2014 Four Nationals (CZE, HUN, POL, SVK) - Bratislava, Slovakia 20-22/12/2013 | Page 3 | Golden Skate

2014 Four Nationals (CZE, HUN, POL, SVK) - Bratislava, Slovakia 20-22/12/2013

Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Not Brezina's day either. Good start with 4salchow/2toe and 3axel but it went downhill from there. He fell at the start of his circular step sequence, didn't fully rotate the second 3axel and fell on it, put his hand down on a cheated 3lutz and fell on a 3salchow. The program itself is very lackluster and lacks coherence. A lot of it is just long entries into the jumps without any choreographic purpose or relation to the music.
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
Not Brezina's day either. Good start with 4salchow/2toe and 3axel but it went downhill from there. He fell at the start of his circular step sequence, didn't fully rotate the second 3axel and fell on it, put his hand down on a cheated 3lutz and fell on a 3salchow. The program itself is very lackluster and lacks coherence. A lot of it is just long entries into the jumps without any choreographic purpose or relation to the music.

Brezina does this too often though. He basically starts strong with the first two jumps but then totally loses it on the rest of the program. I wonder if he has endurance issues.
 

SimplyLex

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Ziggy, would you be so kind and post the final result of at least top 5 men? They're not on the entries/results page yet. Did Tomas win overall?
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Ziggy, would you be so kind and post the final result of at least top 5 men? They're not on the entries/results page yet. Did Tomas win overall?

It's Verner > Brezina > Cieplucha > Coufal > Kaska > Gała

ETA: They are showing the medal decoration now and it's definitely gold for Verner, silver for Brezina and bronze for Cieplucha.

ETA2: Fortunately I heard wrong! Coufal was way ahead of Kaska in the FS and overall. The results are up now. :)

Cieplucha has beaten Brezina's TES in both SP and FS!!!

Coufal has second TES in the FS (Brezina's was only 4th).
 

SimplyLex

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
^ You mean he beat him on TES :biggrin: Too bad for Maciej, if only he could score a bit better on PCS, he would've easily placed second.
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
^ You mean he beat him on TES :biggrin: Too bad for Maciej, if only he could score a bit better on PCS, he would've easily placed second.

Haha yes, edited now. ;)

Well Cieplucha's basic skating, speed and power and so on are clearly well below Brezina's level so the gap on the PCS is understandable. Although I'd personally mark Brezina down on CH and TR because both his SP and FS are quite weak in that regard.

Cieplucha is first alternate for the Olympics. Whilst I wouldn't wish being bumped off the Olympic team on anyone, I will be hoping he can make it. Hendrickx needs to place top 12 at Euros and I imagine some other skaters might face similar requirements so there's still a possibility Cieplucha will make it.

On another note, Cieplucha changed his 3flip entry and he didn't get the edge call which he usually has been getting.
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Mysliveckova/Brown seem stuck in 'we've just had a tryout' zone. They don't seem to be progressing a lot technically and I am not sure their styles match very well. He lost balance on the second twizzle and barely remained on one foot and one did one more revolution than the other on the third twizzle.

Oliver Schoenfelder is with them. Mysliveckova has a very sharp new haircut.
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Testa/Csolley's first twizzle was a little choppy and off-synch but second and third were quite good. Other elements were solid (a lovely lift) and the program flowed well and they showed a lot of character and expression. A very good performance. :)
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
A very big upset in Junior Ice Dance. Kaliszek/Kurbakov who have done very well at international competitions so far this (their first) season have lost both SD and FD to Tomczak/Binkowski. They both fell on their circular step sequence in the FD. An extremely costly mistake to make. I wonder what PFSA is going to do now. I would have a test skate before Junior Worlds because K/K have been much better overall this season.

Ouch! That is very sad.

Ziggy, Do you have any insight on why Brezina seems to be having such troubles?
 

snowflake

I enjoy what I like
Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 10, 2008
It looks like Tomas Verner is employing the tactic of skating easier content clean. Which might be the best way to go for him, given his consistency problems. Some strong jumps and fantastic basic skating but the jump set-up was the easiest he's done for a long time. Only one 3axel planned (that he had a heavy step out from) and no quad attempts. Two 2axels (one had a step out with hand down). Slightly weak landings on 3loop and 3salchow.

ETA: I was wrong, the second axel was triple. So the only way he's watered down his jump set-up seems to be taking the quad out.

Thanks Ziggy. I'm a Verner fan and had planned to watch, but forgot. So much going on in figure skating and elsewhere now. I hope Tomas will do better and better leading up to Olympics. The quad is such a :bang: for the men... or at least for my favorites :eek:hwell:

Also appreciate your comments on the lesser known skaters :)
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Turoczi/Major skated well for their ability but they lack speed and power. He lost balance at the very end of the twizzles and they didn't come out in synch.
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Plutowska/Gerber skated quite well but throughout that performance I kept wanting to 'turn the volume up.' It just needed a bit more attack and confidence, they seemed a little tense. Twizzles were a little off-synch coming in and not very sharp (I wouldn't go above base GOE). They've definitely improved since last season and working with Shpilband seems to be working out well for them but they're not at the Testa/Csolley's level yet.

Ouch! That is very sad.

It's a bit personal since I really like Sylwia Nowak-Trebacka who coaches them. She's an extremely dedicated coach, club official, technical specialist and member of the ISU ice dance technical committee and a lovely person as well. She works in Toruń with the Siudeks. K/K are her only team at the moment but she works on basic skating and choreographs programs for the single skaters.

I hope the federation can give K/K another chance to prove themselves before Junior Worlds. Tomczak/Binkowski won here fair and square and I am not disputing that but given how well Kaliszek/Kurbakov have been skating this season so far (two bronze medals at international competitions, 9th and 13th at JGP in their first season together), I think that it would be right to give them another shot and not just make the decision based on this event (in the past Poland usually named ISU championship teams based on nationals result only).

Ziggy, Do you have any insight on why Brezina seems to be having such troubles?

I would like to know myself. He seems in a good shape physically so I would guess he has problems with maintaining his focus but no idea, really.

Thanks Ziggy. I'm a Verner fan and had planned to watch, but forgot. So much going on in figure skating and elsewhere now. I hope Tomas will do better and better leading up to Olympics. The quad is such a :bang: for the men... or at least for my favorites :eek:hwell:

I think not doing a quad might be a good choice for him. He's struggled with consistency in the past and often one mistake would lead to the next. If he can land two 3axels and the other triples, he should be able to place well.
 

SimplyLex

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Seing what a mess the European men have been this far makes me both curious and worried before Europeans. I'm not gonna lie, I actually am excited for both Brian and Tomas for performing considerably better than Florent and Michal (even though the former won his nationals, Joubert left me with an overall better impression). I wonder if this will be the case with Plushenko vs the rest of the Russian squad too. Go veterans! :yay:

But really, all of the European guys need to get their sh*t together if they want to have anything to say against the Asians and North Americans. I mean, even Javier has been struggling this season.
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
I think that Asian and North American guys have the Olympic/World medals in the bag, pretty much. :p

Free Dance starting now!
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Mysliveckova/Brown did ok. No noticeable errors. The program however was a pretty generic Latin number. She sold it quite well, he didn't. Some of the lifts were a little strained. Stationary lift was slow, final choreographic lift barely went up. The lack of size difference is probably an issue for them.
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Plutowska/Gerber skated much better than in the SD. They didn't have enough projection and attack for the upbeat SD music. The gentle "Artist" soundtrack is a much better fit for them. The program flowed well, the lines were pretty and all elements were secure. A very controlled and neat performance.
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
But really, all of the European guys need to get their sh*t together if they want to have anything to say against the Asians and North Americans. I mean, even Javier has been struggling this season.

I think that Asian and North American guys have the Olympic/World medals in the bag, pretty much. :p

Free Dance starting now!

Um, really isn't it just Patrick Chan as far as N. American skaters? I don't think any of the other U.S. and Canadian men are really in medal contention and are long shots at best. Kevin Reynolds is a major question mark.

Though looking at the to 12 in SB list includes five Japanese men and four U.S. men. If you take one of the U.S. men out and two Japanese men (just for the sake of discussion we'll take out the lowest scoring ones; again the contenders can end up being different depending on results at respective national competition/Olympic qualification criteria, obviously) the top 10 looks like this:
1.) Patrick Chan
2.) Yuzuru Hanyu
3.) Daisuke Takahashi
4.) Tatsuki Machida
6.) Han Yan
7.) Jason Brown
8.) Adam Rippon
9.) Maxim Kovtun
13.) Javier Fernandez
15.) Denis Ten

So I suppose yes it does look like despite Phil Hersh's railing about how terrible the U.S. men are, there could be some opportunities for a U.S. men (or even both U.S. men with major star alignment) to break into the top six. But I still maintain my point that their medal chances are slim at best. For now it looks like Chan and Yuzuru will battle it out for gold and chance are good that another Japanese man will get on the podium.

And yes, Europe looks pretty bad with Maxim Kovtun as the sole European in the Top 10 SB list. Still you can't count out Fernandez, Verner, Brezina, Joubert or Amodio....we may see a better second half from these guys.
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Testa/Csolley gave another strong performance. Definitely the best basic skating out of the four teams competing here. I think their "Addams Family" could use some more character, though. The music begs for stronger, over-the-top expression.
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Turoczi/Major opened their FD with a very intricate and impressive lift, performed effortlessly. I'd +3 it. None of the other elements were anywhere near as strong, though. Still, they skated without noticeable errors. I thought the program lacked light and shade and they could have used stronger performance skills.
 
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