gets enough PCS to overcome a less popular skater who happens to have a 3-3, regardless of how weak their jump content is, is rather deplorable. Under 6.0, a fall would automatically put you out of the top 3, and nowadays skaters with falls are still sitting in 2nd or even 1st (and with inferior jump content at that!).
Until the judges start truly rewarding technical content, there will be no progression in the technical side of the sport - which, in my opinion, makes it a sport. Liza's wins on the GP last year are nice examples of good technical content beating out skaters with expected PCS boost.
Part of me thinks that junior World Champions should be given the option to compete at Senior Worlds, regardless of age. Radionova or Lipnitskaia could easily challenge top skaters, even if their PCS is lacking. You would almost have to shame top skaters into trying harder elements by having more technically sound skaters landing 3-3 jumps compete with them. If there were 2 or 3 Yu Na Kim's around the top skaters would certainly be working to get their 3-3 back a lot harder than they are right now. Right now, the top skaters have a mentality of doing what it takes to win, instead of attempting beyond "acceptable" jump content and simply dominating, like how Plushenko or Kim have done in the past. I know it's easier said than done, but I wish female skaters were more ambitious about exceeding their predecessors instead of settling for a plateau that happens to "be enough" to win.
Oh, and while flutzing is bad technique, I still think that a jump should be -1 or 0 for a flutz, instead of -2 or -3, if it is executed well. And even with flutzing discouraging skaters from doing all 5 triple jumps, the reality is many skaters will still do a 2A instead of a 3T or 3S.
Thankfully, it seems the opposite happens in the men's where they land quads and get more consistent 3A as they move up to senior, and are fine with 3As and developing their skating/PCS as juniors.
Must you use every thread to bash Mao and Kostner. According to all your post mao is destroying iceskating because her jumps are so bad.
Last edited by Minze2001; 02-01-2013 at 12:13 PM.
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