Ok... I don't have much more to say about this... as I was posting all the way through... and in general, it was pretty much a well skated event except for two of the (MY) favourites.
Let's start with Cha : He actually didn't do so badly. In the warm up, he was awful. His timing was off. If only he had done a 2T after the Salchow... but he sort of twisted his angle on the 3t and it was just impossible to land. Kudos to him to land the 4t because it's not his best jump. Should he have done the 4s, 3lz-3loop ? Well... maybe but then, in the warm up, I am pretty sure I spotted a disastrous lutz. So who knows ? Adam : I unfortunately thought this may happen. Adam is capable of the worst and the best. He is not a "safe" skater. I am super sorry for him and for myself because I adore his programs and his dynamic and expressive skating but without the good landings on his jumps, it was a bit flat compared to what I would expect him to do. i hope both of them have redeeming moments in the LPs.
Wesley : not bad for first worlds. That's all I will say.
Roman : very good. I give him an A + really. Considering his injuries and misadventures, and also, considering I saw him splat on Tuesday's practice.
Shoma : a true mature artistic skater. This program needs to be seen live to be really understood. I have watched it all season and it's something else at the rink. Shoma blends with the music. His smooth stroking makes one with the musical phrases. It is truly amazing. The last time I have seen a skater do that was Patrick Chan. Huge compliment from my part to Shoma.
Yuma is just super talented at everything. HE IS amazing. He will do even better when he gets more into the emotion of the music. However, he does understand musical concepts, phrase, pulse and highlights. He was in tune with his program for sure.
Ilia : of course, his jumps are effortless and he deserves top marks for that. His spins have improved. They are not spectacular but you cannot take points away from him as they are fast, tight and centered.
What is lacking to me : skating skills, connection with the music (he does get alive and connect with the audience in some parts of the program), style. To me, it's very generic. The raspberry twist is super cool but it's not enough for me to see his "style of skating". If I close my eyes right now, I can see Shoma, Jason, Roman, Yuma etc... but I cannot see Ilia's personal style. He is young, he can get there but it's time he does something to define better his skating identity.
Happy for Jason and Lukas but at the same time, I was expecting, like many others to see Adam, Junhwan and Kao there.
Now... side note about PCS
I am not pleased. How can Ilia get 9.75 and 9.5 in PCS ? Same judge gave Jason 8.75.
To me, there are 3 or 4 skaters who did deserve the high 8s and low 9s today. Shoma, Yuma, Jason and Deniss. (deniss got lower than Ilia with 43 and dust)
Then, there are skaters who faltered but are good skaters : Jun, Kao and Adam. All three received 42 (8.4 to 8.5) which is fine with me. Lukas also got that kind of score for a good performance which is fair.
I would put Ilia below these skaters. Give him more points for presentation but less for Choreo and definitely less for Skating Skills.
I am not saying he deserves way less.. .just a bit less than his 44, so 40-42max.
I am not sure how in this world a guy like Roman who got only 38,6, with a good performance on top of that goes below someone like Selevko. or Memola (gosh his blades were so noisy... )
To me Roman and Camden should be getting above 40. No idea how Nika (38,56) got pretty much the same PCS score as Roman.
Finally, so many skaters are getting the same scores 33-36... are they all really even? It bugs me because with TES, a skater can really make an argument for their ranking... but if the judges give more or less the same score to half of the skaters, it just minimize the importance of PCS once more.
I just wished that skaters who care about improving the PCS aspect of their score would be rewarded, so it would become a great incentive to develop all aspects of skating. Not just aim to land big jumps.
PS : I love jumps. Especially live from the rink. They are marvellous to watch. But they still only happen 3 times in a 2m40 program... too few programs were really programs.
and the wonderful Montreal crowd behind him?
)
jumps clean, but it didn't look that great overall and I think his PCS are much too high in comparison to Shoma and Yuma
