2023 Grand Prix de France Women's Free Skate

[icewhite]

It was clearly under rotated you could see that in real time.

If the judges were generous they could have given in a q.

But the judges were literally out of their mind, three of them gave it a 3 and two gave it a 2.

Grand Prix de Farce.

Since you are such a fan of Eteri I wonder if you ever complained about the ridiculous overscoring of the Eteri girls. There were some real farce events.

I am also very upset about judging often (and right now also here) and no doubt I'm not always fair, but at least I try to be. You on the other hand have no interest in watching these events other than to diminish what the skaters here are doing because they are not Russian.
What else is that but trolling?

 

[cheerknithanson]

Just got up after a 13-hour day of traveling. So yay to Isabeau for winning a securing the first spot of the GPF. And is this the first time two Belgian singles skaters for ladies medaled in the GP series?

 

[Skating91]

Since you are such a fan of Eteri I wonder if you ever complained about the ridiculous overscoring of the Eteri girls. There were some real farce events.

I am also very upset about judging often (and right now also here) and no doubt I'm not always fair, but at least I try to be. You on the other hand have no interest in watching these events other than to diminish what the skaters here are doing because they are not Russian.
What else is that but trolling?

I'm against all overscoring and underscoring and will call it out when I see it. What I've seen in three events is some of the worst after much better officiated JGP events.

 

[georgia]

I just chuckled at the word "unelegant". He said in the kindest, euphemistic way that some of her entrances are ugly. I get the impression he would agree with your assessment. He was just being nice.

Totally unelegant. Drives me crazy. I am thinking ….only Amber has fully rotate, with nice edges jumps, when she lands them of course!

 

[Rebecca Moose]

I'm shook that not only Gubanova ubers exist, but they all post here

Yeah Rion's quad should have been called under but it doesn't make a difference in the final results. Gubanova finished exactly where she should have. Her basic skating ain't it, the jump technique is sketchy, and she has issues achieving levels. I've seen her live, and trust me, she's one of those skaters that look MUCH better on video/TV than in person.

Skating after Gubanova, Levito looks like Yuna Kim

 

[sailormoon]

I thought Team Japan was done for this competition until I saw this. Rion Sumiyoshi was not on my radar. She has become the first Japanese woman who landed a 4T in a major ISU competition.

 

[Skating91]

I thought Team Japan was done for this competition until I saw this. Rion Sumiyoshi was not on my radar. She has become the first Japanese woman who landed a 4T in a major ISU competition.

She did well to hold on to it with such a big underrotation. She gets a lot of height on it which is impressive.

 

[icewhite]

She did well to hold on to it with such a big underrotation. She gets a lot of height on it which is impressive.

It was at best q. No big underrotation at all.

 

[Zora]

Nina was so lovely, that was some good, classical figure skating. Interesting choice considering her choreographer, but I think it's the perfect package for her. I can't stand Isabeau's programs at all, I absolutely hate the snake in her short program, because it distracts me so much, I don't even remember how she skated. And in her free, the music is grating on my nerves and the bulky dress distracts me once again... I'm a bit disappointed, because I like her attention to detail, but this season it doesn't work for me. I liked Rion's music choices and costumes in both of her programs, but she is a bit stiff in her choreography.

 

[Skating91]

It was at best q. No big underrotation at all.

More than 90 degree is an underrotation isn't it? Looks more than 90 degrees to me. I just go by the the pictures. Either way, with this landing it is a cheated jump because it is not fully rotated so should not be getting 3's and 2's from judges. Not to mention she was quite off balance at one point in the exit. If this is a 3 or 2 as most judges gave it, then any fully rotated jump should be an automatic 5 right?

It was a quite impressive attempt nonetheless (but that doesn't mean judges can break rules or favour one skater and punish another for the same error), and she gets great height so I think she will maintain the jump for a while.

 

[Cilla70]

Wakaba and Rion were a treat for me.

 

[Dawn825]

TES Rescore
Rion: 33+71= 104
Nina: 35+66= 101
Isabeau: 31+59=90
Maybe PCS would put Nina over Rion, not a clue, but the winner was not Isabeau. Too bad, because I was hoping she would get an honest win here.

 

[RatedPG]

I enjoyed my favourite two skaters of this event from the same camp: Rion and Wakaba

I clapped and stood up when Rion landed that 4T. Too bad she doubled the 3S. I was shocked at how low her score was. To me, she is a 70+ PCS skater and with her quad, I thought there was potential for a 140+ free skate score. One apparent problem from this camp is that they lose points on the non-jump elements. Anyways, three straight bronze medals for my fave.

Wakaba was not bad. I was nervous for her jumps in the second half of the program. I thought she should have finished 4th at this event. But, a 5th place finish with a score over 190 basically puts her in good standing with the Japanese federation for this and next year. Congrats

Isabeau …. That was horrible. The eu into salchow. She was laboured in the second half and that last spin mistake was a horrible last impression. TES should have been lower by three points and the PCS score should not have been over 60…. Sigh

I would have had Nina in first, Rion in second and Levito in third. I’m dissatisfied with these results. It is like the international panel doesn’t want any breakout stars. The same five at the GP Finals, as they get too much of a saving grace with the PCS scores.

 

[SmileHappy34]

Congratulations all.

 

[hermine17]

Seeing Rion’s FS live was such a feast. Angry at her score, but congrats for winning her medal.

Congrats to Nina too. She skated with such solid confidence.

Isabeau. . . It’s not so much the fact that she won which bothers me, but her score. Not justified. (Even if she had finished third, she would have probably qualified for the final anyway. There was no need to inflate her score.)

 

[Mathematician]

i wonder where @Mathematician is...

hibernating

ill be there for kazan

 

[jenaj]

The judging is completely off in this whole event

Yesterday you could tell they already had a predefined order and just went with it no matter what (for dance and mens as well)

Today, I don't even know what happened to Gubanova's score and how possibly could Isabeau have won with a skate like that

Something seriously needs to be done so that judging keeps at least some level of coherence and pretending fairness. Scoring this off the rails just gets really off puting and in the end it damages how much you can enjoy competitions

Isabeau had a cushion after the short. She only need about 127 points to win after those who came before her.

 

[niks]

Although I do like some of the transitions, I really dislike this program as I associate the music with Kolyada. Her skating is labored and it shouldn’t be with this music. Levito definitely didn’t win the free skate with those mistakes but her too-high lead from the SP should help.

Your post prompted me to watch Kolyada's skate once again (and thanks for that btw )

To be fair to Levito here, Kolyada is a very high standard to compare any performance against, so it would only be normal that she would come short of that. But seeing both programs back to back was heartbreaking. There is not even a starting point of comparision in terms of flow, interpretation, gracefulness (I know this may sound like an exaggeration but even Misha's falls are more graceful than many of Levito's landed jumps ), feelings, bare skating skills, posture, and I could just carry on listing so many other things.

I agree it's not a good idea to pick up the same music that has been iconically performed by another skater, especially when the skating levels differ so greatly.

And in other news, I miss Misha so so much. His skating was a true gift of beauty.

 

[Mathman]

I just chuckled at the word "unelegant". He said in the kindest, euphemistic way that some of her entrances are ugly. I get the impression he would agree with your assessment. He was just being nice.

I'm sure he meant "inelegant."

 

[niks]

Isabeau had a cushion after the short. She only need about 127 points to win after those who came before her.

I see that, but her performance here was surely not better than that of the Japanese or the Korean skaters (I would even say that the third Japanese skater that got burried in the standings had a comparatively nicer performance, at least from an artistic point of view). Lee was given 125 points; Isabeau should then not have been given more than that and therefore she should not have won ...

Likewise, I mentioned Gubanova's score as an example of things that don't match up, not because I think she had a memorable performance or that she should have won, but because she was not noticeably worse than others that were given higher scores. Fair point to someone who mentioned that her base value was lower, but actually that's also part of the judging (eg technical panel). It was also mentioned that she wasn't fast, ok, I agree, but again, neither were the rest of the ladies.

The thing is the women field in this GP was overall rather weak and programs were not awful, lets say, but ultimately bland and hard to distinguish from one another. There was nothing in the SP or the FS that one would probably remember the day after (except maybe some of the customes, which I truly loved, but no matter how lovely, in the end customes shouldn't really be the one highlight of a skating competition). In this uninspiring situation, the Japanese and Korean skaters had the edge thanks to better skating skills and speed (by relative standards compared to the rest of the field), and so one of them should have won.