2015 Worlds Men Free Skate March 28

[msteach3]

We don't bother with NBC. We either watch live streams or various Youtube videos that get posted shortly after.

I don't rely on NBC anymore either as their coverage is a joke. I've had great luck streaming IceNetwork all season. Definitely worth the $40.:thumbsup:

 

[peg]

The medalists actually get medal. They came their for gold, just image if they're off the podium, that would be nightmare for them.
Nam and Misha did not skate for medal. They knew they had little chance in the first place. however, many of the men who faltered skated for medal. That's so terrible to watch.

While I agree that it would have been far more disappointing for Javi, Yuzu, and denis to end up in 5th or 6th like Nam and Misha did, I also think these guys are perfectionists and want to skate without mistakes. So it's probably a bit of a mix of emotion for them - a bit of disappointment in their performance but relief and happiness at the medals. (Though f course that's better than being disappointed with both performance and placement). But I think both Nam and Misha just feel happy. Both exceeded expectations

 

[Blades of Passion]

So overall this competition was really forgettable.

The scoring inflation has become especially annoying. I'm not sure how Hanyu and Fernandez can be getting such high PCS with these cut-and-paste programs that weren't even performed especially well. I would have scored Hanyu at a 163 for his LP and Fernandez at a 168. Ice skating has fallen into the dumpster because there is no longer any real reward for artistry. I don't see much movement at all in these programs that feels truly organic or really interprets the music. They should have received low-to-mid 7's for those components.

I do think Denis Ten deserved the Silver medal. His LP was clearly the best here, I would have put it at a 174. I hope he keeps the program for next season and can refine it even more - remove that ugly tuck position from the flying sit spin and choreograph a better combination spin for the ending!!! For that combination spin he should really do difficult entrance into forward camel (rather than into back camel), down into pike sit, change to back camel, jump down into sit, and then up to back scratch spin to close.

 

[alia jackson]

^^^ The placement is determined by a combination of SP + LP. Dennis SP is not enough, and as others had mentioned he should be scored lower for that SP. He did however won the LP. Add the SP and LP, his total combination was bronze.

 

[Meoima]

^^. In the end of most competition threads you will see some choreography master class comments by BOP. Mostly about her opinion about artistry on ice.
Whether you can actually understand how the choreography like that will work in real life is up to you, though.
We are just mortal...
In my opinion: let's watch ice show for artistry and fun.

 

[Blades of Passion]

^^^ The placement is determined by a combination of SP + LP. Dennis SP is not enough, and as others had mentioned he should be scored lower for that SP. He did however won the LP. Add the SP and LP, his total combination was bronze.

I think Dennis did well enough in the SP as compared to Hanyu, to beat him overall with his superior LP performance. There actually should have been a smaller point gap between them in the SP to begin with. I would have put Dennis at 84 in the SP and Hanyu at 92.

 

[AprilS]

Different people have different opinions. Personally, I agree with the judges (except for Javi being so undermarked in the sp) :yes:

 

[MaxSwagg]

Yah. I agree as well. Hanyu's SP is superb...

 

[Rissa]

I think Dennis did well enough in the SP as compared to Hanyu, to beat him overall with his superior LP performance. There actually should have been a smaller point gap between them in the SP to begin with. I would have put Dennis at 84 in the SP and Hanyu at 92.

Nah, Yuzuru's SP deserved its marks. It's just that good of a program, difficult, amazing choreography and Yuzuru had great connection to it, it was an excellent performance. I hope he keeps it next season and cleans up the jumps because then he'll be getting 100s again.

^^. In the end of most competition threads you will see some choreography master class comments by BOP. Mostly about her opinion about artistry on ice.
Whether you can actually understand how the choreography like that will work in real life is up to you, though.
We are just mortal...
In my opinion: let's watch ice show for artistry and fun.

I agreed with the rankings too, although I would not have been surprised if Javi's SP was scored higher than Yuzuru's for it's lack of mistakes. I actually love D10's SP but those mistakes were glaring. And I so wanted to have a clean performance of it recorded because I didn'd at 4CC!

And the LPs was also scored well. D10 wasn't completely clean so it makes sense that he scored only slightly ahead of Javi who has the advantage of an extra quad. I can't really comment on choreo because I just don't like Javi's music, but it seemed to be well put together. I couldn't warm up to Denis's music either, but it was better than Javi's for me and well performed. the ending was to die for. I thought Yuzuru had really good choreography too, all those elements were amazingly syncced with music, jumps right on the note, the slow part in the middle wasn't boring as it often is and he performed the hell out of it.

So yep, the three of them are where they should be at the end if the day.

 

[Blades of Passion]

Nah, Yuzuru's SP deserved its marks. It's just that good of a program, difficult, amazing choreography and Yuzuru had great connection to it, it was an excellent performance.

I don't think it was THAT excellent of a performance. He made a big mistake and it detracted from the flow and overall impact. While it is very good and difficult choreography, I question how much it interprets the music throughout the whole program. I think some of his movements don't specifically bring out the full life of this music. The opening movements of the program in particular are not that special to me and a couple of his spin positions feel rather out of character for what is trying to be expressed here. Also that little pause he does at the start of the footwork sequence doesn't really make sense. The music is going fast and his feet suddenly stop instead of going with that rapidity.

 

[Skater Boy]

I think Dennis did well enough in the SP as compared to Hanyu, to beat him overall with his superior LP performance. There actually should have been a smaller point gap between them in the SP to begin with. I would have put Dennis at 84 in the SP and Hanyu at 92.

I do think they were both overmarked in the sp. Hanyu tends to get overly generous marks on pcs in the first place for whatever reason - and i know some love his skating - I think h e has a wonderful personality but I don't think his pcs are comparable to Lambiel, Buttle or Chan - he doesnt have the blade control, depth of edges or smoothness they have. And his sp was kind of sloppy so 95 and change seemed ridiculous. In the end, the over results were probably fine. Brown must be over the moon with his placement and Denis should be proud of bronze as well as silver for Hanyu after the year he has had. Good for them. Javi must be absolutely beside himself. He actually did not implode and thus with a bit of bad skating by others won. Nice. Wonderful charisma reminsicent of a Candelero almost. A bit wild, a bit unfinished but got the job done. I do think Brown needs the quad and the Canadian boy needs to beef up and gets some power, speed and more amplitude - he kind of looks coltish, lanky and not overly strong. Maybe he can teach Chan how to land the triple axel though he seems to just sort of hurl himself into it - I have no idea how he tacks on a triple toe. Thogh he is only 16 and doesn't have his driver's license yet I believe so there is time Quick comment - not sure about Amodio - he has stagnated and the Russian boys - oy they need some consistency and help. Really they have not done a lot without Plushy. I was hoping Voronov would do it but he just crumbled which is not inconsistent iwth the past. A potential bronze medallist and he crumbles at the door step. And I mean crash and crumble

 

[Rissa]

^^ lol, ok. Personally I loved it. It's true that the stumble detracted from the overall impression, but the marks were detracted for it. As I said, it's an over 100 ponts profram if clean. To me, the rest is simply amazing. Actually it's one of thise programs I've ever seen that seems pretty much perfect to me from the first to last note, not even setting up for jumps is boring.

I find it remarkable, that all 3 top guys had such wonderful shorts that suited them perfectly. I wouldn't mind if yhe all kept them Javier probably won't, he might want to add a second quad to his SP next season but I hope he'll keep the vibe. Denis might want to try new things so I don't know. I could watch Yuzuru''s all day but he hasn't squeezed everything out of it yet, so he might want to return to the original layout and perfect it.

 

[Poice]

I could watch Yuzuru''s all day but he hasn't squeezed everything out of it yet, so he might want to return to the original layout and perfect it.

I also want to see clean Chopin's short program. IMO it's better than PW. I think it's possible that he won't change both of his programs next season....He said in one of his interviews that he's thinking about sticking to POTO.

 

[andromache]

I also want to see clean Chopin's short program. IMO it's better than PW. I think it's possible that he won't change both of his programs next season....He said in one of his interviews that he's thinking about sticking to POTO.

Oh nooooo! I fully support sticking to Chopin but not POTO!

(Although of course I understand his desire to do better with the program...but no more POTO )

 

[slider11]

So after rewatching the mens LP, here are my take aways:
1. Love Taka Kozuka. I know he's going to be by-passed by his younger team mates but I love his skating style, his sense of music and the classy way he and his coach Sato react. If this is it, he will be missed.
2. Misha Ge is an up and comer. He still has some distance with maturity in his program but has promise. Loved that he held his pose at the end.
3. Adam Rippon If his joints can stand it I hope he sticks around. I love his artistry. He needs the quad. Could Rafa be a little more loveable in the Kiss and Cry? No? Ok.
4. Nam Nguyen Very promising rookie. For 16 I thought he did very well on the ice. Although not a fan of that split screen Kiss and Cry, he showed a lot of maturity and youthful, genuine respect for the other skaters. I think he is a fine young man.
5. Javier Fernandez. Bravo! Not my favorite program but good enough. I am happy that jumping is not the only criteria that made him the champion!
6. Jason Brown. Love how you are being coached. Be really good at what you have and we'll work on the rest. His transitions are fabulous. I would watch this performance again and again!

 

[snowflake]

Voronov is dealing with a chronic knee injury, he had to get injections after the SP. He has some of the worst luck ever.

After getting some rest I was afraid to look back at this thread, but thankfully people seem to be much kinder to the men than they are to the ladies (so far...). The question is for how long? I'll try to focus on the positive...Misha Ge and Nam really killed it in this competition, and I was pleasantly surprised with Florent and Adam's placements. Good for Kovtun for fighting back, even if he has a long way to go. Most importantly, I am 100% fine and happy with the podium.

Sad for Voronov. It’s so easy to be disappointed for skaters that don’t do well. But mostly we know nothing about problems they might have - injuries, pain, personal troubles, psychological issues and so on. Sad also for Alexander Majorov(he was very disapointed with himself, but I think he exhausted himself at home Euros and still skating with pain) And Jeremy Ten. Was it the nasty fall in warmup that caused the failure at his last big competition?

I enjoyed the men a lot at this worlds. Though some falls and pops, they didn’t disturb the top nine skater’s performances for me. Agree about clean Namnamnoodle and Misha, great, great and funny in the green room together. Jason also a big 4th surprise (in new better costume!) I also agree with the podium and I'm so happy that Javier won

 

[peg]

I do think Brown needs the quad and the Canadian boy needs to beef up and gets some power, speed and more amplitude - he kind of looks coltish, lanky and not overly strong.

He is coltish. Apparently he's grown over a foot in the past two years. It's a wonder it hasn't completely destroyed his jumps. That said, a number of us have noticed improvements in power and speed since the beginning of the season, so he's clearly working on that

 

[Skater Boy]

He is coltish. Apparently he's grown over a foot in the past two years. It's a wonder it hasn't completely destroyed his jumps. That said, a number of us have noticed improvements in power and speed since the beginning of the season, so he's clearly working on that

Okay fair enough and he did seem faster/more powerful than earlier on in the GP events. Still he looks a bit young; but I guess he is young and he is a few years younger than Brown right and those few years make a huge difference I guess. I wonder if Chan is shaking in his boots or Reynolds who really has to make a huge comeback after this year and fiasco. He never did reveal his bootmaker did he? (he supposedly found a new one or something and he was going to share the news at the Cnadian nationals and then he pulled out and I never heard. Still I find this young Canadian kind of like Sakoto and Hongo - really interesting. But he really does look kind go gangly and lanky not to mention young compared to say Javier. But I think it is great he skates with Javi and Hanyu. I wonder if they feel any heat from this puppy? They have a lot more power and experience that is for sure.

 

[Rissa]

^^ I really don't get the big deal of a 16 year old looking young and gangly.

 

[peg]

Okay fair enough and he did seem faster/more powerful than earlier on in the GP events. Still he looks a bit young; but I guess he is young and he is a few years younger than Brown right and those few years make a huge difference I guess. I wonder if Chan is shaking in his boots or Reynolds who really has to make a huge comeback after this year and fiasco. He never did reveal his bootmaker did he? (he supposedly found a new one or something and he was going to share the news at the Cnadian nationals and then he pulled out and I never heard. Still I find this young Canadian kind of like Sakoto and Hongo - really interesting. But he really does look kind go gangly and lanky not to mention young compared to say Javier. But I think it is great he skates with Javi and Hanyu. I wonder if they feel any heat from this puppy? They have a lot more power and experience that is for sure.

Nam is 16. Jason is 20. At that age, 4 years does indeed make a huge difference. (Javi turns 24 in a couple of weeks).

That said, I have a feeling that Nam may never have the more muscular build of Javi and Jason; he may well remain more lanky than they are, but I do expect he'll put on at least some muscle. His growth spurt is really very recent, and most people go through a coltish phase when they first grow.

I doubt that Patrick is shaking in his boots just yet, but seeing Nam's rapid improvement will hopefully motivate him to work all the harder. But at this point, Nam is quite far behind on all aspects of PCS, and only has one quad across the two programs whereas Patrick has three. But Nam is far more consistent.

As for Kevin. If anyone is shaking in their boots, it should be him - if he has in fact found boots that work for him. I'm not sure though that we'll even see him back. In addition to boot problems, he was also dealing with injuries - he pulled out of Nationals due to a hip injury. Plus, he'll be 25 by next fall...

I think skating with Yuzu and Javi has really helped motivate Nam. Right now, I doubt they're feeling any heat from him (he was 30 points behind them, and Yuzu didn't have a very good skate), but I suspect that may change in a year or two.