Ladies SP - 2013-14 Grand Prix Final

Frankie said:

They gave Lipnitskaia an edge deduction for her lutz (first time ever?)

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Far from it. Julia had trouble with her Lutz pretty often. She's working on it, and is now more in 'sometimes right, sometimes flutz and sometimes lip' category. I didn't look at it while watching her skate, but the edge call isn't that suspicious too me, judging from her history with the lutz.

GPF in Japan and OG in Russia gives the japanese and russian skaters a humongous boost in marks

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I wouldn't say Mao got such a huge boost regarding her marks. She has been around 72-73 with 2ft 3As this season already, and this performance was definitly better than the previous ones.

We've seen Chan always get huge PC scores in the past even when his programmes were filled with mistakes. Now, suddenly, this has gone (a bit). Hanyu getting HIGHER PCs would have been unthinkable 12 months ago.

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Isn't 87+ still pretty good for a step-out and a pop? Especially since this system eats you alive if you pop a jump... Hanyu's PCS are too high, but Chan's marks are looking fair to me.

bluesky85 said:

So he is Japanese...?? I am confused...

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gosh! seriously. If you're confused after all the info given to you by the other posters, maybe invest in the effort to google him. "Shin Amano" That's 9 letters plus 1 space plus 1 enter.

Mrs. P said:

I guess because nobody else got UR calls, including Ashley, who some argue has been given a pass on her 3F-3T in the past.

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Okay. I only watched Mao and Julia of the girls tonight so I have no idea whether he was being particularly harsh to Mao.

bluesky85 said:

So he is Japanese...?? I am confused...

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He is a Japanese former pair skater and is now ISU Technical Specialist.
He was a Technical Specialist at 2009 WTT where Mao got her personal best of SP and 2010 Worlds where Mao won her Gold medal with UR 3As.

froh1981 said:

He is a Japanese former pair skater and is now ISU Technical Specialist.
He was a Technical Specialist at 2009 WTT where Mao got her personal best of SP and 2010 Worlds where Mao won her Gold medal with UR 3As.

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This is, of course, the proper way I should also have replied to the question.
I apologize. :

Li'Kitsu said:

Far from it. Julia had trouble with her Lutz pretty often. She's working on it, and is now more in 'sometimes right, sometimes flutz and sometimes lip' category. I didn't look at it while watching her skate, but the edge call isn't that suspicious too me, judging from her history with the lutz.

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Julia's Flip and Lutz are not that severe
sometimes they are just borderline. enough to make manipulate and make edge calls

Frenchie said:

This is, of course, the proper way I should also have replied to the question.
I apologize. :

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Thanks for the apology. I appreciate it because I did feel a bit offended at first. I was asking for more than just factual information. What confused me was not such facts (as you said, I can easily google) but the reason why people would think his being the technical caller affected the under-rotation call that Mao got, because honestly, I think if he is Japanese, I think he will be fair or even more lenient towards the skaters from his own country, rather than unusually strict.

But then I also understood your frustration over my throwing-out-questions without much thought. So, we are even

froh1981 said:

He is a Japanese former pair skater and is now ISU Technical Specialist.
He was a Technical Specialist at 2009 WTT where Mao got her personal best of SP and 2010 Worlds where Mao won her Gold medal with UR 3As.

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Thanks for answering my thoughtless (and a bit repeated) questions. I do that sometimes when I want to clarify or delve into something in a discussion. But as Frenchie says, I guess I should make an effort to find information more independently, too

bluesky85 said:

I was asking the reason why people would think his being the technical caller affected the under-rotation call that Mao got, because honestly, I think if he is Japanese, I think he will be fair or even more lenient towards the skaters from his own country, rather than unusually strict.

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Nobody know why he does it, but it is a known fact that he is really strict specially with japanese skaters.

Not a lot of room for error for Mao and especially Ashley. Those Russian girls are very close behind.

chapis said:

Nobody know why he does it, but it is a known fact that he is really strict specially with japanese skaters.

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Is it? I thought he tended to be strict on all skaters, Japanese or not.

Speculation goes that Amano has a tendency to get jealous over his compatriots because unlike them, his career went and gone.

gimble said:

Is it? I thought he tended to be strict on all skaters, Japanese or not.

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just look this competition, in Japan, Mao got ur and not Ashley. I think both should be ratified but if you are really strict so he should ur Ashley`s combo too.

bluesky85 said:

Thanks for the apology. I appreciate it because I did feel a bit offended at first. I was asking for more than just factual information. What confused me was not such facts (as you said, I can easily google) but the reason why people would think his being the technical caller affected the under-rotation call that Mao got, because honestly, I think if he is Japanese, I think he will be fair or even more lenient towards the skaters from his own country, rather than unusually strict.

But then I also understood your frustration over my throwing-out-questions without much thought. So, we are even

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Sorry again, that was just a silly post of mine.

The whole underrotated thing heavily relies on us having some form of trust in the technical specialists and the judges in general.
As you might have noticed, I sincerely distrust the judges. I won't get into the whole 2002 Salt Lake incident, or any other of the many, many, MANY other times when it APPEARED to me as OBVIOUS that judges were just worthless scum that shouldn't be allowed to judge ever again.
(btw, did you know that Marie-Reine Le Gougne, often known simply as "the French Judge", even ran for presidency of the french figure skating federation 4 years later, and again 8 years later? She remained president of the Eastern League of the french figure skating federation during all this time. Just saying.)
Athletes work 5+ hours a day for years to compete at the highest level, and imo judges who just have to sit there for a few hours should feel honored to be allowed to judge them. Fairly. They even have to take an oath at the beginning of the olympics (1 athlete and 1 judge pledge to be clean and fair during the opening ceremony, representing all the others). Still, the disgusting scandals happened.
Now, with regards to underrotation - and edge calls, I've had strong opinions in the past, but I try to remember that I have to rely on the technical specialist: He/she has many more video angles, and super-super slow motions than we do. Even in cases where it seemed obvious to me a jump was completed or underrotated, I had to admit the possibility that a factor such as the angle of the blade during the landing could change everything: if the tip of the blade is leaning down a lot, then the EXACT MOMENT when the skater lands is sooner than what it appears to be with a regular video view. There, that moment is more likely to be judged underrotated hence downgraded - deservedly - whereas we viewers would have the strong opinion that it wasn't so.
That's why I want to believe that the technical specialist makes the right call.
The calls might be uneven from event to event, but what's most important to me is, that they're even/fair during one same competition.
So, the assumption that Wagner often underrotates her 3-3 combo shouldn't factor in in the tech spec's decision on that very day. Same with edge calls.
Still, I often have a bad feeling about those calls, but I try to trust the [untrustable] judges.
Rant over.

froh1981 said:

I don't think the assistant technical specialist has much power.
When Amano was an assistant technical specialist of Skate America this year, Mao's 3A was ratified in her short program.

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I was about to say this.

Leonardo said:

Shin Amano + korean assistant technical = Mao's worst nightmare. No way that 3a deserved an ur. And ashley's combo was just fine according to them. Unbelievable, even for Amano.

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Of course it was the Korean assistant's fault! That MUST be it! Even though no Korean was skating at GPF and it was in JAPAN and the tech caller was JAPANESE! THOSE KOREANS!

I think only 2 spots for Russia is working better than 3 spots. I'm very happy with 3t+3t from Sotnikova. Her lutz+loop just not working. If only she has 3lo+3t like Radionova. Maybe she can use 2A+3T and 2A+3T+2T for free. This combination looks a lot of better than last year. At the TEB she only did 6 triple but still got 65 TES which is very good. If she can add another 3T, her TES can break 70 (potentially of course) 6 triple but clean skate is enough for me.

This user has videos.

http://www.youtube.com/user/frida340/videos

Great performance by Mao, but as others I'm a bit surprised by her score. The 3A was so good this time! Weird, really weird how judges sometimes overmark and then they don't. I also think Elena was a bit underscored. I attribute that to her skating first. There had to be some room for the skaters to come. All in all a great Ladies SP. I wonder if they can bring it in the long.

chapis said:

just look this competition, in Japan, Mao got ur and not Ashley. I think both should be ratified but if you are really strict so he should ur Ashley`s combo too.

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1 sample cannot prove a theorem. Is it possible that to the technical caller Wagner's didn't appear URed but Asada's did today? Why the automatic assumption that Wagner under-rotated?

We see this all the time in all competitions when we thought skater A was dinged unfairly while skater B was lucky to get away, etc. I'm not sure if there should be such an outrage and accusation against one technical caller in particular.

gimble said:

1 sample cannot prove a theorem. Is it possible that to the technical caller Wagner's didn't appear URed but Asada's did today? Why the automatic assumption that Wagner under-rotated?

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4:11-4:12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UH0NCA3qYg