Women's FS - 2022 Olympics: Thoughts?

[Isabel_O'Reilly]

It has to be said, there are thousands of people all over the net who have a habit of using their favorite mantra: "If her skating hadn't been underscored, X, Y, or Z would be true." It's so overused, in fact, I find myself in shock if someone doesn't resort to employing it in order to sway others. "Her" does not merely apply to Trusova. Not by a longshot. It applies to many female skaters.

I do not post messages about being underscored because normally it would come down to subjective opinion. This was absolute fact,

If you read Russian forums a judge(s) from the 2020 Nationals admitted straight out that Sasha was underscored because the judges did not like what Plushenko had said in the past or there at Nationals so they harmed her scores in response.

Sasha did 3 LZ-3T, 3F, 2A pristinely clean in a beautiful lyrical program. She was at 75.40 points. Anna and Kamila each made mistakes in the SP but received 81+ and 79.xx if I remember correctly.

Now in the FS all 3 skated clean, but Anna's and Kamila's 1-Quad programs (lower scored quads) beat Sasha's 2 Quad Lutz program by I believe it was 7-8 points for Kamila and over 13 points for Anna. In what universe would you accept that that was fair. What would you think when in that same competion with all clean elements in the FS Sasha's GOE on every jump was lower than Anna's. And again not one single element reviewed.

Until now that is the only competition I would have ever said that she was underscored in, because first of all significant mistakes on her part have always dropped Sasha justifiably low whereas here her teammates were rewarded instead. In any other competition she has always made mistakes that rightfully put her under her Russian teammates or she finished above other Russian skaters or skaters from other countries with the strength of her bv despite mistakes on her part. And I believe the only international competition as a Senior that she skated clean was Skate America with only one quad, and another skater came close to her score.

But you cannot deny a double standard mistakes on Sasha's part always drop her score. Anna and Kamila get higher scores than most previous skates even when they make mistakes. It is all there in black and white on the score sheet.

 

[Draculus]

Criminal law is not a "voluntary agreement". It is imposed upon you.

It is an agreement, that is imposed upon me. That's correct. This is not a agreement with me but it is still an agreement.

Suzy Q may not like the stop sign at the end of the street. Suzy Q may think the stop sign is ridiculous, causes more accidents than it prevents, doesn't see the point. Suzy Q may never have agreed to that stop sign. But when she runs it, she has violated traffic laws.

Because traffic laws is an agreement. Ppl speak with each other for some time and iteratively made these rules.
I (and Suzy) did not participate. But it does not make traffic law something else (what? there is nothing about it in Tablets of Stone f.e.). And it does not make it impossible to change this agreement.

Consent to WADA jurisdiction is more like employee agreements. If Suzy Q wants to work for Employer A, Employer A can say "You must bake apple pie every Thursday (The employer is not a bakery ). If you don't bake apple pie every Thursday, you can't work here". Suzy Q may hate apple pie. She may think it's the stupidest rule ever. But she is subject to that rule as part of an agreement.

CAPITALISM!

 

[Draculus]

I do not post messages about being underscored because normally it would come down to subjective opinion. This was absolute fact,

If you read Russian forums a judge(s) from the 2020 Nationals admitted straight out that Sasha was underscored because the judges did not like what Plushenko had said in the past or there at Nationals so they harmed her scores in response.

Can you provide a link to the judge's words?
If it is something that someone mentioned on the Russian forum... infinitesimal argument.

 

[Arigato]

It is all there in black and white on the score sheet.

Yes. It is. I read them all the time.

 

[WeakAnkles]

It has totally put me off "Women's" skating for the very very long foreseeable future.

 

[Jasira]

We are still discussing Trusova's outburst? I still think it's good that someone screamed at Eteri. When I think about it again, it actually speaks for their environment - you can only let lose, when you feel safe. So at least Trusova feels safe.

I would be interested in the actual TT Game plan before the FS.
Trusova was planned to do 4 quads and did 5, right?
Sherbakova was planned to do 2? Or 3? I read somewhere that Tutberitze asked her why she didn't go for the quad lutz, is this true?
And Valieva 2 and the triple axel.
It seems to me that Tutberitze wanted Sherbakova to win, what do you think?
Did Trusova expect Sherbakova to do only one quad? Was she especially angry at Tutberitze because of that?

Anna wanted to do a quad lutz. At the beginning of the Olympics, she was doing runthroughs with 2 quad flips and 1 quad lutz. But then she had boot problems and decided "only" to go for two quad flips. Considering her boot problems it´s even more impressive that she could skate two clean programs at the Olympics.

 

[el henry]

It is an agreement, that is imposed upon me. That's correct. This is not a agreement with me but it is still an agreement.

Because traffic laws is an agreement. Ppl speak with each other for some time and iteratively made these rules.
I (and Suzy) did not participate. But it does not make traffic law something else (what? there is nothing about it in Tablets of Stone f.e.). And it does not make it impossible to change this agreement.

CAPITALISM!

I'm not sure it's related to Capitalism. The Ancient Romans had no concept of capitalism, but they had a developed contract law. Which is essentially what WADA is

I understand the word consent could be possibly be used for both, but it is very different form of consent. Yes, there is the consent of the governed: we elect representatives, they pass laws, those laws are applicable to everyone. But dictatorships also have laws, that they impose upon everyone, without elected representatives, or without consent. Laws don't require consent. And everyone must obey them. Or be threatened with imprisonment.

Consent to WADA is far far far far far different. You have the choice to consent to WADA jurisdiction, or not. Presumably (I hope) no government is threatening you with jail if you don't consent.

just completely different.

 

[chuckm]

But you cannot deny a double standard mistakes on Sasha's part always drop her score. Anna and Kamila get higher scores than most previous skates even when they make mistakes. It is all there in black and white on the score sheet.

Anna and Kamila are complete skaters: they have strong performance skills that Sasha doesn't have. Sasha may top them on TES, but Sasha will never, ever get PCS scores even close to what Anna and Kamila get, because Sasha is interested only in jumping. She thinks anything else is a waste of time. Sasha tries to emulate Nathan Chen, but the end result is more like Elvis Stojko (apologies to Canadian fans).

 

[skatedreamer]

It has totally put me off "Women's" skating for the very very long foreseeable future.

It hasn't put me off completely but I will say this: I've been a bit skeptical about Team ET for a while and am now even more so.

On a lighter note, does anybody remember Tonia Kwiatkowski, a US skater in the mid- to late 90s? She was 5-10 years older than her competitors (e.g. Michelle Kwan, Nicole Bobek, etc.) and the contrast was striking. Compared to the rest of the field, she was positively ancient.

One year at US Nats, Uncle Dick watched Tonia entering for her LP and said "There's a woman on the ice!" It was definitely meant as a compliment -- even then he was complaining about "baby" skaters.

 

[Draculus]

I understand the word consent could be possibly be used for both, but it is very different form of consent. Yes, there is the consent of the governed: we elect representatives, they pass laws, those laws are applicable to everyone. But dictatorships also have laws, that they impose upon everyone, without elected representatives, or without consent. Laws don't require consent. And everyone must obey them. Or be threatened with imprisonment.

Or find a way to avoid the law. Or convince that white is black. Or many other ways.

But the most important is that law definitely require consent. And agreement. Just not from everybody, but only from those who has power. In modern so called 'civilized' societies it is quite large group of ppl. If there is a society with 0 consent, it is anarchy without any laws.

Even if we take modern dictators or ancient tyrants - they are who they are because of consent in society, because of agreement between different powers. They are not dictators because they have some super magic powers and can enforce their will on other ppl, they need other ppl to enforce their will. So there is some consent there.

So WADA in this sense is not far away, can they enforce their words on others? Yes they can.

 

[skatesofgold]

I do not post messages about being underscored because normally it would come down to subjective opinion. This was absolute fact,

If you read Russian forums a judge(s) from the 2020 Nationals admitted straight out that Sasha was underscored because the judges did not like what Plushenko had said in the past or there at Nationals so they harmed her scores in response.

Sasha did 3 LZ-3T, 3F, 2A pristinely clean in a beautiful lyrical program. She was at 75.40 points. Anna and Kamila each made mistakes in the SP but received 81+ and 79.xx if I remember correctly.

Now in the FS all 3 skated clean, but Anna's and Kamila's 1-Quad programs (lower scored quads) beat Sasha's 2 Quad Lutz program by I believe it was 7-8 points for Kamila and over 13 points for Anna. In what universe would you accept that that was fair. What would you think when in that same competion with all clean elements in the FS Sasha's GOE on every jump was lower than Anna's. And again not one single element reviewed.

Until now that is the only competition I would have ever said that she was underscored in, because first of all significant mistakes on her part have always dropped Sasha justifiably low whereas here her teammates were rewarded instead. In any other competition she has always made mistakes that rightfully put her under her Russian teammates or she finished above other Russian skaters or skaters from other countries with the strength of her bv despite mistakes on her part. And I believe the only international competition as a Senior that she skated clean was Skate America with only one quad, and another skater came close to her score.

But you cannot deny a double standard mistakes on Sasha's part always drop her score. Anna and Kamila get higher scores than most previous skates even when they make mistakes. It is all there in black and white on the score sheet.

At 2020-21 Nationals, Anna did two quads, the quad lutz and the quad flip.

 

[Amei]

We are still discussing Trusova's outburst? I still think it's good that someone screamed at Eteri. When I think about it again, it actually speaks for their environment - you can only let lose, when you feel safe. So at least Trusova feels safe.

I would be interested in the actual TT Game plan before the FS.
Trusova was planned to do 4 quads and did 5, right?

Well I didn't see the planned content that was submitted (though that has been wrong in the past of what they actually do) but Trusova has wanted the 5 quads for several years.

Sherbakova was planned to do 2? Or 3? I read somewhere that Tutberitze asked her why she didn't go for the quad lutz, is this true?

During practices when they first got to Beijing she was doing a 3 quad layout, a solo quad lutz, solo quad flip and a quad flip in competition, but a few days before the SP her boots broke and she had to switch to a newer pair that weren't as broken in and they went with 2 quads instead. I read that Eteri's translated remark after Shcherbakova won was more like 'its a shame you couldn't do the lutz' - not in an accusatory way but just lamenting about the situation about the boot swap.

And Valieva 2 and the triple axel.

Valieva did the same FS layout she's done all season (except for the last quad at the Olympics, she usually did that in combination but couldn't because she fell).

It seems to me that Tutberitze wanted Sherbakova to win, what do you think?

Eh, I don't know if 'wanted Shcherbakova to win' is how I would put it - Eteri's job is to train the girls to the best of her and their abilities, and let the chips fall where they might. I would say that probably everyone going into the event figured that if Valieva faltered it would be Shcherbakova, but that's largely because Trusova hadn't done even a 4 quad program that clean in a long time (if ever?) whereas Shcherbakova is much less willing to do too much risk and rather go with what she knows she can execute - after all, if she had done the solo quad lutz in lieu of 1 of the double axels, even if she fell on it as long as it was rotated she would have gotten about 5 points for it (roughly .5-.7 points more than a clean double axel, that includes the 1 point deduction for a fall).

Did Trusova expect Sherbakova to do only one quad? Was she especially angry at Tutberitze because of that?

Well Trusova was seeing what Shcherbakova was doing in practice and that she was trying the combinations, I did notice that during the FS after Shcherbakova lannded the 4F+3T that Johnny or Tara referenced that 'we may see her go for a second quad here' so given the boot change perhaps it was very much a fluid situation for Shcherbakova to decide whether to chance a second quad if her first was successful. But if that was part of the anger/meltdown, then Trusova has a lot of maturing to do, Eteri's job is train all of her skaters to skate to the best of their ability; Trusova has no right to expect Eteri to hold someone back so that Trusova can win (ala the comments between her and Medvedeva where Medvedeva said something about keeping Zagitova in juniors another year).

 

[Isabel_O'Reilly]

Anna and Kamila are complete skaters: they have strong performance skills that Sasha doesn't have. Sasha may top them on TES, but Sasha will never, ever get PCS scores even close to what Anna and Kamila get, because Sasha is interested only in jumping. She thinks anything else is a waste of time. Sasha tries to emulate Nathan Chen, but the end result is more like Elvis Stojko (apologies to Canadian fans).

But you did not actually address what I wrote, Kamila and Anna made mistakes in the the SP and their scores were higher than when they don't make mistakes. How on earth is that not clear to you when it is in black and white on the score sheets from 2020 Nationals.

And Sasha never has not skated to the music in the SP, some of the FS that had multiple mistakes I'll give you but she skates to her music all the time.

If she was skating against a woman who was artistic to the point where it seems like the music was coming out of them instead of just a skater skating to music like Yuzuru or Stephane then I would acknowledge that Sasha should score far below them in components but fact is Kamila and Anna do many crossovers and simple steps and there are multiple points in their programs where they are not skating to the music.

But I can watch Sasha's programs over and over because she skates such great content to the music. I am sick of people saying she's not good enough when Anna and Kamila's GOE are inflated all time. Sure be subjective about components all you want (not really but just for the sake of this argument) but at least have Sasha's jump GOE show the difference in content when she hits.

 

[Arigato]

How on earth is that not clear to you when it is in black and white on the score sheets from 2020 Nationals.

2020 Nationals.

Skating Scores: Latest Figure Skating Results, Scores, Rankings & Statistics

The best resource for Figure Skating scores and stats on the web.

skatingscores.com

 

[Mathman]

On a lighter note, does anybody remember Tonia Kwiatkowski, a US skater in the mid- to late 90s? She was 5-10 years older than her competitors (e.g. Michelle Kwan, Nicole Bobek, etc.) and the contrast was striking. Compared to the rest of the field, she was positively ancient.

One year at US Nats, Uncle Dick watched Tonia entering for her LP and said "There's a woman on the ice!" It was definitely meant as a compliment -- even then he was complaining about "baby" skaters.

But on the other hand Dick spoke quite affectionately of the "baby ballerinas" that soon followed -- Sasha Cohen and Naomi Nari Nam especially.

Tonia Kwiatkowski once sent me a little thank you note -- I had praised her performance in a made-for-TV special with Dorothy Hamill (and Elvis Stojko as the villain).

 

[skatedreamer]

But on the other hand Dick spoke quite affectionately of the "baby ballerinas" that soon followed -- Sasha Cohen and Naomi Nari Nam especially.

Tonia Kwiatkowski once sent me a little thank you note -- I had praised her performance in a made-for-TV special with Dorothy Hamill (and Elvis Stojko as the villain).

What a nice story!

 

[anonymoose_au]

2020 Nationals.

Skating Scores: Latest Figure Skating Results, Scores, Rankings & Statistics

The best resource for Figure Skating scores and stats on the web.

skatingscores.com

I think we're looking at this one:

Skating Scores: Latest Figure Skating Results, Scores, Rankings & Statistics

The best resource for Figure Skating scores and stats on the web.

skatingscores.com

The main reason I was upset was not so much that Sasha lost it was the amount of points she lost BY.

You can say it doesn't matter, but nearly 20 points is an enormous margin for two programs of similar content. It's not like Anna did 3 quads and Sasha 1. It was even more obvious in the SP where neither Sasha nor Anna did a 3A and where Anna had a level 2 spin, but was somehow 5 points ahead afterwards. In other words Sasha would have scored closer to Anna if she'd done at 3A and FELL.

If that wasn't telling her "Do harder jumps and screw the rest" I'm not sure what it was.

But of course Sasha now gets trashed for trying her 3A all the time even though she falls. But why bother with a 2A if landing it gets you less points than a 3A fall? It would actually be stupid because she's leaving points on the table. Points she can ill afford to lose as we all know.

My favourite part of all this is when Anna does some truly appalling spins - they travel so much they're practically Twizzles and some how she gets higher GOE than anyone else.

Sure that's not Anna's fault, she doesn't score herself but one wonders why every fault of Sasha's is magnified while Anna gets the benefit of the doubt.

 

[hippomoomin]

Does anyone have links to women's long program videos? I found nothing on Youtube. Thanks.

 

[Warwick360]

A thought I had when finishing this Olympics, which I am not sure has been mentioned much....

Both Bolero and Don Quixote (the part Zagitova used)......goes amazing when all goes good. But the moment something goes wrong in the first section, it seems to all fall apart like house of cards, more often than not; leaving the audience and perhaps even the skater with intense anxiety as the skating proceeds.

Valieva's FS was pretty much adding in drama each second for me like Kostner's FS was in Worlds 2014.

 

[moonvine]

Raf had a bit of a reputation, you know... Do you think he was known as a nice coach or something?

I sure didn’t.