Was Yuzuru Hanyu's 2018 Olympic FS his ultimate "clutch" performance?

[formersk8ter]

You forgot Chen's: A hand down on the ice with negative GOE in the FS might not be an error to you, but it's an error to just about anyone else without an agenda.

I never claimed Chen skated a perfect free in 2018. He indeed had one hand down and, yes, that is an error. Other than that, his technical was so far ahead of everyone else, the judges had little choice to give him first in the FS, and by a pretty big margin. And, while Chen's program wasn't John Curry artistry, it was still decent by most standards.

 

[Arigato]

I never claimed Chen skated a perfect free in 2018. He indeed had one hand down and, yes, that is an error. Other than that, his technical was so far ahead of everyone else, the judges had little choice to give him first in the FS, and by a pretty big margin. And, while Chen's program wasn't John Curry artistry, it was still decent by most standards.

What you did was claim Hanyu had an error of some kind without mentioning Chen's. It struck me as odd. John Curry wasn't there. But Hanyu was. Chen on artistry: "If something you really want to watch is artistry, go watch ice dancing." Chen could stand in the middle of the ice and just jump up and down like a kid on a trampoline. Imagine the tech score. Impressive.

 

[yfan1]

I don't really disagree that Chen's Mao's Last Dancer was meh, despite the technical accomplishment and the deserved first place LP (although I'd have him ahead by 3 points tops). I thought it was a gorgeous program at the beginning of that season. By Skate America, it barely had any choreography left.

 

[NewLook]

Who cares if it was his personal "clutch" or not. Plenty of athletes go through injuries and achieved something while struggling. It's a personal Hanyu's problem and his fandom. What really matters for the sport is that he shouldn't have won that Olympics at all. He jumped only simple quads of Plushenko-Yagudin era while many others performed upper quads lutz, flip and loop. As the result he massively lost technically to a bunch of skaters, not to Chen only. He was helped to win by over generous GOE and ridiculous PCS. In a fair world the Olympic champion is Boyang Jin with his perfect quad lutz technique that was never rewarded by ISU. With Chen and his real toe quads on the 2nd and Uno on the 3rd. What also matters is that Hanyu's FS is not even near of the best FS performances in sport history. Here Malinin is way above everyone on the top and Chen is the second.

 

[yfan1]

Who cares if it was his personal "clutch" or not. Plenty of athletes go through injuries and achieved something while struggling. It's a personal Hanyu's problem and his fandom. What really matters for the sport is that he shouldn't have won that Olympics at all. He jumped only simple quads of Plushenko-Yagudin era while many others performed upper quads lutz, flip and loop. As the result he massively lost technically to a bunch of skaters, not to Chen only. He was helped to win by over generous GOE and ridiculous PCS. In a fair world the Olympic champion is Boyang Jin with his perfect quad lutz technique that was never rewarded by ISU. With Chen and his real toe quads on the 2nd and Uno on the 3rd. What also matters is that Hanyu's FS is not even near of the best FS performances in sport history. Here Malinin is way above everyone on the top and Chen is the second.

Boyang would nowhere be close to the Olympic title in a "fair" world. His 4th was correct. I do think his jump GOE compared to someone like Uno was too low, but then he also got a bit too high PCS comparatively, the gaps between him and the top 3 should have been larger. (I'd have given him around 68 in "my" scoring - Chen around a 71 for comparison, Uno high 70s, Fernandez probably cracking 80, and as already stated Hanyu around 85).

If we're really debating the rankings, I had the top three as 1. Hanyu 2. Fernandez 3. Uno.

Uno's jumps really had too many problems that were ignored here altogether. Hanyu skated with by far the best speed and performance ability IMO, and showed a good chunk of transitions. His spins were some of the better ones at this competition as well.

Man, just rewatching some of these, it's really stark how much lower the quality is compared to the worlds comp right the season before it. And this was before the dumbass rules that came into play the next season.

 

[TallyT]

Who cares if it was his personal "clutch" or not. Plenty of athletes go through injuries and achieved something while struggling. It's a personal Hanyu's problem and his fandom. What really matters for the sport is that he shouldn't have won that Olympics at all. He jumped only simple quads of Plushenko-Yagudin era while many others performed upper quads lutz, flip and loop. As the result he massively lost technically to a bunch of skaters, not to Chen only. He was helped to win by over generous GOE and ridiculous PCS. In a fair world the Olympic champion is Boyang Jin with his perfect quad lutz technique that was never rewarded by ISU. With Chen and his real toe quads on the 2nd and Uno on the 3rd. What also matters is that Hanyu's FS is not even near of the best FS performances in sport history. Here Malinin is way above everyone on the top and Chen is the second.

Ooooh, sour grapes much?

And by the way, Nathan, Ilia and Boyang really have nothing to do with the OP's question...

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

Who cares if it was his personal "clutch" or not. Plenty of athletes go through injuries and achieved something while struggling. It's a personal Hanyu's problem and his fandom. What really matters for the sport is that he shouldn't have won that Olympics at all. He jumped only simple quads of Plushenko-Yagudin era while many others performed upper quads lutz, flip and loop. As the result he massively lost technically to a bunch of skaters, not to Chen only. He was helped to win by over generous GOE and ridiculous PCS. In a fair world the Olympic champion is Boyang Jin with his perfect quad lutz technique that was never rewarded by ISU. With Chen and his real toe quads on the 2nd and Uno on the 3rd. What also matters is that Hanyu's FS is not even near of the best FS performances in sport history. Here Malinin is way above everyone on the top and Chen is the second.

Do you happen to know that there is something called scoring in Figure Skating, and that there are many parameters into a scoring, beyond a skater's biggest Base Value element in a skate?

 

[Magill]

Some people think figure skating is about quads only. But hear Brian Orser remembering Olympic practices from Korea, what really everyone - and especially judges - were watching while some quadsters were jumping their big quads on the side (time stamped for you) ... These were the times, sigh...



End of .

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

Some people think figure skating is about quads only. But hear Brian Orser remembering Olympic practices from Korea, what really everyone - and especially judges - were watching while some quadsters were jumping their big quads on the side (time stamped for you) ... These were the times, sigh...



End of .

This recalled me too... He didn't jump his Quadruple Jumps at the Open Practice. There are still people (fans!) who believe that he was trolling us? He does love to troll us but he wouldn't have skipped the Quadruples at the Open Practice before the Olympic Free Skate had he been able to jump them! He didn't jump them, he accepted to skate his Olympic Free Skate without having had a run-through with jumps before, and losing judging points too because it's known to help when judges can see the jumps in the Open Practice run-through, I can see no other reason than that it was an even bigger risk to jump them and to wear out his frail ankles and to be unable to jump them during the Free! Every time I see his Gala (Notte Stellata) Triple Axel and Delayed Axel I feel the gift he was doing us...
He was able to gather all his might to jump them once, and he was done.

 

[gsk8]

Chen on artistry: "If something you really want to watch is artistry, go watch ice dancing."

Can you please share where you got this quote from Chen?

 

[kiimnu]

Can you please share where you got this quote from Chen?

https://africa.espn.com/olympics/fi...hen-us-national-champion-spun-quad-jumps-gold

"If something you really want to watch is artistry, go watch ice dancing," Chen said. "I think with what we're doing now, we're bringing such an athletic aspect to the sport. I'm not saying anyone can be fully artistic, but it's easier to work on things like that than these jumps."

 

[4everchan]

So it's not Nathan Chen on artistry but on the fact that quad loaded programs, as it is nowadays required to win big titles are rarely focused on artistic content. I don't see anything wrong with stating the obvious.

 

[yfan1]

So it's not Nathan Chen on artistry but on the fact that quad loaded programs, as it is nowadays required to win big titles are rarely focused on artistic content. I don't see anything wrong with stating the obvious.

I thought poster was simply trying to say the program wasn't any good. But yeah, if the post is about Chen's "attitude" towards artistry, then... not all that different from the most of the men.

Hanyu actually showed it himself with that GPF 2019 5 quad long program performance. It was significantly weaker than his 3 quad and 4 quad outings in terms of PCS.

 

[TallyT]

not all that different from the most of the men.

And yet pretty much all these 'most' men in the top tier at the minute has specifically mentioned how they admire/idolise/are inspired by Yuzuru, Adam being just the most recent (named Yuzu and Yagudin as his idols, good taste my man), Ilia and Mikhail the most vocal, Yuma and Shun pointing to specific ways watching him has helped them... and so on.

 

[Arigato]

Who cares if it was his personal "clutch" or not. Plenty of athletes go through injuries and achieved something while struggling. It's a personal Hanyu's problem and his fandom. What really matters for the sport is that he shouldn't have won that Olympics at all. He jumped only simple quads of Plushenko-Yagudin era while many others performed upper quads lutz, flip and loop. As the result he massively lost technically to a bunch of skaters, not to Chen only. He was helped to win by over generous GOE and ridiculous PCS. In a fair world the Olympic champion is Boyang Jin with his perfect quad lutz technique that was never rewarded by ISU.

I remember your posts after Milan. First you slammed Shaidorov for winning and making history at the OLYG and now you suddenly return to slam Hanyu for winning the OLYG, but Jin should have won the OLYG in your view so, of course, it's just one giant conspiracy.

 

[TallyT]

Jin should have won the OLYG in your view so, of course, it's just one giant conspiracy.

I have to admit I blink at that. I mean, I really love Boyang and have since what, '15 or '16? but I think this is the absolute first time I have ever seen anyone claim he should have won not only above Yuzuru but also Javier and Shoma...

 

[yfan1]

And yet pretty much all these 'most' men in the top tier at the minute has specifically mentioned how they admire/idolise/are inspired by Yuzuru, Adam being just the most recent (named Yuzu and Yagudin as his idols, good taste my man), Ilia and Mikhail the most vocal, Yuma and Shun pointing to specific ways watching him has helped them... and so on.

And how do all these men you named skate the overwhelming majority of the time?

I have to admit I blink at that. I mean, I really love Boyang and have since what, '15 or '16? but I think this is the absolute first time I have ever seen anyone claim he should have won not only above Yuzuru but also Javier and Shoma...

Chinese judge from OG 2018 is insulted.

 

[Magill]

How they skate is not about what they prefer but about what IJS rewards and how judges assign TES and PCS points NOW, which is outrageous BTW. This is not about any single skater and their preferences, but about the system, and there is an ongoing discussion about it elsewhere on this board and beyond it, in ISU and federations themselves. So I don't think this thread needs to discuss it.

As for Nathan's quote, I do think there is his "attitude" in it, too, and a tad of contempt, too, looking down to artistry as "easier" which is not true at all. What is easier or more difficult always depends on for whom. Actually for skaters like Nathan and Ilia, and Misha, obviously jumps have been much more easier than artistry. For skaters like Jason Brown it is the other way round - artistry comes as easy as breathing while big jumps... not necessarily so. Skating is no different here than any area of life, in fact. What some find easy is difficult for others.

Yuzuru's phenomenon was that he was - and still is - great in both, which is why he was - and still is - widely considered the best round skater ever, the most complete one in history, having both big jumps and great artistry going way beyond PCS and making his appeal so universal and timeless, and GOATy. Javier and Shoma being similarly focused and great in both areas made this trio so famous and loved, and their era is looked back to with amazement and wonder, and longing, by millions of fans who think it the golden era of men figure skating. With Yuzuru's two OGMs being so well deserved crown, none of "big jumpers" were able to repeat it so far. And I do not see it happening any time soon.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

I have to admit I blink at that. I mean, I really love Boyang and have since what, '15 or '16? but I think this is the absolute first time I have ever seen anyone claim he should have won not only above Yuzuru but also Javier and Shoma...

Sorry, I'm getting quite off-topic. I must confess that while I've never attempted any rescoring (chiefly because I didn't bother to learn the specificities of the +3/-3 scoring) I have noticed that Javier Fernández and Shoma Uno (and of course, Nathan Chen as he was mentioned upper) had had some Technical Panel leniency and Judges enthusiasm while Boyang Jin had only had a little bit of Components generosity; and wondered if between Shoma Uno, Javier Fernández and Boyang Jin the PyeongChang Men podium had been quite right. Javier Fernández has long let known that he thought that he ought to have won Silver, but he seemed to have only noticed the problems in the scoring of Shoma Uno, not in his or Boyang Jin's.

How they skate is not about what they prefer but about what IJS rewards and how judges assign TES and PCS points NOW, which is outrageous BTW. This is not about any single skater and their preferences, but about the system, and there is an ongoing discussion about it elsewhere on this board and beyond it, in ISU and federations themselves. So I don't think this thread needs to discuss it.

As for Nathan's quote, I do think there is his "attitude" in it, too, and a tad of contempt, too, looking down to artistry as "easier" which is not true at all. What is easier or more difficult always depends on for whom. Actually for skaters like Nathan and Ilia, and Misha, obviously jumps have been much more easier than artistry. For skaters like Jason Brown it is the other way round - artistry comes as easy as breathing while big jumps... not necessarily so. Skating is no different here than any area of life, in fact. What some find easy is difficult for others.

Yuzuru's phenomenon was that he was - and still is - great in both, which is why he was - and still is - widely considered the best round skater ever, the most complete one in history, having both big jumps and great artistry going way beyond PCS and making his appeal so universal and timeless, and GOATy. Javier and Shoma being similarly focused and great in both areas made this trio so famous and loved, and their era is looked back to with amazement and wonder, and longing, by millions of fans who think it the golden era of men figure skating. With Yuzuru's two OGMs being so well deserved crown, none of "big jumpers" were able to repeat it so far. And I do not see it happening any time soon.

I supposed then that it was just a narrative to try to "justify" his lack of transitions, flat skating, etc? He's a special case in this topic, because regarding specifically artistry, he does have some and he has shown it occasionally, but he had that lack of body balance and that difficulty in doing proper footwork (how would he have evolved as a skater had he studied at the TCC, got Annie's Edges and all? He wasn't at the best school at all!) and a lack of stamina, I wouldn't say in the absolute, because most of the rest of the skaters who had stamina enough to do something Components-wise and sit their Sit Spins, didn't have the same Jump layout; but even when he had a simpler Jump layout, he was very limited in Transitions. Comparatively, Yuzuru Hanyu, who had had serious problems of stamina before 2014, had gained so much in this respect that he could have the most insane programs of all, adding four Quadruple Jumps AND two Triple Axels (Nathan Chen would never have a second), that is, a Jump layout as loaded as Nathan Chen's in "ultra-C" Jumps on top of his insane skates. Of course it looks so much less than what we can see now but to come back to the thread, in PyeongChang he was also showing the best stamina of all competitors, and I think that this is a notion that can be perceived by a notable fraction of the public.

 

[yfan1]

I supposed then that it was just a narrative to try to "justify" his lack of transitions, flat skating, etc? He's a special case in this topic, because regarding specifically artistry, he does have some and he has shown it occasionally, but he had that lack of body balance and that difficulty in doing proper footwork

Nathan didn't have amazing glide nor particularly noteworthy way of transferring weight. He was also never the fastest - it's pretty obvious at 2017 worlds where he was the slowest of the top 6 (of course, he was also the youngest of the top 6). To say he didn't have transitions and had "flat" skating is silly. Right in the PyeongChang LP you can see him do a spread eagle into a 4T, lol.

In the aforementioned 2019 GPF LP, one of the few times I thought he deserved to beat Hanyu on PCS, he does running threes, power pull into a 3A, as another example.

You can see in his Nemesis and Mao's Last Dancer and Philip Glass programs that he can do steps with great body movement and flow and depth of edge.

Chen's weakest component, btw, was interpretation. He never showcased a personal point of view in his skating (nor particularly interesting points of view, in my book). He also had problems with projecting to the audience when he was younger, but this was fixed as he grew older and more confident.

(how would he have evolved as a skater had he studied at the TCC, got Annie's Edges and all? He wasn't at the best school at all!)

He used to go to IAM to get his coaching...

As for discussions about "contempt" for artistry - I have to wonder how people reach the conclusion that Chen had contempt but all the others who don't skate well - in fact skate with worse line and skating skill and jump technique and spin technique than him - are somehow "only delivering what the TES and PCS require NOW" (aka Sato, Shaidorov; Malinin for everything apart from jump technique, and for that matter when it comes to jumps/spins Siao Him Fa, and when it comes to jumps solely, Kagiyama). Try not to let your own contempt for a skater cloud your judgment too much.