diver chick said:Lambiel did indeed single his triple axel. He never got the speed going into it and it never looked on for a triple but I think people were surprised that he didn't pull in and pull out at least a double.
As for the program itself, it is absolutely gorgeous. Fabulous spins as usual, the quad looked as secure as I have ever seen him do it, and he had a fabulous running edge coming out of it, he ran it so long I thought he wasn't going to do a combo because he was quite close to the boards and then he puts on a triple to the end. The choreography and structure of the program was excellant, the whole thing was seamless from start to finish and everything just fit the music perfectly and Stephane himself skated it with his usual flair and grace. I could have watched it all day. Definitely deserved to be in third in spite of the axel and IMO had he hit the axel it would have been a better program by far than Jouberts and possibly even Plushenko. I am surprised with the results of the top two because I think that perhaps Plushenko's program was slightly better, however the scores were reasonbly close so I am not reading too much into it other than the fact that Joubert landed his combo cleanly whereas Plush had to put turn in between the two jumps.
yelyoh said:Okay so Joubert did a shakey but clean 3 axel and Lambiel did a single. But Lambiel had a more difficult jump combo and most likely better spins. And SL had footwork that was as good as BJ according to reports I've read. So how did BJ wind up with TES scores that much better AND better PCS marks. Is he that much better than Lambiel? Am I not seeing something? With a nine-point advantage SL cannot hope to catch up with BJ in the LP. Yeah I know I haven't seen the programs at this competition but........
yelyoh said:With a nine-point advantage SL cannot hope to catch up with BJ in the LP.
The difference between singling the required Axel (1.5 base less mandatory -3 GOE for not enough rotations in a required element, or .3 total for a 1A) and getting base on the planned 3A (7.5) is the difference between Joubert's score and Lambiel's score.Mehdi said:A seven-point advantage rather. (Brian: 76.98 / Stéphane: 69.97)