RIskatingfan said:What a weird poll. How can you assume S/Z are a lock for gold? They just won silver this past season.
IMO S/Z and T/M are co-favorites to win the gold in 2006 and if nothing too strange happens in the meanwhile (and in Turin), gold and silver will be for them.
An inadvertent accident in Dortmund? What happened in Dortmund that can be called an accident? I remember that Zhao fell on the SBS triple toes on the SP, but surely you can't be referring to this, since falls are not "accidents", they're part of the sport and the competition and they're what skaters train to avoid at competitions by training and practicing hard every day. Falls aren't accidents, they're mistakes. And mistakes are penalized.Joesitz said:S&Z are locked in for gold unless they have an inadvertent accident as what happened in Dortmund
Joesitz said:I don't think it is a question of who will win gold or silver. IMO, S&Z are locked in for gold unless they have an inadvertent accident as what happened in Dortmund. They have no co-favorites, imo. Sometime the gods give another team a bit of luck that has nothing to do with true skating.
We should all know by now that gold doesn't mean best.
I don't think any team is locked in for the silver.
Joe
True, but...diver chick said:In my opinion there is no such thing as a 'lock' for a medal.
IMHO they don't need the quad to win.....they can get this quad throw of theirs under control without affecting the quality of the rest of the performances
naturally.....they don't get injured in training between now and then
I just don't see P&T (either one of them) or T&M making that kind of a leap. And I don't hink O&S will be there yet.....p&t or t&m or any one of a number of other pairs teams don't make a huge leap or improvement over the next couple of seasons - and for the russians it probably won't require much of an improvement.
I don't see them doing that. One thing I like about S&Z is that they stay fairly humble relative to their success (may be it's a culture thing, I don't know). FP&M got too cocky thinking it was a good program; TT told them it wasn't a good idea, but they just wouldn't listen. Besides, I consider FP&M's World Gold a fluke; their placement in SLC was at least not higher than their skills. S&Z are a different story.....they don't come up with disastrous programs like FP&M in SLC granted that is less likely to happen in pairs because of the clear technical element.
Naturally.....they perform to their ability during both SP and FP in Turino
Vash01 said:I don't think this is a weird poll at all. Had I included S&Z on the list and asked who would win gold in 2006, EVERYONE would have picked S&Z and that would have been a meaningless poll. In its current form there is a spread over 4 pairs (not equal, obviously) but it tells us which pair is PERCEIVED to be the biggest challenger to S&Z.
Vash
Vash01 said:For those objecting to the word 'lock' please reread the above post. It is an ASSUMPTION (not a PREDICTION) made to get some kind of balance in this poll. Sure S&Z are HUGE favorites to win, but the gap between them and T&M -all things considered- is not as wide as majority of fans tend to believe. T&M are still improving, and so are Pang & Tong and Z&Z who IMO have a bright future). T&M have better basic stroking skills, extensions, and S&Z's spins and unison are still weak, and they have never had great posture, so S&Z are really not perfect. However, S&Z will be given the benefit of doubt if all skate clean, or if S&Z have a relatively minor mistake. On the poll they would have received close to 100% of the votes, that is why I had to keep them out of the poll (I did not want to post something like "if they did not skate"). The purpose of this poll is different.
Vash
Sikharulidze stumbled on the double axel, not footwork.Joesitz said:Is any skater or team perfect? Look at Sikilharitze (sp) when he stumbled on footwork in SLC LP. That incident I would call an accident because we are never going to see it again.
Joe
Joesitz said:I don't agree that other Pairs team have better 'stroking skills' than S&Z, and as far as posture is concerned Shen sometimes is too upright for my taste but I'm not sure if you meant hunched over?
Is any skater or team perfect? Look at Sikilharitze (sp) when he stumbled on footwork in SLC LP. That incident I would call an accident because we are never going to see it again. Similarly with Zhao's bad take off of the 3T in the SP in Dortmund. We will never see that again. We certainly didn't see it in the LP! If we are anticipating a repeat of these errors then in some cases we are hoping for them to happen again for subjective reasons. However, I'll accepl the word mistakes in both cases as far as scoring is concerned. (The winner is the best that night.) But I would not expect either team to be classified as error prone.
I think T&M are the favorites in Moscow. The home town crowd will make it exciting, and I am sure T&M will be as 'perfect' as possible. And I would assume all other Pairs are working hard to improve.
Joe
Spinner said:I busted out laughing when I saw Inoue and Baldwin on your list. Are you serious?