Women's FS - 2022 Olympics: Thoughts?

[bekalc]

Polina and Gracie saying that the little success in their races was because they were surely competing against cheating Russians. Please, how far do you plan to go with that speech? It is just when I refer to how toxic the American press is, but what scares me the most is how it can permeate the thinking of society that unthinkingly replicates this type of speech.

I don’t like that at that point the Russians were not doing anything different. Gracie’s own mistakes are what causes her to mess up.

Frank trained plenty of champs so she was trained enough for sure.

Chinese here. Chinese opinion is split, with some taking the 'Russian' side and others taking the 'American' side. I guess you could say I'm on the 'American' side, although I'd like to call it the side that cares about clean training/competitions and the athletes' health, career longevity, and self-fulfillment more than quads and medal glory. Maybe you could say I prefer the human side of the sport than the competitive side of it. Anyway, I very much dislike politicizing this and turning this into a "us vs them" thing (esp on national lines), because that just means nothing will ever change while competitions will continue to be haunted by scandal after scandal until it dies. Fingers crossed that perhaps, a real solution can be proposed by more neutral parties at the ISU, or perhaps some of the smaller feds...

I am on Plushenko side. Raise the age rule. Let the girls quad but teach them good solid Mishin technique that will let them have long careers.

 

[Arigato]

Poor Ben Johnson. He won a gold metal in the 100 meters in 1988. For one day he was a Canadian national hero. The next he was a doper from Jamaica.

I had to familiarize myself with that case. So he tested positive for one type of steroid while claiming he wasn't using steroids at all past a certain point in time near the Olympics, then oddly enough claimed someone put something in his drink and that it was all "planned" to screw him. More conspiracy stories . . .

 

[Warwick360]

The BEST coverage about this, or anything involving this, is right here. Watch and listen to what Polina Edmunds says about this. She witnessed the Russians doping when she was still a post-kid.

- YouTube

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People may give Polina stick for saying what one considers to be blunt, but every time she's been on Skating Lesson, all I see her and Duhamel be are straight shooters. We definitely do need those, whether we like it or not.

The one I was impressed by was this relatively new channel's assessment of where the sport is going...

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[Joekaz]

Fully grown adults have broken down after a disappointment. It happens sometimes. When you pour your heart and soul into something and don’t get rewarded like you think you should, sometimes you lash out.

How many people miss out on promotion and raises every day and lash out and storm off?

Why can’t athletes have emotions?

It’s just amazing to me that the athletes that finish second or third have to pretend that they are happy when they are not.

Who cares if any of them are friends?
Most of these “friendships” are just faked anyway for social media and public consumption.

They were both chasing the same brass ring, so that alone is a deterrent to really being friends.

All this talk about friendship but I have never seen one skater give up a gold medal to their “friend”

It’s admirable if they truly are friends, but that’s just a bonus. The goal here wasn’t to see who can be a better friend, it was to see who the better skater was.

All this rage and disappointment might not be a bad thing either. If she decides to carry on, she can use it as a motivator for next time.
A wounded animal is dangerous.

A male athlete in many team sports would be praised for being very competitive and hating to lose.

 

[Arigato]

She skates head down, looking intently at the ice, ignores whatever music she's skating to, shows no emotion other than self-satisfaction, has no transitions, doesn't bother with performance or interpretation. Even on the rare occasion, like these Olympics, where she doesn't fall, her jumps aren't clean, with 2-foot and stepout. Her spins are subpar.

Figure skating is more than jumps. Sasha rejects that, and that's why she didn't achieve what she most wanted. Her rivals have better-rounded skating skills and well-developed performance skills, and that is why they can beat her with fewer quads.

Glad to see someone else noticed.

Boyang Jin would skate with 4 quads and poor skating skills. PCS around 80. Patrick comes in with 2 quads and PCS of 97 or so. And win. Jin wasn't screaming bloody murder, he knew his skills sucked. That's when you heard him say, "I have to work on my artistic side." A little self-honesty would do Trusova a world of good. But what is her real goal? This:

You know, they say about you that your skating is not feminine? What does this mean?

Alexandra Trusova: I don’t know what they mean. The only thing I can say is that I try to perform the same jump content as men, the top men. Nathan has jumped 5 quads at Worlds now. I wanted to make the same content.

As far as I understand, in many technical things you are simply ahead of men. That is, men did not do what you do. Do I understand correctly?

Alexandra Trusova: Well, some didn’t, some did. Nathan Chen did, Yuzuru Hanyu did.

Are you talking about lutz now?

Alexandra Trusova: No, many do lutz. I mean, that they have already jumped 5 quads in a free program and I have not yet, I have done only 4 so far …

Alexandra Trusova: Figure skating is a sport, and for me personally, jumps and the entire technical component of the program are more important. Because there are shows, artistry is more important there, and in figure skating, of course, artistry and technique are needed, but this is still a sport.


You will never become great at something you don't even value.

 

[rinkside_user]

Having a few days to process things and not getting into the controversy/scandal/abuse in this topic, just focusing on the top 5 skaters:

You have a skater finishing in 5th place massively lowballed in both segments and called out by the technical panel on multiple occasions where many other contenders were not.
At 4th place, you have the heavy gold favorite turned into a full-blown tragedy with a meltdown FS and a mic-recorded case of coaching misconduct and child neglect.
The skater winning the bronze medal supposedly had tears of joy but, at first, it seriously looked like distress.
The silver medalist had a nervous breakdown, vowing to never skate again and needing encouragement (coercion?) to get on the podium at all.
The crowned Olympic champion just stared with a stoned face and, in her own words, felt nothing but emptiness.

Ladies and gents, the Olympic moment everyone was waiting for. [/s]

 

[DancingCactus]

What I find not acceptable is calling Trusova's skating not feminine enough. Artistry and femininity aren't the same. This is outdated thinking. You can skate wonderful artistic AND athletic programs without looking like an ice princess. But solely focusing on jumps like Trusova disregards many core components of figure skating completely and that's why she should get criticized.

 

[kan01]

Glad to see someone else noticed.

Boyang Jin would skate with 4 quads and poor skating skills. PCS around 80. Patrick comes in with 2 quads and PCS of 97 or so. And win. Jin wasn't screaming bloody murder, he knew his skills sucked. That's when you heard him say, "I have to work on my artistic side." A little self-honesty would do Trusova a world of good. But what is her real goal? This:

You know, they say about you that your skating is not feminine? What does this mean?

Alexandra Trusova: I don’t know what they mean. The only thing I can say is that I try to perform the same jump content as men, the top men. Nathan has jumped 5 quads at Worlds now. I wanted to make the same content.

As far as I understand, in many technical things you are simply ahead of men. That is, men did not do what you do. Do I understand correctly?

Alexandra Trusova: Well, some didn’t, some did. Nathan Chen did, Yuzuru Hanyu did.

Are you talking about lutz now?

Alexandra Trusova: No, many do lutz. I mean, that they have already jumped 5 quads in a free program and I have not yet, I have done only 4 so far …

Alexandra Trusova: Figure skating is a sport, and for me personally, jumps and the entire technical component of the program are more important. Because there are shows, artistry is more important there, and in figure skating, of course, artistry and technique are needed, but this is still a sport.


You will never become great at something you don't even value.

This makes me admire her more for her effort in the SP the season she was with Plushenko. She looked really gracious and feminine, really enjoyable even if you took out the jumps. It shows that with the right guidance she can do it, she understands it. She's just very passionate about quads. She's 17, the maturity, change and improvement will come. If she continues and with the right coaches. But Plushenko specifically made her work extra hours with someone who specializes in artistry if I remember correctly.
What I don't like is her comments about how artistry belongs in shows, and jumps in competition. I hope with maturity, she'll change her view. She must be aware she lost to an artistic skater (Alena) her whole debut season.

 

[anonymoose_au]

You know, they say about you that your skating is not feminine? What does this mean?

Alexandra Trusova: I don’t know what they mean. The only thing I can say is that I try to perform the same jump content as men, the top men. Nathan has jumped 5 quads at Worlds now. I wanted to make the same content.

Well, Sasha is within her rights to reject this very narrow definition of "feminine" aka "Pretty ice princess, soft and lyrical, skating gracefully with spirals to gentle balletic music"

She did try last season and a lot of people just laughed at her. A lot of people said she should go back to what she's good at. Now they're surprised she did and blaming her?

Was her outburst appropriate? No, but filming her having it when she asked for privacy, ESPECIALLY seeing as she's under 18 was even less appropriate.

I'd go so far as to say they caused greater distress not just to Sasha but to Anna who they SHOULD have focused on. She was the winner. Why did they spend five minutes or more on Sasha. Never seen that behaviour from a broadcaster either.

 

[icetug]

Alexandra Trusova: Figure skating is a sport, and for me personally, jumps and the entire technical component of the program are more important. Because there are shows, artistry is more important there, and in figure skating, of course, artistry and technique are needed, but this is still a sport.


You will never become great at something you don't even value.

Sasha watches and listens. If a TV commentator starts a program description with how many quadruple jumps a skater has, if (especially on Russian TV) a skater with great skating skills is offended because he has not jumped any quads, she gets a message about what counts in skating. Especially when they say that "artistry" is good for shows and not for competitions.
Sasha knows the jumping scores and knows that three quads are enough to make spins and steps to be ignored. And knows that if you jump multiple quads, your can get nice PCS.

What Sasha missed: that quality matters. But that's quite new thing for her, because so far she's been getting high GOEs just for landing a quad. And that when other girls began to land quads, the overall rating was also influenced by previously neglected elements: spins and steps, and PCS.

She should watch the performances of her Olympic teammates and think why Mozalev who jumped three quads in FS was much behind skaters who jumped fewer than he did (or even none).

 

[Warwick360]

I listen to Polina and I can't, really. Criticizing Sasha, Anna and Kami's skates as if she were the greatest technical expert. But when Alysa Liu was landing "quads" and 3As with such poor technique, coincidentally none of the Americans came out to criticize her, double standards. Up to here with this.

She was criticising the Americans too. She said some of the Americans should have been much lower. She was blunt about it.

As for Alyssa Liu, I'm sure all the Americans knew too that those techniques wouldn't last. But obviously like the Russian media, they're not going to start attacking their own. But at least in the case of American media, when things go wrong, they don't end up being the same level of apologist.

 

[kan01]

She did try last season and a lot of people just laughed at her. A lot of people said she should go back to what she's good at. Now they're surprised she did and blaming her?

This is what frustrates me the most.

I see this with Jason Brown too, but it amuses me rather. For years they told him he needs a quad and when he starts to make progress and stay on his feet in several attempts, they go: "Jason should leave the quad out, he does not need it." It must be so confusing and hard on skaters' psyche all this non-stop nitpicking and contradictions. It's hard to ignore what people say in this day and age.

I remember reading comments on YouTube about Alexandra saying: Oh, it does not suit her, it's not her style (when she skated to that beautiful music last season), but then people complain she does not have SS. A lot of stereotyping involved as well in those judgements.

 

[Isabel_O'Reilly]

This makes me admire her more for her effort in the SP the season she was with Plushenko. She looked really gracious and feminine, really enjoyable even if you took out the jumps. It shows that with the right guidance she can do it, she understands it. She's just very passionate about quads. She's 17, the maturity, change and improvement will come. If she continues and with the right coaches. But Plushenko specifically made her work extra hours with someone who specializes in artistry if I remember correctly.
What I don't like is her comments about how artistry belongs in shows, and jumps in competition. I hope with maturity, she'll change her view. She must be aware she lost to an artistic skater (Alena) her whole debut season.

And she got punished for it. Blame the judges who scored Sasha 20 points below Anna and significantly below Kamila. She goes for performing a typical "lyrical soft pretty program" in the SP and 2 measly Quad Lutzes, Quad Lutz-3T, and 3 3-3 combination program with no fall and skated perfectly and gets scored so low she would've needed a 3A in the SP and 2-3 more Quads in the FS to win, despite still having the highest BV of both programs combined. Yet she's penalized for thinking that if she gets close enough to skating clean with a 3A-5 Quad layout where she has the highest bv by and astronomical number she should/could win? And honestly anyone who doesn't see components in her skating is just blind.

I liked all 3 of the 3A's skating their 1st junior year. Sasha was my favorite but I really could enjoy Aliona's programs and Anna's were okay. Then every single post read, "Sasha's just a jumper", "she does not listen to the music","she skates from jump to jump", "Aliona is divine", "Anna is sublime". Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. Eventually it reached the point where I would watch Aliona's programs and think wow this is boring. (Twilight was an obvious exception, now that was a great program) I would try to watch Anna's programs and thinks what exactly is happening here that deserves all these points when I cannot even make it through a minute because it is the same boring graceful movement to any sort of instrumental music that any skater can skate to.

But then Sasha always has a dynamic character and a charisma that cast a spell, she goes for it unapologetically and if there's nasty falls she's up instantly and continuing to go strong. It is mesmerizing and not the typical mold, and yet there's still grace and beauty. It's bold but still beautiful. And here where she finally got very close to her full technical ability, Anna's score is still magically propped up with no calls and not a single reviewed element to make up 16 points in BV. And I get it, if you respond to Anna's skating the way Sasha's reaches me then you're just happy she won but now imagine that the roles are reversed and no matter how Anna performed no matter what layout, level of cleanness, or level of performance she was alway pushed under the score of the same skater who in the biggest competition of their life received the gift of not having a single element looked at. And ask yourself would you think that was fair? Would you believe that the judges were being impartial or simply believe that another skater was not a possibility so they immediately judge Anna as generously as possible.

I was so happy when I woke up and saw that Sasha had won. I was already ready to figuratively raise a glass (since I do not drink) when I realized oh no this isn't the result page this is just the FS. If it had come down to the wire like in 2018 that would have been one thing but 5 points? Just does not seem right.

I would give my opinion of Kamila's skating too but what just happened to her over these past 2 weeks was unconscionable so I cannot bring myself to say a single critical thing towards her and Kamila with a clean 3 Axel and 3 Quad skate completely clean to Sasha's exact same skate would have been an decidedly fair victory. Anna vs Sasha it should be much less clear cut.

 

[chuckm]

Sasha was way overscored in PCS. If she was scored appropriately she would have won bronze and Kaori Sakamoto silver, which in MO is how it should have been.

 

[kan01]

@Isabel_O'Reilly I like Anna more off the ice than on the ice. She's adorable, but her skating does nothing for me. I could enjoy her more if she changes choreographer maybe, maybe it's the choreography that does nothing to me but I don't know. And her jumps are ugly, the way she turns and moves her leg before jumping. With Alexandra, I enjoy her short, you can see the improvement artistically wise there. And the long, even if it does not have lots of choreography, the five quads suit the music, the lyrics and her attitude, so I enjoy it when she doesn't fall too much.

 

[kan01]

Rewatching Alexandra's long, it's not true that she looks down at the ice all program long, during the step sequence she smiles and looks at the judges and it goes pretty well with the music IMO. It's like people take one thing a skater does not excel at and then they only see that even though there are actual good parts.

 

[Tolstoj]

Sasha was way overscored in PCS. If she was scored appropriately she would have won bronze and Kaori Sakamoto silver, which in MO is how it should have been.

The Italian Europort feed was brutally honest on that.

They said if she was scored appropriately in the PCS she would get 63-64, they'd struggle to give her an 8 on everything. Which i believe was still enough for her to get the silver but more appropriate given the difference in skating quality.

The problem is in the judging system, it's all about the jumps, so when the technical gap is that massive, you can let the program be completely empty cause you have 30-40 points more thanks to the jumps.

That is an argument in favor of separating technical programs and artistic programs as two different segments. With that system Trusova here would have been first in the technical program and rightfully so, but maybe not even in the top 10 in the artistry.

 

[Isabel_O'Reilly]

Sasha was way overscored in PCS. If she was scored appropriately she would have won bronze and Kaori Sakamoto silver, which in MO is how it should have been.

Really??? It's one thing to argue that Sasha's silver was fair, but to honestly say that you think a 96 points BV program should be behind a 66 points bv program? Do you not even realize how ridiculous that sounds? And I'm not talking about subjective opinion but just mathematically. Score her in the mid 6's and I think she would still be silver. I'm too tired to do the math right now.

 

[Isabel_O'Reilly]

I really think people are stuck in this made up magical land where their ideal performer wins no matter how lacking in technical content, whereas I can freely acknowledge that other than Dec 2020 where Sasha should have unquestionably won and here where she should have edged out Anna by approximately a point or Anna should have edged out Sasha by a point there is not a single other competition where Sasha should have placed any higher than she did because of her falls or pops.

 

[anonymoose_au]

The Italian Europort feed was brutally honest on that.

Was that Max Ambrossi? Because the stuff he said about Shoma in 2018...I was absolutely incandescent with rage.

He has a right to his opinion but the utter nastiness in which he conveyed it... Nope.