RubyNV said:Once again, the judging was scandalous. Shizuka was wonderful and clearly deserved her gold medal. Fumie Suguri clearly deserved the silver medal, but instead, was placed fourth behind Sasha and Irina who both skated poorly.
Fumie did a clean skate and a nice, gentle program. Sasha and Irina fell--Sasha twice--yet came out ahead of her. We must insist that judges judge only what is actually happening out there on the ice AT THAT TIME!!! Reputations, previous results, etc., must be meaningless to them, or they won't judge properly. Falling on your rear end or on your hands isn't artistic or athletic. I suspect that Sasha's ridiculously inflated scores were just to keep the U.S. from getting shut out of the medals. The main cheating is still coming on the "artistic presentation" scores, now called "program components". Figure skating, to be viable, must be a sport, first and foremost. The way to fix this problem to some extent would be to make the technical scores count for more--at least 2/3 of the final total--maybe even 7/8 to try to stop the cheating.
I have a special hatred of the weird obsession with spiral sequences. How did they get such clout? For one thing, more and more skaters are doing very well done spirals, many of them now pulling one leg up like a flamingo, and even letting go of the skate at that point to increase the difficulty level. I am tired of seeing almost everyone doing basically the same move. For another thing, why is displaying your crotch to the world considered a beautiful artistic move? If the ladies have bodysuits on, it would at least not look like a desire to display the
panty portion of their skating dresses to the world (and by the way, a lot of the ladies are wearing what look more like thongs under their dresses). I am rather creeped out by the extended spirals of Sasha and others. I think she does this because the craze for spiral sequences started with Michelle Kwan, who was so highly ranked. People would rave about her spiral sequence, even though it always was skated exactly the same. I was really, really sick of seeing it!
There are a lot of skating moves that are being neglected these days. Bring some of those back and ditch the spiral sequence as a requirement. Variety is so much more interesting. Let's see more emphasis on doing jumps out of fancy footwork.
hockeyfan228 said:Cohen's base score was 57.5, the highest base score of any skater in the free skate. (Arakawa's was 57.3). Cohen attempted and rotated seven triples, more than any women in the top 10. The next highest attempted and rotated triple count was five.
Cohen's total TES was 55.22. She lost 7 points on three flawed jumps, not including 1 fall point. She gained back 4.72 points with high GOEs on other jumps, her spins, her footwork, and her spiral sequence. She had three L4 spins, one L3 spin, an L4 spiral sequence, and an L2 footwork sequence. When the fall deduction is taken, she had virtual TES of 54.22, which was slightly better in total than Suguri.
Suguri's base score was 53.2. Although she lost -1.25 total on three flawed jumps, she gained 2.28 over base, to end with 54.23 in TES. Suguri had one L4 spin, three L3 spins, an L3 spiral sequence, and an L2 footwork sequence.
Cohen earned 1.58 points higher in PCS than Suguri, which, when multiplied by 2 (factor for Ladies' free skate), gave her a 3.16 point advantage in PCS.
The details are here:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/results/1501425/detail.html
Even if Cohen had gotten no credit for the fall -- the hands down on the 3F was not called a fall -- which would have gotten some credit under 6.0 (a single, I believe), and no credit for the hands down -- which also would have gotten credit under 6.0 -- when you deduct the -1 fall deduction from the 5.64 she received for the two opening jumps, the 4.64 difference was still less than her lead over Suguri in the SP.
If you look at Slutskaya's protocols -- Slutskaya also finished ahead of Suguri in the free skate -- she attempted five triples, fell on one, had a flawed 3F which received negative GOE.
I agree that a clean program should count for something and a fall should be a zero. I probably would have put Fumie on podium. But based on the current rules, I can certainly see the argument for her in 4th place. She skated well, but I had a lukewarm reaction to her overall program.kyla2 said:I have very mixed feelings about this. I think a clean program should count for something and it doesn't. I agree that falling on a jump should put it to 0 for points.
How do you define clean? Suguri had a faulty landing on the 3T and no flow out of her 2T's in the last two combinations. Do you mean fall-free?kyla2 said:I have very mixed feelings about this. I think a clean program should count for something and it doesn't.
If a fall was zero, you'd never have the skaters trying difficult jumps. They'd all mosey around doing safe singles and doubles and would have no incentive to try the more difficult jumps.Ogre Mage said:I agree that a clean program should count for something and a fall should be a zero. I probably would have put Fumie on podium.
But the thing is, if you land the difficult jump you get more points. That's the incentive.loony said:If a fall was zero, you'd never have the skaters trying difficult jumps. They'd all mosey around doing safe singles and doubles and would have no incentive to try the more difficult jumps.