The men were the main reason why I went to France this year... How often do you get 3 top contenders in one GP? And they did not disappoint! The short program I wrote about in the competition thread.
Saturday morning I decided to go and watch the men practice. And it was overall one of the best decisions I have made in a while
An hour gives you a bit more time to observe than the 6-min warm-up and the 2nd group was particularly interesting to watch. I was trying to keep an eye on all 3 top contenders. Just their warm-up routine was revealing. Adam and Yuma were doing sth useful (so to say) all the time, going for steps and turns, edge exercises etc. Ilia skated around most of the time, doing some half-hearted edge exercises. He skated along Adam at one point doing a similar pattern on one foot (Adam head his leg bent up and held it from the ankle, Ilia swung his free leg lazily on the side) and Ilia almost tripped over his feet. They had a big laugh about it. But the difference in the quality and control over blades on ice between the two skaters was very clear.
The latter part of the session was cool because of massive number of quad attempts... Before his RT, Ilia started doing very big 3As and after 3-4 of those he went for the 4A for which I am very greatful especially as it did not come out in the competition.
The first group in the competition was interesting to watch because I started to think about the skating patterns and how that already discerns the good from the bad. Landry Le May and Luc Economides skated mostly from one end to another using mostly just 2-3 different jump positions, Le May probably did not come away from the vicinity of the middle long axis. Economides covered a bit more ice (and his steps were utterly delightful). Kataise and Shimada skated mostly in the left and center of the rink only visiting the right side briefly - Shimada's activities stopped exactly where the last judge in the right sat. The second group had variety in entrace patterns, lots of different places where jumps and other elements were placed. And they covered even the edges of the ice.
Boyang Jin was actually perhaps my biggest surprise despite the poor jumps. His skating skills and movement in general are beginning to resemble what a good skater should be. Good job, Brian! Hope all this does not come too late.
Camden Pulkinen has the slowest and most lethargic free I have seen in a long long time.
Lukas Britschgi is getting the consistency and although the free might be slightly politically incorrect, it fitted him quite well.
Yuma was impressive in the short, but the free felt a little empty for me, especially the first part. He had started to seem overtly cautious and never really giving much to his performance, but maybe working with Carolina Koster is starting to show. I felt also that the choice of music was a little bit unfortunate since Adam did that so masterfully in his short last year and the way the choreo for Yuma went along, it was a little bit like a poor man's version of the same. He has maybe yet to find the jackpot music and program choice.
Ilia chose to attempt quality over difficulty and it could have worked out. He still has a lot of work in making the skating skills work for his adavantage - eg the steps were s---l---o---w and uninteresting. His presentation is empty posturing, not much feeling in it. He is still young, though, I do remember seeing Nathan Chen at about the same age in Worlds 2018 and being majorly disappointed. Nathan got a whole lot better in the 4 years that followed... I think the panel liked him a bit too much - those PCS were really not in line with what Yuma and Adam did.
But my heart and the evening belonged to Adam Siao Him Fa. This was his 5th competition this season - most top men do 5 over the entire season... He has being doing brilliantly so far and I dared to hope that he would be able to do two clean programs also here. The short was exquisite and the free even better. I have no superlatives left really. The control, the intensity, the beauty of every movement, the truth in how he feels the music. I just loved every second of it.
And at the same time I thought that, yeah, just an amazing performance and then the panel will give him 8.75s tops... Was somewhat delighted to see that it was mostly 9s and above in the end. But what does he have to do to get really good scores? Get a US, Japanese or Canadian passport (Russian does not count at the mo)? I thank the Finnish and Chinese judges for the high scores!
It was truly a good competion, I was totally exhausted after it ended, skipped pairs and victory ceremonies, and went to my lodgings to get some sleep...
