I have a feeling Stephane Lambiel could be the golden boy next year!

I don't think we will see Plushenko in the GP this season. He didn't place in the top 12 at Worlds 2005, so he's not one of the "required" skaters, and he can use his recovery from surgery and his bum knee to keep him on the ailing list. I'm not even convinced he'll do CoR, because last year doing just one event still qualified him for the GPF and I think he wants to avoid a repeat.

I don't think we'll see Plushy until Euros 2006.

So yes, World Champion Lambiel will be the guy with the target on his back.

chuckm said:

So yes, World Champion Lambiel will be the guy with the target on his back.

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I'm still not convinced. I do not write off of Brian Joubert. He had a very poor season which I believe is standard in figure skating. Why put him out of it? I think he will bounce back. He has a much bigger fan base than Stephane.

As for Evgeni, a hernia operation is pretty much standard and I believe that has been taken care of. I'm sure he is waiting for a go ahead from the doctors to start skating again. I've never understood Evgeni's knee problem. It doesn't seem to have held him back. His quads are quite consistent and quads are the biggest influence in Men's Figure Skating for gold. Does anyone have a name for the knee condition that may or may not require surgery?

Hit or miss Lindemann could give Stephane a run for his money. He has that 'joy in skating' style which wins over the audience. I think he will want to win over Stephane more than Brian or Evgeni.

That will be the Big Four in Europe with van der Perren, Griazev looking on. I think Jamal Orthmund will make a statement at this year's Europeans.

Joe

The bottom line is Plushy DOESN'T HAVE to compete in the GP. He did not finish in the top 12 at Worlds, and he is under no obligation to accept an invitation. I am sure the RF has sufficient documentation on his knee injury to present a case that he is still injured.

Plushy was having severe back problems in Moscow as well. He may well be having the same kind of problems Goebel was having in the 2003-2004 season, when his back got out of whack because of ill-fitting skates. Trying to skate with a bad knee may have caused Plushy to compensate by putting undue strain other parts of his body---that is what happened to Tim and the results are very sobering.

In any case, the best thing for Plushy at this point is not to compete until his injuries have healed sufficiently. Obviously, competing in the GP last season contributed to his need to withdraw from Worlds in Moscow, leaving the RF in dire straits for the Olympics. They barely qualified for two men's spots. You can be sure the RF are going to protect their best skater for Torino.

As for Joubert, he has never been an impressive early season competitor and has never been a big presence in the GP, even in his best years. In the 2003-2004 season, when he won gold at Euros and silver at Worlds, he won just one silver medal in the GP, and had two 4th place finishes. He didn't make the GPF on points, and had an opportunity to skate in the GPF when Goebel withdrew, but turned it down because the dates were too close to French Nationals. Joubert is in a tough situation right now, having had to change coaches back to his first coach (disliked intensely by his parents) and being manipulated by the French federation. I don't see him as being a target of anything but sympathy (and maybe a little schadenfreud).

Buttle will be trying out his quad in the GP and may be an inconsistent performer, and Sandhu is always exasperatingly inconsistent. These two will be pursuing Lambiel, and potential contenders Lysacek and Weir will see Lambiel as their main target also.

Lindemann has historically been the poorest of GP competitors. In the 2003-2004 season, when he won World bronze, he was 9th at Skate America and 11th at Lalique. Last season, he was 9th at Skate America, 6th at Skate Canada, and a distant 3rd at Cup of China, where he beat Min Zhang by an eyelash. He finished 11th overall in the GP, behind Ben Ferreira of Canada.

I think this season was an aberration for Brian Joubert. It seemed like he was distracted by all the publicity, the girlfriend and hampered by a bad program. Brian still has the quad jumps and it appears that he's healthy. Brian also has a great competitive attitude and I believe that he will be back and very strong for the Olympics.

I might be one of the few people who thought Lindemann deserved his bronze in Dortmund. He's a great little skater and I can see him being a spoiler for one of the medals.

I still stand by my picks though. I think that there will be a shakeup in the standings for both the men and the women.

Interesting observation about Plushenko not having to compete in the GP. At this point, it would seem that his body needs the rest, but he'd also benefit from testing his new programs in front of an audience, preferrably under competition circumstances. It will be interesting to see what he does.

Plushy is one of the best CoP competitors out there and is also a born performer. As he is a perennial judge AND audience favorite, there is no pressing need for him to test out his programs, but If he wants to do a performance test before Torino, he can do it at Euros.

One thing I do agree with is that a healthy Plushenko is the very likely winner of the OGM. It will be interesting to see what shape he is in. He really should have withdrawn from Worlds if he was injured though, I have read he may have exasperated the injury further and put himself at further risk for the Olympics.

In any case Lambiel only has to worry about his own skating. He has enough ability that if he skates a clean competition he is ensured a gold or silver
(only a healthy Plushenko maybe beating him), regardless what anybody else does or who has a quad next year.

slutskayafan21 said:

I have read he may have exasperated the injury further and put himself at further risk for the Olympics.

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Exasperated which injury?

chuckm said:

Plushy is one of the best CoP competitors out there and is also a born performer. As he is a perennial judge AND audience favorite, there is no pressing need for him to test out his programs, but If he wants to do a performance test before Torino, he can do it at Euros.

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I don't know about that. He seems more nervous when he competes "cold" and makes mistakes like he did at COR in the SP. I think he's the kind of skater who needs competitions to stay sharp and to get his legs under him (so to speak).

slutskayafan21 said:

In any case Lambiel only has to worry about his own skating. He has enough ability that if he skates a clean competition he is ensured a gold or silver
(only a healthy Plushenko maybe beating him), regardless what anybody else does or who has a quad next year.

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You could say that about any competitor, which would include Sandhu; Buttle and Weir with competition quads; and even Lysacek with a competition quad.
All these skaters have the ability to win with a clean competition.

No one is "ensured gold or silver".

And as for skating a clean competition, Lambiel sure didn't do that in Moscow--he had numerous mistakes in his FS. I have yet to see him skate a clean competition. He lost out on a medal at Worlds 2004 because he bombed in the SP

Heck, Joannie Rochette could have medaled at Worlds 2005 if she skated a clean competition. But she didn't.

Far, far easier said than done.

As to Plushy making mistakes in CoR last year, he was already injured before he competed. He skated only because the ISU was threatening the Russian Federation. He was dismayed when Weir withdrew from the GPF, forcing him to skate there, too. He did not skate well at Russian Nationals and Euros, and it all culminated in his withdrawal from Worlds with TWO inguinal hernias, a sore back and a bum knee.

Plush didn't blame his injuries for his SP mistakes in COR, he said he was nervous. BTW, just before COR he competed in a small russian event and landed both a 4 salchow and a 4 toe , and was doing shows which was why the ISU leaned on him. However he was not forced to do COR: he originally was only going to compete in that event and pulled out of NHK.

soogar said:

I think this season was an aberration for Brian Joubert. It seemed like he was distracted by all the publicity, the girlfriend and hampered by a bad program. Brian still has the quad jumps and it appears that he's healthy. Brian also has a great competitive attitude and I believe that he will be back and very strong for the Olympics. .

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Abberation? Joubert's always been inconsistent. In the 03-04 season, he did so poorly on the GP series that her missed the GPF. At 03 worlds, he completely bombed the QR. In some ways, this has been his most consistent season yet.

soogar said:

Plush didn't blame his injuries for his SP mistakes in COR, he said he was nervous. BTW, just before COR he competed in a small russian event and landed both a 4 salchow and a 4 toe , and was doing shows which was why the ISU leaned on him. However he was not forced to do COR: he originally was only going to compete in that event and pulled out of NHK.

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Maybe Plushy didn't blame his injuries, but it's pretty obvious he already had quite a few---you don't get double inguinal hernias overnight. The weakness had to be there long before the abdominal wall broke down, and he had to be feeling pain for sime time. Plushy has been in a state of denial about his injuries for a long time--one reason why he hasn't had surgery on his knee. Apparently, he doesn't want his physical weaknesses known.

Through now, the only competition in which Joubert has skated consistently and earned a podium spot is Europeans. I was hoping that his World silver last year was a turning point, even though I expected a slow GP start. It must have been frustrating for Joubert knowing that his technical score in the qualis was 19 points lower than Lambiel's (although only one point lower in PCS for a 10 am performance in which he barely had a pulse). Although this translated into a feasible 5.62 deficit coming into the long, Lambiel's quali TES of 77.9 was over eight points higher than Joubert scored all year with the program. (And much higher than the 56.41, 57.96, and 63.2 that he received at GP events this year.)

Even had Joubert landed his highest LP score of the year -- 147.45 at Euros, with LP TES of 69.71 a little higher than Lambiel's World LP TES of 67.32 -- he still would not have made up the deficit from qualis. I know that's mixing events, and that 147.45 from the Euros judges might have translated into the 150+ or so from the World's judges, but counting on surpassing his highest score of the year, particularly when his quali TES of 58.90 was already 8.42 points below Lambiel's LP (with mistakes) TES of 8.42 was quite a gamble.

I think the improvements he's made in his spins should pay off in the long run, though.

chuckm said:

The bottom line is Plushy DOESN'T HAVE to compete in the GP. He did not finish in the top 12 at Worlds, and he is under no obligation to accept an invitation. I am sure the RF has sufficient documentation on his knee injury to present a case that he is still injured.

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I would not have wished hernias on Plushenko, but the silver lining was that he gave two performances in Moscow in qualis and SP through sheer will, pulling out his last drop of reserve from his toe nails, and then retired, and as a result, he has no obligation to skate GP next year It's the best thing that could have happened to him in an Olympic year. He and his coaches and choreographers have had enough experience with CoP programs to know how to craft winning programs, and while shows are not the same as competition, he performs his competitive programs in them, and if he skates shows, he won't be rusty for Russian Nationals.

He can skate at CoR only, particularly if by the start of competition 12 points won't qualify for the final, which is more likely now that the ISU has reportedly cut out the third event for seeded skaters, who can no longer take points away from other competitors in their non-scoring events. For example, assuming the same scores from the rest of the field, without Johnny Weir at NHK last season, Chengjiang Li would have had a total of 14 points (5 instead of 4), and Michael Weiss would have had 14 (7 instead of 5) and a bronze medal, as well as the first alternate spot, which would have made him Weir's replacement in GPF. In 2003-4, Joubert would have had 14 points and a berth in GPF instead of a last-minute replacement invitation, and Gao would also have had 14 (moving up one in NHK), bumping Goebel with his 12 points from his single event (CHN) to first alternate. Dambier would have been third alternate, with 11 points, after two moves up. First alternate isn't quite safe enough, though, at least in the last two years.

I don't think Plushy has to skate the GPs if he doesn't want to. He is by far, imo, the most consistent skater on the Men's circuit. Unless there are news about the hernia surgeries otherwise, I believe he should be back skating in no substantial time lost.

How badly the knee is and if he intends to have surgery is still the most important question about his future. And still no one seems to know anything about this.

Joe

chuckm said:

You could say that about any competitor, which would include Sandhu; Buttle and Weir with competition quads; and even Lysacek with a competition quad. All these skaters have the ability to win with a clean competition.

No one is "ensured gold or silver".

And as for skating a clean competition, Lambiel sure didn't do that in Moscow--he had numerous mistakes in his FS. I have yet to see him skate a clean competition. He lost out on a medal at Worlds 2004 because he bombed in the SP

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For starters I never said Lambiel was a safe bet to skate cleanly. What I said is what he should focus on, first and foremost is doing what he is capable of, and skating cleanly, since in the situation that he does he is safe to win gold or silver at the Olympics, he has too many skills as a skater not to, especially now with the clout of a World Champion. I did not imply it was easy for him to skate cleanly, but his focus for next year should be more on capatilizing on all his abilities with greater consistency, as oppose to improving his skills.

No that is not true of all those others. In the case of Buttle, Weir, and Lysacek they dont have quads, so you are talking about them gaining an ability they dont have right now(doing a jump in practice occassionaly is not a pair with being inconsistent in a jump but often doing it in competition). As well Lysacek imparticular would not come close to beating Plushenko and Lambiel even with a quad, unless they had major errors. Those other skaters are more likely to have to be concerned with what other skaters do, whether others make enough mistakes or not. Lambiel by contrast has to just focus on what he can do, does not need the help some of those you mentioned would to ensure a medal spot.

dfj said:

Exasperated which injury?

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I think he/she means 'exacerbated'.

The problem Lambiel will have in skating a clean competition is that his money jumps other than the quad (lutz, 3A) are inconsistent. Weir is a very consistent jumper and he rarely misses a 3A or 3Z, so IMHO, he has just as much chance of landing a clean quad as Lambiel has of skating a clean FS.

I have seen Weir skate a clean FS (NHK), but I have never seen Lambiel do the same thing.

I read an interesting detail in the latest issue of Spotlight on Skating, about the little flap last year in which the ISU and the Russian federation forbade Plushenko to skate an exhibition in Prague. Since he had already promised to appear, he went to the arena the very afternoon of the scheduled performance and taped it, to be shown that evening. I guess this was OK with the ISU -- or at least a compromise that they could live with despite "rules 136.6 and 125.4."

In the men's medal race, I think it is way too early to discount Buttle's chances. He actually does have a quad that is fairly reliable, when he choses to include it. Buttle's problem in the past has been that when he does the quad early in the program, it seems to take so much out of him, either mentally or physically, that the rest of the program suffers.

Another contender, IMHO, is Li. To me, he has everything. Everything, that is, except the respect of the international judges.

On the issue of whether a skater should work on his own skating rather than worry about whether others will make mistakes, that is obviously good advice for every competitor. As Alexei Yagudin says, this isn't boxing -- there is nothing you can do to make your opponent mess up, so why worry about it?

Mathman