Indeed, all those people on GS suddenly demanding that Ten be handed the World title never even talked about this guy before - hey, some didn't even know he existed prior to this competition. What does this say? Ten is at the right place and time. My assessment of his performance tonight is that the scores he received had some psychological boost based on what happened before him. After Chan's skate, I felt extremely disappointed and really didn't want to see him win another World title with such a skate - for his own good and his future development. I am sure many on the judging panel felt the same way too. Therefore, Ten's superior performance became the closest thing to put a nicer cover page on tomorrow's ISU main news site, as opposed to having to describe the World Champion as having two falls and 4 errors in total. If it were not for the fact there was a strong knee-jerk reaction to a "Anyone but Chan", Ten wouldn't have received such high scores, not even close.
Don't get me wrong. I first saw him at the LA Worlds in 2009 and was very impressed. What I saw tonight up close is a guy who still needs polishing in terms of his in-between and presentation. Not quite at the level to be a solid top 5 in the world, yet. This does not mean he shouldn't be top 5 or on the podium. Rather, in this competition he was better than most but the result is due to poor performances on the part of other skaters who would have easily beaten him if they had skated to their potential.
You take note of each and every poster who is claiming Ten's robbed in this thread and wait till next season. Trust me, many of them will quickly be changing tune and claim memory loss just as fast when they no longer need Ten to verbally abuse Chan.
Look I agree with you Wally that Denis got a little lucky a lot of men didn't skate well...However, this is suppose to be a competition not a political game.
Part of what makes sports existing at least the good ones is that people can come out and pull surprises....That its not predetermined sometimes someone can pull the upset.
It would be one thing if Patrick had skated similar to how Joubert skated when Daisuke one the free and Joubert won based on the short. In that skate Joubert just played it really safe, he still though skated well. I could live with Patrick winning in that case.
However Patrick and a lot of the top men were terrible. Daisuke got hit hard for being terrible-why didn't Patrick.
Denis Ten may need some polishing (although I will say I think in terms of emotions he's better than Patrick) however I would hardly call Ten a sloppy he skater. He's actually a beautiful skater. A part of me prefers the Rach passionate Ten.
He presented high quality technical content in terms of jumps, excellent spins and a great performance that won him a standing ovation from the guy who was in firsts home country.
Denis was the only skater in the competition who presented two beautiful programs (not just one) and displayed consistency throughout.
Will he continue to do this in the future- who knows. It may have been his Buttle moment although he is very young. However the point of the matter he did do that. And his performance was far more watchable than what Chan put out.
You want to talk about in betweens, well in betweens are good but there was nothing wrong with Ten's program, it was a lovely program, and he actually EXECUTED his program well.
Its figure skating not figure falling. Staying on your feet and executing your elements should actually matter. I'd have no problem if Chan had fallen once and skated beautifully for the rest. Patrick is a gorgeous skater. But what he put out tonight was not gorgeous skater and didn't merit the highest P/E score of the evening.
Your whole well nobody talked about Ten in the past highights the issue for everyone. The feeling that Chan is the preedetermined winner. And that it doesn't matter how Patrick skates, the other skates have to be picture perfect and Chan can get away with falling at least 2/3 times. Its ridiculous. nobody considers falling 2/3 times in your performance a good program... Or skating at its best.
If you can't understand how great it would have been for the sport for somebody to be able to pull out a surprise worlds win. How needed it is for the sport's credibility....