2025 NextGen Competition | July 17-20

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Lia Cho, FS, “Scheherazade” Next Gen 2025

 

[RatedPG]

I think they might give the fifth spot to William Chan after watching the team competition.

I like how Skate Canada for Next Gen pushed for 3A, triple triple, 3Lo and 3Lz 3T during the team competition. It shows what they are focusing on in terms of development of our stars.

3A - This shows who the big boys are. I’m surprised William was picked over Anthony Paradis for his respective team. It shows he is more likely more consistent with this jump than Anthony. William is young and needs international experience and this makes me think Skate Canada knows this and will give him selection over David Li. The other three chosen athletes were: David Bondar, Grayson Long and Eddie (no surprises). Although, this is where I was hoping Lia could attempt another 3A. But, she was on Eddie’s team.
Eddie won for best 3A. Grayson also landed his. David fell and William wasn’t even close.

For triple triple combos - Victoria won
3Lo - Jeffrey Chen won (gorgeous loop)
3Lz 3T - Lia and Anthony both landed this combo and they picked Lia’s combo to get higher GOE than Anthony. She wins everything this weekend

I loved this competition. It was fun

 

[Skating Bobr]

i think Grayson often gets the favour of Canadian judges.. I have no idea why.

For the low PCS of Bondar, it may have had to do with the relatively earlier starting order ? I mean, it's not supposed to happen that way, but it does.

Yeah, I get that, but I thought the reigning Canadian Junior National Champion would by this point have enough reputation in Canada to pull of an Adam Siao Him Fa and get on the podium. He also should not have been in the first warmup group.

With LPFSC, his 2024 PCS from there was more in line with what he got at 2024 NextGen (26.01/58.27 at LPFSC). So last year the American judges were in line with the Canadian judges, but not this year.

I'm expecting most of the men here to compete at Cranberry Cup, so that should be an interesting point of comparison with international judges.

I would also add that if you look at the scores from Cranberry Cup that happened 1.5 weeks AFTER NextGen, you'll see that David Bondar got 4+ points higher in PCS in each program at Cranberry Cup and that's with a free program that had a fall in Cranberry Cup and some q's and < whereas in NextGen it was clean. Then you look at what the Canadian judge gave him at Cranberry Cup (52.45) compared to judges from other countries (69.10, 63.27, 59.94, 62.45, 69.93) and one can't help but wonder. Granted, there is no footage of Cranberry Cup, but you cannot improve the PCS in 1.5 weeks by 4-5 points. In hindsight, he was underscored at last year's NextGen as well.

Also, upon further review, I would add that Parker Heiderich has also been underscored in PCS at both NextGen competitions. I think he deserved more and the consistency of his triple jumps is one of the best, so I would like to see him get another international competition like last year.

Just as Canadian judges are not the objective authority, neither are the judges at Lake Placid Champs or Aqua Cup. Both of these competitions were judged by domestic judges raised within the Japanese and American systems, respectively. American judges are used to a variety of skaters, but tend to be quite generous, sometimes unfairly so, while Japanese judges tend to be quite strict, again, sometimes unfairly so.

David Bondar's LPFSC PCS are higher than his highest international PCS, which might be warranted in the Short but not in the Free, and his NextGen PCS are in line with his NextGen PCS from last season. On the other hand, Grayson's PCS at NextGen are on par with his highest internationally in the Short, which again, might be warranted, and on par with his 2nd highest PCS in the Free, which I think is not warranted.

Realistically, David B was probably a little overscored at LPFSC and a little underscored at NextGen, while Grayson was a little overscored at NextGen and a little underscored at Aqua Cup (especially in the Short, as he was competing against Rio).

David B should have gotten higher scores at last year's NextGen as well, as I explained why to a response above. His Lake Placid PCS from this year are also on par with his JGP China scores from last year (32.84 in Lake Placid vs. 32.45 in JGP China for the short and 66.44 in Lake Placid vs 65.20 in JGP China for the free). While I would say his Lake Placid score may have been overscored, his short program was very fair.

I don't think the reigning Junior World Champion, Rio Nakata needed help from Japanese judges to get a higher score than Grayson. And the Japanese would never do something so dishonourable and they had no problems giving Grayson the gold in the free program. In the Aqua Cup short they gave him 1 point less in the PCS than he got at his 2 JGPs last year (Slovenia was a clean program). 1 point difference is not considered an underscore in my opinion. For the free, I only have speculation, not enough data to comment on since there was no video of Aqua Cup.

Having said all this, I would say Riga is going to Grayson Long, Victoria Barakhtina (Lia Cho is not eligible due to age), Dance are Veillon/Brandys, Pairs are Kemp/Elizarov, and probably two lower rank teams to maximize chances for more than one Canadian pairs to make it to the JGP Final. And yes, I know the decision was made before the NextGen competition started which is why I can't predict which 2 other pairs are being sent.

 

[Jumping_Bean]

David B should have gotten higher scores at last year's NextGen as well, as I explained why to a response above. His Lake Placid PCS from this year are also on par with his JGP China scores from last year (32.84 in Lake Placid vs. 32.45 in JGP China for the short and 66.44 in Lake Placid vs 65.20 in JGP China for the free). While I would say his Lake Placid score may have been overscored, his short program was very fair.

I said that his SP score was fair at Lake Placid (though I don't think we can argue about his SP PCS at NextGen either), but that his FS PCS were too high. There's no way a early season skate with a fall and an aborted spin should score higher PCS by over a point than his JGP China skate.

I don't think the reigning Junior World Champion, Rio Nakata needed help from Japanese judges to get a higher score than Grayson. And the Japanese would never do something so dishonourable and they had no problems giving Grayson the gold in the free program. In the Aqua Cup short they gave him 1 point less in the PCS than he got at his 2 JGPs last year (Slovenia was a clean program). 1 point difference is not considered an underscore in my opinion. For the free, I only have speculation, not enough data to comment on since there was no video of Aqua Cup.

For one., Japanese scoring is not somehow by default less biased than elsewhere, just because they're stricter across the board. Anyone who follows Japanese skating knows that some skaters have certainly been judged unreasonably harshly compared to others, and they are not unwilling to hold up some skaters in this way.

Did you look at the protocols from those three competitions?

1. Grayson didn't skate his SP clean at either JGP. In fact, his JGP Bangkok skate was a complete disaster, while his Aqua Cup Short was skated almost perfectly (slightly negative GOE on one of the spins).
2. Rio did not skate the Free, Daiya is not a favoured skater in Japan (he lost his second JGP spot last season after placing 5th with a 200+ score), nor successful enough to make judges - consciously or subconsciously - score him more generously.
3. Grayson had the higher BV and skated a clean program. - At the time tsuyoboogie (who I don't want to drag into this discussion, so I'm not tagging them) wrote this "I didn't see either skate but not sure if I agree with the disparity in scores"

 

[4everchan]

we know now we were deeply missing skating since we are now discussing scores over several competitions nice to have you back folks

 

[Kimmadigan]

Oh Calissa... you did a beautiful 3Lo, which was the tricky jump, then completely screwed up the ones you can normally do easily...

 

[Kimmadigan]

Yes beautiful 3Lo, nerves I’m sure on the other missed jump's. Will be watching her in California July 31-Aug-3 just love watching her program’s presentation has always amazed me with Calissa!