2015-16 Grand Prix Final Ladies Free Skate

[Perdita]

Mao is not trying to come back as who she was, is she? To me, it's clear that she is trying to be more than that. She probably could have done a clean SP with the layout two seasons ago. At Sochi, she did look clean but had UR and edge problems, and now she is trying so hard to fix them that she's making mistakes, which is totally understandable. IIRC, last season, she said the necessary condition for her to decide to come back is to be in a good form, as good as she was at the Worlds 2014, meaning that now she and coach Sato believe that she's already in that level. Since COC, I realise that Mao is calmly analysing her jumping technique at K&C as if skating clean or winning a competition does not matter to her at this stage. So, I really don't think that Mao is taking her time to simply come back. I mean, I believe she IS back. If she's having a bad skate then it is just because she's moved on a step further than where she was for the past few years. Great come back Mao, to me, it is definitely the bravest way to do it.

 

[Franklin99]

Mao is not trying to come back as who she was, is she? To me, it's clear that she is trying to be more than that. She probably could have done a clean SP with the layout two seasons ago. At Sochi, she did look clean but had UR and edge problems, and now she is trying so hard to fix them that she's making mistakes, which is totally understandable. IIRC, last season, she said the necessary condition for her to decide to come back is to be in a good form, as good as she was at the Worlds 2014, meaning that now she and coach Sato believe that she's already in that level. Since COC, I realise that Mao is calmly analysing her jumping technique at K&C as if skating clean or winning a competition does not matter to her at this stage. So, I really don't think that Mao is taking her time to simply come back. I mean, I believe she IS back. If she's having a bad skate then it is just because she's moved on a step further than where she was for the past few years. Great come back Mao, to me, it is definitely the bravest way to do it.

:agree:

 

[Blades of Passion]

In my opinion, all of the ladies today were over scored.

Absolutely this.

I was hopeful at the start of the season about where figure skating was moving towards, but in the end it all just comes back to programs being disconnected from the music and not feeling choreographically organic. Hardly anything in a program these days is built to look as beautiful as possible, it's built to just treat the program like an exercise regimen.

Medvedeva getting those PCS is shocking. It's nowhere close to the best skating has to offer. She has tons of talent but it's like watching someone call Anne Hathaway as good of an actress as Meryl Streep. Just...no. Have some standards.

 

[koatcue]

And you believe hook, line and sinker in the "artistry" of the winners? Lol at the pcs scores! It's never been about mao not getting on the podium as it is about proper scoring. Oh well.

I agree on overscoring. My reply goes to "Mao the Savior, save us from the blasphemy happening in this sport." How can anybody say that ladies skating is bad nowadays? It's one of the strongest field EVER! So many contenders! And Mao was deservedly last. Sweetheart or not, but nobody will medal her for such skating nowadays.

 

[chloepoco]

Very pleasantly surprised to see this tweet regarding Satoko from Phil Hersh:

https://twitter.com/olyphil/status/675755351774527489

 

[solar]

Very pleasantly surprised to see this tweet regarding Satoko from Phil Hersh:

https://twitter.com/olyphil/status/675755351774527489

He used the hashtag #tinyqueen !!

 

[Proxy]

The PCS scores are being maxed out by influence of Russian and Japanese federations. They are working together as the most powerful bloc in figure skating politics now and they are being supported behind the scenes by the IOC.

With PCS maxed out the differences are minimal compared to TES and so technical score is really the only thing to decide the competition. In Ladies the Russian babies are not vulnerable there whereas they might be on PCS compared to more mature skaters like Gracie, Ashley, perhaps Yuna and Mao if they come back or stay around until 2018. The same thing is going on to support Hanyu in men's in case Chan decides to come back and challenge him.

This is all simply a case of Russian federation and Japanese federation teaming up together as a bloc and rigging the scoring system in their favor.

Expect more of the same. And yes I have inside information about this that will one day come to light.

 

[Franklin99]

The PCS scores are being maxed out by influence of Russian and Japanese federations. They are working together as the most powerful bloc in figure skating politics now and they are being supported behind the scenes by the IOC.

With PCS maxed out the differences are minimal compared to TES and so technical score is really the only thing to decide the competition. In Ladies the Russian babies are not vulnerable there whereas they might be on PCS compared to more mature skaters like Gracie, Ashley, perhaps Yuna and Mao if they come back or stay around until 2018. The same thing is going on to support Hanyu in men's in case Chan decides to come back and challenge him.

This is all simply a case of Russian federation and Japanese federation teaming up together as a bloc and rigging the scoring system in their favor.

Expect more of the same. And yes I have inside information about this that will one day come to light.

Please present your evidence(s).

 

[MaiKatze]

This is all simply a case of Russian federation and Japanese federation teaming up together as a bloc and rigging the scoring system in their favor.

Expect more of the same. And yes I have inside information about this that will one day come to light.

Interesting. To quote TLoZ, "It's a secret to everybody."

 

[Proxy]

My source did not give me authorization to use their name right now, but I have suspicion the truth will come out in due time. For now I will just stand by my comments. Figure skating has long struck a good balance between athleticism and artistry, but the current most powerful federations have told everyone else that they have the technically strongest skaters right now, and so they are going to game the scoring to make sure TES is all that matters. The Russian girls will have the strongest TES of course but the maturity in their skating is often lacking at such a young age. Naturally the solution was to minimize the impact of their weakness on scoring through PCS inflation. Everyone's PCS gets brought close together by the upper bound and only TES will really matter.

Competitions are the product of incentives so this means going forward artistry will continue to decline in skating. The new scoring system didn't reward it to begin with and now with further manipulation the situation is sure to become even more dire.

 

[gotoschool]

Plummeddragon posted this comment about Mao's illness. I thought it would be good to post it here in case people hadn't heard the major reason for the challenges she has faced in her performances.

Mao has withdrawn from the Gala, because of illness. She looked under the weather ever since NHK, I hope it's nothing serious... hopefully, it's nothing to worry about and she withdrew to get more time to rest before Nationals, as prevention.

I hope Mao rests and gets well soon.

 

[OS]

...Cue GS Xmas Karaoke moment

In the style of Winter Wonderland


ISU bells ring, are you listening,
In the rink, ice is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We're crazy tonight,
Floating in a PCS wonderland.

Gone away is the Firebird,
Here to stay are the new babybirds
They skate any love songs,
As we go along,
Inflating in a PCS wonderland.

In the meadow we can build a strawman,
Then pretend that she is the new OGM
Euro judges will say: Are you Adelina
We'll say: No man,
But you can do the job
When you're in town.

Later on, judges conspire,
As they dream of €₽¥$ by the fire
To face unafraid,
The plans that they've made,
Bloating in a PCS wonderland.

In the shadow powerfeds can build many new babybird,
Then pretend that she is the new circus clown
They will have lots of fun with Miss newone,
Until the next year's babybirds knocks her down.

When PCS snows, ain't it thrilling,
Though your head gets a chilling
Judges frolic and play, the Eskimo way,
Padding in a PCS wonderland.

Boosting in a PCS wonderland.

 

[jenaj]

AFAIK, the invitations are at the LOC's discretion.

Happens all the time that certain skaters who placed lower are invited to the gala and some skaters who placed higher are not.

Gracie is a big girl and a good sport, and I'm sure that she is not complaining.

How do people know who was invited and who wasn't ? Is it just assumed that those not on the list weren't invited and those on were?

 

[karlowens2]

I was devastated to be missing both the SP and LP for this event, but now I'm rather happy. Because if I watched this live, I'd be flipping tables and my house would've been destroyed by now. :curse::ddevil:

1. Evgenia: This girl is amazing! Skating last as the 1st-place finisher is very difficult. I congratulate her on her well deserved GPF gold and her back-to-back JGPF/GPF titles. But that's it. She deserved the win here because she skated the best...BUT THESE SCORES ARE STILL OUTRAGEOUS. In the SP thread yesterday, I said this:

Although I was shocked to see them actually score her higher than 146 (nearly 148...), I was kind of expecting this, so I was really nervous even before the warm-up. But this is just messed up. That was certainly not 8 points better than Ashley and Satoko. Her TES should've been around 73 to mid-74, not 75. And that PCS should not have even surpassed 69. Yes, there is the "clean performance bonus" for the scores. But even with that it's still way too high. And the total score of 222...3rd highest-ever total score of all time. She beat Mao and Carolina's best-ever scores, along with Yuna's 2013 Worlds and 2014 Olympics scores. These judges are out of their minds. The word "confusing" will not be enough to describe how bad the scoring was.
2. Satoko: As a new Satoko fan starting from NHK, I realized that her other fans don't have to worry about her too much because she is so consistent. Her FS is my favourite of this season (and probably one of my most favourite programs ever). But the scores she got were honestly pretty absurd as well. I was only able to watch the results page live, so when I saw Satoko get a TES of 72.89, I was like "How in the world did that happen?!" I did not have too much of a problem with the PCS (though 66 is more reasonable), but that TES was very inflated. She was better than at NHK, but I expected a clean performance from her to score about 136-137. But even so, I'm really happy for her right now!
3. Elena: TES was okay, PCS was confusing. I love Elena, but given the performance she had here, I don't think she was any better than Satoko. In fact, she did look really tired here as well. Anyways, I loved the reaction everyone in the audience gave when she once again added the 3T to another jump and landed it. And even with some mistakes, Elena showed us that she is a fighter and that she is still capable of being on the podium even through puberty. Rest well Elena, and I hope that you give it your all at Russian Nationals!
4. Ashley: I knew it was a good idea to put her 4th in my predictions. Even after seeing her bomb the SP yesterday, I knew that Ashley would never accept last place and fight through the end. Her FS was brilliant and it was good to see it so close to scoring 140. This was the performance of the night for me. Like many of you said, it seems like Ashley does well when she is the underdog. I would've put her on the podium, but I'm okay with her being 4th.
5. Gracie: I do feel really bad for her. After skating so well at SA and TEB, it was sad to see her fall apart here. Like JO, she had 3T issues today, which is not good, considering that her 3Lz-3T and 2A-3T are her money jumps. Again, the PCS was too high but I'm not surprised to see that. Hopefully, she can fix her problems in time for U.S. Nationals.
6. Mao: I'm devastated. I wonder if she completely recovered from her illness. When I saw her results on the page, I wanted to cry. :sad14: Japanese Nationals is coming up in 2 weeks, right? I hope that she recovers so that she could get on the podium.

Along with the 2014 Olympics, this event is one of the most badly-judged major events in the IJS...at least in my opinion. Still not as bad as Sochi, since the placements weren't controversial (although I would re-order 3rd and 4th if I could). If this keeps up, we'll have bogus WRs coming up in 2016. The only skater in the current field that deserves to beat (or at least be close to) Yuna's WRs is Mao right now. Also, it seems like the ISU wants their judges to score PCS extremely highly this season. I have a small analysis of last season:
Best SP PCS: Elizaveta Tuktamysheva - 33.53 at World Championships
Best FS PCS: Elizaveta Tuktamysheva - 68.47 at World Team Trophy
Prior to the 2014-2015 season, Mao, Yulia, and Adelina were the only skaters in this season's field to have beaten these scores. Yulia and Adelina (other than Mordovian Ornament - which was also a badly-scored event) have never received these scores since then (and I don't think they ever will anymore, sorry) while Mao has. But now Evgenia, who just came up from juniors, beat these scores by incredible margins. Satoko and many other skaters have also beaten either SP or FS scores by at least a small margin. Many of these skaters did in fact get more artistic, but not yet enough for so many of them to be part of the exclusive 33.50+ group and 67+ group. Something doesn't seem right.

Yes, there is something going on with scoring particularly PCS. The are not internally consistent within competitions and certainly not between competitions. Possibl reasons 1) judges don't know what to look at. They have different ideas of what PCS is. Maybe can't really see the difference 2) The sport is so dominated now by jumiping. A judge is not going to give a PCS score that keeps a great jumper from winning 3) PCS is just a fudge factor to get on the podium who you want to win.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

...Cue GS Xmas Karaoke moment

In the style of Winter Wonderland


ISU bells ring, are you listening,
In the rink, ice is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We're crazy tonight,
Floating in a PCS wonderland.

Gone away is the Firebird,
Here to stay are the new babybirds
They skate any love songs,
As we go along,
Inflating in a PCS wonderland.

In the meadow we can build a strawman,
Then pretend that she is the new OGM
Euro judges will say: Are you Adelina
We'll say: No man,
But you can do the job
When you're in town.

Later on, judges conspire,
As they dream of €₽¥$ by the fire
To face unafraid,
The plans that they've made,
Bloating in a PCS wonderland.

In the shadow powerfeds can build many new babybird,
Then pretend that she is the new circus clown
They will have lots of fun with Miss newone,
Until the next year's babybirds knocks her down.

When PCS snows, ain't it thrilling,
Though your head gets a chilling
Judges frolic and play, the Eskimo way,
Padding in a PCS wonderland.

Boosting in a PCS wonderland.

Could you maybe do a song for those of us who are enjoying figure skating these days? I'm thinking "What a Wonderful World". That could be really nice.

 

[ice coverage]

How do people know who was invited and who wasn't ? Is it just assumed that those not on the list weren't invited and those on were?

Good point. Possible that a skater who does not perform did receive an invitation.
I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing that such cases are rare.

Occasionally skaters do mention (on social media or wherever) that they were invited, but declined b/c of illness or injury.

And I can't rule out that skaters have had other reasons for declining.
(But I don't think I've heard of any other reason that a skater has stated on the record.)

 

[Tolstoj]

Absolutely this.

I was hopeful at the start of the season about where figure skating was moving towards, but in the end it all just comes back to programs being disconnected from the music and not feeling choreographically organic. Hardly anything in a program these days is built to look as beautiful as possible, it's built to just treat the program like an exercise regimen.

Medvedeva getting those PCS is shocking. It's nowhere close to the best skating has to offer. She has tons of talent but it's like watching someone call Anne Hathaway as good of an actress as Meryl Streep. Just...no. Have some standards.

Sorry but i've to disagree with you.

You don't have to skate a western style program to get those PCS. Medvedeva's programs suits the russian style, and people should appreciate the way it is (there is a story behind the program, elegant movements and lot of drama). The long program is better artistically than Adelina and Carolina's long programs from the Sochi Olympics.

And honestly i'm very happy that finally Figure Skating are rewarding programs not so mainstream: i've seen so many skaters in the past wrongly underscored in the components. (even Mao so many times)

To me Miyahara is more overscored: as BEsp commentators said, her lp music is basically a background for many technical elements and nothing else.

 

[solani]

You don't have to skate a western style program to get those PCS. Medvedeva's programs suits the russian style, and people should appreciate the way it is (there is a story behind the program, elegant movements and lot of drama). The long program is better artistically than Adelina and Carolina's long programs from the Sochi Olympics.

Huh! What's going on? Better artistically than Carolina? Come on! I strongly and vehemently disagree. And I don't care about how high those PCS is, they change the rules all the times, you can't compare those scores, you cannot even compare them from competition to competition - how should it be possible to compare them over the years?
But there are very few skaters who can compete with Carolina artistically, present and past and the 16 year old Medvedeva isn't one of them (yet? We'll see.).

 

[whatif]

Did somebody just use Meryl Streep as a reference? What a pile of crock!!!! One may prefer a good piece of over-rated hammy acting served by Meryl. Yet it does not stop others to be recognised when the recognition is due. Also for every Meryl's Sophie's Choice, there is Stuck on You.

The world is round, people!!!!

 

[Jombi]

What bothers me about Radionova's programs is that they're extremely bland and generic in term of choreography. Try to watch her Titanic LP muted with her LP music from last year as a background and then do the reverse thing: the program and the music are totally interchangable. I'm no expert but that doesn't sound good in term in choreography, program construction and hitting nuances of the music.