Yulia Lipnitskaya: Olympic Thread

FlattFan said:

Like wise. all of your posts in this thread tell a lot about who you are. You are doing a good job discrediting everything you have ever said.

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I agree.

delurkingbriefly said:

You all hate her. WE GET IT!!!

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Well isn't that extreme.

I don't think anyone hates her. Most don't like (or hate if you prefer that word) the inflated scores she's been receiving, but that's on the JUDGES, not her.

Oh honestly, who cares. We know that in Russia the Russians' scores would be higher than usual, and any potential competitors to them will be held down. Just let the Olympics Russiophilia ride out and hope skaters to put out good performances and hope placements are correct, even if the scores are ridiculous.

jcsamex said:

I understand what he implies but then again, the thing with Lipnitskaia's programs this season ( specially her LP) is that they're spectacularly tailored to disguise her weaknesses and portray her strenghts. In other words ( and aside I do think her PCS are somewhat higher than they should be), she skates her programs in the absolute greatest fashion a fifteen year old girl would possibly do (that I've seen anyway). If the skating world or coaches like Caroll aren't ready for another Tara to take gold at the Olympics, then the ISU shouldn't allow skaters under certain age to compete at such level so women over 20, 'mature skaters', win even if they're no longer at the top of their games technically speaking.

On the other hand, I think Mr. Caroll conveniently overlooks his pupil's PCS were considerably higher they should've been as she went through her program going from jumping pass to another, hitting stiff positions and looking pretty while skating slower than she had before. I have nothing against Gracie Gold, but her skating at this moment seems a little robotic to me ( though I do hope she becomes an artist in the future).

Having said that, I think this competition should be Kim's if she skates cleanly.

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Both the World Championships and the Olympics should set a minimum age of 18. After all, this is LADIES figure skating not "girls"

sgsmozart said:

Both the World Championships and the Olympics should set a minimum age of 18.

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As long as judging is fair, you're all welcome to join.
The younger girls have the rotation and the fearlessness advantage over the older girls.
The older girls have the experience and the maturity and years of improving PCS over the younger girls.

The problem is this Julia girl is getting ridiculous PCS that no one in the history of the sport had ever gotten. Her rise is meteoric and no one can say with a straight face that her SS was better than Mao, Yuna, Carolina got a year ago, and took them 8 years to get to that level.

Her flaws are completely overlooked. Hello!!!! What the **** is all that doodling?

Mao88 said:

New article in which Frank Carroll criticises Julia Lipnitskaya's PCS scores:-



Disgraceful comments by Frank Carroll. This is blatant politicking, as it would suit both him and Gracie Gold absolutely fine if the judges started reducing Julia Lipnitskaya's PCS scores. Carroll should just get over it - Julia L is just a much better skater than Gracie Gold, and thoroughly deserved the PCS scores she received in the team event and at Europeans. The performances she has produced in relation to her Schindler's List free program have been stunning - artistry, expression, musicality, grace, elegance - the full package. The skater whose PCS scores looked a bit inflated, if anybodies were - were Gracie Golds. But was Frank criticising his own skaters scores? Of course not.

Frank Carroll's comments were completely irresponsible. He is the coach of another competitor who has a responsibility to keep his own thoughts to himself. To criticise another competitors scores before an upcoming competition is simply not on when they have a vested interest in the outcome. His comments can be construed as nothing other than blatant politicking - an attempt to talk down a competitors scores. I hope the Russian team lodge a full complaint with the ISU, as coaches should not be allowed to make remarks like this before such an important competition

For the record, Julia L received no 10's for her PCS scores.... Did not even get that right!

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what are you talking about? carroll is right on. lipnitskaya's pcs are being completely inflated at the games. she's skating the exact same way as in skate canada where her components where much lower and suited to her type of skating. wake up.

Mao88 definitly is not a troll. Although Mao88 , your arguments are weird, SS are not about to be clean or not, the skater has good ss or not it is independent. And what about she getting higher scores in her triples than Gracie?, especially Julia with flutz, but ok even if she could have a real lutz , gracie 3-3 is better. I am not a gracie fan, I am a Mao fan and believe me in some moment I thought it would be great anyone winning gold medal but Yuna (because her fans) but not now, not like this, Julia scores are ridiculous. And you can not believe that really everyone in the forum hate her and are unfair toward her, the complaints are becausd the problem is real, something is not good about judging at Sochi.

Ven said:

She had a 10 at Euros and that's what FC was referring to.

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What people are failing to see is that she hasn't given static performances, even if all of the programs other than COR were "technically" clean(meaning she didn't fall). And no matter what she has never received even a 9.5 until one single mark at Europeans which would have been dropped when they average the scores for PCS.

At SC for the SP she received these score in components:
SS-7.25
TR-6.96
PE-7.32
CH-7.43
IN-7.21 (most judges gave her marks throughout the 7s, while a couple judges gave her 8.00s, and few others gave high 6s(particularly for SS and TR).

These marks were fair because while the program was satisfactory and I loved the idea of the SP, it was definitely lacking in the first two components, and for the other three the potential was there but she was more skating through the program that actually living/performing to it.

At Rostelecom Cupmany if not most people have said that with one mark rising the other four do too, whether it's justified for all of them, right?)
SS-8.07
TR-7.82
PE-8.29
CH-8.21
IN-8.36 (all judges thought CH, PE, and IN were worthy of low to mid 8s, and SS and TR, followed with the relative difference between those two and the other three being the same as at SC.

Julia performed the program much better here the jumps were more solid, the spins better, the stepseq was great and the ch, was performed and executed to the music better so her interpretation went up. The only thing that I would chane is to bring her SS mark down more because, while I don't think so, others do. Even if you change that so she's at 7.25 the same as at SC that only brings her mark down less than a point.

If you look at the GP Final she skated her program very well, but it was somewhat lacking compared to COR, although much better than at SC. The judges don't seem to know what to score for components. Each of the components is only 0.30 points higher than at SC but each judge has wildly different opinions, 3 judges have her 6.50-7.75, while the other 6 have her half in high 7s half in 8s.

PCS
29 SC solid technically, lacking performance
32 COR solid technically, greater performance
30 GPF somewhat solid technically, solid performance

LP PCS
You can't say that falls necessarily change the PCS otherwise you would have to say that Carolina should have had lower PCS in the FS) And that is what the criteria says, the judges are supposed to look at how the elements add or take away from the quality, but that one or two falls are not to be penalized in PCS because that's already taken care of in GOE.

SC 61 completely solid technically, good performance ~I thought her PCS for the FS was low though, because I've checked back to last year and skaters for similar performances then are getting over 4 points higher for a good performance and over 6 points higher for a great one. Julia's skating in regards to the components is like night and day to last year. So I feel if Mao gets 71 points, then Julia is at the point where her PCS should have been around 63
COR 64 satisfactory technically because even with mistakes and losing 15 points she was still two points above the next strongest competitor, two falls didn't interrupt the program much, but her performance and interpretation of the music was stronger than at SC. Even if you say her PCS should not have been that high, Carolina received 69 so I feel that the gap was perfectly sound.
GPF 61 Fairly solid technically, but she skated more tentatively and the interpretation was lacking. I still think that if Mao was at 69 then Julia because of CH and IN should have been at 62.

At Europeans her PCS was well deserved because both technically and in terms of components she had the skates of her life, especially in the LP. In the SP 32 was exactly where she should be with that skate but Carolina was underscored and should have been at 35-36 instead. For the LP even though she was incredible I think 65-66 would have been just as good. But ultimately PCS had no bearing on this, its always going to be subjective. This competition was decided by TES, well actually it was decided by BV.
BV:
Julia 61
Adelina 59 (even with 3-3 combination)
Carolina 52 (even adding 5 points to what she completed)

TES:
Julia 72
Adelina 62
Carolina 52

On PCS they got 68, 69, and 71(which is the PCS Yuna Kim got at 2013 Worlds) respectively. The technical margins mean that even if you just take Julia's PCS down to 60.5, or if you take her's and Adelina's down to 59 the results would have been the exact same. You could even take Julia's down to 51 if Adelina's was put at 58.5 and the results would have been the same.

And for the record, Julia received one 10 for IN and one 9.75 for PE from the Russian judge, as well as a 9.25 from another judge who also gave 9.25 for TR, all the rest ranged from 7.5 to 9.00. Over three-quarters of the marks were 8.75 or lower. Also I thought the highest and lowest were dropped before the remaining seven were averaged, or two random ones. Regardless, if you remove the top two from each category and calculate her PCS, it would only change by a maximum of 1 point overall.
SS-8.43
TR-8.14
PE-8.71
CH-8.54
IN-8.68

Regarding the FS at the team event, I would have thought that her PCS should have been 65, but if ISU judges who gave Carolina a 71 at Europeans, are giving Julia 69 for a clean performance, then Carolina, Mao and Yuna will be receiving 75+. The judges here are from CAN, JPN, USA, etc. What possible reason could these judges have to give 8's unless they saw that in her skating? She never received any 10s, the highest was a few 9.25s Anyway same as at Europeans if you dropped her PCS two points to 31 from 33.5 for the SP and to 58 from 69.8 for the LP, the results would have been identical. You could also drop her TES by 6 points and her PCS by 6 points and they're still exactly the same. Even if you raise everybody else's PCS by 12 points, she still would have won. No matter which way you look at it the only way this won't be fair is if they don't have Mao, Carolina and Yuna's PCS at 75+ when they skate in the individual event.

This time, I agree with Frank wholeheartedly. 10s are not deserved by this young lady yet.

I think it is bad practice to make such comments but good for his skater of course. I now Carroll is well respected though he also has some negative things said about him too by skaters in his way of dealing with skaters. I think he should shut up until after the Olympics.

chapis said:

Mao88 definitly is not a troll.

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A delusion is a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary.

I suppose I need to reclassify this person. Unless it was intentional.

Mao88 is an awesome poster and I respect her very much because I know she loves the sport of figure skating. She is no troll - and this is coming from someone that disagrees with her in this case.

FlattFan said:

A delusion is a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary.

I suppose I need to reclassify this person. Unless it was intentional.

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I don't think it was smart for Carroll to make a comment about another skater scores. This could come back to haunt him. He could say no comment if asked. I like both Julia and Gracie and I hope they both skate their best.

As a long time lurker I have to confess that I don't understand all of the fine details at go into making one skater's "skating skills" so much better than another's. But as a fan of figure skating for more than 25 years I have a pretty good sense of what makes a memorable program. When I think of Philippe Candeloro with his 3 Musketeer program or Tara Lapinski skating to Little Women for example you see what can happen when a skater chooses the right music and skates cleanly when it matters most. They often defeat skaters who are considered better (and trust me I was a Michele Kwan fan all the way). This is what I see happening with Julia. She has coaches who were smart enough to choose music that has not been over used and which suits the personality of their skater. She is absolutely haunting as the little girl in the red dress, she looks and acts the part to perfection. When she skates cleanly to this program she creates a moment that sticks in your mind and really moves the casual viewer like myself. I think sometimes more dedicated fans look for things to dislike in the rivals of their favorite skaters (I am guilty of this as well). The fact is that in the Olympic year, when the packaging of a skater matters the most, Lipnitskaya's team has packaged her better than any other skater this year (ex. see the recent program changes by Wagner and Caro, as well as the earlier changes to Gold's programs). Is she overscored? Possibly, I'm not a judge so I'll leave that to the experts. But perhaps the reason she is being scored higher now is that she was being underscored earlier in the year when she was just one in a pack of baby Russians. I have no problem with her results at any competition this season. She has deserved every placement she has received in my opinion. I also would like to remind everyone that each Olympics seems to create the same debate about biased scoring or over inflated scores especially in the since of a new skater compared to a more experienced skater (Petrenko vs Browing, Baiul vs Kerrigan, Lipinski vs Kwan, Hughes vs Kwan, Lysacek vs Plushinko, etc). That's just the nature of a judged sport.

FlattFan said:

The OP starts attacking Frank for saying the truth. Insanity!
Judges put JL's SS higher than Caro and Mao and that is WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!!

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Wrong, maybe (I think I even agree with you about it since enough people have said it so it must be true) but it has not changed the final results. Increase Carolina's SS score to a perfect 10 and increase her TR score score by 0.5 Julia still wins the SP. Arbitrarily decide that her overall PCS should have increased by 5 points, well Julia would have lost the SP, but has a 10-point TES advantage in the LP so Julia would have won if it was decided by points like for the individual. Regardless the result for the team competition is the same even if Julia placed 5th or 6th in the SP. For Mao there's even less reason to be upset, under-rotating, two-footing, and then falling on the 3Axel is what dropped her in points. Increase Mao's PCS by 7 points and she's still in third.

And what's with people not checking the protocols and realizing that there was a single ten for interpretation from one of the judges. When the two were dropped and the other seven averaged out, the resulting number would have been the same or within 0.10 of the result, whether or not the 10 was one of the two dropped.

Regarding 60.88 for PCS at SC: If Mao can go from getting a 65 PCS at COP 2012 to 70 PCS at 2013 SA for similar performances and Carolina getting 71 PCS at Euros 2014, then Julia who's LP leaps ahead of what she did last year should have been receiving 63 at SC, 67 at Euro's and 66 at the team event FS. Drop each of those by at least 7 points? She still wins those competitions decisively. Raise everyone else PCS by at least 7 points? She still wins.

In the LP if Yuna and Mao and Carolina perform to their ability Julia will get maybe 69 again while they get 74+, so what's the big deal? If Carolina got 71 at Europeans, then with inflation those three will get 75 or higher probably.

Risa said:

She has coaches who were smart enough to choose music that has not been over used and which suits the personality of their skater.

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Thank you for what you said. One thing though, Julia is the one who decided that she was going to skate to Schindler's List. Her coaches and choreographer told her she couldn't but she refused to give in until they let. Eteri, her coach said this a couple of months ago. Julia chose the music, came up with the idea of the red coat-like the girl in the movie and has made the costumes this year with her mom, like she always had. I really love the change of dress she made for the SP from SC to COR, the first one just wasn't quite right. Anyway knowing all this has made me lose my temper when I've read elsewhere, people criticize-complementing her coaches and choreographer, saying that they were smart and manipulative to choose SL, when Julia is the one who chose and is doing this because it means something to her.

Everyone's getting jealous of Julia and it's sad! Embracing amazing new talent is sometimes hard because they replace other talents.

Isabel_O'Reilly said:

Thank you for what you said. One thing though, Julia is the one who decided that she was going to skate to Schindler's List. Her coaches and choreographer told her she couldn't but she refused to give in until they let. Eteri, her coach said this a couple of months ago. Julia chose the music, came up with the idea of the red coat-like the girl in the movie and has made the costumes this year with her mom, like she always had. I really love the change of dress she made for the SP from SC to COR, the first one just wasn't quite right. Anyway knowing all this has made me lose my temper when I've read elsewhere, people criticize-complementing her coaches and choreographer, saying that they were smart and manipulative to choose SL, when Julia is the one who chose and is doing this because it means something to her.

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If she chose the music herself and designed her costume then even more credit to her. Like I said before I find the whole effect of her long program to be stunning in a very haunting way.

gmyers said:

Everyone's getting jealous of Julia and it's sad! Embracing amazing new talent is sometimes hard because they replace other talents.

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I don't think anyone's denying that she's an amazing talent, or that she would've won the game. Maybe not as much as the scores suggest and not at the expense of other amazing skaters who have proven themselves, and not with that much gap with Gracie. I honestly think if everyone was inflated at the same level or if she wasn't so obviously held up, I think most of us would be so glad that one of the new talents has finally stepped up to the plate to become the anointed one when all the veterans are ready to leave the stage, but now...

All this "Julia clearly deserves every point she's got but you don't see it because you're nothing but jealous fans" outcry honestly baffles me. I mean, seriously, you guys think she wasn't overscored at all? That she deserved everything she got even when her scores are compared to everyone else's?

If your answer is yes, then it doesn't matter that some of us don't agree, because we're clearly in the wrong and we clearly need our heads examined, right? Maybe Frank is wrong too, but like Mathman says, judges don't care what he thinks or what some of us think. And if you're right and Julia is that amazing, I'm sure she'll prove us wrong in the upcoming years anyway. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, I'm going to voice my opinions, and no disrespect to Julia and her talents is meant.