Which skater(s) know the CoP best?

[Bennett]

I often find the rules pretty complicated. I was wondering which skaters and their coaches may know the CoP best.

My picks are:

Shizuka & Morosov team at the Olympics

Shizuka changed her planned 3S-3T to 3S-2T because the landing of the first jump was not good enough. She could have landed the second triple, but didn’t want to take the risk because a little underrotated jump could have been subject to double penalty (downgrade and minus GOE). Without having known the rule by heart and having done calm, cool calculation, she couldn't have been able to change her plan on the spot like that under enormous pressures.
Shizuka also got the highest levels on spins and steps, except for the level-3 straight line steps (few skaters get level 4 on it). Her spirals were not only spectacular, but also earned huge points.


Jeff & Lee Barkell team

They are generally good at getting levels. I think that the CoP is for people who are detail-oriented and analytically skilled. I feel that Jeff’s being intelligent and good at analytical thinking and math, on top of his skills in skating, may have helped him earn scores.
IMO, his detailed, intricate programs are so undermarked in PCSs.


Yuna & Brian team

Her LP choreo might not have been as intricate and detailed as that in her previous LP. But I think that it helped Yuna to focus more on doing all the required elements.
Also I feel that Yuna’s calm, cool nature is an advantage under CoP. Under CoP, skaters need to be able to calmly count while doing spins and spirals. She has barely failed to get intended levels.

 

[Tinymavy15]

I say Takahashi, Solchenko and Solchowy, Yu-na Kim and Sasha Cohen.

 

[McWicked]

Mao Asada!!! and mostly all the japanesse skaters.

 

[museksk8r]

Yu-Na
Jeff and Daisuke
Savchenko/Szolkowy
Virtue/Moir

 

[dorispulaski]

The best COP skater is not necessarily the one who wins the event, but the one who gets the most COP points on the tech side, given his (or their) abilities. Especially impressive are those skaters who can make changes on the fly to compensate for mistakes.

Shpilband in dance, I think, knows dance COP best. And conveys it to all his students.

Probably the most impressive COP move I saw this year was from Charlie White, who was interviewed about doing 5 twizzles in a sequence when Meryl did 4. He said, I didn't manage to grab my foot on the first twizzle, so I did the extra one so we would still get the level. At the speed that Meryl & Charlie do twizzles, this is some fast thinking.

Buttle and his team for men. Buttle can add and drop jumps and combos without making silly mistakes that some of the other men do with COP, like doing combos that don't count.

Pairs--it's not clear that any of them know COP. Or their coaches. For coaches, probably Delilah Sappenfield has it figured out the most. This is possibly because the rules seem to change more radically every year in pairs than in any other event. Up until this last year, I would have said John Baldwin on the skater side, but this last year he has not kept track of the 07 08 rule changes and consequently got caught with issues on death spirals, f/w, and pair spins that wouldn't have been an issue for them in previous years. Not doing the GP had a big effect on maximizing their points.

Ladies-I don't really follow them. Someone else should say.

 

[Mathman]

Personally, I think all coaches know the CoP inside and out. Why wouldn't they? It's their job. Would you hire a coach who doesn't know the scoring system?

I didn't manage to grab my foot on the first twizzle, so I did the extra one so we would still get the level.

This is what the CoP has reduced the sport to, in my opinion.

 

[Bennett]

I think it sometimes difficult to remember all the rules. Especially during the performance, they could make strategic mistakes in jumps in an attempt to compensate for earlier mistakes. I guess they need to think of all the possibilities in advance and decide what to do. But it can be very confusing.

Another thing is that some skaters have programs that do not allocate sufficient time to excute spiral steps and spins and fail to get intended levels. I heard that Morosov times the length of time that the skater needs to excute each element first, and then modifies the music to fit with the elements. As a music lover, I would like to see the music comes first. But as a competitive program, I think this strategy very smart.

I also heard that one of the reasons Shizuka went to Morosov was that Tarasova did not understand CoP as much as Morosov.

 

[demarinis5]

Kostner's team definitely.

 

[Hsuhs]

And, boy, were some of those carefully calculated performances boring :disapp:

 

[enlight78]

I think buttle's team is the smartest COP players because they formed the program not only to maximized points but also play to buttle strengths. The Japanese team did a good job of this also. I feel like other teams either try to maximize points but forgets the skater's weaknesses and strengths. Other teams take in the skater weakness and strengths but don't maximizes their points.

 

[Tonichelle]

Don Laws and Michael Weiss learned the CoP very quickly, IMHO and Mike benefitted from that greatly

unfortunately in 06 he popped that stupid 3A and that's what kept him off the team, if he'd gone for it and fully rotated it but fell he'd have made the team again not Matthew - but I think it was just a natural thing for Mike to pop it...

not saying I would have wanted him to beat Matt... Matt was flipping awesome that night!

 

[jennylovskt]

Jeffrey is not only an athlete with extraordinary artistic ability, but also a very smart person. He knows what he could do to work the system. The funny thing is that many people disliked his way of gaining the points by fully rotating the quad, but liked his way of not having quad, instead max out the points from other ways. To me, they were the same, and both were smart.

 

[KwanFan1212]

No doubt in my mind that Ingo, Aliona, and Robin all know CoP very well because their programs are always chock full of high scoring elements and the quality is very good too. Jeff Buttle and Jeremy Abbott (and their teams) also know the CoP very well.

 

[Bennett]

Kostner's team definitely.

I feel that one of Caro's strengths is that she has all kinds of triple jumps except for 3A. That makes it easier to maximize points.

She also tends to get higher levels in spins and steps. I think they have worked on them.

 

[Bennett]

I say Takahashi, Solchenko and Solchowy, Yu-na Kim and Sasha Cohen.

I agree about Sasha. She had jumps that had fairly high based values and earned a lot of points from non-jump elements. But it's funny she was saying nobody including herself understood CoP and that she found it frustrating. She might have happened to be the very skater who naturally fitted well with CoP (perhaps not now after strict rules on jumps have been introduced though).

 

[Mafke]

The funny thing is that many people disliked his way of gaining the points by fully rotating the quad, but liked his way of not having quad, instead max out the points from other ways. To me, they were the same, and both were smart.

Welll being many people myself, I disliked the first strategy because it put a big ugly fall in the program that disturbed the aesthetics and flow of the program (both of no consideration under CoP but of importance to fans). The second strategy resulted in a beautiful, coherent program that was far more than the sum of its parts (again a concept alien to CoP but familiar to fans).

So to me, they're not the same thing at all, even if both were smart strategically.

 

[Skye]

I remember, a couple of years ago, Buttle intentionally doubling a jump in the middle of his free program in order to avoid violating the Zayak rule. I'm not sure about his team strategy (I don't like the idea of having 3Lz as his final jump when his consistency on that jump is not the best) but Jeff himself is one smart guy.

I hate the cookie-cutter programs chreographed by Morozov, but the way he maximizes TES without sacrificing PCS is something to be admired. Ingo Steuer is another coach who does a good job in creating ugly but highly-scored programs.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Using the past tense of the verb, I would say Irina Slutskaya on her comeback trail. She had/has a flexible back and did Bielman like moves all over her routines and got so much extra credit for them. they weren't exactly true Bielman positions but they were WOWs for that time of the new CoP!

Joe

 

[demarinis5]

Using the past tense of the verb, I would say Irina Slutskaya on her comeback trail. She had/has a flexible back and did Bielman like moves all over her routines and got so much extra credit for them. they weren't exactly true Bielman positions but they were WOWs for that time of the new CoP!

Joe

I had forgotten about Irina. She was the Bielman queen and started a trend that was quickly picked up by the other ladies. lol

 

[Tinymavy15]

Kostner's team definitely.

you said it.