2017 Four Continents Men FS

[MaiKatze]

I think Goldenskate is mainly american so it makes sense that people hype the american skaters, and the fed is powerful. About Nathan's jumps they are impressive but I think they are similar to Boyangs in execution. He almost lands them into a standstill. I don't particularly like that style. But who cares if it works.

 

[Violet Bliss]

2015 4CC when Polina Edmunds won.

Good to know. Thank you. It didn't register with me. But it goes to support my case. Where is she now? An occasional unexpected win does not make a star. American figure skating needs a superstar and Nathan has that potential.

 

[4everchan]

I think Goldenskate is mainly american so it makes sense that people hype the american skaters, and the fed is powerful. About Nathan's jumps they are impressive but I think they are similar to Boyangs in execution. He almost lands them into a standstill. I don't particularly like that style. But who cares if it works.

forgive me for being the devil's advocate but aside from the beauty of a quad loop Shoma landed, the rest of his own landings also leave room for improvement...

 

[Plisskin]

it hasn't been that long 7 years only

Oops you're right! It's 3 am here so I have an excuse for doing some baaaad math, lol.

 

[MaiKatze]

forgive me for being the devil's advocate but aside from the beauty of a quad loop Shoma landed, the rest of his own landings also leave room for improvement...

I like his landings. Even if I'm the only one. Did you see the 3A in the short. Beauty that. But I'm the first to admit I am totally biased here, so there's that.

 

[apple123]

You must be kidding. The reason Boyang is where he's at, and the reason he won a bronze medal at Worlds last year is because of full backing and support from his federation

You are such a hypocrite. Yesterday you said American skaters won because of their talents and not one bit of federation support. I dare to ask, are American Federation really weaker than Chinese Federation? Then how come Zijun Li is underscored while Ms Bell is above her with worse performance at this very competition?

 

[andromache]

A live look at Phil Hersh

Worth trawling through some of the haterade here to come across this post. Lol.

 

[Art&Sport]

I don't have an issue with the number of quads, I have an issue with how programs are constructed around these quads- and yes I do agree that it is ISU's fault for rewarding programs with a higher tech difficulty rather than the total package.
However, my original question was about Nathan's interpretation - what makes his interpretation so much better than say Jason's or Yuzuru's? (Not trying to start anything here just curious)
I have read the interpretation vs performance thread that was linked before and I kinda understand the difference between the two but to me Nathan was performing rather than interpreting the music

also, I do agree with the final podium because Yuzuru did pop the combo in his SP - congrats to all the winners - looking forward to worlds

Sure, Nathan is still learning interpretive skills, but he already has a good feel for the music and graceful command over the ice. Yuzu has skated a few clean performances with 3 quads in fp, with an above average level of presentation. IMO, Yuzu is skillful performer but not a great artist, although he does have decent expressive abilities. A lot of times Yuzu's concentration on the aesthetic aspects falters as he tries to concentrate on the technical aspects. Yuzu also has to fight to preserve his energy and endurance throughout a program due to suffering from asthma.

At this point in his development, Nathan's interpretive skills are not as good as Jason's, and Jason's are better than Yuzu's.

 

[shyne]

forgive me for being the devil's advocate but aside from the beauty of a quad loop Shoma landed, the rest of his own landings also leave room for improvement...

But that was the best Quad Loop ever:luv17: :luv17: :luv17:
Better than any of his Quad Loop attempts in the Open Practices. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it.

 

[Li'Kitsu]

It's also pretty funny to see all the American fans and commentators who were all about programs and SS with Jason, Adam, Ashley etc. be like "BUT 5 QUADS!!!!!1! Give him 90PCS becoz QUADZ and also his gala, he is artistic in that!!! " LOL I love how Boyang was the end of skating, the worse thing that ever happened but now Nathan who does basically the same (with better SS yes! But with no better everything else) is the saviour because he is American. Nathan even does the same lasso hand choreo in his stepseq as Boyang did in his dragon program! You cannot invent that!
Also Shoma gets slaughtered for his bad tech on the quads but watching Nathan land so many jumps on the inside edge of his blade worries me a lot. What even is that??
It's sad because I actually like Nathan and I think his SP is brilliant but those scores...

Very much this. Ugh. Of course it's by far not all American fans, but the hypocrisy with a part of them just bugs me. Then I'd rather be a rabid Yuzu fangirl, at least I don't just like him for his nationality, which is a damn coincidence and not something he actually had to achieve.

last year, i suggested yuzu should ditch the 4t combo as i didn't feel it was his best and i thought his 4s-3t was better... oh wait.. a bunch of people pounced on me...

so there. you have it.. whatever some of us suggest, it never pleases some fans. the truth is that yuzu's 4t was never as great as many other skaters who do the 4t.. so i suggest he goes for 4s and get attacked.... and well now.. he was injured and has to go for the 4s... interesting no?

I get that people out of every fan corner are often unreasonable (I know I'm not the calmest person either), but I still think what you're saying there is besides the point?

And erm... I'd have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure Yuzu had among the highest consistency and GOE rates among the top men on the 4T. I'd even say potentially the highest, at least in the Olympic season for example. But sure, you can personally think it isn't that great. What's so interesting about an injury forcing him to do a different combo is lost on me as well though.

 

[Interspectator]

Translating bit of Yuzu's comments after 4CC https://www.daily.co.jp/general/2017/02/19/0009929194.shtml
'The most fun silver medal ever'
I was able to skate this program as a challenger. I placed importance on landing 4 quads and the combos in the second half. I'm regretful about the 4S since it was the same kind of mistake as the SP. I will train more on this.
I decided to put another 4T in after I landed the 3A3T. I had originally hoped to put a half loop on the sal and do a 4S off of it ( his doubled Salchow) but when I landed it was too difficult. So I quickly stopped that and concentrated on the first 4T. I had practiced putting a 4S into the place where the 3A-3T was if the 4S combo did not go well. But I thought it better to do a beautiful 3A3T after that, there was energy left, so I tried the 4T and was able to land it. I had not simulated this scenario before, so I was calculating the combinations as I went.

About being second:
Honestly, I wanted to win. Since I've turned senior I've only been able to get silver here and this is my third. But I think I am growing every year, and each year what is needed to be done is more difficult, in the midst of that, the feeling of being able to challenge ones own limits is one that I love. So this time, I think it's been the most fun silver medal.

About Nathan Chen:
Honestly, I felt envy towards him being on the top podium. I really wanted to win. But at the same time, he did 5 quads, he did 2 triple axels. There were some small misses but I really respect him for doing the program with no falls so I feel able to honestly congratulate him.
He will brush up (his skills) even more, I think, so I will need to do the same. As it was with the Sochi olympics, nothing is certain. I may try the lutz or the flip, or even maybe the axel. So I'm really looking forward to skating from now. And Looking forward to training too.

 

[MaiKatze]

Are you saying Shoma's skating skills and performance are as good as Chan? Because that's certainly not the case. And that empty program is not worth 9 for transition score.

Yes, they are. (He didn't get Chan's PCS, btw) It's not empty. He's just that good. And the judges, they know the real deal when they see it.

 

[4everchan]

But that was the best Quad Loop ever:luv17: :luv17: :luv17:
Better than any of his Quad Loop attempts in the Open Practices. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it.

i am happy to add to the love... shoma's quad loop was the best i have ever seen...

and you know what i have seen two IN PERSON live yuzu at ACI and Nicolas at Canadian Nationals

 

[teeannroo]

Sure, Nathan is still learning interpretive skills, but he already has a good feel for the music and graceful command over the ice. Yuzu has skated a few clean performances with 3 quads in fp, with an above average level of presentation. IMO, Yuzu is skillful performer but not a great artist, although he does have decent expressive abilities. A lot of times Yuzu's concentration on the aesthetic aspects falters as he tries to concentrate on the technical aspects. Yuzu also has to fight to preserve his energy and endurance throughout a program due to suffering from asthma.

At this point in his development, Nathan's interpretive skills are not as good as Jason's, and Jason's are better than Yuzu's.

? I've heard most commentators (CBC, NBC, B.ESP etc.) mention at least once that he's an emotional skater and when he just moved up to the Senior Circuit I heard commentators praising him for interpreting the music well. Today, he seemed to be more detached though

 

[karne]

Quad jump
Nathan 14.73 (4F)
Shoma 14.69 (4F)
Shoma 14.43 (4Lo)
Yuzuru 14.14 (4Lo)
Nathan 12.84 (4S)
Yuzuru 11.93 (4Lo)
Brendan 11.93 (4S)

[snip]

Triple Axel -combos
Yuzuru 16.51 (3A-3T)
Boyang 15.60 (3A-1L-3S)
Nam 14.08 (3A-3T)
Misha 13.69 (3A-1L-3S)
Keiji 13.62 (3A-2T-2Lo)
Brendan 13.17 (3A-1L-3S)

Well, these made me smile. Especially the quad one. The only skaters who outscored Brendan's beautiful 4S were Nathan, Shoma and Yuzuru.

*

I just have so many problems with the PCS here. Chan getting 92 and Uno getting 91 by falling on their backsides twice? But also, Uno only a point lower than Chan?! I'm no Chan fan but he is WAY superior in that department to Uno. Hanyu only two points better than Chan who fell twice? Chen getting 88 and Jin getting 77? No way is Chen 11 points better than Jin. Chen getting three points higher PCS than Brown?!

I have a lot of feelings, mostly surrounding the PCS issue. I want to see PCS punished when obvious mistakes are made (you should not be getting 92 PCS if you fall on your butt twice) but at the same time it is completely wrong to pump up someone's PCS because they landed five quads, especially if to do so they just go stroke-stroke-jump, stroke-stroke-jump.



With all that said, I just noticed that Brendan got higher PCS than Nguyen. And he had the 10th highest TES. And he got new ISU PBs for everything at this event: SP, LP, and TCS. So there's that, I guess. Hopefully he can have an 80+ short and 150+ free in Helsinki.

Mostly, I actually feel really worn out just thinking about the FS.

 

[Li'Kitsu]

Translating bit of Yuzu's comments after 4CC https://www.daily.co.jp/general/2017/02/19/0009929194.shtml
'The most fun silver medal ever'
I was able to skate this program as a challenger. I placed importance on landing 4 quads and the combos in the second half. I'm regretful about the 4S since it was the same kind of mistake as the SP. I will train more on this.
I decided to put another 4T in after I landed the 3A3T. I had originally hoped to put a half loop on the sal and do a 4S off of it ( his doubled Salchow) but when I landed it was too difficult. So I quickly stopped that and concentrated on the first 4T. I had practiced putting a 4S into the place where the 3A-3T was if the 4S combo did not go well. But I thought it better to do a beautiful 3A3T after that, there was energy left, so I tried the 4T and was able to land it. I had not simulated this scenario before, so I was calculating the combinations as I went.

About being second:
Honestly, I wanted to win. Since I've turned senior I've only been able to get silver here and this is my third. But I think I am growing every year, and each year what is needed to be done is more difficult, in the midst of that, the feeling of being able to challenge ones own limits is one that I love. So this time, I think it's been the most fun silver medal.

So that was the plan. Freaking emergancy quad at the end of a combo.

Nobody will out-crazy Yuzuru Hanyu. They may try, but he will never let them succeed

 

[4everchan]

So that was the plan. Freaking emergancy quad at the end of a combo.

Nobody will out-crazy Yuzuru Hanyu. They may try, but he will never let them succeed

LOL only some of his fans will out-crazy Yuzuru

do not take this personally, i actually think you are one of the talkable ones

 

[Art&Sport]

You are such a hypocrite. Yesterday you said American skaters won because of their talents and not one bit of federation support. I dare to ask, are American Federation really weaker than Chinese Federation? Then how come Zijun Li is underscored while Ms Bell is above her with worse performance at this very competition?

We are not talking about the same federation. Chinese and Japanese federations these days have a bit more clout IMO than U.S. fed because even though U.S. has a longer figure skating tradition and is a larger country than Japan, the balance of power in figure skating today is definitely more in Asia. The audiences are huge in Asian countries, and therefore the revenue is larger for figure skating in countries outside of the U.S. Canada has always had a strong federation and has been more savvy at the business of politicking than the U.S.

U.S. fed has always had difficulty with navigating the political side of the sport. The U.S. system is very different from other countries. The government is not really involved in athletes' lives in the U.S. in the way that governments are closely involved with sport in Russia, China, and Japan.

Mariah Bell is an overall more polished and powerful skater than Zijun. As I already said, Zijun has wonderful lyrical qualities but she lacks speed, power, and polished packaging. Zijun could also benefit from working on her skating skills. Also, I did not say that U.S. skaters receive no federation support. Of course they receive funding, encouragement and support in a number of ways. But in the U.S. it's the skaters for the most part who must make their own career decisions and lift themselves up by their own bootstraps. Since U.S. fed is not very savvy about politicking for skaters, it's important for skaters to be confident and to rely on and believe in their talent.

 

[WeakAnkles]

There you go Boyang skating a classical program in his junior days:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuFg29vr_Zo

Well that was in some ways better than what I saw here. I don't believe for one moment he truly 'felt' the music, but it was less self-consciously Performed than the programs here. Just my opinion of course. YMMV. But thank you for posting the link.

 

[newyn]

I guess I am a sour hater but I have an issue with Nathan's SS and TR mark. He does almost nothing except crossovers between his elements in his FS and those crossovers are far of being the best in the business. Some skaters need only one or two kicks to get the ice coverage he gets with like five crossovers. Or so it seems from the screen at least. However, I do think he has charisma, he can perform decently, he is fairly musical and he has a good posture. So I don't think he is hopeless, he can obviously develop into an artistic skater but this kind of scoring does not seem to encourage him (or anyone) to improve much anything other than a vast set of consistent quads.

I don't disagree with the result and I do think since obviously it's easier to perform and do loads of difficult transitions in a technically easier program, there should be some kind of PCS boost for skaters who have difficult technical content vs. skaters with easier content. I just don't think the balance is very good right now. And if it was so easy to skate like Patrick Chan, wouldn't more people be doing it?