I was thinking about the exact same thing
come on the American ladies are great but I don't see them getting ahead of Mao and the Russian ladies this season. Gracie winning the World title with Liza and Mao there? V/T not medalling? It would be less crazy to say their dominance isn't certain with D/R and S/H...
HOWEVER I actually think that prediciting Patrick will win another title is not crazy at all. He's certainly one of the favorites, I just think he's going to have to 1. skate very well in order to do so, or 2. If he doesn't skate very well, the rest of the guys would have to make a lot of mistakes. What did surprise me was the prediction of Han medalling at Worlds, which two (out of the top 4) would that person place off the podium?
I would like to comment on the prediction that Chinese skater Han was medal at worlds. That prediction wasn't too far off. Because Han did come close to it several times, winding up 4th after LP, and I think he did win one at Shanghai's CoC, sometime. Since I took a long absence from this forum, since two years ago, I am not up to the minute like some other guys in here. The thing I want to comment is that Han is supremely talented and unique in a country of 1.4 billion souls. He is a northern Chinese, so he is taller than Patrick, who comes from Southern Chinese stock (but hold on, Hanyu comes from a nation of people not known for body heights, but he is thin, tall, like a rake, pliable like a lady).
Yen Han also was trained and nurtured under the Chinese system, originally copied from the Soviet Russians, eons ago. You can still hear their TV expert commentators, for live international skating events, saying, to their audiences, that" Yes, there are two kinds of spin/jump techniques in the world today, that of the western/American/Canadian style/techniques, and their own indigenous technique". But he forgot to mention that their skaters technique has long been obsolete, and revised even by the Russians today, and to my opinion, that is the Achilles heel of Chinese skaters, even extremely talented ones like Yen Han (Yen is his surname 阎), who achieves tremendous heights for his jumps, using the standard ballet technique, without using the standard western type (now used by the present day Russians, too) knee lifting at the initial stage of the upward movement. This technique was blown up to obvious proportion in the men's high jump event in track and field, and I suspect that figure skating coaches (the up to date ones) borrowed this technique from their fellow track atheletes. I took videos of Patrick while practicing, and I freezed the frames when he reached his top achieved heights (before he changed his jumping style, under his new head coach). And there he was lifting his knees and legs for his jumps.
The point I want to suggest here, is that YenHan and his cohorts, sadly, will never make the same heights as their counterparts, nor in important competition placement, in the future, as long as they train close camp, in China, never let their top athletes use (nor develop their promising youngs, using the most up-to-date skating techniques of other skating nations) train abroad, (Chen Lu, their only woman World Champ, trained for long period in the States, before winning her Championship) and keep on believing that their training technique and style is equally good or superior. Chinese sports generally follows indigenous training methods, traditionally. But in recent years, Chinese swimming, as an example, went abroad for training, expertise, and experience. And the result is obvious, as Chinese swimming, nowadays, with their top atheletes training extensively in Australia and elsewhere, has become a force in the sports, globally.
If Chinese ISU can take a leaf from their swimming discipline colleagues..........let the world starting seeing more talents in the World Championship circuits..........and with China getting the Winter Olympics hosting rights for the year 2022.........there is still time, for China to improve, of course, with helps from other friendly quarters. But first, the Chinese ISU have to get off from their high horses, looking down on anything new........believing they are perfect and can stick it out without input from others.
