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- Jul 13, 2019
She's in the entry list
2021-22 Japanese Women's Figure Skating
- Thread starter cohkaix
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She's in the entry list
What's interesting about those scores is that Sakamoto had 1q and 2 ! calls. Wakaba had 2 q and 1 e. So Wakaba would have lost a small amount of points there. But her programs were much harder than Sakamotos were. Higuchi did 2 3A and 3 3/3 combos. Sakamoto did 0 3A and 2 3/3. The fact that Sakamoto outscored Higuchi despite the cleanliness of their programs being comparable is a clear indication that Higuchi can expect unfair scoring at Nats again. Higuchi's total should have been 230+.
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- Mar 9, 2013
Wait...I've never understood the claim about Wakaba's program's' being harder than Kaori's program until now. And I was totally confused: since when in this season did Wakaba successfully jump 2 3A in either of her SP or FS? And in which program did she attempt three 3-3 combinations (the protocol, where?) Oh, I see...so we're talking about comparing Wakaba's 'planned' SP and FS put together is harder than Kaori's one FS program that she had executed so far. Is that right? Sure! then Wakaba definitely has harder programs comparing to anyone else.
You misunderstood me. Those totals were their best SP and LP scores of this season combined, which is the post I was responding to. Wakaba's were the Austrian SP and the French LP. The jump totals were for both programs combined, and they were executed, not just planned. It is accurate.
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- Mar 5, 2014
I understand the disagreement over the scoring of Kaori relative to Wakaba because I have seen this precedent set when compared to what I consider Kaori's preferential scoring to Rika's at Nationals in the 2018 / 2019 season. In 2018, Rika had won two Grand Prix events and the Grand Prix Final but was scored lower in her National LP PCS than in her International PCS even after landing two triple axels and having a higher tech score, which is beyond suspicious. This caused her to "lose" Nationals in the 2018-2019 season, and Kaori's suspicious triple lutz was overlooked with relatively high GOE while Rika had avoided doing the lutz even though hers had been on a proper edge because of a concern for edge calls.
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- Dec 5, 2015
While Kaori clearly is a federation favorite and receives much more generous GOE scores than Rika or Wakaba, Rika didn't avoid the Lutz due to edge call fears. She is a natural Lutz jumper and used to get flip calls when she was a novice, she has never received a Lutz call even in Japan. She is, in fact, one of the few skaters who has perfect edges on both jumps after fixing her flip as a novice. She avoided the Lutz due to ankle injury. I've never understood the preference the JF has for Kaori when both Rika and Wakaba are clearly more complete skaters but it is what it is. Rika , when healthy, wins anyway because her BV is so much higher and her non-jump elements are completed with great quality.
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I used to think the JSF was just trying to make Nats more interesting by favoring Kaori over Rika because Rika had such a huge jump advantage. But I have become suspicious when in the off season after Kaori spent the whole season proving she had no chance at all of hitting a quad or 3A, her choreographer was making statements about how they would concentrate on what she could do, and since she had such "great quality" her GOE and PCS would be enough for her to win. And right away her GOE skyrocketed, almost as if JSF were her coaches, lol. It was reminiscent of when Kostner suddenly became a great artist and got unlimited PCS, when she couldn't do 3/3s anymore. This blatant scoring favoritism forces the other girls to go outside their comfort zones and make mistakes. Kaori deserves to be Japanese #1 right now because of her consistency jumping, but the margins are greatly inflated.
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- Mar 9, 2013
Thanks for the explanation. For me, that is to to combine the best SP/FS scores from two different competitions, which were of different sets of judges and the skater could be under different conditions. So it's still an assumed (possibly) best scores from the calculation of the original post. And Wakaba has yet been able to execute 2 3As cleanly in the same competition.
Yes, I think the point of the original post was to show potential scoring ability of the skaters, not necessarily the likelihood of it.
I'm not going to discuss who the best Japanese woman is as I've seen live only one of the top and it was Kaori at GP Helsinki 2018. I'm still in owe by her powerful performance and huge, precise jumps and can say that no woman impressed me more in that time, including reigning Olympic champion Alina Zagitova. But as I haven't seen Wakaba nor Rika at any competition live, only on broadcast, I cannot make any comparisons.
But your claim about Carolina has been repeated too often in this forum to be dismissed in silence. And however this thread is not a place for such a discussion, please be kind enough to check that Carolina couldn't jump triple-triples during one season only and it was after she won GPF, Europeans and Worlds a season before. After her come back in 2016 she still jumped triple-triples in SP, including 3F+3T at her last competion at Worlds 2018 when she won SP. And she is a great artist on the ice, in spite of blatant complains of her antis.
Im not really complaining about the skaters. Im complaining about the practice of federations, whether national or the ISU itself, to use PCS and GOE, among other things, to prop up skaters they favor. This is a common thing and by no means limited to the skaters we named here. Kostners PCS was clearly inflated her last year, however.
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- Mar 5, 2014
Perhaps you misunderstood my comment. I thought my cynicism was assumed in that Rika would be called far more harshly for edges, just as her favorite inspirational skater Mao was, so instead of just doing a flip or having a flat edge and taking pressure of her ankle like selected others who have their edges overlooked she was forced to actually do it correctly. By now, I think it is obvious that certain skaters have their lutz edges totally ignored whether they are correct or not and maybe a ! is placed before it with a suspiciously high GOE just to erect a facade of tech legitimacy. And as someone who is just recovering from a broken ankle, I can certainly sympathize with Rika's condition, in addition to the fact that she is one of my favorite skaters.
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- Dec 5, 2015
You suggested Rika avoided the Lutz because of edge issues. Rika never gets called on her edges nationally or internationally and never has her entire junior or senior career. So, clearly your suggestion about why Rika avoided the Lutz wasn't accurate. That's why I responded Of course, I agree that some skaters are judged by different standards than others, but the specific example you provided wasn't correct. The generous GOE /PCS scores Kaori gets are a better example.
To echo what you are saying, in the real world what usually happens, especially in Japan, is that Rika will jump with correct edge and get good but not great GOE, Sakamoto will do her lutz on the wrong edge, but get no call with higher GOE than Rika or get unclear call, but only slightly lower GOE than clean Rika. Then Higuchi will do her flip with unclear to very slight correct edge if you wanna be charitable, and get either a wrong edge call or unclear with much lower GOE than Kaori with an unclear call. That is the current way it is.
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- Mar 9, 2013
Mai got admitted to graduate study at Konan University! Congratulations~ 
news.yahoo.co.jp
Sponsor (Sysmex) IG post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CXaConyJjvT/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
This means she may continue skating after this Oly cycle!
三原舞依が甲南大大学院合格を報告 競技と両立へ「1つ1つ大切に頑張ります」（THE ANSWER） - Yahoo!ニュース
フィギュアスケートの三原舞依（シスメックス）が甲南大大学院に合格したことを、シスメックススケートチーム公式インスタグラムで報告した。
This means she may continue skating after this Oly cycle!
Love her! Congrats on this achievement Mai!Mai got admitted to graduate study at Konan University! Congratulations~
Sponsor (Sysmex) IG post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CXaConyJjvT/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link三原舞依が甲南大大学院合格を報告 競技と両立へ「1つ1つ大切に頑張ります」（THE ANSWER） - Yahoo!ニュース
フィギュアスケートの三原舞依（シスメックス）が甲南大大学院に合格したことを、シスメックススケートチーム公式インスタグラムで報告した。
This means she may continue skating after this Oly cycle!
Nationals are almost here and it should be a wide open event with a lot of unknowns. I just hope that whoever makes the podium it is clear cut and decided on the ice, not by judging bias. On a related note, I fear that even if Kawabe skates equally clean with Mihara, including hitting both her 3As,I doubt the judges would put her over Mai. I think that would be a robbery, but from the scoring this year, I have that feeling. Does anyone disagree?
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2013
There was a revision of selection criteria for the 22' Olympian published by JSF on Dec 15th. I hesitated to post the information here. But since there's only one final criterion left to be fulfilled (Nationals results), the others are all set for now. So I still made the table to see the relative standing from the top skaters.
I use the current ISU WS to rank the skaters, and it is one of the criteria to decide the 3rd spot. (I also skipped Marin Honda who has a WS at #58, but didn't have any international competition this season)
And (part of) the revised selection criteria by JSF is as follows (red color indicate the change):
Explanation: *The TES here is the highest combination of technical element scores from the same competition. And the domestic competitions cover: sectionals (east and west, incl. Jr. category); Jr. Nationals, and all Japan National Championships
So based on the above explanation, the last column in the above table 'Season best TES score' could be altered, depending on the results from Nationals.
If the table/numbers are too difficult to read, I got this photo (by local media after the revised selection criteria was announced) from tweeter and found it pretty much goes with the international results I got in the table so far:
I know there are ppl being skeptical about if JSF will actually follow the criteria for selection...so, take it or leave it!
I use the current ISU WS to rank the skaters, and it is one of the criteria to decide the 3rd spot. (I also skipped Marin Honda who has a WS at #58, but didn't have any international competition this season)
| ISU WS [(1)-3-B] | Nationals result [(1)-1/ (1)-2-A] | GPF Entry Obtained [(1)-2-B] | ISU Season Best Score [(1)-2-C] | ISU Season World Ranking [(1)-3-C] | Season Best TES score* [(1)-3-D] | |
| 4. | Kaori Sakamoto | ? | V | #7 (223.34) | #8 | 115.71 [40.76+74.95-NHK] |
| 8. | Rika Kihira | ? | NA | NA | NA | ? |
| 14. | Wakaba Higuchi | ? | NA | #24 | #9 | 105.33 [31.53+73.80-IdF] |
| 17. | Satoko Miyahara | ? | NA | #18 (209.57) | #30 | 105.40 [36.82+68.58-Italy] |
| 42 | Mai Mihara | ? | NA | #14 (214.95) | #10 | 116.30 [39.29+77.01-Italy] |
| 51. | Mana Kawabe | ? | NA | #23 | 109.51 [42.71+66.80-NHK] | |
| 52. | Yuhana Yokoi | ? | NA | #54 | 91.08 [24.40+66.68-IdF] | |
| 63. | Rino Matsuike | ? | NA | #44 | #45 | 99.04 [32.55+59.49-CoR] |
And (part of) the revised selection criteria by JSF is as follows (red color indicate the change):
(1) Men & Women single
1. Winner of All Japan National Championships (automatically getting 1 spot)
2. Selection: one from a pool of skaters that fulfill any of the following
A. 2nd or 3rd placement at National Championships
B. Any skater who had obtained an entry to GPF (cancelled)
C. Top 3 skaters at the ISU season best score ranking by the end of Nationals
3. Selection: a third spot from a pool of skaters that fulfill any of the following
A. Any skater(s) who didn’t get picked via criteria 2. above
B. Top 3 skaters from the ISU world standing by the end of the Nationals
C. Top 3 skaters from the ISU season world ranking by the end of the Nationals
D. Top 2 skaters with the highest Technical Element Scores from the assigned international competitions and domestic competitions*
Explanation: *The TES here is the highest combination of technical element scores from the same competition. And the domestic competitions cover: sectionals (east and west, incl. Jr. category); Jr. Nationals, and all Japan National Championships
So based on the above explanation, the last column in the above table 'Season best TES score' could be altered, depending on the results from Nationals.
If the table/numbers are too difficult to read, I got this photo (by local media after the revised selection criteria was announced) from tweeter and found it pretty much goes with the international results I got in the table so far:
I know there are ppl being skeptical about if JSF will actually follow the criteria for selection...so, take it or leave it!
The key here is that finishing in the top 3 is part of the criteria, so the rest doesn't matter unless they want to bump someone for Sakamoto, who was the only one qualified for GPF. The odds Sakamoto misses the podium are very slim anyway. Even so, other than Kawabe or Matsuike, I doubt they would bump any of the other top girls. Certainly not Kihira or Higuchi.
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2013
On another note:
According to this: https://twitter.com/himarasukaru/status/1472385966338088960?s=20
I read about Yuna Shiraiwa's coach change, but wasn't sure who's her current coach now. Here it confirms that Yuna is training with Takeshi Honda. So Coach Honda is currently working with: Satoko and Yuna (and sometimes Marin when she returns to Kansai to train.)
I also got to read that Rika might be back to Japan to train already, due to the quarantine requirement. But I didn't find the source so it's yet to be confirmed.
According to this: https://twitter.com/himarasukaru/status/1472385966338088960?s=20
I read about Yuna Shiraiwa's coach change, but wasn't sure who's her current coach now. Here it confirms that Yuna is training with Takeshi Honda. So Coach Honda is currently working with: Satoko and Yuna (and sometimes Marin when she returns to Kansai to train.)
I also got to read that Rika might be back to Japan to train already, due to the quarantine requirement. But I didn't find the source so it's yet to be confirmed.
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