2014 Olympics Ladies Short Program

millie said:

If you think Kim is going to be screwed, what do you think is going to happen to Osmond skating 2nd in the 2nd. Group. Who decides who skates in what order?

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Osmond is a non factor as we saw in the Team event. "Screwed" is not an appropriate term. She will be treated as a middle level skater who is skating in a foreign country (like Marchei, Meite).

I think Kim will be "screwed" because the IOC wants to make the FS more intense and raise expectations and ratings. If she skated cleanly, the score would be around 72. Clean Lipnitskaya will definitely surpass it.

I think Asada's draw was good. She has admitted that her fall in the Team SP was due to the tension, mostly caused by the Russian crowds. It was a good rehearsal to prepare for the real fight. If she skated a clean SP, the 1st place is virtually guaranteed. That is very important heading into the FS.

NMURA said:

Osmond is a non factor as we saw in the Team event. "Screwed" is not an appropriate term. She will be treated as a middle level skater who is skating in a foreign country (like Marchei, Meite).

I think Kim will be "screwed" because the IOC wants to make the FS more intense and raise expectations and ratings. If she skated cleanly, the score would be around 72. Clean Lipnitskaya will definitely surpass it.

I think Asada's draw was good. She has admitted that her fall in the Team SP was due to the tension, mostly caused by the Russian crowds. It was a good rehearsal to prepare for the real fight. If she skated a clean SP, the 1st place is virtually guaranteed. That is very important heading into the FS.

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I think Yuna's score at SP will be very telling about how this will be judged. If Yuna skates clean SP, she should get 75+ at minimum, and possibly challenge or break her World Record of 78.5. If she gets only around 72 for a clean SP, then I think that will be the sign that the judges will NOT give Yuna the gold unless Julia falters. If Yuna gets only 72 for SP, I am not gonna even bother watching the LP. Yeap, I am going to just turn off the TV after Yuna's score, and then just check the outcome maybe around Friday.

YunaBliss said:

I think Yuna's score at SP will be very telling about how this will be judged. If Yuna skates clean SP, she should get 75+ at minimum, and possibly challenge or break her World Record of 78.5. If she gets only around 72 for a clean SP, then I think that will be the sign that the judges will NOT give Yuna the gold unless Julia falters. If Yuna gets only 72 for SP, I am not gonna even bother watching the LP. Yeap, I am going to just turn off the TV after Yuna's score, and then just check the outcome maybe around Friday.

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I don't think she will break her record because she skates too early. It is going to be a disadvantage, but hopefully just a point or two lower than she would score if she skated 30th. What I'll be looking at is her jump GOE and how it compares to Julia's. If they are close I'l be frustrated.

drivingmissdaisy said:

I don't think she will break her record because she skates too early. It is going to be a disadvantage, but hopefully just a point or two lower than she would score if she skated 30th. What I'll be looking at is her jump GOE and how it compares to Julia's. If they are close I'l be frustrated.

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Save yourself the frustration and just expect it to be close. Her jump GOE's are already pretty high.

Great interview with Frank Carroll and Michelle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub2ipyBXaK8 So nice to see them together and reminiscing on the old times as well as previewing Gracie's chances.

Ziggy said:

She was the test skate to compete at Nebelhorn. And at Nebelhorn she won the Olympic spot. Whoever won that spot was guaranteed a place at the Olympics.



Totally. Joshi was really robbed. I love Viktoria's elegant skating but she's had a terrible season so far.



The cheated jumps. I feel very uncomfortable with a skater who hardly ever fully rotates her triple jumps winning an Olympic medal let alone gold (by fully, I mean landing backwards). I know that many skaters will cheat their jumps at times.The reason why this bothers me is because in Asada's case, her jumps are a little bit short (less than 1/4) most of the time. So it's something that is engrained in her technique and not an occasional error. It's just a guess but I think it's because her timing on her take-offs is slightly 'delayed.' You could say it's a good thing that she gets some height first before rotating but the trade off for that is that it means she often struggles to fully complete the rotation.



Kim's jumps this season are not as impressive as they used to be, though. She's had a fair amount of 'heavy' jump landings with snow sprayed this season.

I have this mental image of Lipnitskaia skating two clean programs and winning easily and Kim falling on her 3/3 combination like at Golden Spin and missing a lot of points as a result, ending up way behind.



It shouldn't really come down to the call. The judges have their own eyes and replay videos and change of edge with no call is in the deductions list.

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I don't think you understand either what I'm saying or what the ISU rules say. Julia's edge is always so borderline that you can't (usually) tell without a replay. But it's not the judges who decide it's the tech panel. A severe wrong edge always gets negative GOE added to what the judges would otherwise give and the final GOE is required to be negative. But a severe wrong edge is not one like Julia's where she is clearly on the outside and sometimes switches over right at the moment of take-off. Her's is an unclear edge, but only is required o have negative GOE added to the positive when it's ruled by the tech panel that she switched to an inside edge.

Julia's 3-3 is the type where she would get +2s all the time when it's executed to that level (like at SC and Olympics) but then when the tech pane rules she can either keep +2s or lose when the judges have to add -1 or -2 to her GOE. It comes down to the tech panel not being able to see sometimes, especially because they're examining something different each time. If they can't see for sure, then it goes to vote. This explains why she got 1 edge call at SC out of a possible 3, 3 edge calls each at GPF and Euro's, and 1 at the team event. It depend what happened at the moment of take-off, sometimes she's on an inside, sometimes barely on an outside and if it's not clear then the members of the tech panel vote.

Regardless the judges are not to give negative GOE (regarding edges) unless the tech panel rules against the skater. But they can give negative GOE for other things. For example, the 3-2 in her FS did not receive an edge call at SC but it was not as good, in terms of flow and height, so she received 0.10 GOE. I

t bugs me when people say, oh, it was on an inside edge but she didn't get called on it "because the event's in Russia". She gets different calls each time she does a lutz because it's borderline. She can be on one side of the border or the other, but mainly she is on the line so it comes down to a subjective vote, rather than a subjective decision. Either way people will always say it's unfair.

Almost 2 days from the ladies SP and we are already 13 pages long

Hope everybody has two skates of her life and be satisfied.

badknees said:

Well, after watching the free dance......................... the audience reactions to anyone besides the russian skaters was deplorable. I have no idea how to do this but the word needs to get out in Sochi that the ladies figure skating competition needs to be packed out as much as possible with non-russians. This is so unfair to all the non-russian skaters and so against the meaning and spirit of the word Olympics. Anyone with contacts in Sochi? Please get this word out. This russian audience needs to realize how selfish they are acting.

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I hear you, but let us not pack the entire Russian with those idiots gathered in the arena. If we need a scapegoat it is Putin. Let's ban him forever from winter sport, especially from figure.

LeCygne said:

Great interview with Frank Carroll and Michelle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub2ipyBXaK8 So nice to see them together and reminiscing on the old times as well as previewing Gracie's chances.

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Thanks for sharing. Nice to see Frank and Michelle.

badknees said:

I'm not attempting to belittle Russians. But I do believe these crowds at this olympics in figure skating are not cheering nicely and with enthusiasm for all skaters. I have never experienced in 35 years of watching figure skating on TV, half of the audience geting up and leaving because the only skater from their country pulled out. That is just basic rude concert etiquette. That being said, I am a musician and used to polite concert behavior and this is a sport. So, I guess you could compare it to the fans leaving a baseball game when their team has no chance of winning. Although I don't think the fans of the Denver Broncos in the latest American superbowl got up and left. They stayed and supported.

I guess I feel that this is the Olympics and it's about bringing all countries together in a celebration of the best performances in sport. It simply does not look like these audiences at this olympics for figure skating care about any of the athletes except the russian athletes. That to me is very disheartening for all the other athletes.

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Let us give benefit of doubt that they feared if they would be sent to the Russian concentration camps at Siberia unless they shouted Russia, Russia, and great Putinia! since the city was under the siege of security force.

YunaBliss said:

I think Yuna's score at SP will be very telling about how this will be judged. If Yuna skates clean SP, she should get 75+ at minimum, and possibly challenge or break her World Record of 78.5. If she gets only around 72 for a clean SP, then I think that will be the sign that the judges will NOT give Yuna the gold unless Julia falters. If Yuna gets only 72 for SP, I am not gonna even bother watching the LP. Yeap, I am going to just turn off the TV after Yuna's score, and then just check the outcome maybe around Friday.

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I'd probably do the same, because I wouldn't be able to watch.

Yuna's SP score, especially if she goes clean, would be really telling how the rest of the competition will go. What are they going to do? Would they give her ~78 and hope everyone's act would be as good or better so that their scores would seem justified? Or would you hold her down around ~72 just in case the last two flights are not as clean? In the case of the latter, if everyone in the last flight (or Julia) is reasonably good, then they will score better than a clean Yuna no matter what, so that would be more than telling. It'd be tantamount to saying it wouldn't matter how well Yuna or Mao or Caro or Akiko would skate. At that point, it would become obvious that while veterans could theoretically still win, it would only happen if Julia doesn't take the gold medal but the silver platter, as it was said for the men's.

miki88 said:

Seriously. I think if judges want to be that harsh, we will see the issue pop up in far more skaters than expected. Besides, she has much more to offer besides the jumps.

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Sorry, my mistake by "Her" I meant Julia, I meant most skaters cheat jumps by under a quarter all the time. Kim also doesn't land fully backwards on the 3Lz in her 3Lz-3T all the time, it's the 3T that's fully backwards. It's because the technique for a 3-3 is to keep the first jump long and not as high as it can be to keep the momentum going and then send the second part rocketing into the air for clean rotation and height, so Mao's "Jump Problems" in that sense is more of an every skater problem.

zamboni step said:

Sorry, my mistake by "Her" I meant Julia, I meant most skaters cheat jumps by under a quarter all the time. Kim also doesn't land fully backwards on the 3Lz in her 3Lz-3T all the time, it's the 3T that's fully backwards. It's because the technique for a 3-3 is to keep the first jump long and not as high as it can be to keep the momentum going and then send the second part rocketing into the air for clean rotation and height, so Mao's "Jump Problems" in that sense is more of an every skater problem.

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Oh. I was agreeing with your post. I think it's a common problem especially when skaters compete under pressure.

My fantasy top 5 after SP:

1.) Mao
2.) Julia
3.)Gracie
4.)Ashley
5.Yu-na

badknees said:

Hhmmm.......perhaps all the non-russians in the audience need to bring in boomboxes with taped audience cheers and make it super loud for all skaters!

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This was funny

Krislite is talking about Yulia

Krislite said:

Save yourself the frustration and just expect it to be close. Her jump GOE's are already pretty high.

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Is it wrong I feel a guilty pleasure from this? I want fair but I feel I must confess some joy that some judges agree with me but I don't like unfair one bit.

HalfTriple said:

I hear you, but let us not pack the entire Russian with those idiots gathered in the arena. If we need a scapegoat it is Putin. Let's ban him forever from winter sport, especially from figure.

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Once again this made me laugh.

zamboni step said:

Sorry, my mistake by "Her" I meant Julia, I meant most skaters cheat jumps by under a quarter all the time. Kim also doesn't land fully backwards on the 3Lz in her 3Lz-3T all the time, it's the 3T that's fully backwards. It's because the technique for a 3-3 is to keep the first jump long and not as high as it can be to keep the momentum going and then send the second part rocketing into the air for clean rotation and height, so Mao's "Jump Problems" in that sense is more of an every skater problem.

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Well, I have never seen Yuna's first 3Lz was incompeletely rotated. What was the event she lacked clean rotation ?

Tinymavy15 said:

My fantasy top 5 after SP:

1.) Mao
2.) Julia
3.)Gracie
4.)Ashley
5.Yu-na

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Allow me to chip in but your list seems really fantastical and surreal except for Julia and perhaps Mao; because it may not happen with Kim finishing at fifth, I am afraid. Well, who knows it may.....

starrynight said:

Well, I have never seen Yuna's first 3Lz was incompeletely rotated. What was the event she lacked clean rotation ?

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I guess Zamboni step meant it fell within a quarter tolerance.

Sam-Skwantch said:

Is it wrong I feel a guilty pleasure from this? I want fair but I feel I must confess some joy that some judges agree with me but I don't like unfair one bit.
.

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Oh no, nothing wrong with that. Subjectivity is also a part of figure skating, legitimately, unless it is controlled by something other than purely figure skating.

HalfTriple said:

Allow me to chip in but your list seems really fantastical and surreal except for Julia and perhaps Mao; because it may not happen with Kim finishing at fifth, I am afraid. Well, who knows it may.....

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"fantasy". At least he/she is honest, unlike some people's so-called "predictions".