If a new costume can help raise your seasonal best by 7 points, CHANGE IT!!

[iloveaxel]

If a new costume can help raise your seasonal best by 7 points, CHANGE IT!!

Binshu Xu just scored a new personal best of 55 points in her short program at 'Winter Asian Games', beating her previous seasonal best of 48 points at 'Skate Canada' by almost 7 points.

Compare these two performances:

Binshu Xu's SP at 'Skate Canada'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FkNN3Vttfg&mode=related&search=

Binshu Xu SP at 'Winter Asian Games'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov9cP7_5K34

At both events, she skated two clean programs, but the scores could not be further different. She did change quite a bit on her spins & footwork at winter games. However, I believe the new costume really did her the wonder. She no longer looks like a ten-year-old girl in this new costume but a lovely lady.

http://winter2007.sports.cn/china/pic/2007-02-01/1039911.html


Suggestion, if you want to beat your personal best, have a new costume!!

BTW, I also posted Fumie, Nakano and Dan Fang's SP under 'Asian Winter Games' thread, all of them skated brilliantly, perhaps all of their seasonal best performances.

 

[SeaniBu]

Thanks iloveaxel!

I was thinking about this regarding Johnny, he did well with The swan right! So self expression may help him skate better. If it does, then he should express as much as he can IMO.

 

[Tinymavy15]

a good costume can help the judges apperciate the skating more and can put them in the right frame of mind. maybe that was the secret to michelles succes. If costumes to indeed make that much a diffrence however, irina would never have beaten sasha cohen. ever.

 

[blue dog]

Then some skaters who shall not be named really need to improve their appearance, and not just with their costume...if looks indeed raise your PB by 7 points!

 

[Tinymavy15]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=757QqDh2J8E&mode=related&search=

look at her hear, in 2004. Chaming. so mature. why havn't we seen more of her or at least heard about her? Has she been injured? She really is very talented and has BEAUTIFUlL jumps. a lot of speed.

 

[iloveaxel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=757QqDh2J8E&mode=related&search=

look at her hear, in 2004. Chaming. so mature. why havn't we seen more of her or at least heard about her? Has she been injured? She really is very talented and has BEAUTIFUlL jumps. a lot of speed.

She's not very consistent. For example, she completely bombed in her SP at a recent winter univeristy games by scoring only 33 points. The next day, she jumped from 18th place to 2nd place in the long program by landing 6 triples.

She always looks quite juriousih, so the judges marked her very harshly in the PCS at both of her first senior GP events this year. So hopefully, her new mature style will help her do well at 4cc.

I prefer her much better to Yan Liu and Dan Fang. Binshu Xu has speed, and her skating skills, spins, spirals are so much stronger than any other current Chinese ladies.

 

[Tinymavy15]

.

She always looks quite juriousih, so the judges marked her very harshly in the PCS at both of her first senior GP events this year. So hopefully, her new mature style will help her do well at 4cc.

Mao Asada looked VERY juniorish her first year as a senior lady, skating the the nutcracker. The judges did not seem to mind at all. I thought her Malaguena program was very sophisticated, bu that more recent short program posted above looked rather simple.

 

[_Ladybug_]

I have a soft spot for Binshu Xu. She is adorable. I love her style, she is very soft. She is indeed a bit juniorish but it's not bad at all. She is charming. I hope we get to see more of her!

 

[iloveaxel]

Mao Asada looked VERY juniorish her first year as a senior lady, skating the the nutcracker. The judges did not seem to mind at all. I thought her Malaguena program was very sophisticated, bu that more recent short program posted above looked rather simple.

No, I don't think her Malaguena was more sophisticated although it might be 'prettier'. It was not a CoP friendly program, there's little transition, no difficult spins, spirals, no combo jumps. But I really enjoy that program the most. She was so adorable and had a good command of the ice and nice flow.

 

[hongligl]

I love the new dress too. But it appears that it was the change of difficulty levels of her spins and step sequences that gave her new PB. She got level 3 and 4 this time for all her elements. In fact, she get 3.4 more for the planned technical score and she didn't get any deductions for GOE this time. So the new dress might have boosted her performance by 3 points to the most by making herself and maybe the judges happier. I think it is logical to have a higher SS when the program difficulty is increased and it was skated well, also higher PE. Anyway, I'm happy for Xu. She's a lovely skater and has a whole package.

 

[Kasey]

At both events, she skated two clean programs, but the scores could not be further different. She did change quite a bit on her spins & footwork at winter games.

So, in your wisdom, you think it is a new COSTUME, not improved difficulty on spins and footwork, that gets a skater a personal best? Um, ok, whatever.

 

[iloveaxel]

free skate

Binshu Xu's free skate, she scored a well-deserved pb of 103 points by landing 7 triples.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTXiWXrrzOw

 

[satorare]

I don't think changing costume affects scores.
Look at the ice dancing event of AWG.
The silver medalist couple's score is 25 points(!) higher than CoC and TEB.
Xu's score may not be inflated that much, but should not be taken seriouly.

 

[dorispulaski]

I noticed that the SP is titled PB in Her Hometown.

For whatever reason, skating well in your home town always seems to wring a few extra points out of the judges hard hearts. Perhaps they are influenced by the enthusiasm of the local crowd. Or...Perhaps they are afraid to face the wrath of the audience if they don't reward hometown skaters.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Tanith always has, for me, the best dresses which work with the music; are well made; and most tasteful.

Joe

 

[iloveaxel]

I don't think changing costume affects scores.
Look at the ice dancing event of AWG.
The silver medalist couple's score is 25 points(!) higher than CoC and TEB.
Xu's score may not be inflated that much, but should not be taken seriouly.

I agree that scores at your home country are always inflated. But the question is to sort out to what extent the scores are inflated, and to sort out whether the skaters have made real progress or not.

From my understanding, the ice dance pair has improved quite a lot since CoC and TEB. At both events, a lot of their elements were only graded as level I, the Chinese national team then invited a Canadian judge to help them out.

At a winter university games sanctioned by ISU ended only two weeks ago, that couple scored 140 points, a huge improvement from their score of 126 points at TEB. The scores at winter games were very legitimate. For example, the gold medalist, an Italian pair scored 160 points there, and they scored an almost identical 159 points at TEB. So the realistic score for the Chinese par is probably something between 140 - 150 points(they just scored at AWG). Based on this analysis, their scores are real improvement, not just inflation.

There's no doubt binshu xu skated very well at this event. She scored 94 points at Skate Canada with one fall, one touchdown on a 3lutz, and one stepout of her 3t+3t SEQ. At this event, her only major mistake was a stepout of a 3lutz. I would say she will score close or above 100 points if repeating such performance at any major international event. So there is no major inflation there.