2026 Olympics: Free Dance

[moonvine]

I get that but that is marketing. So much money to be made by winners. Which is fine as there needs to be financial gain somewhere in this sport.

What I dislike about the Olympics is the pain and sometimes humiliation felt by those not getting the gold medal, even though they have been world champions. My heart still hurts for Patrick Chan. He did get his team gold but lots of listers here said he still wasn’t an Olympic champion. Whether he was or wasn’t, he was still an amazing and in his day a dominant skater. He brought high level artistry and athleticism to the sport. His music interpretation was breathtaking. So why should the “failure” to win gold at Sochi be more career defining than winning three world championships? But I recognize mine is a minority opinion.

If he got a team gold, he was an Olympic champion period.

 

[CoyoteChris]

I'm out of Ice Dance until Cizeron is gone. It's clear judges will hand over anything to him for just showing up. Did not watch yesterday as it was clear that was coming. As Ice Dance is not great overall I'm not loosing much and save myself from the "I'm the wonderful Guillaume 2.0 show". A twizzle with a clear fault does not deserve 4points GOE. Others invest in lifts and different programs. That's beneath him, of course.

Yes, the plus GOE for a muck up was a mystery. If the GOE was minus 2, I would have said, "OK, makes sense. " Look at my pic I took, he is out of the twizzel and she is still in. How is that not a minus?
I am trying to not be negative against C because of what wiki says he did to his former partner. Only the coaches and stable mates can confirm witnessing any of that possible behavior, but I have never been a fan of his. No charisma. Davis and white had charisma. Tan and Ben and the shibs had charisma....C is a technician...

 

[CoyoteChris]

I will never be over the blatant corruption of Montreal worlds. Nobody could watch that and think that Piper and Paul shouldn't have been world champions.

Piper and Paul's reactions made the competition for me. I love seeing medallists who are so happy.

Wasnt that a good feeling to see skaters who acutally have charisma and talent get a medal? Who make you feel when they skate? Who can act like they are going for an acadamy award while skating?

 

[DancingCactus]

We've all been taking about how the judging has been rigged in favour of IAM teams for years. It was absolutely obvious these last 2-3 world cups with Piper and Paul and the Italians getting pushed down and C/B being treated like they were classes above even with falls and tiny twizzles.

Now we have Guillaume being pushed on top of the already strangely judged pile. It just stinks from several directions now.

P/P had better twizzles than the other two by far. C/B had tiny, slow ones and Cizeron had a step out.

 

[CoyoteChris]

Sorry if this was already mentioned. There is a petition for an investigation of the French Judge.

The Skating Lesson​

trspSdoone753u13auiifi9i33a841848142f68h7cuu038t2u0uhi72t749 ·


“Yet despite their errors, a French judge awarded them a score nearly eight points higher than the Americans. In fact, five out of the nine judges favored Chock and Bates, but they missed out on gold by 1.43 points.
The French judge's scorecard stands out as a clear outlier, ultimately giving Beaudry and Cizeron just enough to edge out the other judges' scores.
In response to the controversy, a petition was created on Change.org

, calling for an investigation into the judging.
"The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Skating Union (ISU) must take decisive action to ensure that all judging in the Winter Olympics remains impartial and meticulous. It is imperative that an independent investigation be launched into the judging process of the Ice Dance event in question," the petition reads.”
Link in the comments. If you sign, please leave a comment and let us know why.

 

[CoyoteChris]

Olympic skating scandal sparks petition to investigate French judge

A major scandal emerged during the Ice Dance competition, and a petition has started to investigate the judging.

www.newsweek.com

 

[Skater Boy]

The man covered it like a pro; it didn't even look like he finished earlier; they just looked out of sync. They looked really powerful and impressive, I must say. C/B chose the wrong material for that FD. If they could have matched or even come closer with respect to skating skills, the gold would have been theirs. You don't take a Latin piece and then give it no Latin flair. It came across, honestly, as flat and pretentious. It's like comparing the artistry of Nancy Kerrigan with Oksana Baiul. When we look back objectively, we'll see FB/C won fair and square.

FB/C free skate did not come off as smooth or lyrical or fluid here. The magic wasn't here like we've seen it forget the errors. Even the costumes didn't register as well here.. No I don't think a lot of us will see how they won. But I would say maybe all three medallists should share gold. There is something a bit odd A canadian lady just a few months ago now is a gold medallist for France. Ice dance was just so full of wonderful drama on and off the ice. An IAM sweep was prevented. Now who will go to worlds. I hope Piper and Paul will go but I fear no. They may be exhausted iin gett ing that bronze. To the Brits you are still the most entertaining team and you did not miss a medal by much. ZK should be thrilled. They could be on the world podium as early as next month. The two teams that I said my slip down the ladder did the Brits and Careirra and Ponomarenko. Its not that tey aren't good but there are so many good teams. Now I wonder who will go to worlds and who at the end of this season will retire? I don't feel too bad for the italians. They have team bronze and honestly they were no where near the podium.

 

[CoyoteChris]

Have you seen this petition yet?

Require the IOC and ISU to Investigate the Judges Awarding France the Gold

c.org

 

[FSFan1999]

Piper and Paul should have won the FD. As for the rest, I struggle for a clear opinion.

Judging generally speaking was a shambles (as skating scores breakdown suggests). The fault is the weighting of choreo elements, lack of level score differentiation in scales of values, and lack of technical differentiation in calling (either from the simplicity of element requirements or from lack of strictness in level calling).

 

[rinkside_user]

Compared to the Olympics where the last or the last few performances were outstanding (a close fight in 2010-2018 and a clear winner in 2022), this was kinda meh and underwhelming: one team is technically much better but ewwww on a very different level (MAJOR side eye), the other is lovely but technically inferior and kinda slow, with the third team basically flying to the Moon and getting a pat on the back for that. The other teams are left with a sour mouth and are bawling their eyes out. I feel for them and for all of us. It was not an Olympic moment from the top teams, except the astronauts.

Btw, I tried to check the different commentaries and, out of the languages I speak, none pointed out the mistakes of FB/C.

Can we skip Worlds and jump to the next squad, please?

 

[CoyoteChris]

FB/C free skate did not come off as smooth or lyrical or fluid here. The magic wasn't here like we've seen it forget the errors. Even the costumes didn't register as well here.. No I don't think a lot of us will see how they won. But I would say maybe all three medallists should share gold. There is something a bit odd A canadian lady just a few months ago now is a gold medallist for France. Ice dance was just so full of wonderful drama on and off the ice. An IAM sweep was prevented. Now who will go to worlds. I hope Piper and Paul will go but I fear no. They may be exhausted iin gett ing that bronze. To the Brits you are still the most entertaining team and you did not miss a medal by much. ZK should be thrilled. They could be on the world podium as early as next month. The two teams that I said my slip down the ladder did the Brits and Careirra and Ponomarenko. Its not that tey aren't good but there are so many good teams. Now I wonder who will go to worlds and who at the end of this season will retire? I don't feel too bad for the italians. They have team bronze and honestly they were no where near the podium.

1. Well, I hope they all go to worlds
2. The petition to investigate the judging now has over 6,000 signatures
3. This worlds is a great opurtunity to stress test the ice dance judging system. Three separate off site tech/judging panels blind to the actual scores and each others score the events. If the ranking is dramatically different, the system needs to change...and NOW.

 

[ManyCairns]

That's not completely true and not my point. C/B lost here and there occasionally - 4CC, even a Grand Prix. And they weren't receiving stellar scores at the beginning of the season like FB/C did with obvious issues. And it does not change the point that Cizeron's programmes are an endless repetition. It's interesting to watch what skaters come up with each season, especially ID. It's not interesting to watch what he comes up with - it will be the same thing in another costume with another piece of music. It does not even matter which music it is. He has weak points - twizzles aren't great, at least this season, and lifts are generally meh. Saying spectacular lifts disrupt the flow of the program is a very weak excuse. Of course there are around spectacular lifts which accentuate the flow of the program ... he simply does not want to do one ... it's the fault of that he can get away with it. So it is not the case that he has a massive cushion over others like Malinin when he makes very visible mistakes. Think about the variety of programs Virtue/Moir came up with. From an ethereal Mahler to Moulin Rouge.
... .

Very well said. Cizeron absolutely does some things amazingly, wonderfully, awesomely well -- the basic skating, the power, the speed, being ANGSTY. But he seems a one-trick pony, especially for FDs. His efforts at choreographing for others really brought that home to me - this specific type of one emotional mood program is virtually all he does, over and over and over. Within a program, there is little emotional light and dark; it's all the same mood, more or less. And each program is basically that same mood. Maybe I'm over generalizing or forgetting some other types of FDs he does well??? I probably am, but boy, that is all I think of when I think of his skating! Gauzy material and fixed pained expression programs.

As to whether there was unfair judging at these Olympics -- what the British judge did with highballing and lowballing certain teams seems very suspect, and Laurence and Guillaume got some overgenerous GOEs on flawed elements in the FD imo. I also felt their programs lack complexity, but given their strengths, I can indeed see a case for their win.

OTOH, Madi and Evan were much cleaner and brought the attack, have intricate choreo, and though their speed isn't the same as the winning couple, it is at least average, and they were ON last night.

Still, I would have given Piper and Paul the FD win for their combination of speed, power, choreo, amazing story telling within the program, and emotional maturity -- all the while skating so much in hold. Classic dancing. SUBLIME.

All just my fan-only opinion, of course. Overall there were SO VERY MANY WONDERFUL PERFORMANCES last night! There really were!

 

[CoyoteChris]

FYI this article has now been updated as of today, and C. Brennan is doing an article about the French judge.

An abuse investigation. A new French ice dance team. And a gold medal up for grabs

An ex-partner's ban led to Laurence Fournier Beaudry, Guillaume Cizeron partnership. Now, they challenge USA's Madison Chock, Evan Bates at Olympics.

www.usatoday.com

 

[CoyoteChris]

Love this pic!

 

[shan22044]

Chock and Bates are about to be interviewed on Peacock. Sometimes it's hard to tell how live things are but I'm watching live hockey and the host said that they won the silver "last night".

 

[susanf]

Last bits of gossip - I ended up sitting by and befriending one of the judge’s mothers. She was telling me that after each competition, the judges have to stay on and justify every mark and GOE they gave to each team. If judges seem to be biased for certain teams or their own nations over a few competitions, they get into big trouble. I thought that was interesting as it seems they really are monitored closely. So take from that what you will.

It's adorable that she really thinks that happens. (Edited because I am a grammar nerd. Italics and bolding are my own)

 

[shan22044]

• Maddie is saying it's been a rollercoaster of emotions. They're happy to see their mothers.
• Evan says they have solace and no regrets in the fact that they skated their best all four times.
• Maddie says they'll take away the that they performed 4 gold medal performances.
• Evan says all athletes will experience the thrill of victory and the agony event, but they skated a gold medal performance and they did absolutely everything they could do.
• They'll continue going through the waves of emotions and coming to terms with everything and reflecting on their careers. Evans joked about 2034 in Salt Lake when asked about retirement.

This was a nothingburger. They have put on somewhat happier faces but are clearly still pretty miffed. They're also careful not to say anything overtly negative about anyone.

 

[throw_triple_flip]

I hate the schedule so much. There's no reason the pairs should have to compete two days in a row with the way ice dance and men's singles alternated.

There are other uses for venue during the games. The schedule likely reflects that. I have admit I don't get why they alternated men & dance and not women & pairs though.

 

[CoyoteChris]

• Maddie is saying it's been a rollercoaster of emotions. They're happy to see their mothers.
• Evan says they have solace and no regrets in the fact that they skated their best all four times.
• Maddie says they'll take away the that they performed 4 gold medal performances.
• Evan says all athletes will experience the thrill of victory and the agony event, but they skated a gold medal performance and they did absolutely everything they could do.
• They'll continue going through the waves of emotions and coming to terms with everything and reflecting on their careers. Evans joked about 2034 in Salt Lake when asked about retirement.

This was a nothingburger. They have put on somewhat happier faces but are clearly still pretty miffed. They're also careful not to say anything overtly negative about anyone.

Exactly my take from NBC Today show interview...though Maddie didnt rule out being at the next olys in some capacity (her words).
The skaters and the coaches need to stay above the fray and not get involved.....unless of course they are called to testify and they know something.
The agony of da feet is real and maybe if the defeat has real basis then its a bit easier to take.

 

[ladyjane]

Remember the time when Maddie and Evan won despite a fall (that's a real big mistake)? I forget the year, it was one of their WC Golds. Were we discussing the judging then so much? Yeah a few people were, but that was it.

Don't get me wrong, I thought they skated very well yesterday, it was a WC then, not an OG, but still. I think it's hypocritical to discuss, even set up petitions when it's one particular team, and not when it's another. If anyone should have asked for such investigations it should have been Piper & Paul or Charlene & Marco.

And, now I'm out of here, because I expect the hate of my opinion to come in full force.