2018 Olympic Figure Skating Team Event Day 2

[ancientpeas]

I agree with the placements. I might have had Satoko ahead of Osmond but UR are more heavily dinged than messy landings. Had Kaetlyn not got what Jackie Wong referred to as the "secondary definition" of a combo then she would have been behind Satoko. I do not think Bradie was as good as Satoko PCS wise. I'm not sure why some of you believe that. Fine, Satoko's jumps are weaker but there is more to the IJS than jumps. Good thing for Bradie is that I'm sure her marks, if she skates this well in the ladies short, will see a big rise in PCS which should follow her to Milan.

The real problem for the Russians was Z/E not coming second in Pairs. Not that M/H didn't deserve to be second. That was one heck of a skate. But for the points Z/E needed to be 2nd not 3rd.

 

[jenm]

I SO wish there were separate panels, too

I agree. There should be a separate panel for PCS categories. And at an event as big and important as the Olympics, they can afford it.

 

[Warwick360]

Again you can get +3 in various ways, but when you don't have anything special or difficult i don't understand why you should get that much. Flexible positions are difficult period, especially nowadays that you have to hold it.

It's a moot point. Nothing and none of Evgenia's positions are different, nor unique. Each one of those spins are like a carbon copy of the next skater in the Russian team. At least Caro tries to do something different on the layback.

As for flexibility, again, I must emphasise that this is figure skating. Not sport of contortion. I don't see why edge variations as a substitute should not be seen as an equal or of greater value. If everyone could do it, everyone would do it. I see lot of flexible ladies out there, but not that many who could change their edges effectively while in their spin.

 

[Bcash]

I just don 't get the love for the Shibs from USFSA. The last two outings in the FD they have had huge mistakes and team USA can't afford any mistakes now. H/D being US champions deserved the nod.

I think there was this weirdly sentimental narrative built around their 2016 program and they capitalized on it. The judges begin to buy into their "journey" and "improvement" and reward them for their consistency. Plus they are the kind of people that will never create any media trouble for USFSA.

 

[moriel]

I agree with the placements. I might have had Satoko ahead of Osmond but UR are more heavily dinged than messy landings. Had Kaetlyn not got what Jackie Wong referred to as the "secondary definition" of a combo then she would have been behind Satoko. I do not think Bradie was as good as Satoko PCS wise. I'm not sure why some of you believe that. Fine, Satoko's jumps are weaker but there is more to the IJS than jumps. Good thing for Bradie is that I'm sure her marks, if she skates this well in the ladies short, will see a big rise in PCS which should follow her to Milan.

The real problem for the Russians was Z/E not coming second in Pairs. Not that M/H didn't deserve to be second. That was one heck of a skate. But for the points Z/E needed to be 2nd not 3rd.

I dont think it really matters at this point.
I mean, after Kolyada, OAR team is pretty much out of the gold race. As for silver, as long as they place ahead of americans, its fine for now.

Pretty sure the silver will be decided in men FS too - there is no placement that will save OAR if he bombs again.

 

[Warwick360]

In 2010, one athlete was strippedof the Olympic gold medal because his programs were the most technically difficult. Nobody in the USA did not:shamebject. Why today, someone resents Costner victories over:dev3:Tennell and Osmond?

The problem with 2010 was that the judging system was wrong, not necessarily the judges' scores. The main problem evidently was the base value of the quads being clearly undervalued by today's standards. There was nothing one could do about it, except for changing the system for the future. No point complaining about it then, no point complaining about it now. As for Tennell, Osmond and Costner, I don't think many people have problem with Costner here. Seems to be more of a problem with Osmond's score, after that mess of a program.

 

[ancientpeas]

I dont think it really matters at this point.
I mean, after Kolyada, OAR team is pretty much out of the gold race. As for silver, as long as they place ahead of americans, its fine for now.

Pretty sure the silver will be decided in men FS too - there is no placement that will save OAR if he bombs again.

I'm kind of worried about Kolyada if he has a bad skate. A lot of people seemed really, really hard on him after the short. I hope he skates well. It would be nice for him have a great skate.

 

[Alifyre]

So I watched the team event last night with my three totally non-skating fan friends last night. I tried to keep my commentary to a minimum beyond explaining tech basics to them so I could get their real opinions, and I was really surprised by who they thought was impressive.

They were very complimentary of the first group skaters, although they were not "wowed" by them they were very pleased to see girls who clearly were not absolute top tier having their olympic moments. It really reminded me to keep perspective -- every skate here is worth watching, because it was such a journey for each of these skaters to get here. They were especially happy for the young lady from Israel upon seeing her reaction to her skate.

None of them felt particularly wowed by Bradie, but they all said she jumped well. I think the camera angles during the dramatic part of Bradie's music didn't help -- you totally couldn't tell if she was emoting or not because we were watching from overhead. At that point we all started complaining every time they decided to go aerial shot.

They all groaned at Carolina's music choice, but by the time she had finished they were all really impressed by it. My one friend said that Carolina was giving a lot more energy and expression than she would have expected from such subdued music, and they all agreed they wanted to see her doing something more upbeat to play more into her performance skills.

People here often complain about Satoko's tiny jumps (I believe I've seen the word underwhelming used) and how they don't have the wow factor as the high fliers, but my friends all audibly gasped with amazement when Satoko hit her first jump combination. They were blown away by her fast rotation and appearance of effortlessness. We more dedicated fans might not love them, especially with the URs, but to my casual friends Satoko's little jumps actually added to her wow factor.

None of them were really impressed by Kaetlyn. I had expected them to like Kaetlyn a lot because by the time we hit group two they were all very tired of soft, pretty music, but they didn't really buy the music. They also, much to my surprise, really didn't like her dress or makeup. They were all a little confused why she did better than Satoko.

For Evgenia, I was very surprised when a friend of mine used the word "playful" to describe her step sequence choreo, but as I watched I totally saw it. The movements, while delicate and beautiful, did seem a little high energy for the piece of music. (I hope next season Zhenya mixes up her music style, I think she would be well served by it, especially after hearing what my friends said). While I really loved the Rippon on Zhenya's jump combo, it didn't super wow my friends. None of them said anything about the voiceover or the breath at the end, interestingly enough. When she finished they all agreed that she had done the best out of all of them by a long shot.

We were all pretty sleepy for the pairs free so less opinions were shared, but they loved the Italian pair (hated their costumes though) and were clapping when Valentina screamed with joy at the end. They also were impressed by Duhamel/Radford, although they all agreed Hotarek/Marchei were more fun to watch.

Just sort of interesting outsider perspective!

 

[rikaquegira]

Can someone explain to me what was that combo of Osmond? Like, an accurate description of what happened and how it was valid. I honestly don't understand.
And one judge gave a +3??? I guess he fell asleep real quick and didn't see the jump so he thought "well, I'll just give a +3!"
I don't get it!!!
And then on Satoko's apparently clean 3Loop one judge gave a -3! Again, he/she must have fallen asleep for a few seconds.
I can't believe in the most important competition ever for figure skating the judges can be that lenient/crazy/stupid. Can't they do their jobs right just this once??? Is it that hard???
Sorry for the rant. I just can't with this sport. I just can't.

 

[Violet Bliss]

The FS team is a silly event and it is very easy to figure which nations will be the powers in 2022 - no wild speculation needed!

Care to post your prediction for 2022 Team OGM nation now?

 

[markovai]

As much as I like Evgenia and respect her and everything she has achieved and contributed to the figure skating world, I have to say that sometimes judges give her the GOEs and the record marks without following the rules. As an example - during the beautiful short program Evgenia delivered yesterday, her first spin - flying camel spin was NOT a +2/+3 spin, as it was not centered and she was traveling during its execution. So the one extra point received for this spin from the GOEs (that contributed to the record) was not deserved. Such spin performed by a less know skater would receive a 0/-1 GOEs. The IJS only pretends to be "fair", but the subjectivity is still obvious for anybody familiar with the sport.

 

[ancientpeas]

Can someone explain to me what was that combo of Osmond? Like, an accurate description of what happened and how it was valid. I honestly don't understand.
And one judge gave a +3??? I guess he fell asleep real quick and didn't see the jump so he thought "well, I'll just give a +3!"
I don't get it!!!
And then on Satoko's apparently clean 3Loop one judge gave a -3! Again, he/she must have fallen asleep for a few seconds.
I can't believe in the most important competition ever for figure skating the judges can be that lenient/crazy/stupid. Can't they do their jobs right just this once??? Is it that hard???
Sorry for the rant. I just can't with this sport. I just can't.

the +3 was an error by the Hungarian judge. It was thrown out. In the end it befitted Kaetlyn .10 points apparently.

The combo: Jackie Wong‏ @rockerskating

This is how the combo was counted - there was no weight transfer on the foot down in that combination - the call and the score were correct in this case http://bit.ly/2BRdVDN #PyeongChang2018 #Olympics #figureskating

 

[Warwick360]

I'm kind of worried about Kolyada if he has a bad skate. A lot of people seemed really, really hard on him after the short. I hope he skates well. It would be nice for him have a great skate.

I'm also hoping he has a good skate. But that mess of a performance in the team event was just awful.

I really hope, at least for the team event, that he doesn't do any more Quad Lutzs. All he needs is a clean performance to go into top three.

 

[moonvine]

I think figure skating needs to work on its judging because currently it's losing fans. I watched with just some casual olympic fans, and they all thought the scoring was absolutely ridiculous. To a casual watcher, it makes absolutely no sense that Bradie should be almost 15 points between Evgenia if you just look at the skating with fresh eyes and throw out reputation judging....

Reputation judging really hurts the sport and loses casual viewers. Evgenia was solid but that score is :disagree:

They need to replace it with some sort of system that is understandable to the casual viewer. IMHO.

 

[moonvine]

I miss Dick Button's commentary. His constant negativity was an echo of everything in my head.

Doesn't EVERYONE miss him? Every time I see a catch-foot I remember him complaining about everyone doing "that ugly catchfoot."

 

[Lester]

They need to replace it with some sort of system that is understandable to the casual viewer. IMHO.

The current system is understandable enough: you get points for all tech elements and you get points for presentation, most points wins.
I've been following other sports in the Olympics this week that I am unfamiliar with and in some of them like Moguls or Slopestyle there are also points awarded for this or that. The casual viewer doesn't know what is awarded for what exactly [this is where the commentator helps out] but you can immediately recognise a superior performance and can be content in knowing a great performance scored higher.

The problem with the IJS is not that what GOE points are awarded for is unclear to the viewer (obviously they are awarded for better or more difficult execution) but that judges seem to often hand them out based on reputation rather than actual performance, forget the difficulty keypoints even. And the PCS suffer from the same to an extent.

I remember listening to an interview with a dance coach or a skater several years ago [can't remember who] said that the judges don't always have time to see and judge everything properly, so sometimes they just hit the +3 ("I am sure it was great"). While the GOE issue can probably be resolved by making adjustments in judging, perhaps redistributing who is responsible for what, I think PCS will always be susceptible to reputation and being wowed by the moment because... idk, psychology. But maybe their wild climb for some skaters could be curbed.

 

[Lester]

None of them were really impressed by Kaetlyn. I had expected them to like Kaetlyn a lot because by the time we hit group two they were all very tired of soft, pretty music, but they didn't really buy the music. They also, much to my surprise, really didn't like her dress or makeup. They were all a little confused why she did better than Satoko.

I normally love her performances but I feel she didn't show up at all this morning. Even I am confused why they scored her so forgivingly. Without the performance energy this SP is... not that great, turns out. Well, true of any program I guess.

 

[Shayuki]

The current system is understandable enough: you get points for all tech elements and you get points for presentation, most points wins.
I've been following other sports in the Olympics this week that I am unfamiliar with and in some of them like Moguls or Slopestyle there are also points awarded for this or that. The casual viewer doesn't know what is awarded for what exactly [this is where the commentator helps out] but you can immediately recognise a superior performance and can be content in knowing a great performance scored higher.

The problem with the IJS is not that what GOE points are awarded for is unclear to the viewer (obviously they are awarded for better or more difficult execution) but that judges seem to often hand them out based on reputation rather than actual performance, forget the difficulty keypoints even. And the PCS suffer from the same to an extent.

I remember listening to an interview with a dance coach or a skater several years ago [can't remember who] said that the judges don't always have time to see and judge everything properly, so sometimes they just hit the +3 ("I am sure it was great"). While the GOE issue can probably be resolved by making adjustments in judging, perhaps redistributing who is responsible for what, I think PCS will always be susceptible to reputation and being wowed by the moment because... idk, psychology. But maybe their wild climb for some skaters could be curbed.

Exactly. You hit the nail on the head.

To the casual viewer(And I'm one for many other sports), it's not that important to understand what exactly constitutes all the points gained. But you really want to feel like the performance that looked clearly the best also scores the highest. It's just not consistent with the viewer experience right now, which really puts people off from what I've talked about. It's hard to get into it when you don't understand why a skater you found to be very lovely got scored worse than someone with 2 falls and mistakes all over the place.

In the context of this competition, it's very tough to explain why Kaetlyn Osmond placed third here, for example. And that sort of a thing is offputting.

For example, I've watched gymnastics and I have absolutely no clue why what athletes get what scores. But most of the time, I can still agree with the placements - They tend to make sense to me. I can see how someone is better than someone else with zero knowledge of the sport. And that makes it watchable.

 

[silverfoxes]

I can ALMOST understand people when they ask Satoko’s jumps. But when you bash her artistry, you are WRONG. Just so completely wrong. If that’s not artistry what do you even think artistry is???

Artistry is highly subjective. She always looks very rehearsed to me, and too controlled. I don't find it very exciting to watch, and it doesn't move me at all, personally. Just a matter of taste.

 

[withwings]

They need to replace it with some sort of system that is understandable to the casual viewer. IMHO.

There always has been so called "russian ( before- easten block) mafia" , and always will be. The skaters are just innocent victims, either they are overscored or underscored.