NHK Trophy - Results - Ladies Short Program

http://www.isufs.org/results/gpjpn04/SEG003.HTM


Welcome back, Sokolova

Arakawa
Sokolova
Ando
Onda

I hope Yoshie fas a strong free skate and gets a medal.

I wonder if there is enough consistency in CoP scoring to be able to compare one event against another. In Skate America Ando won the SP with a total score of 53.64. Phaneuf's score at Skate Canada was 57.76. So Arakawa's 64.20 seems to be the gold standard for the short so far this year.

Mathman

I think there is consistency. Arakawa got scores in the 7 range. Sasha would normally get scores in the 8. So far things are the same.

After seeing the scores that Sasha and Arakawa got last year I knew skaters like Cynthia and Angela wouldn’t be too much competition for the top 3 skaters. When you pit them against skaters like Michelle, Sasha and Arakawa then you will see the difference with COP. In these events with COP I don’t think Ando will be as much a factor either (short of a disaster).

I watched television. Arakawa was special. She was special with all elements. Compared with last year, it was remarkable　improvement
I was impressed and the tear flowed from my eyes with the performance end.

That's a very convincing lead for Shizuka. Glad though that Elena isn't doing too poorly.

I think the NHK ,CoC, and GPF will provide great oppotunities for Japanese lady skaters to shine, maybe Russian ladies also, since a few American girls either injuried or not competing in GP circuit.

The NHK trophy is held for about 30 years. However, American　ladies skaters has not won once with the NHK Trophy. It is very mysterious.。

jesslily said:

I think the NHK ,CoC, and GPF will provide great oppotunities for Japanese lady skaters to shine, maybe Russian ladies also, since a few American girls either injuried or not competing in GP circuit.

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If you look beyond Michelle and Sasha, there is really no any other 'dorminant' US lady. For those cry out loud American FS fans who can't wait for Michelle retireing.

ITA mzheng. They will need Michelle and Sasha because at this point with injuries around I don't know who can challenge. Outside of MK and SC who can challenge the other countries for top spot at Worlds.

There would be much to say about CoP after the first three Grand Prix events.
For example, how for a given jump, the marks usually spread over several grades : -2 to 1 for Arakawa's combo in the short, -1 to 2 for her flip, -2 to 2 for Sokolova's combo (!!!) etc ... Just have a look at the results sheet (available at the ISU website http://www.isufs.org/results/gpjpn04/GPJPN04_Ladies_SP_Scores.pdf) you will find such inconsistancies for every skater or so. I have the feeling that those result sheets give more a display of the judges' incompetency and/or bias than of what had been going on on the ice.
And to give a second example (I am waiting eagerly for anybody coming with an explanation for that one). I was surprised after seeing the short program at Volchkova average placing. She did not miss any element, and her technical score was quite low (she was 7th in that respect and 5th overall). Now I discover that her very good triple flip was counted as a double : it had very good height, good landing (no two footing), good flow and she gets credit for a double. Either there is something here I am not aware of, as for example I watched the clip of another competition or have become unable to count to 3, or this is a big unforgivable mistake. Has ISU thought of a procedure to revise the results of a competition in such a case ?

mzheng said:

It was reported on FSU that Volchkova's 3flip was more than 1/4 underrotated thus downgraded to 2flip. And I don't think VV has very ggod flip, like Arakawa she lips heavyly. Her height on the jump may be better than Arakawa.

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After rewatching that jump (with a better software) it is indeed underrotated. Anyway, the absurd thing is that it is disqualified as a mere double, and moreover receives an average negative GoE (two judges dare to give -3), so is considered as a below average double. She finally gets 1.52 pts from it. On the other side, if she had fallen on a rotated triple flip (and for that she may still be 1/4 short of rotation) she would have had 5.5 - 3 - 1 (fall penalty) = 1.5 pts. Both jumps are the same for CoP. Can it be the same for any figure skating viewer ???
Now about the judges giving a -3 for the flip, they must have thought the jump is considered a triple (it would not make sense otherwise). Can they know it is only called a double ? It looks like some do and other don't.
Yet another thing. In the long Viktoria struggles to put a double toe after her 3Z (she has to insert a 3 turn between the two jumps). Now the base value of that jump element is set at 5.8 i.e. is inferior to that of a solo triple lutz = 6 (deduction for jumps in sequence). She would have had 0.20 more points if she had not tried to put a 2T ! Now the problem is that small differences of a few tenth of points throughout a program can make a significant impact on the rankings.
On the other hand you also see skaters earn some points for missed elements. Liashenko totally missed 2 axel in the short (popped) earns 0.30 pts. It is not a lot, but already too much for such a big awful mistake.
I sincerely hope that THEY (the thinking heads at the ISU) do something to fix all those incredible flaws (many more than the ones mentionned above).

alain707 said:

Now about the judges giving a -3 for the flip, they must have thought the jump is considered a triple (it would not make sense otherwise). Can they know it is only called a double ? It looks like some do and other don't.

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Ahhh, this gets us to one of the hardest conundruns (sp?) of CoP. When it was first introduced last year, judges saw the level of each element. Howeve, it was soon discovered that judges tended to give higher GoE to the more difficult elements. So it was decided to have the judges not see this information. This to me always seemed absurd -- say you have a spiral sequece; say it's change of edge is there, but very short. Perhaps the judge would mark down the element if it is a level 3, but no if it is level 2, since in the latter case it is not a requirement. Same logic applies to jumps.