Predictions!

[R.D.]

It should be in the eyes of the Beholder. Who am I to tell someone else what is or is not "beauty" or "elegance"? Granted, there are some "common standards" but other than that, it is completely subjective.

Rochette is not my favorite skater by any means. But I do admire her honesty and openness with her fans. I think she will try her best here and at least grab a medal. Can she duplicate what she did at SC? I say no, but even if she did, those 120+ scores ain't happening.

JMO.

 

[Andalusia]

I wouldn't compare Rochette to a drag queen, but I hardly think she exudes elegance either. She just doesn't have it, IMO.

I also think it's ***** to cast aspersions on someone's taste just because their preferences differ. It's one thing to say "You don't see the elegance I see in her", and another thing entirely to say "You don't know elegance when you see it".

 

[shine]

If someone is entitled to his/her opinion that "I think Joannie skates like a guy in drag. No elegance, so stiff, so mechanical.", so are others entitled to think that his/her comments are pretty ridiculous.
And I believe my original question was asking what part of Joannie Rochette's score was super inflated, and if you think that if someone comes out and tells me that it's because that she skates like a "man in drag" and hence she is over marked, justifies the over marked comments, so be it.

 

[chuckm]

As I've said before, Rochette is a fine technical skater. I find her to be a bit stiff in the upper body, and Rochette herself alluded to that in her latest message to her fans on her website; she said she was working on ways to improve that aspect of her skating.

 

[museksk8r]

How can anyone still complain about Joannie being "stiff" after her showing at this season's Skate Canada? I don't get it! If she's still considered "stiff", then I guess Yu-Na, Mao, Yukari, and Carolina are "stiff" as well.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Well, I could talk about YuNa's club foot spiral and her no attitude layback spin, but I wont.

 

[Wrlmy]

Ladies:

1 Mao Asada
2 Joannie Rochette
3 Caroline Zhang
4 Anastasia Gimazetinova
5 Elene Gedevanishivili

Men:

1 Takahiko Kozuka
2 Brian Joubert
3 Patrick Chan
4 Ryan Bradley
5 Alban Preaubert
Pairs:

1 Savchenko/Szolkowy
2 Mukhortova/Trankov
3 Duhamel/Buntin

Ice Dance:

1 Delobel/Schoenfelder
2 Kerr/Kerr
3 Faiella/Scali

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Whoops. I put this in the Russia file instead of here. I'll have more to say after I've watched TEB.

Kozuka, Chan and Abbott already have one gold each. There are 3 golds left in this series (not counting the Final). Also Weir,Bradley and Carriere each have silver. There are 3 silvers left. The six so named will want a repeat. Therefore, Joubert must get a gold here, but so must Preaubert. Failing to win or place, will be good for the fab six.

It's a must see event. Joubert and Preaubert versus Chan, Kozuka and Bradley with Abbott (COR) and Weir and Carriere (NHK) checking it out.

It doesn't get better than this.

 

[zephyrskates]

Ok I know this question isn't directed at me, but I think Joannie skates like a guy in drag.

BEST. LINE. EVER. That's too harsh if you ask me, but you just made me smile with that line. I don't know if you're saying that as a joke, but that I can't stop smiling.

 

[PolymerBob]

Rochette is not my favorite skater by any means. But I do admire her honesty and openness with her fans. I think she will try her best here and at least grab a medal. Can she duplicate what she did at SC? I say no, but even if she did, those 120+ scores ain't happening.

JMO.

I like Joannie. Not only for her skating, but for her humility and soft spoken, demure nature. ( Not to mention her bulging biceps ! ) With that said, we can't ignore history. She hasn't won a competition outside Canada in 4 years, and for that matter, has only done so 3 times in her life. Podium? maybe, Gold?, don't see it happening.

 

[shine]

As I've said before, Rochette is a fine technical skater. I find her to be a bit stiff in the upper body, and Rochette herself alluded to that in her latest message to her fans on her website; she said she was working on ways to improve that aspect of her skating.

Yes, and many people actually saw the improvements and agreed with the better component marks which reflected such improvements. I am not saying that she hadn't come across a bit stiff in the past and I personally also felt that she desperately needed to improve in that aspect. But just because she had been stiff before, doesn't mean she couldn't have improved by Skate Canada. And in fact, she did. Why is it so hard to see this?
I just don't see why some keep saying she was overmarked because this is the best score she has ever received and the competition happened to be in Canada. It's not like Joannie hasn't skated in Canada several times before and when she did she rarely got these "inflated" marks - so why wasn't she over marked then??
She has scored nearly 120 in an LP in the past with some minor issues, so I don't see why a score of 124 with that particular skate (which I personally thought was the best LP performance by her to date) is deemed inflated.

 

[Tonichelle]

General Reminder: take personal issues with posters off the board - if there's something truly offensive use the report feature. Seems a lot of people have forgotten that this season.

 

[R.D.]

general reminder: Take personal issues with posters off the board - if there's something truly offensive use the report feature. seems a lot of people have forgotten that this season.

No Kidding

 

[ks777]

wow, a man in drag? LOL, how funny. Some of the japanese fans on a japanese board were saying Joannie looks like a drag queen!! Of course she doesn't look like a drag queen at all, that's why it's funny! I really enjoy her skating this season.

 

[chuckm]

She [Rochette] has scored nearly 120 in an LP in the past with some minor issues, so I don't see why a score of 124 with that particular skate (which I personally thought was the best LP performance by her to date) is deemed inflated.

But she also had 'minor issues' in the SC FS: she fell out of the landing of the 3S in sequence, she singled the second axel in the 2A sequence, she got -GOE on her upright spin and her final combination spin, and she ended the program after the music. Yet she got a big bump in PCS on home ice for delivering the same kind of performance that she's done in the past.

I thought Joannie's SC performance was very good, but it really wasn't that much better than some of her very good performances in the past. But she did it at SC, where last year and other years she hasn't performed particularly well. So this year, she got a big home ice PCS gift.

 

[propronia]

Remenber one spin was reduced in the LP. If you want to compare Rochette's 124+ score with the past ones, it should be 128+ points. This is higher than Arakawa's LP at Torino Olympics!

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Remenber one spin was reduced in the LP. If you want to compare Rochette's 124+ score with the past ones, it should be 128+ points. This is higher than Arakawa's LP at Torino Olympics!

Arakawa's Olympic routine was not nearly as good as her Worlds 04 routine.

 

[Kinga]

Well, it's not like skaters such as Kim and Asada haven't received extremely generous PCS on a even more consistent basis.

I agree, sometimes they are overscored too!

Asada and Kim receive high PCS scores no matter where they skate, and it's because they skate consistently well. At the Senior level, Asada is the 2005-2006 GPF Champion, won GPF medals in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008, was a World 2007 medalist and is the reigning World Champion; Kim has medaled at Worlds 2007 and 2008, and is the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 GPF Champion. Both are former Junior World and JGPF Champions. If they receive high PCS scores, it is because they skate at a high level every time out.

You cannot compare Joannie Rochette to Kim and Asada in terms of consistency and international achievement.

I just dont understand what consistency has to do with a PCS score for a SINGLE performance?? So, because someone is pretty consistent, should always get high PCS?? That it not how it should work. This is something that we all whine about - no 'reputation' reward, just fair judging.

 

[chuckm]

Remenber one spin was reduced in the LP. If you want to compare Rochette's 124+ score with the past ones, it should be 128+ points. This is higher than Arakawa's LP at Torino Olympics!

Not quite. Joannie's spins are her weakest element and she doesn't always get L4 on them. Her best SC spin got only 3.4 points, and she got -GOE on the other two spins, receiving less than 3 points on each.

At CoR 2007, Joannie received 119.35 for what turned out to be her best intermational FS of the year. In that performance, she had mistakes in the same places as at SC 2008: a turnout in the 3T+3S sequence, and a bad landing on the second 2A in the 2A sequence. But she didn't receive any -GOE on spins at that performance, so technically it was better.

Here is the score breakdown between the two performances:

Total Score, TES, PCS, Event

119.35, 64.71, 54.64, Joannie Rochette CoR 2007
124.15, 63.99, 60.16, Joannie Rochette SC 2008

As you can see, the score increase is nearly all due to elevated PCS scores. I would be surprised to see Joannie receive PCS scores as high anywhere other than on home ice.

As for comparing Joannie to Arakawa, please---Arakawa had ALL L4 spins in her OGM FS, and she (deservedly) received high GOE on all of them, as well as on all her other elements.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

I just dont understand what consistency has to do with a PCS score for a SINGLE performance?? So, because someone is pretty consistent, should always get high PCS?? That it not how it should work. This is something that we all whine about - no 'reputation' reward, just fair judging.

You're better than me. I don't even understand the PCS scores except it has nothing to do with beautiful skating.