ITA!!! Caroline is so young, I cannot imagine how a beautiful skater she can become when she matures! Hope she continues to improve as she did this year. I can already see a huge improvement from 06/07 programs to 07/08 programs.
Caroline Zhang - the most graceful of the bunch
- Thread starter gio
- Start date
ITA!!! Caroline is so young, I cannot imagine how a beautiful skater she can become when she matures! Hope she continues to improve as she did this year. I can already see a huge improvement from 06/07 programs to 07/08 programs.
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2004
For me... in Dickie's own words" I don't give a rusty hoot" which skater is faster, slower, more or less graceful, little or grown... just keep them all healthy, in good condition, happy to be skating and working constantly to improve each year. I love both Mirai and Caroline. Both are going to be big skating stars for the U.S. It will be a great friendly rivalry for us to watch.
Next year's ISU Grand Prix will be exciting with both on that circuit, competing throughout the season through nationals, and Worlds.
But don't forget about Rachel, Ashley, Katrina and all the rest of the senior ladies! It's gonna be a great year for skating in the U.S.
Next year's ISU Grand Prix will be exciting with both on that circuit, competing throughout the season through nationals, and Worlds.
But don't forget about Rachel, Ashley, Katrina and all the rest of the senior ladies! It's gonna be a great year for skating in the U.S.
Hmm, I don't know! From my point of view being slower or faster is important as much as being elegant or sloppy.
Don't get me wrong I also like skaters who were not elegant and gracefull such as Tonya Harding and Irina Slutskaya (they had many other qualities). But I wanted to appreciate the elegance of Caroline Zhang.
Caroline has better awareness of what moves look good. Line/stretch/flexibility, whatever you call it, her positions are snapshot worthy from multiple angles. She has, afterall, been taking ballet lessons and entertaining audiences since age 3.
As an aside, it was mentioned before about how Caroline points her toes during her jumps which helps her rotate faster. And how her weight in her air position is always centered on her landing leg which explains why her landings have such great flow. I've noticed a related aspect to these things.
Caroline gets into her tight air position even before she reaches the apex of her jumps. That includes straightening her landing leg and pointing her toes. Other ladies have their knees bent more or for a longer time, perhaps as a follow through of their takeoffs. They only point their free foot toe while keeping their landing foot flat. Besides possibly rotating faster, this causes Caroline to appear lower off the ice. Remember, her landing leg is already straight as she reaches the apex of her jumps and her toe is pointed.
Previously, when watching her jumps, it seemed odd to me that Caroline seemed to float in the air longer than the other ladies, like she was defying gravity. The other ladies appeared to jump higher (Mao and Yu-Na definitely do jump higher, but I'm not so sure now about the others), but for some reason it appeared that Caroline had the same hang time as the other ladies. I thought that was an illusion due to her faster rotation. Now I think it's due to both, that Caroline rotates faster and that she jumps higher than it appears. This also explains why it appeared to me that the other ladies came down faster -- because they point their landing toes after they reach the apex of their jumps.
As an aside, it was mentioned before about how Caroline points her toes during her jumps which helps her rotate faster. And how her weight in her air position is always centered on her landing leg which explains why her landings have such great flow. I've noticed a related aspect to these things.
Caroline gets into her tight air position even before she reaches the apex of her jumps. That includes straightening her landing leg and pointing her toes. Other ladies have their knees bent more or for a longer time, perhaps as a follow through of their takeoffs. They only point their free foot toe while keeping their landing foot flat. Besides possibly rotating faster, this causes Caroline to appear lower off the ice. Remember, her landing leg is already straight as she reaches the apex of her jumps and her toe is pointed.
Previously, when watching her jumps, it seemed odd to me that Caroline seemed to float in the air longer than the other ladies, like she was defying gravity. The other ladies appeared to jump higher (Mao and Yu-Na definitely do jump higher, but I'm not so sure now about the others), but for some reason it appeared that Caroline had the same hang time as the other ladies. I thought that was an illusion due to her faster rotation. Now I think it's due to both, that Caroline rotates faster and that she jumps higher than it appears. This also explains why it appeared to me that the other ladies came down faster -- because they point their landing toes after they reach the apex of their jumps.
On the bright side, this was Caroline's best Nationals. She also perhaps had her best FS of the season.
She always seems to struggle at Nationals. She scored 122.19 points in 2006, 151.88 points last year, and 173.16 points this year. She had 2 falls and 4 downgrades in 2006, 2 falls last year, and no falls and 2 downgrades (one of which the technical panel wanted to rescind) this year. So her Nationals jinx is decreasing ...
For junior worlds, I hope that she'll do what she did last year and make small improvements to all aspects of her skating.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
What an interesting point!
Michael Jordan had the longest hang time of all basketball players (by actual timing, not just appearance. Elgin Baylor was second). But in addition, he seemed to be able to defy gravity by literally hanging in the air at the apex of the parabola for longer than is possible according to the laws of physics.
It was determined, by analyzing stop-frame footage, that what Jordan had learned to do was use his arms and legs to shift his center of gravity around, allowing him to keep his trunk at the top of the jump longer (if that makes sense
)I think male ballet dancers do something similar. They seem to hang in the air preternatually.
http://www.ballet.co.uk/images/abt/gs_corsaire_david_hallberg_split_jump_500.jpg
For junior worlds, I hope that she'll do what she did last year and make small improvements to all aspects of her skating.
Her coach summarized their experience at nationals.
http://blog.sina.com.cn/limingzhublog
She said they communicated with the judges after SP and they told her the downgrade was a mistake. Somebody obviously pressed the 'wrong' button but there's nothing they could do to 'rescind' the decision. She was in tears at LP because Caroline Zhang was under tremedous pressure due to her miscues from SP. She was relieved that Caroline withstood the pressure.
They were originally planning to rest for one week since they didn't plan to go to Jr. Worlds. They were planning to improve her technique, preparing the SP and LP for next season. Now the plan has changed a bit since U.S. federation wants them to go to Jr. Worlds so they don't have time resting.
I hope she'll have a terrific time at Jr. Worlds, and embarrass those U.S. judges who gave her a hard time for whatever reason. My take is that those judges were holding grudge against Caroline because they didn't like the media hype and decided to seek revenge on her.
Why would any judge be seeking personal revenge against Caroline? That kind of thought worries me. I really want to believe that it was an honest mistake on the tech caller's part. Looking at the final scores alone, it wouldn't have changed placement, but who knows? Caroline could've, and should've, received higher pcs had she skated in the final group. While I don't buy any conspiracy theory, I hope the federation owes Caroline big time. And I don't want them doing any special favor to Caroline, but I hope they will treat Caroline fairly in the future.
It's not just that one mistake. When you compare Caroline Zhang's scores at National to other skaters such as Wagner/Flatt/Mirai, there's definitley bias against her.
Caroline stepped out of a 3+3 in SP and did a clean LP, she scored about 175 in total at Nationals, in GPF, she had a perfect SP but fell on a jump(downgraded as well)in LP, she scored about 175 in total. So there's obvious no National inflation.
Wagner/Flatt/Mirai all scored monstrously at Nationals. I don't have time to review their scores, but believe Wagner was about 180 in total? Wagner's performance at 4cc was comparable to her performance at Nationals. She did two 'clean' programs as 4cc, guess what scores she got? 150+. Huge national inflation.
I'm sure Jr. Worlds will reveal more about this bias against Caroline Zhang. Let's see whether Flatt/Mirai can repeat those monstrous scores when they have similar performances at Jr. Worlds.
Last edited:
I don't think USFS is mad, I think those judges are mad. They don't like her flutz, they don't understand why audience would prefer Caroline more when Mirai/Flatt/Wagner can also skate 3+3 programs.
That reminded me of Sasha's split jumps.
pre·ter·nat·u·ral –adjective
1. out of the ordinary course of nature; exceptional or abnormal: preternatural powers.
2. outside of nature; supernatural.
---
Ah, that's why Li was crying. Her tears were one of the highlights of Nationals for me and hope that Caroline sticks with her for a long time.
I agree, but they also skated better than they ever had before. Wagner was probably underscored at 4CC.
I've seen Caroline in person at both 2007 & 2008 Nationals. She is indeed a wonder, BUT she is slow. She has moments of aggressive skating but when she approaches some jumps--2 axel particularly--she almost jumps them from a standstill. This year her FP was considerably faster than the SP (except in the approach to the above-mentioned jumps.) She emits a special aura in her skating that is very rare. She's can be spellbinding. I hope she and Mirai (whom I like equally for different reasons) battle it out for years to come. At present they are not a threat to a perfect Mao or Yu-Na, but that may change by 2010!!!!
I remember hearing somewhere that Caroline had trouble fully rotating her 2A's until only a couple of years ago. She was doing well on the JGP last year, but then she fell on it in the SP at National's, and after that her 2A entry seemed to have gotten slower and more cautious. Actually at GPF in the LP her 2A's were a lot better, garnering +.40 and +.60 GOE for the two 2A's. But at National's, somehow her 2A entry slowed down again...
Maybe she's trying to relearn her technique for the 2A. If you watch her GPF SP vs. LP, you can see that in the SP her toe-pick turned on the ice before taking off, and that slowed her entry down and made the 2A look more like a backward jump. In contrast, in the LP she didn't do that and so she carried a lot of flow from the stroking into the jumps, hence the faster entry.
This pre-rotation technique is also something apparent in Evan Lysaceck's 3A, and I noticed at 4cc, Mao Asada also did the same thing for her 3A. It doesn't necessarily mean a negative GOE, b/c obviously Mao got a positive GOE, and Caroline in her GPF SP also got a slightly positive GOE (+.20), but maybe the decrease in momentum/flow means the jump is more prone to UR (e.g. Evan & Mao).
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2006
Besides that wierd fall at the nationals in 07, caroline has always landed her 2 axel beautifully. She did not have that real slow entrance last year. I thought for a while that maybe her coach was working with her on a triple axel, and learning that made her scared of the double.
Totally agree.
Caroline fan asked about what is good basics?
I want to ask what is most graceful?
Whatever is the definition of graceful, I agree Caroline is graceful.
Some poster brought in Nagasu, and think that she is not as graceful as Caroline, she needs a better choreographer. LOL, last I check she is the reigning US national, she must be doing something right. Her sp is not childish, it is age appropriate.
IMO, Nagasu is more versatile than Caroline. Has Zhang EVER skated outside of her music comfort zone, ie slow, smooth pretty classical or GFB kind of music? IMO Nagasu is the one who is willing to interpret different styles of music from broadway to ballet.
Zhang is a better spinner, Ruh is or had been her spinning coach, you definitely see Caroline's ability to catch a sweet spot on the ice ala Lucindah, and I think if you give her the time, she can spend the whole day on that one spot . Nagasu's spins are excellent, she does well in COP, I am not half a bit worry about her not getting major points. Nagsu is equally or almost as flexibile, her spins have good position, and variation of positions. Same goes for her spirals.
In the past, Nagasu has NEVER beat a clean Zhang (head to head). Last yr at US jr nationals Caroline made mistake. This year, is a different story, Nagasu with a fall in the lp beat a flawless Zhang. Why??? Could it be possible that Nagaus has better basics? (IMO she has better presentation, or she works hard to present different styles of music and the essence of the music).
Back to topic, what ever the definition of graceful is, I agree Caroline is the most. Will "graceful" translate to gold medals etc, we shall see.
Netnuts, thanks for the translation! I thought I would add a little bit more details from Caroline's coach's blog.
On the scoring error in the SP:
"When Caroline's long program was about to end, people saw me being very emotional. In fact, I was really moved! That's because two of Caroline's triples were downgraded in the SP, but I believed there was no problem with the 3 flip. When I had a chance to have chat with the head judge, they realized that they really had pressed the wrong button. During the competition, they tried to give back the points, to make up for their earlier mistake, but because of technicalities in the rules, it was not possible to correct Caroline's score. In the end, she only got 7th in the SP."
Note: in Chinese verbs don't have tenses, so it's ambiguous from her writing (to me) the exact order of what happened -- whether her discussion with the head judge led to the attempt to correct the score, or whether during their discussion they admitted that they had realized the error and even tried to correct it, but that in the end they realized nothing could be changed. To me, this point is mute. Every skater/coach has the right to talk to the judges about their scoring, and if there's an obvious mistake then it seems perfectly reasonable to want to have it corrected it (after all you've worked so hard all year, in fact all life, for these few minutes' skating in front of the judges). But obviously rules are rules, and if they say once the next skater has started skating you can't change it anymore, then that's that. It just means that the judges were doubly incompetent -- making the mistake in the first place, and then not realizing that it was against the rules to change the score.
On her tears:
"Caroline's mental state was greatly affected by the placement (of 7th in the SP), execution problems, and issues with the judges/tech panelists, we had to somehow leave behind the disappointments (of the short program). Therefore, when I saw how Caroline gave her everything to attack every element in the long program performance, I was really moved by her fighting spirit, I was so happy for her, and so proud of her!"
On the future:
"After the competition, everything starts anew at square one. Both experiences of success, and the lessons of failures, will become a source of learning for future training and competition..."
To be more precise, I think it was more the tech panel and not the judges. True Caroline should've gotten higher PCS in the LP, but she was skating in the penultimate group and statistical analyses have shown that skating order has a significant and dominant effect (over other extraneous factors) on PCS scoring. So that wasn't necessarily bias against HER. But the tech panel wrongly downgraded her 3Lz in the SP, graded her spiral sequence and last combo spin both level 3 (when she's been consistently graded level 4 in int'l competitions), and turned a blind eye to Ashley's flutzes and some of Mirai's UR's.
The trouble with giving the tech panel so much power is that it's a small group (3 people, though we don't seem to really know the exact power structure, which is probably more concentrated on one person than evenly spread among all three), versus a large judging panel that hand out the GOE's and PCS. It's much more likely that individual biases can have a big impact on the final score and thus placement through the tech panel than the judging panel -- the large size of which mitigates against individual biases. If just one or two people on the judging panel really dislikes Caroline for whatever reason (just look on FSU forum to see how many Caroline haterz there are!), then that's enough to have a discernible effect.
If Caroline's 3Lz hadn't been downgraded (a mandatory -3 GOE, like Ashley's 3F out of footwork at 4cc), she would've place either 4th or 5th, right around Kimmie's score, and she would've skated in the last group -- in which case she would've probably gotten slightly higher PCS. Plus the tech panel really should've caught Ashley's flutzes, and some of Mirai's UR's. And so the final outcome of the top four might have been somewhat different.
Tech specialists and judges are human too, and they have human opinions and make human mistakes. It makes no sense to separate the judges and tech specialists on separate panels, and make one very large and the other very small, and pretend that biases don't enter into the latter group. Somehow judges' countries are announced, but ISU pretends that tech specialists represent the ISU and not the individual countries. Come on, who are we kidding?!
Stupid rules like the tech panel is allowed to change its calls EXCEPT for downgrades and edge calls -- well, that's pretty idiotic too. Arbitrary or not, at least make these rules consistent!
Last edited:
No, they did NOT! She got two flutz calls in the LP, and the button-press mistake they made in the SP was probably because they meant to mark the 3lz 'e' instead of '<'. The difference is huge. Because she got a -3 GOE on a base value of a 2Lz, instead of a -1.6 GOE (what she's been averaging on the flutz this season) on the base value of a 3Lz. Plus having essentially a 1-triple SP (instead of 2) probably hurt her PCS as well.
So get that myth out of your mind ASAP -- National's judges/tech callers most definitely did NOT turn a blind eye to Caroline's flutz.
Sorry, my mistake. In any case, the edge calls at Nationals were extremely selective, especially in the SP.
No offense, but how can you possibly know that?
No offense, but how can you possibly know that?
