2013 Worlds Men LP

Can I just say I feel vindicated? For the last year i've been saying that Denis Ten was underrated and had, yes, world podium potential. I don't think even 1 person here agreed with me. And now this. I'm just so happy for Denis right now. He skated incredibly well and, silver or gold, it was his night.

Mrs. P said:

Mura got higher PCS than Aaron, no need to riot, IP.

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Mura is like the polar opposite of Aaron tonight. Mura's style is very organized, precise and controlled but he doesn't do very much. His chosen music is beautiful as it contains many wonderful highlights but Mura's upper body and feet did very little to accentuate those highlights. Max Aaron just projects his energy anywhere and everywhere, like a radiant sun but maybe he needs to tone it down just a little.

aftertherain said:

Chan did well in the SP, but Ten did too. Was what Chan did in the LP justifiable enough for him to win? No. Denis skated lights-out in BOTH programs. Therefore, Denis left a GREAT impression both nights.

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I know I was making a mistake in posting that I didn't think Denis Ten was THAT great either. I understand - he should have won. I just didn't like his free skate that much, but I'm not denying he was the best tonight.

eyria said:

Can I just say I feel vindicated? For the last year i've been saying that Denis Ten was underrated and had, yes, world podium potential. I don't think even 1 person here agreed with me. And now this. I'm just so happy for Denis right now. He skated incredibly well and, silver or gold, it was his night.

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Mmmh, I doubt that no one agreed with you. It was clear from the Vancouver Olympics that Denis Ten was made for bigger things. It just so happened that he had loads of splatfests and didn't really follow up after the Olympics.

eyria said:

Can I just say I feel vindicated? For the last year i've been saying that Denis Ten was underrated and had, yes, world podium potential. I don't think even 1 person here agreed with me. And now this. I'm just so happy for Denis right now. He skated incredibly well and, silver or gold, it was his night.

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I think Denis is a beautiful skater but doesn't have a powerful fed backing him, and is very inconsistent. However I felt he was the most talented best man Frank has had in decades..

Oh the wonders when great American and Russian (Ten's roots) combine. Here's hoping the Russian and the American feds who don't have a male skater to back will adopt him a bit.

eyria said:

Can I just say I feel vindicated? For the last year i've been saying that Denis Ten was underrated and had, yes, world podium potential. I don't think even 1 person here agreed with me. And now this. I'm just so happy for Denis right now. He skated incredibly well and, silver or gold, it was his night.

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Your vindicated. You also earned the right to say I told you so.

Mrs. P said:

Given that you are not exactly hitting all your predictions in the last few weeks, not sure if i want to be the farm on them...

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LOL! The poster you quoted clearly wants his/her "prince" on the podium so badly that everyone has to bomb. Thankfully, some didn't bomb and the "prince" missed the podium, deservingly so.

pangtongfan said:

That is what I said 3 years ago. It was clear the judges had already coronated Chan the winner of every event until he retired, and they should just mail him the next 3 or 4 World titles and Olympic Gold already. People laughed and called me a troll, and now those same people are calling me a genuis and saying they should have seen it sooner as well.

That said I have a feeling this could actually lead to him losing the OGM. The rage and fury has reached a new all time height and believe me the ISU and judges are hearing and feeling it. Olympics next year are not in Canada. On Russian Ice they had better be wary of their safety should they give Chan another ridiculous and unjustified win. This will also likely lead to Chans continued overconfidence and he is now likely to make no changes at all.

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I was one of those people that was really frustrated with you, as I'm sure you recall. I simply felt that no one was skating to that level. And if we're honest, Chan deserved his first world title (which you agreed with, so I'm not asserting otherwise). But didn't it feel otherwise this season to you? Given how Chan lost to not one but eight men this season (including the Japan Open. Three if you don't include it), given his struggles... given everything - I thought he'd lose before this event. Then he deservingly won the short program, the other skaters that were competitive with him didn't do well (we didn't see Ten as competitive with him anyway), and I was fine with him winning. Then he skated terribly, but no one else truly skated great. Then Ten did. And I really thought that Ten could win. Really truly did. It would've been such a terrific moment. And it didn't happen. And honestly, I felt like an idiot for thinking it could.

It's frustrating because it really undermines the sport, does Chan and his potential legacy no favours and I've gotta imagine makes the sport seem less attractive to possible participants. It makes COP seem indefensible (and I really love COP, you know that) and it isn't (I will never concede that to Mathman, even if I stop watching). It makes deserving medalists seem like they were politicked (Osmond could earn bronze, but will anyone actually think she'd deserve it now or think it was purchased?). Chan could deserve to win the Olympics. He inarguably deserved to win Worlds 2011 and 4CC 2012. Any victory he gets will be tarnished by this, regardless of merit.

But here's the thing, ptf. Here's the cruncher. I don't think this changes anything within the ISU. I don't, honestly. I don't see how this would where Chan in Nice didn't. I can't tell if there is more rage now or if I'm just paying attention to it more, exhausted by the sheer volume of it (including myself here). But I think SC still pushes Chan hard. Chan might be unpopular, but he also scored the highest PCS for a man ever at Rostelecom this season.

Max Aaron was so fast.. I just watched it on CBC. He is an incredible athlete.

eyria said:

Can I just say I feel vindicated? For the last year i've been saying that Denis Ten was underrated and had, yes, world podium potential. I don't think even 1 person here agreed with me. And now this. I'm just so happy for Denis right now. He skated incredibly well and, silver or gold, it was his night.

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I did. I think I picked him as one of my dark horses for the podium

I've finally made my way through the posts and comments. This is hair-raising. My heart breaks for Daisuke, though I rejoice for Denis Ten. Imagine what it must feel like to be the first person from your country on the World podium.

As for the winner and how he won, I am completely at sea. How can this be good for skating? I'm not even sure it's good for Patrick. But you know, the fact that Patrick won with such a program isn't nearly as disturbing as the fact that so many fine skaters melted down. Was it the quality of the ice? The size of the rink? Or the present glorification of quads seemingly at the expense of all else?

wallylutz said:

I beg to differ. Prior to this competition, I was a little skeptical. Now, I feel the raw talent and energy that Max Aaron has is quite something. He is a rough diamond right now who needs a lot of polishing. With the right coaching and nurturing, he can be the next Elvis Stojko.

And if you go back on my talent prediction record here on GS, I don't think I have missed the mark yet all those years - both on picking eventual stars (Osmond, Weaver/Poje) and predicting falls of former stars (e.g. Shibutani, overrated Russian babies, I/K, Crone/Poirier).

So mark my word now, Max Aaron will be a star unless he is not given the proper environment to grow.

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I think it's far too early to say that the Russian babies are over. They're young, Liza has two GPF gold medals and they can still fight back in the long.
They've also both won medals at Euros, something Kaetlyn failed to do at 4CCs (and if I remember correctly, didn't you predict a podium finish for her?)

MaiKatze said:

I'm not justifying his victory. I also thought his score was ridiculous. I think, this was decided in the SP. But the LP is the impression that remains, which was horrible.

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I think we share similar thoughts

Olympia said:

Imagine what it must feel like to be the first person from your country on the World podium.

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Maybe he can get some advice from Midori Ito or Yuna Kim.

Looking at the results...wasn't Nan Song a pretty good skater some time a go? What happened? Was it that crash from CoC?

Colanboy said:

I think it's far too early to say that the Russian babies are over. They're young, Liza has two GPF gold medals and they can still fight back in the long.
They've also both won medals at Euros, something Kaetlyn failed to do at 4CCs (and if I remember correctly, didn't you predict a podium finish for her?)

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Lets put it this way. Slutskaya will still be the best Russian figure skater of all time 10 years from now. I do think Sotnikova and Tuktamysheva will both win atleast 1 World medal of some color in their careers though. Radianova too, and possibly (but least certain of all) Lipnitskaya. What they achieve beyond that is hard to say now though, and I doubt it will be anytime before after Sochi.

bekalc said:

Its not a reason for the results. First of all since when is skating all about quads? Yes Patrick had 2 quads. But you know what he had no triple axels. Whereas Denis Ten had 2 beautiful triple axels...

Ten by far had the better jumping display.

Was Denis the most amazing thing I had ever seen. Well compared to how everyone else skated he was.

At the end of the day I'm tired of this argument that how you execute the elements shouldn't matter. One mistake a la V/T's fall okay as long as the rest is well done.

But multiple glaring big time errors, it matters. Currently glaring errors are frankly not penalized enough. And I'm sorry they effect the performance. Nobody should be getting 89s in pcs with that kind of skate

If Denis was from a powerful skating country, people would be screaming now.

Patrick does have beautiful blade skills but I'd rather see a little less from him and a program he can actually skate well than a jammed pack program he can't skate well.

In general this sport is encouraging skaters to throw in their most difficult elements regardless of how they can do it and PCS are used to hold up some downgrade some others.

In general I want difficulty encouraged. I'm not convinced difficulty is rewarded enough for the ladies. But execution has to matter too.

This is figure skating not figure falling. And I'm darn tired of the world "rotations"

How hard is it to have a balance and I'm sorry I'm tired of the hypocrisy. People screamed when Anton made a small frankly minor error with a program that was far more complicated than S/P's. Screamed to high heavens, and everything else B/S did was beautiful.

But Patrick Chan wins time after time with programs that are marred with multiple, multiple, multiple glaring errors and that's just fine by the same country.

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Amen to everything you said. Especially about SPC and how hypocritical the country is. As a Canadoan, I'm honestly ashamed of what has just happened. If we can't expect the officials to run the show properly, who can we trust? Prefably ourselves at this point...

Absolute Skating has some terrific tweets from the press conference that make Denis Ten and Javier Fernandez adorable, for what it's worth.

MEN'S FREE SKATE - RESULT & VIDEOS (Updated)

1. Patrick CHAN (CAN) - 267.78 Free Skate, 2nd Copy
2. Denis TEN (KAZ) - 266.48 Free Skate
3. Javier FERNANDEZ (ESP) - 249.06 Free Skate, 2nd Copy
4. Yuzuru HANYU (JPN) - 244.99 Free Skate
5. Kevin REYNOLDS (CAN) - 239.98 Free Skate
6. Daisuke TAKAHASHI (JPN) - 239.03 Free Skate, 2nd Copy
7. Max AARON (USA) - 238.36 Free Skate
8. Takahito MURA (JPN) - 234.18 Free Skate
9. Brian JOUBERT (FRA) - 232.26
10. Michal BREZINA (CZE) - 229.00 Free Skate
11. Peter LIEBERS (GER) - 216.84
12. Florent AMODIO (FRA) - 216.83
13. Andrei ROGOZINE (CAN) - 216.60
14. Ross MINER (USA) - 211.90
15. Nan SONG (CHN) 207.68
16. Misha GE (UZB) - 207.50
17. Maxim KOVTUN (RUS) - 207.40
18. Alexander MAJOROV (SWE) - 204.29
19. Jorik HENDRICKX (BEL) - 192.19
20. Viktor PFEIFER (AUT) - 189.44 Free Skate
21. Tomas VERNER (CZE) - 180.50
22. Viktor ROMANENKOV (EST) - 177.09
23. Yakov GODOROZHA (UKR) - 174.98
24. Justus STRID (DEN) - 165.23

pangtongfan said:

Lets put it this way. Slutskaya will still be the best Russian figure skater of all time 10 years from now. I do think Sotnikova and Tuktamysheva will both win atleast 1 World medal of some color in their careers though. Radianova too, and possibly (but least certain of all) Lipnitskaya. What they achieve beyond that is hard to say now though, and I doubt it will be anytime before after Sochi.

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What they will achieve in terms of medals is far from certain, but to categorize them as fallen former stars is presumptuous. They are still very much rising IMO.

bekalc said:

Its not a reason for the results. First of all since when is skating all about quads? Yes Patrick had 2 quads. But you know what he had no triple axels. Whereas Denis Ten had 2 beautiful triple axels...

Ten by far had the better jumping display.

Was Denis the most amazing thing I had ever seen. Well compared to how everyone else skated he was.

At the end of the day I'm tired of this argument that how you execute the elements shouldn't matter. One mistake a la V/T's fall okay as long as the rest is well done.

But multiple glaring big time errors, it matters. Currently glaring errors are frankly not penalized enough. And I'm sorry they effect the performance. Nobody should be getting 89s in pcs with that kind of skate

If Denis was from a powerful skating country, people would be screaming now.

Patrick does have beautiful blade skills but I'd rather see a little less from him and a program he can actually skate well than a jammed pack program he can't skate well.

In general this sport is encouraging skaters to throw in their most difficult elements regardless of how they can do it and PCS are used to hold up some downgrade some others.

In general I want difficulty encouraged. I'm not convinced difficulty is rewarded enough for the ladies. But execution has to matter too.

This is figure skating not figure falling. And I'm darn tired of the world "rotations"

How hard is it to have a balance and I'm sorry I'm tired of the hypocrisy. People screamed when Anton made a small frankly minor error with a program that was far more complicated than S/P's. Screamed to high heavens, and everything else B/S did was beautiful.

But Patrick Chan wins time after time with programs that are marred with multiple, multiple, multiple glaring errors and that's just fine by the same country.

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For the most part I almost entirely agree with you. I'm not trying to justify the results nor the IJS... I'm just trying to make sense of what happened.