Women's FS - 2022 Olympics: Thoughts?

[Tolstoj]

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.

Yes Ambesi.

I don't think he was nasty but he's always extremely precise with his analysis so he'll absolutely call every cheated jump, or the artistry who's better, who's not, which you can argue it's the right thing to do.

I prefer it over the fake positive commentary that adds and teaches nothing to the viewer. I want to know when a lutz is on a clear inside edge and it's not getting called. (as it happened here with Mariah Bell)

The same people who called out Aliev's cheated quad lutz in 2018, and had that famous reaction when Kim Yuna was robbed in 2014. They weren't as mad here, they actually thought Shcherbakova winning was fair for the sport, when compared to Trusova cause Anna is a more complete skater.

 

[chuckm]

For a few seconds, Sasha may have looked up, but for 99% of her FS, her head was down and her eyes were on the ice. And she got only L3 for her step sequence. Anna, Kaori, Kamila, Young You, Wakaba, and yes, Alysa Liu all got L4.

Three of Sasha's jumps got -GOE, while none of Anna's or Kaori's did.
For non-jump elements (spins, steps, choreo sequence), total points:
23.57 Anna
23.52 Kaori
21.29 Sasha

PCS:
75.26 Anna
74.39 Kaori
70.97 Sasha (and this was too high for what she did)

 

[Astolat]

I have

I loved them!!

 

[Arigato]

This is all starting to remind me of a scene from Willy Wonka.

 

[mrrice]

This is without a doubt, the most depressing women's event I have ever seen. Not even the Champion looked happy. I'm so ready to move on. I'm usually so excited to talk about the ladies but, I'm just done. I'm truly hoping things go better at worlds

 

[skatesofgold]

Up until Kamila skated her free program and the aftermath, I enjoyed the women's event and I'm happy for the medalists. I'm not the person who's going to let everything that happened off the ice affect what I thought of the competition itself.

 

[yume]

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.

Nope. Trusova deserved silver. As much as people hate her program. She took risks that Sakamoto is unable to take and was rewarded for it.
10 points lower in PCS wouldn't have changed anything and i don't think she deserved 20 points lower as some people said.

 

[yume]

How could she realistically have had that dream? Everyone thought Valieva was a lock for gold. Was she assuming Kamila would eventually be disqualified? Other skaters have lost their dream of Olympic gold and not thrown tantrums.

Other skaters are good actors and not everyone has that talent.

Without the turnout and the q in the free she would have won over Shcherbakova. She had a winning layout. With a clean 3A in SP she would have won by a larger margin.

I assume that with clean programs she thought that she could be competitive with Valieva. Imo only the SP gap would have made Valieva win.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

I would say that Trusova deserved silver on the basis of the massive TES advantage over the lower finishers, but it was very disappointing to see no growth in her presentation from when she debuted the program at test skates. The music demands a commanding presence, but she just skates around and does the choreography she was told to do without any conviction.

 

[wakuwaku]

The only analogue I can find of what I felt during that event is infamous "Red Wedding" episode of Game of Thrones series. With very similar effect of feeling nausea and bile in mouth, of wanting to drop watching it for good.

 

[Amei]

Thought I would share this - footage from the room that the top 3 were in at the ladies FS that NBC did not show on TV. Shcherbakova was comforting Kaori until the Japanese Fed arrived and Daniil did go into the room and hug Shcherbakova, he then left and if you watch at the end you can see Trusova at the edge of the curtain that separated the room and someone pull her out - IMO maybe to get her away from Shcherbakova to meltdown over losing the gold.

So my stink eye about this whole debacle is no longer with Daniil (I think we all remarked it was odd to see him not congratulate Shcherbakova since he has always seemed close to her), but solely with NBC, who based on this, only used specific camera shots to feed a narrative.

***Plus I think this also helps further explain the muted expression from Shcherbakova, while Kaori's reaction was certainly from overwhelming happiness, it was emotion overload. And kudos to the Japanese Fed for appearing to congratulate Shcherbakova.

 

[RatedPG]

Thought I would share this - footage from the room that the top 3 were in at the ladies FS that NBC did not show on TV. Shcherbakova was comforting Kaori until the Japanese Fed arrived and Daniil did go into the room and hug Shcherbakova, he then left and if you watch at the end you can see Trusova at the edge of the curtain that separated the room and someone pull her out - IMO maybe to get her away from Shcherbakova to meltdown over losing the gold.

So my stink eye about this whole debacle is no longer with Daniil (I think we all remarked it was odd to see him not congratulate Shcherbakova since he has always seemed close to her), but solely with NBC, who based on this, only used specific camera shots to feed a narrative.

***Plus I think this also helps further explain the muted expression from Shcherbakova, while Kaori's reaction was certainly from overwhelming happiness, it was emotion overload. And kudos to the Japanese Fed for appearing to congratulate Shcherbakova.

I love Anna. She is like what the hell is happening to all the girls around me?

 

[OS]

Yes, she landed 5 quads, but she stalked every one of them, and the landings weren't smooth and effortless. So much time was spent in setting up each of those jumps left no time for performance and/or expression, had she been interested in either. What she did do instead was stare intently down at the ice throughout the entire program. She might as well have been skating to white noise, as she didn't execute anything to the music. She got the highest TES scores for her quads, but her PCS scores were ridiculously inflated for such an empty program. Skating skills reference far more than just jumps; her spins are little more than average. Transitions? One leg lift and a hydroblade move, other than scratchy stroking in between jumps. Interpretation and choreographic intent? There wasn't any.

Men who perform multiple quads in a FS but stalk their jumps and have low performance quality don't win competitions. If Sasha is intent in outdoing the men, she needs to develop and hone performance skills, because at this point she doesn't have any.

What I did find incredible was her rant at Eteri because she didn't have a gold medal! She blamed Eteri for that. Interesting. Usually Eteri is the one doing the blaming.....

The best thing for Sasha would be to find another coach, and not one who emphasizes quads. Zoueva would be a good choice.

Everything you said about her performance/program is true. The more well-rounded' figure skater' won on the day and I am not even debating about that, but ask for empathy for Sasha's very human reaction. There is great value in the foolish (maybe) but brave-hearted single-mindedness to pursue the Olympic Motto Faster, Higher, Stronger. Otherwise just how can women push the sport? You are asking her to be Carolina Kostner plus the 5 quads at age 17, that is just science fiction. What Trusova has here is more than competitive enough for any Olympics, the 1 - 2 points difference is negligible considering everything is generally inflated at the judge's discretion to prop their champions of choice/placement.

Ethically, Eteri methods may not be the best, as it takes advantage of pre-puberty physique and that is designed for 1-2 season peaks just before full puberty with no expectations or care for the longevity for the skater, but the IJS - particular PCS judging in the last 8 years actually encourages this sort of formula that sees PCS rise and fall according to federation whims. She is only the smartest and the most ruthless one to exploit this system to the maximum likely with the support of her fed and the ISU. But what do you expect from an archaic organisation that is dominated by federation interests rather than athletes? Given they are dealing with minors, do ISU even have an independent welfare panel looking after the interests of athletes? Having seen these skaters live in person, they are generally slim and petite, but Sasha and Anna look emaciated for their age relative to the rest of the field, so I can only imagine the amount of personal sacrifices and physical stress they had to endure to reach this peak to be putting out these quads, unlikely to be sustainable beyond this Olympics.

I believe there's also a bit of cultural clash here. On English forums which is generally dominated by N.America views that preach the best type of skating is based on the types that are produced in the region, but, to the rest of the world, there are reasons why Plushy, Hanyu will be far more legendary than Lysacek even when they don't get Olympic golds. So why can't the same standard apply to women?

 

[TontoK]

I would say that Trusova deserved silver on the basis of the massive TES advantage over the lower finishers, but it was very disappointing to see no growth in her presentation from when she debuted the program at test skates. The music demands a commanding presence, but she just skates around and does the choreography she was told to do without any conviction.

I didn't watch any of the programs, but I firmly believe that a program can earn deservedly high marks and high placement, and still not be worth watching again.

I've liked Trusova well enough in prior performances (none of which I have watched again lol), but I agree that this season demonstrated a lack of growth, or even a regression, in artistry and PCS components.

 

[OS]

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.

I agree with this but would argue 63 is still too high if you mark it according to the historical standards when there was a clearer separation of technical and artistic judging that allows skaters greater freedom to strategize their programs.

However, I'd argue the technical marks are not sufficient enough for the extreme outlier of what Sasha did in the FS.

For a system that is supposed to reward merits, how can you even equate the amount of effort, risk, and endurance that is necessary to put out your 5th quad vs the 1st? It makes no sense. Just thinking out loud, but maybe there should perhaps be 2 classes of jump/jump combos, with the harder jumps possibly given additional rewards if done successfully incrementally, then reset if there's a break in the chain.

I'd also like to see additional rewards and punishment for good / poorer techniques, greater recognition for delayed jump vs max. pre-rotation, big jumps vs tiny ones, quality of landing, and falls etc.. These are many things that AI can aid in the future, that can override and recalibrate human judging scores based on things the human eye can't catch or react to in real-time.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

I've liked Trusova well enough in prior performances (none of which I have watched again lol), but I agree that this season demonstrated a lack of growth, or even a regression, in artistry and PCS components.

It is weird watching her LP. She looks fierce and ready for battle in her opening pose, then the music starts and any use of her face to convey emotion ends.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

I agree with this but would argue 63 is still too high if you mark it according to the historical standards when there was a clearer separation of technical and artistic judging that allows skaters greater freedom to strategize their programs.

However, I'd argue the technical marks are not sufficient enough for the extreme outlier of what Sasha did in the FS.

For me, 63 would be too low because she does some things well, such as maintaining her speed and energy throughout the program. I'd give her a pass for not having much performance when setting up the quads, but the problem for me is that there is no performance between the technical elements either.

 

[Greengemmonster]

Thought I would share this - footage from the room that the top 3 were in at the ladies FS that NBC did not show on TV. Shcherbakova was comforting Kaori until the Japanese Fed arrived and Daniil did go into the room and hug Shcherbakova, he then left and if you watch at the end you can see Trusova at the edge of the curtain that separated the room and someone pull her out - IMO maybe to get her away from Shcherbakova to meltdown over losing the gold.

So my stink eye about this whole debacle is no longer with Daniil (I think we all remarked it was odd to see him not congratulate Shcherbakova since he has always seemed close to her), but solely with NBC, who based on this, only used specific camera shots to feed a narrative.

***Plus I think this also helps further explain the muted expression from Shcherbakova, while Kaori's reaction was certainly from overwhelming happiness, it was emotion overload. And kudos to the Japanese Fed for appearing to congratulate Shcherbakova.

Wow! That just speaks volumes about Anna's character. Calm all the way to the end!!!!!

I'm in awe by how she appears to be focused on comforting Kaori despite just winning the gold herself. What a champion. In sport and in life.

 

[OS]

For me, 63 would be too low because she does some things well, such as maintaining her speed and energy throughout the program. I'd give her a pass for not having much performance when setting up the quads, but the problem for me is that there is no performance between the technical elements either.

It wouldn't be too low if it is a field-wide application - an overhaul of the current PCS inflation which removes any incentives for skaters to work on their 'performance' as long as they are propped up by their feds. Judges should be encouraged to use the greater range between 4 - 10, rather than mostly 8.5 - 9.5 with such limited range can be easily manipulated and makes PCS efforts negligible.

 

[Arigato]

I believe there's also a bit of cultural clash here. On English forums which is generally dominated by N.America views that preach the best type of skating is based on the types that are produced in the region, but, to the rest of the world, there are reasons why Plushy, Hanyu will be far more legendary than Lysacek even when they don't get Olympic golds. So why can't the same standard apply to women?

I don't know anyone who thinks Evan was a decent skater much less legendary. But then I called him rigor mortis on skates while watching the 2010 OG. Fluidity was not his strong suit.