How would Chan, Bobrova & Soloviev, Sotnikova have done at worlds | Golden Skate

How would Chan, Bobrova & Soloviev, Sotnikova have done at worlds

pangtongfan

Match Penalty
Joined
Jun 16, 2010
I wont even bother with the obvious ones like V&T (probably won), Kim (probably won), V&M and D&W (for sure gone 1-2). So I will focus on the more unknown ones. How do you think Chan, B&S, and Sotnikova would have done at world had they competed.

My guesses in hindsight would be bronze for Chan (would win gold with 2 clean skates, and maybe even without totally clean, but that seems unlikely to have happened), 5th place for B&S (they havent been close to beating P&B in 3 meetings this year so no reason to see them beating them here, and I&K as Russian defacto #1 probably come out on top overall barely even with their huge SD error), and bronze for Sotnikova (Julia with her consistency usually comes out on top, and would probably again here).
 

Snow63

Pray one day we'll open our eyes.
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 26, 2014
I wont even bother with the obvious ones like V&T (probably won), Kim (probably won), V&M and D&W (for sure gone 1-2). So I will focus on the more unknown ones. How do you think Chan, B&S, and Sotnikova would have done at world had they competed.

My guesses in hindsight would be bronze for Chan (would win gold with 2 clean skates, and maybe even without totally clean, but that seems unlikely to have happened), 5th place for B&S (they havent been close to beating P&B in 3 meetings this year so no reason to see them beating them here, and I&K as Russian defacto #1 probably come out on top overall barely even with their huge SD error), and bronze for Sotnikova (Julia with her consistency usually comes out on top, and would probably again here).
It's very hard to say about Chan. I think he could have won here, but it's really hard to predict his final placing. My bet is bronze medal for him though.
I'd like to think B/S could have won gold medal there and I really think it was a big chance for them with two clean dances. You said they havent been close to beating P/B this year, but P/B had made a couple mistakes in their SD. So with clean SD B/S could probably have something like 70+ points after SD. Then judges could have decide to place them first with two clean dances. I think it's a possibility and my biased opinion :laugh:
I agree with bronze for Sotnikova, although with couple mistakes she would probably be 4th (just like Pogorilaya).
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
B&S would have quite possibly medaled given the errors of I/K and P/B. You can't really go by past scores because everyone's FD scores were bumped up in the absence of V/M and D/W (who woul get top PCS reserved for them).

Hard to say if Chan would have definitely medaled. 275 is an extremely high score that usually wins. However Chan has cleared 282 this season. However the GPF where he lost the FS to Hanyu with a fall shows that Japanese ice would have favoured Hanyu (and Machida) and he would have had to be close to perfect to beat Hanyu and Machida.

Kim wasn't assured a victory unless she was absolutely clean again... 216 is hard to beat and other than the 2A, Asada "looked" clean. Would have likely medaled easily though.

Sotnikova near her best (eg Euros/Russian Nats) or at her best but with proper judging (Sochi with flutz/UR call, for example) would have easily medaled over Kostner and arguably over Julia too. No way would she have defeated Mao though unless she fully rotated her jumps and had no 3-jump error and was still given huge GOE.
 

Big Deal

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 23, 2004
Bobrova/Soloviev with clean skates could have been get all the support after Ilinikh/Katsalapov made that fatal error, leading at the SD with something like 72 points and get generous scores in the FD which would provide them to win in the rather weak field.
So with 2 decent performances they should get the Gold (sadly because they wouldn't deserve it really). In this case Ilinykh/Katsalapov's scores in the FD would be lower without being the top Russian favourite to win, but it wouldn't affect their placement. To miss the Gold with 1 points with a whole missing elements was really weird. They are not that much better (if better at all)than the rest of the field, please!

I'm sad that Virtue/Moir didn't participate in. It would be a lovely farewell competition with their 2 great programmes in front of this fantastic audience.

Chan would easily win with 2 decent performances. The other scenario is uncalculable because would depend on his mistakes to happen or not.

Yu-Na would win this with 2 mediocre programs even if she was not at her best.

Sotnikova would be 3rd or in the case of not falling in both of her programmes and not popping jumps, 2nd using her undeserved "admiration" marks in the PCS, because of Lipnitskaya fall.
 

uhh

Medalist
Joined
Nov 19, 2013
I don't think B/S would have won - they have been losing the free dance to the other top teams all year, and they wouldn't have enough of a distance after the short dance to hold the others off. The got over 100 in the FD for the 1st time ever in Sochi & even many people's scores going up I doubt they would have repeated that away from home ice as I think the judges were already being as generous as they could be. Look at their personal best scores with two clean skates in Sochi - 70~ in the team SD and 102~ in the individual FD - it gives them a total of 173.22 which would have landed them in 5th at Worlds this year. And going into the event they would be unlikely to have been seen as Russian number 1 team which could hurt them further.
 

Big Deal

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 23, 2004
I don't think B/S would have won - they have been losing the free dance to the other top teams all year, and they wouldn't have enough of a distance after the short dance to hold the others off. The got over 100 in the FD for the 1st time ever in Sochi & even many people's scores going up I doubt they would have repeated that away from home ice as I think the judges were already being as generous as they could be. Look at their personal best scores with two clean skates in Sochi - 70~ in the team SD and 102~ in the individual FD - it gives them a total of 173.22 which would have landed them in 5th at Worlds this year. And going into the event they would be unlikely to have been seen as Russian number 1 team which could hurt them further.

Unfortunately the scores at the Olympics are irrelevant.
As long as the favourite Ilinykh/Katsalapov made a huge error, which send a message to the judges, they are not ready yet to win the gold, all the other couples got much higher ( Weaver/Poje something like 10 marks more) scores than at the Olympics.
Don't forget the effect of the "panic" of the judges, when they lost their favourites to win.
 

elif

Medalist
Joined
Jan 28, 2010
Considering Lipnitskaia's silver medal with two edge calls, one very downgraded jump (3S<<) and fall, I think Sotnikova could have won. Only problematic jump for her is 3lutz (e)+3toe(<) while Lipnitskaia got negative GOE for 3lutz+3toe, 3 lutz and 3S. (3 technical element) Of course she had to skate clean.
 

uhh

Medalist
Joined
Nov 19, 2013
Unfortunately the scores at the Olympics are irrelevant.
As long as the favourite Ilinykh/Katsalapov made a huge error, which send a message to the judges, they are not ready yet to win the gold, all the other couples got much higher ( Weaver/Poje something like 10 marks more) scores than at the Olympics.
Don't forget the effect of the "panic" of the judges, when they lost their favourites to win.

W/P got 6 marks higher, thanks mostly to not leaving almost 4 marks on the table by losing levels in the SD. In contrast, B/S didn't lose a huge amount technically compared to their usual standard in Sochi, apart from the level 3 twizzles in the FD. W/P & C/L saw their PCS go up by 2 points in the FD, P/B by 1 point and I/K stayed roughly the same - even assuming that B/S were on the higher end of the PCS boost it's not enough to give them the win, and not even enough to get them on the podium. That would also take their PCS in the FD above I/K & P/B and for the last 2 years, even though the judges have been happy to have B/S placing above those two teams, they've done it thanks to TES not PCS. Considering that I/K still won the PCS in both segements even with their twizzle error, I don't see why the judges would change that now, especially as all the rhetoric coming out of the Russian Federation both before and after Worlds was about I/K being the best team currently competing. The perception post Sochi, maybe even post Euros is that B/S are no longer Russian number 1, and that is going to hit their marks.

To get on the podium they'd have to have none of the silly mistakes that plagued the 1st half of their season & to turn their step sequences from 3s to 4s, and the tech panel at worlds was much harsher than Sochi, so I would consider that to be unlikely. Also, have we ever seen a dance team win Worlds with an old program? It would never have happened. Maybe the "panic" effect you talk about would have come into play, but I don't think the next annointed ones would be B/S - look at the results for the rest of the season in events outside Russia. The judges would still have gone for P/B, W/P and C/L as the next favourites rather than B/S.
 

Snow63

Pray one day we'll open our eyes.
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 26, 2014
W/P got 6 marks higher, thanks mostly to not leaving almost 4 marks on the table by losing levels in the SD. In contrast, B/S didn't lose a huge amount technically compared to their usual standard in Sochi, apart from the level 3 twizzles in the FD. They & C/L saw their PCS go up by 2 points in the FD, P/B by 1 point and I/K stayed roughly the same - even assuming that B/S were on the higher end of the PCS boost it's not enough to give them the win, and not even enough to get them on the podium. That would also take their PCS in the FD above I/K & P/B and for the last 2 years, even though the judges have been happy to have B/S placing above those two teams, they've done it thanks to TES not PCS. Considering that I/K still won the PCS in both segements even with their twizzle error, I don't see why the judges would change that now, especially as all the rhetoric coming out of the Russian Federation both before and after Worlds was about I/K being the best team currently competing. The perception post Sochi, maybe even post Euros is that B/S are no longer Russian number 1, and that is going to hit their marks.

To get on the podium they'd have to have none of the silly mistakes that plagued the 1st half of their season & to turn their step sequences from 3s to 4s, and the tech panel at worlds was much harsher than Sochi, so I would consider that to be unlikely. Also, have we ever seen a dance team win Worlds with an old program? It would never have happened. Maybe the "panic" effect you talk about would have come into play, but I don't think the next annointed ones would be B/S - look at the results for the rest of the season in events outside Russia. The judges would still have gone for P/B, W/P and C/L as the next favourites rather than B/S.

This. I hope they will do it next season. Their PCS are ok and will be even higher with highet TES (I hope so).

Next year in Ice dancing will be AMAZING.
 

Meoima

Match Penalty
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
If PChan were in Saitama, then it's either Chan or Hanyu get the gold, depends on how they put themselves together under pressure of 18000 people in the arena.
 

blue_idealist

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 25, 2006
I think B&S probably would have been 4th, maybe 5th because of I&K's generous scoring for having an error in the SD. I don't think they would have been placed below C&B. There's also a chance they could have trounced everyone for the gold, given how close the scoring was, but the judges haven't been that nice to them lately. Most people didn't expect them to drop to 5th in Sochi.

I think Chan probably would have finished 3rd. I was going to say 2nd, but then I remembered Machida won the short, and Chan often isn't clean in the free, so I'm not sure if he could have made up those points.

Sotnikova, maybe 2nd. I don't think she could have beaten Mao with the way Mao skated, but Lipnitskaya did fall once and still come 2nd. Even without a clean skate, Sot may have beaten Kostner for 3rd, since Kostner's free was rather dreadful (for her).
 

anyanka

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 8, 2011
Sotnikova would have gotten 3rd behind hometown fave Mao, and Yulia. She would have finished ahead of Caro and her underwhelming FS.

Chan would have been 3rd, really. Neither Japanese man would be denied the top 2. That would have dropped Javi to 4th.

B&S would have been 5th, realized they were no longer top Russians in the judges' eyes, and wait it out until I/K sort out their alleged breakup before deciding if they want to go all-in for another quad only to trail behind the entire time.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
I think Chan and Adelina would have come in second, although Adelina may have finished lower because all the women Olympians except Mao looked bad in the LP and I'm sure Adelina would have come in with the least preparation of anyone.
 

Ryan O

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 5, 2004
Country
Canada
Considering that Chan rarely skates a clean long, he certainly wouldn't have been guaranteed a win here. After nearly losing Worlds last year, and then losing the Olympics, he might have had to skate clean in Japan in order to win the World Title this time around. And since Hanyu skated a cleaner long than in Sochi, and Machida and Hernandez were also pretty on, he might have only finished 3rd, with Hernandez being bumped down to 4th.

It was probably wise for Chan not to go and risk losing his World title.
 

blue_idealist

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 25, 2006
It would have been almost impossible to come second. Wasnt the difference between Machida and Hanyu a fraction of a point. So it would probably have to be gold or bronze (or worse). Then again with Chan there the whole complexion of the competition might have been different. I wouldnt be surprised if they felt it easier to boost Machida's scores upwards some with Chan not around, while Hanyu was always going to get scores like that anyway.

Yeah, it did cross my mind that maybe Machida and Fernandez skated better than usual because they thought they had more of a chance of getting the title. Having someone like Chan there, even though he's not intimidating in personality, might make some people nervous.
 
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