Winning Worlds on first attempt

[Ender]

This is a good point. The top women in the figures era spent a lot of their training time on figures, which is undoubtably less punishing on the body than training triples. I can't think of any top women whose careers spanned multiple Olympic cycles that didn't have to deal with illness of injuries; Kwan, Cohen, Slutskaya, Kim, and Asada all dealt with various issues. (I'm not sure about Ando or Kostner, though). Furthermore, to win now you almost have to be the best technically, whereas you could build a nice lead with the figures that made it difficult for strong jumpers to catch up.

Exactly, I think Medvedeva's best chance is 2018. After that it will be difficult for her, all time best competitor or not.

 

[Ender]

Well, the training is still training. We still need to see:
- how many of them will able to do those jumps in competition
- without messing up everything else big time
- consistently (because well, one can do a great program with quad once a season, and then Med wins all the other competitions)
- have the PCs to compete with Med - she actually has quite a high TES due to backloading and GOE (at worlds 2017, she had a 1 point lead in TES in SP, and 8 point lead in FS - thats actually a whole extra 3A by itself). Even considering worlds 2017 wasnt very good for ladies, still a lady would need to do a quad / 3A, nail everything else, and get some GOOD PCs to beat Medvedeva. For instance, Liza, even with 3A in short and 3A in free and in top form wouldnt be a competiton.

The scores are relative not absolute. If they had a ladies with 3A in both SP and LP being clean consistently the whole season, she might beat Medvedeva at WC.

 

[moriel]

The scores are relative not absolute. If they had a ladies with 3A in both SP and LP being clean consistently the whole season, she might beat Medvedeva at WC.

Yes, but again: that depends of a lady consistenty adding those jumps and not falling apart.
Also, as i said, Med´s TES is quite high actually. So, for example, if someone like Liza managed to jump 2 3As across two programs while skating clean consistently, she still wouldnt get the PCs high enough to beat Med.

 

[Ares]

this is not the time when you can jump 4-5 triples and pose like Witt. Some ladies are training quads and 3A. The level of the competition is much higher than before. I don't think it's wise for ladies' bodies to endure another 4 years circle until 2022.

Nothing against Witt (without doubt she was podium worthy throughout most of her career) but judges were too generous for her in hindsight. She received higher technical mark from some in Calgary '88 Olympic Free Skate than Ito. Katarina landed 3 triples IIRC and had basic spins even if program alone was electrifying it should not matter in this mark. :noshake: And figures in which Witt excelled are impossible to evaluate now.

 

[Skater Boy]

this is not the time when you can jump 4-5 triples and pose like Witt. Some ladies are training quads and 3A. The level of the competition is much higher than before. I don't think it's wise for ladies' bodies to endure another 4 years circle until 2022.

Exactly it will be much harder for Med to win like Witt. And 4 to 5 triples based on the garbage triples lol - salchow and toe would be generous as Witt would winn with three triples or two tripletoes and two triple salchows.

Now those jumps are the back end of triple triple combos. You can't compare the past - different era, jumps even scoring system - which is why I think a world record "score" is useless in skating. The rules change especially with IJS as to value of scores for jumps/como and elements etc. so really there is little value in saying Hanyu got a world record score etc. or whoever. The panel of judges/competition, time (as the scoring ssytem has changed or to be nice evolved, required or allowed elements change etc. But in ie men withso many quads it will be hard to find a skater who can dominate.

 

[Ender]

Nothing against Witt (without doubt she was podium worthy throughout most of her career) but judges were too generous for her in hindsight. She received higher technical mark from some in Calgary '88 Olympic Free Skate than Ito. Katarina landed 3 triples IIRC and had basic spins even if program alone was electrifying it should not matter in this mark. :noshake: And figures in which Witt excelled are impossible to evaluate now.

They said the judges were generous with Witt when it came to figures from time to time. Or we could say: it's easier for judges to cheat in figures. I don't think it's that easy with the current free skating when skaters are upping their technique and layout all the time.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

Nothing against Witt (without doubt she was podium worthy throughout most of her career) but judges were too generous for her in hindsight. She received higher technical mark from some in Calgary '88 Olympic Free Skate than Ito. Katarina landed 3 triples IIRC and had basic spins even if program alone was electrifying it should not matter in this mark. :noshake: And figures in which Witt excelled are impossible to evaluate now.

Calgary was an interesting event. To take gold, Liz needed someone like Ito to beat Witt in the LP. Ito was, hands down, the strongest technically. Liz had much more difficult jump content than Witt in the LP, but I think Witt's choreography was far better; Liz really had no coherent program and threw together a bunch of short snippets from music she liked skating to over the years. It was hard to evaluate Ito because her jumps were so much better than the others. She might have won the LP in 1992, 1994, and 1998 when the expectation for top ladies was to have a lutz. I would have had Ito, Liz, and Katarina as the top 3, in that order. This would have moved Ito to 4th but not affected the podium order.