Who surprised you this season? | Page 2 | Golden Skate

Who surprised you this season?

Moment

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 18, 2013
Patrick. Brilliant free program and his emotive interpretation of the music is convincing and does not feel forced.
 

skateluvr

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
Surprised by the fact that there are people who praise Caro's Bolero LP. It's musically boring, and her interpretation is just awful. Not to mention, lack of transitions..

anyways,
my real Surprise is Mao's intense LP. With 3A and Triple-Triple, I'm excited to see if she can fully deliver her potentials at the Worlds.
Yuna is no surprise, I knew she would do well on her comeback.

I love Caro's Bolero. She cannot put a foot wrong!
 

Krislite

Medalist
Joined
Sep 22, 2010
Mao getting her triple Axel back. You gotta give her credit for her tenacity.

Yuna's FS at Korean Nationals. It's quite rare to see her do a clean LP.

Max Aaron and Kevin Reynolds :eek:

Ashley's national FS (negative surprise), Gao's international results

Carolina increasing her difficulty was expected (not really a surprise) given Yuna and Mao's return to form.

This thead is a little premature, though. I'm sure the season has more surprises left for us at Worlds.
 

Skater Boy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 24, 2012
Surprised by the fact that there are people who praise Caro's Bolero LP. It's musically boring, and her interpretation is just awful. Not to mention, lack of transitions..

anyways,
my real Surprise is Mao's intense LP. With 3A and Triple-Triple, I'm excited to see if she can fully deliver her potentials at the Worlds.
Yuna is no surprise, I knew she would do well on her comeback.

ITA Good points.
 

Butterscotch17

On the Ice
Joined
Apr 26, 2012
The biggest surprises of the season for me were 1) Kaetlyn Osmond coming out and killing it 2) Max Aaron winning Nationals - I was shocked; I never ever saw that coming and 3) Kevin Reynolds winning Four Continents. In Japan. With Takahashi and Hanyu there. Kevin improved a lot at that competition and really surprised me.
 

Aesthetics

Rinkside
Joined
Nov 29, 2012
I love Caro's Bolero. She cannot put a foot wrong
Me too. Caro’s Bolero is the best ladies’ LP this season, better than Asada’s and Yuna’s programs. I disagree with that criticism of Caro. Watching Asada live at 4CC she was boring and her score was overmarked. Yuna I haven’t watched her live this season but her programs look boring on TV. I’m looking forward to Caro’s Bolero at Worlds… and Suzuki’s Kill Bill was so fun live too.
 

jenaj

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 17, 2003
Country
United-States
Surprised by the fact that there are people who praise Caro's Bolero LP. It's musically boring, and her interpretation is just awful. Not to mention, lack of transitions..

I agree in part--no transitions and Bolero is a boring musical piece. But I actually think her interpretation is quite good. Bolero was a good choice for her, because it slowed her down. I also don't think, aside from COP requirements, that the lack of transitions is a negative. Her skating goes very well with the the music and the arm movements are reminiscent of the famous ballet to Bolero. It is interesting to me that Carolina is now Lori Nichol's muse. Lori's work for Carolina is, in my opinion, the best work she has done since she worked with Michelle.
 

pohatta

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 15, 2005
Although her season ended sadly, Kiira Korpi surprised me with her improved LP attitude. In her three GP long programs she moved from 4th to 3rd, from 2nd to 1st and kept her 4th place in the final.
 

skateluvr

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
I too thought how Caro is Nichols current muse, except that Caro has to do so much more footwork under CoP. Lori's masterpieces with MK are simple compared to what she can do with Caro's speed, lines etc. Caro is now among my faves, I really am glad she stayed in. She is magic.
 

ManyCairns

Medalist
Joined
Mar 12, 2007
Country
United-States
I LOVE Caro's Bolero! I guess you could say I am surprised that she could come up with a program I like as well as I liked both her SP and LP last year -- but she did! Go Caro!
 

vera01

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 6, 2013
Skaters that came out of nowhere:Anna Pogorilaya, Max Aaron, Kaetlyn Osmond

It's definitely nice to see that there's always few skaters to surprise us.
 

silverlake22

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
I wonder if Russia will send Pogorilaya and Gosviani out on the GP in the coming season? The way this season worked out with them skating so well and then Leonova, Korobeynikova, Makarova, Biryukova, and Shelepen all underperforming or being plagued by injury or both, it should be interesting to see what happens. Pogorilaya is 18 on the SB list so she very well may stay in the top 24 by the end of the season, Gosviani is 30 but higher than Korobeynikova and way above Biryukova and Shelepen on the list. Where Russia has a home event they could probably politik to get either girl 2 events where one could be a host pick. They are still young enough for JGP though, and Anna only turns 15 next month, but she already medaled in all the big junior events this season so it wouldn't be that surprising really. I really like these 2 skaters from Russia and hope they can keep up the good skating for the future!
 

senatormls

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 26, 2012
Surprises this season:
Kevin Reynolds coming out of his shell at 4CC
Osmond's breakthrough and win at Skate Canada
Why Yu-Na is coming back
Plushenko winning another Russian title when his back is almost collapsed
Ross Miner ( a pleasant one)
Matt Savoie is gay? Had no idea but congrats on his marriage
 

Icey

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 28, 2012
MOI!!!!!!:laugh: that i am still attempting to watch a sport that has so little coverage (after swearing for the last few years that it is my last year).:mad:
 

Ilvskating

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 30, 2010
I have to echo what many of you have already said - Carolina really surprised me. As much as I enjoy her skating, it had bothered me to some extent that she was resting on doing programs that didn't include the big triples. Seeing that she's got her lutz and flip back in those programs is huge. Max Aaron's success this season has also been huge. To come "out of nowhere" and win the U.S. men's title in such a deep field is nothing short of outstanding.

I also have to give a huge hats off to my own country's skaters who are really rocking it this season. Kaetlyn Osmond, Kevin Reynolds and all THREE of our top pairs teams have delivered performances that certainly exceeded my expectations this season. It really warms my heart to see skaters surprise me for the better!

Encore that! Also, Mao got her jumps back.

But what surprised me most is Patrick chooses not having a real coach! This reminds me seeing Michelle Kwuan sitting in the K&C with her dad. Not a good sign. Even if Kathy knew enough it would still put Patrick in a tremendous disadvantage, knowing that everybody else, including the judges would be quite understandably on the skeptical sided, if not being offended.
 

Sabrina

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Kevin Reynolds winning the 4 continents was the biggest surprise. Kaetlin Osmond was also a surprise, and so was Julia Lipinskaia.
 

Serious Business

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
I'm surprised and disappointed none of the Junior Ice Dancing teams picked Kanye West & Jay-Z's song "Paris" for the hip hop rhythm in the short dance. That's a rap song that's massively popular right around song selection time that outright and repeatedly mentions figure skating, via its Blades of Glory samples.

Heck, I'm surprised and disappointed that not a single team picked a song that can be reasonably called rap.

I expected timid, dull and outdated song choices all around for the teams that would go for hip hop (after all, the ISU memo on the hip hop dancing/rhythm used clips from So You Think You Can Dance, a show that's about as authentic as Taco Bell, to explain the genre). But I thought at least one of them would use an actual rap song. Even something as lame as MC Hammer or Fresh Prince/Will Smith. But nope, the closest I got was Jason Brown's exhibition number. :mad:
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
Don't knock Jason's exhibition number-it really showed that MC Hammer can be used for skating. In fact, I can see an ice dance program to Can't Touch This, ( The ah ah ah parts would be a great place to put sets of twizzles) possibly teamed with parts of TLC's Waterfalls :) to make it a guy says he can do anything, and girl says don't go chasing waterfalls. I think it could be fun.
 

Serious Business

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
dorispulaski, I like Jason's exhibition, I think it's fun and his hip hop is more on point than most. MC Hammer is indisputably lame, though. That's why it could be used in fun/ironic/nostalgic/ironic nostalgia (after all, these junior skaters are too young to be nostalgic for Hammer Time) ways.

TLC's Waterfalls actually has a great rap section from Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez. That could've been the perfect hip hop song for a junior ice dancing team. The song had massive mainstream popularity, so that even those old, dusty skating judges should know it and be comfortable with it.
 
Top