Weaver and Poje not ‘placeholders’

juliajk said:

French FD was beautifully choreographed, and looks light and airy, but in turns of skating it's much easier then the Four Seasons program, wich is probably the most intricate dance this year in turms of theqnice. PC's Free dance has a lots of open holds, two foot skating, and much more crossovers, and it wasn't executed well at the worlds. Several times they were out of synchronization on several elements, including twizzels, and there was some stumbles. all those are visible, but the judges preferred to ignore all the mistakes, and gave them clean VM/DW kind of score. Accept the facts, WP were the best that day in terms of skating, even though they were a little slower than usual, and the judges choose them not to win, and we got a pair of "chosen ones" who received a clear message from the judges, that they don't even need to skate clean to get monstrous scores. If that's doesn't screams politics, I don't know what is.

Click to expand...

uhh said:

Agreed, and even if you accept them winning the FD, which on balance I can, they shouldn't have been close enough after the SD to W/P or C/B for it to have mattered, as there were timing problems and inconsistencies throughout. They performed both programs better at Euros, but that was not reflected in the scores.

This kind of overmarking hurts everyone - obviously the skaters who are cheated out of higher placements, but also the ones who are overmarked. They no longer have the incentives to work on their weakness, because whatever they put out will be rewarded; we saw this with Patrick Chan in the last quad. It can also lead to an early backlash, as we saw with the Shibs after their medal in 2011. You can bet that the other powerful federations will be doing all they can behind the scenes to make sure that P/C aren't treated as the chosen ones for the next 3 years.

Click to expand...

BlackPack said:

I was disappointed that they skated to Four Seasons in the beginning in the season, taking a traditional route when they have been known to do programs with a twist or a unique stamp of their style. However, I thought it was a masterpiece of a program, possibly the best Four Seasons I've ever seen. Ultimately, P&C's superior skating skills and awe-inspiring FD blew W&P out of contention. I can accept that, but it was shocking the way W&P were winning everything all season and suddenly they're delegated to bronze. So the judging is once again stilted and uneven. Somewhere along the lines, it became acceptable that once P&C skated clean, they would win.

I think next season will be hardest for P&C. They're such a young pair. They must be overwhelmed by their sudden success. Not too long ago, their programs were juniorish camp. Can they do something like Mozart again next season? How do they keep this level of creativity, and a program that has been accepted and lauded no like there's tomorrow? It's hard to churn out good programs consistently.

W&P are going to have play catch up again. I still think they will become World Champions at some point, having missed 2 opportunities already.

I do agree when someone said C&L are the placeholders. They're not as talented as the others and their programs haven't been the most memorable. W&P had programs that brought the house down.

Click to expand...