I've taken this into Misha's own thread because I strongly suspect we'll get more complaints about taking over the men's thread.
It's been three events actually, it's just the first competition was local and closed to the public. His results there were kind of middle-of-the road for both SP and FS. But he did land his 4S.
I fully agree that the 4Lz was introduced too soon. The issue is that I am not sure how much of that was Misha's and Valentina's decision, and how much it was pressure to produce a second quad. This season Aliev wants to do 6 quads (probably not after his injury, but that was the original plan). Samarin tries to jump a 4Lz which currently does not look doable at all. I doubt their teams have suddenly lost touch with reality. In an ideal world maybe they could all do it differently but it's not the ideal world and an Olympic season. Taking out the 4Lz will put extra pressure on him to produce a 4S and I am not sure how much better that is. Last season that didn't work out well at all. And he did actually land the 4Lz finally, why should that make things harder for him than easier? He can't possibly expect to land it every time after this. I am not saying the 4Lz is not a factor but there must be something else going on.
And he has been scoring better compared to last season, it's more that he gets visibly worked up over things which makes everything look worse. He actually upped the jump difficulty in the second half of his FS at Finlandia on the fly (4T+3T was not intended to be there) and jumped it all with positive GOE. But people are still complaining that he fell apart because he looked like he wanted to leave the ice while doing that. I think the standards he's set for himself this season are too high and the feeling of responsibility is weighing him down. He needs to readjust his attitude somehow - it's not like he never made equally bad and worse mistakes in the past, why has it become such a huge deal right on the ice?
But we'll see. It is quite possible they'll make some major changes in the layout.
I finally watched LP. I must say after reading various comments here and in Russian I expected much much worse. I am actually relieved. The only moment which is really troubling to me is the last few seconds of the program. That spin absurdly cost him a medal and even possibly gold. As a human being I think I can understand that so many things went wrong in that short space of time that when he seemingly managed to regain the control and salvage a lot of things that last totally unexpected misfortune with a spin came as a last straw... but looking back it was not the first time Mika allowed his anger & disappointment show too clearly after the program ended, which ideally should not happen no matter what and maybe should be addressed.
I think a few things could have played a role:
It was the first time in an international competition when Mika was leading after the short (correct me if I am wrong) and skating last in the final group. That might have put an extra pressure on him
then this situation with a fire alarm certainly didn't do any good
a freak fall during the steps - why? maybe there was a crevice in the ice we don't know but that kind of mistake more difficult to come back from than from a fall on a jump ... and yet he fought through the second half brilliantly and should be given a real credit for it (instead of desperate cries of ALL IS LOST etc) but, alas, it really was not Mika's day, the fate simply had different ideas.
It is quite disgusting how quickly people rush to be negative, just hope Mika does not read any of this vitriol. Imagine if he made just one less mistake and won the event - how different things would be. At Nepela his total score was less than at Finlandia and there was a short he really bombed unlike the LP at Finlandia he fought for but the final result it is all that matters... alas...
I also suspect that maybe Finlandia came too soon after Nepela. It only seems that there is 2 weeks between the events but with travelling it is only about 7 -8 days of training. I don't favour too many competitions - one in a month or 3 weeks may be but every 2 weeks leave too little time for proper training.
However, the very first part of the season, the trial so to speak, is done and I don't think all was bad.
And I wish so much that a quad race had never started and Mika had a luxury to develop at his own pace and be able to enjoy himself on the ice as it was at CoR in 2015, his first GP!
hwell: ). But wth happened with the spin, that has to be a first for Misha, and not in a positive sense this time? Falling in the step sequence is also new, but he has stumbled before so it is not as hard to imagine. But he did manage to largely pull himself together and do most of the jumps in the second half, so I don't think he should be accused of completely abandoning the program.
And he scored lower at Rostelecom Cup than at both Challeneger events this season. What I want Misha to do is to get his head together and learn to cope with errors better - he won't stop making errors for a good long while, I suspect. The main thing - stop popping axels. This is more important than landing all the quads. They'll probably remove the spread eagle entry, a good thing they got to try it and see that it's likely to cause problems. They also may make other changes if they decide now after the competitions that something just doesn't work, so it's good he's competed three times+open test skates already before Rostelecom Cup this season.
