Worlds: Men's FS

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

Oh come on man. You need to chill down and not feel your favourite is threatened if someone criticizes the ISU and it's judges

All skaters are playing within the rules and they are not responsible for the scores they get. The point is it is the responsibility of judges to score the skaters based on the rules in their books and treat them in similar fashion. If not, they can remove these criteria from their rule books.

And for the future reference, I'm a critic of this behaviour at all competitions and regarding all skaters. It is just happened that this is after WC and Yuzuru was in this field so I used him as an example. I will replace his name with others in future competitions, I just have to learn how to say "do you understand?" in French, Chinese, Spanish,...

It's fine to opine that the judges aren't using the rules correctly. But maybe you should also state why you think something was (in your opinion) not correct, using concrete examples (like saying what you think a score should have been for a particular element or PCS).

Just saying the judges don't follow the rules and treating skaters similarly across the board is a vague complaint because you're not actually explaining why or for whom.

 

[Farnaz]

The shade of it all!

I'm sorry Farnaz went there as I felt that Interspectator's posts have always been respectful and specific in their complaints and suggestions. He wasn't being sarcastic or putting Nathan down

So, did I put Nathan down? :shocked: Everyone knows and saw how Nathan deservedly won this competition. The point here is criticizing ISU and it's random scoring of the skaters.

I am sorry that you feel that if the scoring benefits your favourite, no one has the right to criticize the judging system. We state our opinion, seriously or sarcastically whatever, then we go in depth in discussion. But, if I am supposed to be accused of downplaying a skater before I go into the discussion I do not see any point in such conversation. I'm out and I apologize that I made my opinion heard.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

So, did I put Nathan down? :shocked: Everyone knows and saw how Nathan deservedly won this competition. The point here is criticizing ISU and it's random scoring of the skaters.

I am sorry that you feel that if the scoring benefits your favourite, no one has the right to criticize the judging system. We state our opinion, seriously or sarcastically whatever, then we go in depth in discussion. But, if I am supposed to be accused of downplaying a skater before I go into the discussion I do not see any point in such conversation. I'm out and I apologize that I made my opinion heard.

Again, please explain how the scoring is random. So far you've just said general statements that make it seem like the system was stacked against Hanyu and deliberately favoured the other guys. You have yet to say how much you think Hanyu/Chen/etc. deserved or didn't deserve, and why. At Worlds in JAPAN, no less. If anything, with typical home ice inflation/deflation, the scoring was as good as it was going to get for the Japanese men and as low as it was going to get for their rivals, logically speaking... so the "my-skater-was-cheated-on-home-ice" argument really doesn't hold much weight, especially when we all know they would have loved for Hanyu or Uno to win this.

 

[TontoK]

Oh come on man. You need to chill down and not feel your favourite is threatened if someone criticizes the ISU and it's judges

All skaters are playing within the rules and they are not responsible for the scores they get. The point is it is the responsibility of judges to score the skaters based on the rules in their books and treat them in similar fashion. If not, they can remove these criteria from their rule books.

And for the future reference, I'm a critic of this behaviour at all competitions and regarding all skaters. It is just happened that this is after WC and Yuzuru was in this field so I used him as an example. I will replace his name with others in future competitions, I just have to learn how to say "do you understand?" in French, Chinese, Spanish,...

I don't have real favorites in the sense that you might mean. I enjoy many skaters in general, but I am not attached at the hip to any of them. Skaters may purchase or disregard my "fanhood" at any time by virtue of their performances.

If skaters deliver, then I'm on their side. If they consistently don't, then they are off my list.

Right now, I really like what Nathan Chen is bringing to the sport. If he fails to deliver that next year, there are others I'll be interested in.

To be very honest, I look down my nose at people who get overly tied emotionally to their favorites. Generally speaking, I don't see those people as fans of the sport so much as fans of varying skating personalities.

Oh sure, I'm not entirely consistent... Brezina comes to mind as someone I instinctively root for - but I'm never blind to his faults, and I don't advocate for ISU communiques when he doesn't place as high as I'd like. And, yes, I realize your original comment was tongue in cheek, as was my response to it.

 

[shine]

Highly disagree, Hanyu moves much better to the music than Nathan, shows better usage of arms (and whole body), more outward expression, more facial expression, better carriage, and a more developed style.

Clearly our basic understanding of moving to music, style and carriage are drastically different. So probably little point to further the discussion.

 

[TontoK]

Why would he retire? He just put out his best freeskate of the season, and one of the best freeskates all year with 3 clean quads and 2 axels. Sure, he lost by 23 points and even with a clean SP +FS might have still lost, but that score of 300.97 would have won every other competition this season.

Thank you for this post of sanity.

The man set the world record, and people are acting as though the judges beat him with a baseball bat, or else he's ready for the retirement home.

He skated great. The judges rewarded it. Unfortunately for him, his record was short lived. He was beaten. It's OK. Really, it's OK.

 

[LindaTNo1]

I don't know why this thread goes to yuzu should retire since he's old and beatable...
As a fan, I'm still proud of his this season's result and way better than 15,16 WC.
Yeah, let Nathan dominate 4 years and get OGM. Let Yuzu challenge his own goals.
We all know he's not doing the hardest quads and the most consistent. But he still gives us wonderful performances other than any male skaters.
I have really big respect to Nathan. Such a genius skater. I think he'll be a dominant champion as long as he maintains his form.
Pcs has been always relative. ISU always need star and rivalry. We all knew CLEAN Nathan with monster tes will be rewarded huge pcs, too.
Yuzu will be a challenger mode. And find new motivation to keep his goals. Fs fans just enjoy their each journeys.

Yuzuru is choosing his battles wisely and moving towards his 3rd OGM in Beijing truly making him the GOAT. Taking his time. Doing it his way. In the words of his coach Brian Orser "Never underestimate Mr. Hanyu."

 

[oatmella]

As far as I know, Yuzu has been noncommital so far about the next Olympics.

 

[reneerose]

Just a small comment - I was watching the small medal ceremony where Nathan said he expects Yuzu to be one of the first to take a stab (am very loosely paraphrasing) at the 4A (?!) but I'm more concerned in Yuzu recovering from his ankle injuries. Yuzu's FP performance at Worlds impressed me with his bold power. I empathized with him fighting through his pain and pushing through for that skate! The pre-Olympics 2018 injury appears to have had residual effects and having gone through a chronic injury myself, hoping he can be healthy before he tries going for any 4As.

On another note, I LOVE Jason's Free Program this season. It has elegance and focuses on his artistic strengths. I don't know if he would have medaled if he had skated it completely clean, would have been exciting if it had happened!

 

[GGFan]

So, did I put Nathan down? :shocked: Everyone knows and saw how Nathan deservedly won this competition. The point here is criticizing ISU and it's random scoring of the skaters.

I am sorry that you feel that if the scoring benefits your favourite, no one has the right to criticize the judging system. We state our opinion, seriously or sarcastically whatever, then we go in depth in discussion. But, if I am supposed to be accused of downplaying a skater before I go into the discussion I do not see any point in such conversation. I'm out and I apologize that I made my opinion heard.

Your post was supposedly and addendum to Interspectator's. All I did was point out that the sarcastic tone was not how he chose to go about it: he made critiques and cited examples. Sarcasm can be really helpful but for those of us who do not care to view any more Yuzu v Nathan wars on the thread it doesn't seem constructive.

I think it's unnecessary to do the "woe is me I must leave the conversation." Everyone is welcome. I was just hoping you would engage more constructively. Your issue may well be with the judging system but I think you'll have a better discussion if you cite specifics. Otherwise we just end up in a Yuzu and Nathan back and forth.

Finally, I'm not the person you want to go at with the "you can't handle criticism of your favorite." I've criticized Nathan myself quite a bit. I'm very analytical, so I can critique my fav and still love them just as much. If I can criticize Michelle Kwan's layback, no one is safe because everyone knows that that's my true ride or die #1.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

Thank you for this post of sanity.

The man set the world record, and people are acting as though the judges beat him with a baseball bat, or else he's ready for the retirement home.

He skated great. The judges rewarded it. Unfortunately for him, his record was short lived. He was beaten. It's OK. Really, it's OK.

I think the lack of sanity is just a knee-jerk reaction by certain people. Saying the game is rigged now, and trying to process Nathan's win by saying it shouldn't have been by that margin, and the judges were against Hanyu, etc. is purely a defense mechanism, IMO. Hanyu scored the best PCS with a major error in the SP and the best PCS in the FS with a UR salchow - and with Nathan going clean in both instances - clearly the judges still think Hanyu's the top skater artistically. The irony is, had Nathan bombed, this whole sky is falling/Hanyu should retire mentality would have been completely nullified and that would have been something that would have been brought about by Nathan failing (which isn't exactly how you want any skater to win). I really hope that people can simply appreciate the awesomeness of their freeskates instead of trivializing it as unfair scoring (on Hanyu's home ice, no less).

Sometimes you just have to accept that an up and coming skater with stronger technical content and solid artistic ability can actually hang with your favourite skater - and then potentially even surpass them. It's what happened with Chan and Hanyu -- but had Chan retired the moment Hanyu had started to surpass him, we never would have seen him have his best SP and FS ever, or win a 3rd Four Continents title, or Olympic team gold.

Back then, there were plenty of Chan fans who were dismayed that Hanyu was starting to get similar PCS (and churning out higher tech content), and adamantly chose not to dismiss growing brilliance in Hanyu's skating simply because they were unwilling to accept the notion that another skater could legit be as similarly talented and dethrone their fave. People complained that Hanyu was just stacking up TES to beat Chan... doing things like putting in a 4S that he could rotate but kept falling on in order to upgrade his BV... well, Chan was welcome to do the same - don't hate the player, hate the game, if you will. It's interesting to see the tables have turned with Chen being the up and comer bringing tech content that Hanyu is being pressed to match him technically, now no longer having the PCS cushion. And maybe something similar will happen with Chen and Gogolev/Grassl/etc. and so on and so forth.

Let's enjoying skaters pushing the sport, and not push skaters into retirement when they start facing greater adversity.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

Just a small comment - I was watching the small medal ceremony where Nathan said he expects Yuzu to be one of the first to take a stab (am very loosely paraphrasing) at the 4A (?!) but I'm more concerned in Yuzu recovering from his ankle injuries. Yuzu's FP performance at Worlds impressed me with his bold power. I empathized with him fighting through his pain and pushing through for that skate! The pre-Olympics 2018 injury appears to have had residual effects and having gone through a chronic injury myself, hoping he can be healthy before he tries going for any 4As.

On another note, I LOVE Jason's Free Program this season. It has elegance and focuses on his artistic strengths. I don't know if he would have medaled if he had skated it completely clean, would have been exciting if it had happened!

I expect Hanyu will take a stab at the 4A too, especially now that he knows he needs to do something to hang with Chen's technical ability (which wasn't even maxed out given he can do a 4L and 4S). But to be honest, I think he should focus more on regaining consistency in his 4S and also tackling the 4Z again when he's feeling ready for it. Those are executable quads, and without consistency on those, he'll always play catch up should Chen go clean. Chen probably plans to add in quads as necessary, and is capable of doing so, so I'm sure he'll gradually start upgrading his difficult more and more heading to 2022.

 

[GGFan]

Before we go too far into the PCS discussion, from my knowledge of men's figure skating history athleticism and artistry have not been valued equally. The name of the game has been athleticism with an acceptable amount of artistry. Artistry can also put one over the top when other things are equal.

Going back a couple decades with Olympic champions I'm familiar with we have Curry, Cousins, Hamilton, Boitano, Petrenko, Urmanov, Kulik, Yagudin, Plushenko, Lysacek, and Hanyu (2x!!).

Of the above list I think the only true artistic ones are Curry and Cousins. The rest were great athletes with some artistic flair (it varies). Please miss me with this whole Nathan Chen is not artistic enough to be winning championships and it's a travesty to the sport. If we were to put him on that Olympic list he would fit right in. The artists like Abbott, Lambiel, etc. have generally not won.

Sorry, but I just had to get that off my chest.

ETA: If you go back and listen to John Curry, he explicitly watered down his artistry the Olympic season. He felt like he'd done more cutting edge work in prior seasons and it was not recognized. He wen with Don Quixote because it was more obvious. He focused on getting consistent and landing his jumps so he could win an Olympic title and have enough of a name to go ahead and form his skating company and be truly artistic.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

Before we go too far into the PCS discussion, from my knowledge of men's figure skating history athleticism and artistry have not been valued equally. The name of the game has been athleticism with an acceptable amount of artistry. Artistry can also put one over the top when other things are equal.

Going back a couple decades with Olympic champions I'm familiar with we have Curry, Cousins, Hamilton, Boitano, Petrenko, Urmanov, Kulik, Yagudin, Plushenko, Lysacek, and Hanyu (2x!!).

Of the above list I think the only true artistic ones are Curry and Cousins. The rest were great athletes with some artistic flair (it varies). Please miss me with this whole Nathan Chen is not artistic enough to be winning championships and it's a travesty to the sport. If we were to put him on that Olympic list he would fit right in. The artists like Abbott, Lambiel, etc. have generally not won.

Sorry, but I just had to get that off my chest.

ETA: If you go back and listen to John Curry, he explicitly watered down his artistry the Olympic season. He felt like he'd done more cutting edge work in prior seasons and it was not recognized. He wen with Don Quixote because it was more obvious. He focused on getting consistent and landing his jumps so he could win an Olympic title and have enough of a name to go ahead and form his skating company and be truly artistic.

Agreed. Chen's WC2019 performances would have been good enough to win every Olympics there's ever been. He wouldn't have been the most artistic skater, but he would have been the best overall. Plushenko and Lysacek beat Lambiel/Takahashi/Buttle, Hanyu beat Chan, etc. This is a sport first and foremost and technical ability is king, although artistry is necessary.

Chen went clean with FOUR quads including the two hardest ones, and delivered two strong, well-choreographed programs. He skated last too - and was even cleaner than Hanyu with more difficulty. As a judge, it's astonishing to see a skater somehow one-up a performance like Hanyu's, and had Nathan made one or more major errors, I think his PCS would have been closer to 91-92, but a clean skate says a lot.

 

[shine]

Of the above list I think the only true artistic ones are Curry and Cousins. The rest were great athletes with some artistic flair (it varies). Please miss me with this whole Nathan Chen is not artistic enough to be winning championships and it's a travesty to the sport. If we were to put him on that Olympic list he would fit right in. The artists like Abbott, Lambiel, etc. have generally not won.

Sorry, but I just had to get that off my chest.

And off my chest too. Thank you!

 

[evasorange]

Thank you for this post of sanity.

The man set the world record, and people are acting as though the judges beat him with a baseball bat, or else he's ready for the retirement home.

He skated great. The judges rewarded it. Unfortunately for him, his record was short lived. He was beaten. It's OK. Really, it's OK.

Tbh it’s astonishing he was able to score 300, all things considered. He’s busted his same ankle twice in basically a year, and hasn’t competed since November. I was expecting a bit of a mess. At least a fall or a pop. I guess as Brian says “never underestimate Mr. Hanyu” hahah. But seriously Yuzu can be so proud of what he put out! It’s just Nathan was in beast mode

 

[oatmella]

I expect Hanyu will take a stab at the 4A too, especially now that he knows he needs to do something to hang with Chen's technical ability (which wasn't even maxed out given he can do a 4L and 4S). But to be honest, I think he should focus more on regaining consistency in his 4S and also tackling the 4Z again when he's feeling ready for it. Those are executable quads, and without consistency on those, he'll always play catch up should Chen go clean. Chen probably plans to add in quads as necessary, and is capable of doing so, so I'm sure he'll gradually start upgrading his difficult more and more heading to 2022.

Hanyu said that his plan is to get 4Lz back, 4F, and then 4A - in that order.

From recent interview with Raf, his perspective on Nathan is that he was just ‘holding on’ this season. Which might sound kinda dismissive, but I don’t think Raf means it that way. He knows Nathan is capable of more and holds him to a very high standard. But with all the changes in Nathan’s life this season including the rule changes - ‘holding on’ was a very smart approach.

 

[reneerose]

...
Sometimes you just have to accept that an up and coming skater with stronger technical content and solid artistic ability can actually hang with your favourite skater - and then potentially even surpass them. It's what happened with Chan and Hanyu -- but had Chan retired the moment Hanyu had started to surpass him, we never would have seen him have his best SP and FS ever, or win a 3rd Four Continents title, or Olympic team gold....

Perfectly said. The silver and gold linings of healthy competition between enduring/striving older master/sifu vets and young grasshoppers!

 

[LindaTNo1]

Perfectly said. The silver and gold linings of healthy competition between enduring/striving older master/sifu vets and young grasshoppers!

Yuzuru Hanyu, 3X Olympic Gold Medals either in the Team event and/or Individual event. Look out Beijing because the GOAT is simmering now, temporarily.

 

[oatmella]

Yuzuru Hanyu, 3X Olympic Gold Medals either in the Team event and/or Individual event. Look out Beijing because the GOAT is simmering now, temporarily.

Your posts are getting kinda repetitive lol

And gold in the team event ?