2016-2017 State of U.S. Men Figure Skating | Page 22 | Golden Skate

2016-2017 State of U.S. Men Figure Skating

I'm sorry, charismatic performance abilities? Nathan? :shocked: We are not watching the same skater:noshake:

It would be nice if Nathan's jumps and the truly charismatic performance abilities of Jason could be combined, but they are not. And from where I'm watching, Jason is closer to several quads than Nathan is to Jason's performance chops. Nathan may have raw materials, but he is far from the polished product.....

As far as I have understood, Brown does not have even one quad fully rotated and landed on feet. Besides, I hope that the judges will also have a very close look at his triple axels... What I have seen from Chen this season so far has impressed me. Of course he still is very young, but he has time to mature for the Olympics. The raw material and charisma are definetely already there, IMO.
 
Last edited:
As far as I have understood, Brown does not have even one quad fully rotated and landed on feet. Besides, I hope that the judges will also have a very close look at his triple axels... What I have seen from Chen this season so far has impressed me. Of course he still is very young, but he has time to mature for the Olympics. The raw material and charisma are definetely already there, IMO.

De gustibus. You respond to Nathan, not to Jason; el henry feels the opposite. Neither is a complete skater right now.

As to Jason's jumps, while you're correct that he hasn't yet landed a ratified quad in competition, he's awfully close: the one in the SA free skate was originally called rotated and only given a < after a long review. As to the 3A: of 9 attempted so far this season, he popped one; the rest have all been fully rotated with positive GOE (+2.0, +1.57 and +0.43 at SA).

As to Nathan's jumps, he's clearly a more natural jumper than Jason, but at his only international so far this season, he only got positive GOE on 2 quads out of 7 attempted, falling on three of them; he only got positive GOE on one of his two 3As. What this tells me is that as talented a jumper as he obviously is, he attempted more than he can execute well at this time.
 
Bumping this thread for Brightphoton, who asked how the US men were doing in another thread.

To summarize recent results:

Skate America: Jason and Adam took silver and bronze respectively at Skate America, getting lots of kudos for their performances; Jason had new personal best scores in free skate (182.63) and total (268.38). Tim Dolensky placed eighth but got a lot of attention for his beautiful spins; Jason landed a gorgeous 4T in the free skate that was later dinged as <; and Adam fell on a 4T that was called fully rotated.

Skate Canada: Grant Hochstein and Ross Miner represented the US; sadly, both seemed to be suffering from nerves and under performed; they placed eleventh and twelfth, respectively. One bright spot: Grant landed a fully-rotated 4T in the free skate! Both of these guys are capable of better!

Next up: this weekend we get to see Max Aaron go against Shoma Uno, Javi Fernandez, Mikhail Kolyada, and others at Cup of Russia. If Max skates well, he has a shot at medalling, but it may be tough since he's likely fighting for a spot against hometown favorite Kolyada (fourth at worlds last year). Max has a new Lion King free skate this season and I'm looking forward to seeing him kill it - go Max!

Coming up in the following weeks:

France: Adam Rippon and wunderkind /jumping prodigy Nathan Chen face off in France against world champ Javi Fernandez and Olympic bronze medallist Denis Ten; it's Nathan's senior GP debut! Bit tough to predict where Nathan fits since he's a newbie, but he's capable of putting up huge scores. Both of our guys appear to have decent medal chances if they skate well.

China: Max Aaron and Ross Miner face Patrick Chan, Boyang Jin and others here. Boyang didn't perform to his full potential at Skate America, but he's likely to do better here; at this point, it looks like Max has a shot at medalling, and Ross - who took bronze last year in Russia- could also surprise if he rebounds after Skate Canada.

Japan: Jason, Grant, and Nathan will face off against Yuzuru Hanyu, Mikhail Kolyada, Nam, and others at NHK. This is another another tough field to predict because although it's not loaded from top to bottom, at least four guys (Hanyu, Kolyada, Jason and Nathan) appear to have strong medal shots, and Nam appears to be back on track after a disastrous last season. Since we haven't seen Nathan or Kolyada in action yet this season, it's tough to know where they're at and how they will be scored; we'll know better after Russia. Hanyu underperformed in Canada, but he's likely to bounce back and win here. If Nathan lands all of his planned quads, he could put up a monster score even with newbie PCS; if Jason lands quads in both programs and performs anywhere close to his full potential, he could also score quite highly. If both guys underperform, they could fall out of medal contention entirely.

At this point, Tim doesn't have a second GP assignment, but he or another US guy could be selected if someone drops out.

Bottom line: at least one US guy has a shot at making the GPF for the first time in years.

Competition at Nats this year is likely to be strong, and barring injury, it looks like our men are likely to be a bit more competitive at the Olympics than in 2014.
 
Last edited:
There are currently three spots, one at TEB, one at COC and one at NHK. They are all host picks who dropped out, so it could easily go to someone from one of the host countries, but giving it up is not out of hte question either.

Per this list from breathesgelton at FSU -- with a modification since Kerry got a second event :

39-Shulepov (RUS) --
40-Gorshkov (RUS), Rostelecom Cup
43-Martinez (PHI) --
44-Dolensky (USA), Skate America
47-Johnson (USA)
51-Bush (RUS) --
53-Lezheev (RUS) --
56-Majorov (SWE), Rostelecom Cup
57-Hino (JPN) --
58 - Yee (MAS)

Dolensky is high on the sub list -- so he has a good shot, but basically, it's no longer top 5 and the French fed already went deep in the list to invite Kerry to TEB.
 
If China doesn't fill the host spot with a Chinese man, the Russians are out because there are already 3 at CoC. It is most likely to got to Martinez, Hino or Yee, due to proximity.

France doesn't have a host alternative and is likely to let the spot go unfilled, since it won't want more Russians, who might beat Besseghier, or more Americans. However, there is also the possibility that Denis Ten will withdraw late also, which might make them fill one spot; Tim might appear less of a threat than the others.

Japan is probably going to fill their host spot with a Japanese man.
 
Last edited:
I know this is the US men's thread, and no one loves our US men more than me, *but*

Could Julian Yee be at COC? :hap93: One can only hope!
 
^I too would love to see Julian Yee on the Grand Prix.
 
I know this is the US men's thread, and no one loves our US men more than me, *but*

Could Julian Yee be at COC? :hap93: One can only hope!
I was hoping for Michael Christian Martinez... but Julian Yee or Dolensky would be excellent choices as well :yes:
 
De gustibus. You respond to Nathan, not to Jason; el henry feels the opposite. Neither is a complete skater right now.

As to Jason's jumps, while you're correct that he hasn't yet landed a ratified quad in competition, he's awfully close: the one in the SA free skate was originally called rotated and only given a < after a long review. As to the 3A: of 9 attempted so far this season, he popped one; the rest have all been fully rotated with positive GOE (+2.0, +1.57 and +0.43 at SA).

As to Nathan's jumps, he's clearly a more natural jumper than Jason, but at his only international so far this season, he only got positive GOE on 2 quads out of 7 attempted, falling on three of them; he only got positive GOE on one of his two 3As. What this tells me is that as talented a jumper as he obviously is, he attempted more than he can execute well at this time.
Maybe someone can explain to me the scoring system but the way I thought I understood it a fall on a quad especially the loop, flip orlutz still scores you above many triples so itis worth it especially if it is in place of say a triple salchow or double axel - you will garner more points and probably not toake too much of a hit pc wise.
 
Maybe someone can explain to me the scoring system but the way I thought I understood it a fall on a quad especially the loop, flip orlutz still scores you above many triples so itis worth it especially if it is in place of say a triple salchow or double axel - you will garner more points and probably not toake too much of a hit pc wise.

Only if the quad is rotated -- if it's downgraded, you only get points for a triple, along with negative GOE and fall deduction.

And of course with falling, there's always the possibility of getting too far behind the music to catch up easily or of hurting yourself -- not necessarily an actual injury, but enough to throw you off your game for the rest of the program.

So it's a riskier way to get points than an easier triple.

But for a skater who can land the quad cleanly in practice sometimes (hopefully sometimes in practice runthroughs and not just in isolation), and who is confident of getting the jump rotated even if he falls, it might be worth the risk.

Losing today if he fails might be an acceptable tradeoff for winning tomorrow. And it's more likely he'll land the jump next time if he tries and fails now than if he doesn't try it at all yet.
 
In addition to what gkelly said, one fall could have a negative on the PCS. Two or more falls should definately have a negatice impact on the PCS.
 
Maybe someone can explain to me the scoring system but the way I thought I understood it a fall on a quad especially the loop, flip orlutz still scores you above many triples so itis worth it especially if it is in place of say a triple salchow or double axel - you will garner more points and probably not toake too much of a hit pc wise.

Well, it's really a question of fact, right? It depends on what the base value of the quad is, whether you fall, whether it's called <or <<, and what jump you're replacing it with. Here's the most recent (I think) IJS scale of values:

http://www.isu.org/en/single-and-pa...ce/isu-judging-system/single-and-pair-skating

And here's the FS protocol from SA:

http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1617/gpusa2016/

Looking at Jason's score, we can see he landed the 4T, but because it was called <, the BV was reduced from 10.3 to 8.0. He also got -GOE of 1.03, so the net value of the jump was 6.97 points. This jump replaced a 2A previously done in the bonus, for which the base value is 3.63. The maximum GOE on a 2A is 1.5, so the highest score he could get with all judges awarding +3 in GOE is 3.63 + 1.5 = 5.13. So even though his 4T was <, he still scored almost 2 points more on the 4T than he could get with a perfectly executed 2A in the bonus (6.97-5.13=1.84). If he had also fallen on that < 4T, he would have lost an additional 3.97 points (-2.97 in additional negative GOE and -1 for fall), so he only would have scored about 3 points for the 4T, and would have been better off pointswise doing a 2A in the bonus.

It's a similar exercise with Adam, who fell on a 4T that was called fully rotated. After factoring in the -GOE and -1 for the fall, he scored 5.30 points for his quad attempt. Since I think he was also replacing a 2A in the bonus, he still came out a tiny bit ahead (5.3 v 5.13). Looking at higher value quads, since a 4Z, for example, is worth quite a bit more than a 4T, Adam's < 4Z at 2016 worlds, which he stood up on, netted him 7.96 points (8.50 - 1.54 net GOE), nearly 3 points more than a perfect 2A. So it was even more of a no brainer to replace that 2A with the 4Z. I think that even with a << on the 4Z he would still come out ahead but I don't have time to do the math.

Obviously, if Adam was replacing a higher value triple with that same 4Z, there would be a less significant benefit. For example, his 3S in the bonus at Worlds scored 5.94 points (4.84. + 1.10) so replacing that 3S with a 4T / fall would not be worth it (5.30 for the 4T v 5.94 for the 3S).
 
Last edited:
Did you know Max Aaron got a costume deduction in his short program at Rostelom Cup? He was wearing black tights, instead of black pants. I thought they suited him well. This is an ISU rule that needs to be re-evaluated.
 
Did you know Max Aaron got a costume deduction in his short program at Rostelom Cup? He was wearing black tights, instead of black pants. I thought they suited him well. This is an ISU rule that needs to be re-evaluated.

No, Max did not get a costume deduction. No points were deducted.

Two of ten (judges + referee) said he had a costume violation, but again: no points were deducted.


It has been a matter of debate here on GS whether what he wears are tights vs. pants.
And only two of ten officials said he had a costume violation.

ETA:
To my eyes, other men (such as Misha Ge) compete in pants with the same fit as Max's. And I agree that their pants should not be an issue.​
 
Last edited:
This was not the first time that the judges pressed the naughty button for Max's costume. In fact he got it from two of the judges in the short and the free.

Adam also got one at SA for his SP costume. He and Max are not the only ones this season... a number of men have promoted the button press.

The costume/prop violation button is quickly turning into the "you are being too sexy" button that I think you can get up to two presses and have some fun with it. I think some guys at this point might want to get at least one naughty button pressed. With nine judges you need 5 for it to be a real deduction.... so if two judges are saying your pants are too tight... i think you have hit the sweet spot! Four pressing the button... should be taken as a warning. But two you can have fun with i think!
 
This was not the first time that the judges pressed the naughty button for Max's costume. In fact he got it from two of the judges in the short and the free.

Adam also got one at SA for his SP costume. He and Max are not the only ones this season... a number of men have promoted the button press.

The costume/prop violation button is quickly turning into the "you are being too sexy" button that I think you can get up to two presses and have some fun with it. I think some guys at this point might want to get at least one naughty button pressed. With nine judges you need 5 for it to be a real deduction.... so if two judges are saying your pants are too tight... i think you have hit the sweet spot! Four pressing the button... should be taken as a warning. But two you can have fun with i think!

I think it's the too sexy button. Max and Adam both have big....."Asset's" Frankly, I think they should both get Positive GOE's for their legs alone. Along with Mr, Chan. :agree:
 
Last edited:
I think as long as the men wear the right underwear they should be allowed to wear opaque tights without any issues.

Max Aaron's thighs though:o:
 
It's definitely an improvement from prior protocol prints, where violations (music, costume, etc.) were never explicitly specified, and certainly not by judge, unless the minimum threshold number of judges had raised the issue and the referee has it ratified.

Music deductions have historically been made, but nobody outside of the judges/technical panel/referee would necessarily be aware by studying the protocols.
 
Back
Top