Johnny Weir Not Skating this season

[shine]

Lambiel's programs this past season sucked. It was the most disappointing thing of the whole season for me. I love him so much but he failed to bring anything great to the table. His SP was actually very good for the last 1/3rd, but the first 2/3rds were a complete bore. He even fell into the recent CoP trend of putting all 3 jumping passes in the SP back-to-back-to-back. Very disheartening to see someone of his creative talent drop to such a banal level of choreography.

His LP simply didn't work at all. There weren't any particularly brilliant moments of artistry and as a whole it never created a special feeling. Massively underwhelming.

Well, for me La Traviata is classical at its best. He has never done a purely classical program like that so it was a nice aberration. The waltzy step sequences are definitely the highlight and he looked like an ice dancer; they are some of the most musical and elegant I have seen. It's a great shame that he never performed it up to its potential in the two competitions he skated at, but have you seen his performance of it in some of the shows? I can just watch those over and over. His Otono Porteno LP was simply an artistic masterpiece. I still wish he had kept it for the Olympics because I thought it was groundbreaking. IMO that would have been be the best program under CoP, ever, even more than Poeta.
His SP I'm also not too crazy about compared to some of the SP's that I LOVED (Scottish Fantasy, Spanish Caravan, Dralion & Blood Diamond), but I wouldn't say that it sucked...

 

[gmyers]

After he fell on the quad Takahashi really fell apart on jumps without actually falling a lot or popping. He did jumps wrong and so many URS! With the new rules I am sure he would have done better in the free skate. I am not sure with the new rules if Lambiel would have tried for slightly underroated triple axels rather than those quads.

 

[Blades of Passion]

As he deserved, Weir did beat Lambiel in technical elements, it was in PCS that Weir lost (because of his not CoP-friendly freeskate programme):

http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2010/SEG002.HTM

Also Chan had a CoP-friendly programme. Besides, one has to remember that Lambiel is a two-time World champion and Chan was a reigning World silver medalist. Weir unfortunately has only a World bronze medal. LOL, this is figure skating after all, and reputation means something...

So you're saying that skaters deserve better PCS because of reputation? Good argument.

Lambiel should not have received that high of a score. Thank God they at least gave Takahashi the highest PCS of the night, though, after robbing him in the tech score with 2 downgrades and also -GOE on his excellent Lutzes.

 

[Jaana]

So you're saying that skaters deserve better PCS because of reputation? Good argument.

No, I´m not saying that skaters with reputation deserve better PCS, but very apparently the judges have had that opinion for a loooong time. Never noticed skaters with major titles being held up in competitions based on presentation marks or nowadays PCS, hmmm? Or that skaters with reputation get high scores for something that they even don´t have in their programme (Plushenko for choreography & transitions and Joubert for transitions). And that is not something new in figure skating, already Irina Rodnina mentioned that first a skater works for a reputation and after that the reputation works for the skater. As an example e.g. 2008 Worlds, where Joubert got higher PCS than Buttle, who won the freeskate based on technical elements. Buttle definetely should have won both in technical elements and PCS! Joubert though was the reigning WC champion..., LOL.

 

[Blades of Passion]

Right, I just don't see the point in trying to explain poor judging. Rather than saying "oh, yeah, the judges gave this skater higher scores because he/she has more clout" we should be actively getting angry and pushing for better judging.

 

[PolymerBob]

That is such a joke. Marlie should have won or else Evan for winning the OGM. This award is losing credibility.

To some extent, the award is a popularity contest. Plus, I don't know if there is any safeguard against voting more than once.
There is an old joke ...... "Vote early, and vote often."

 

[Jaana]

Right, I just don't see the point in trying to explain poor judging. Rather than saying "oh, yeah, the judges gave this skater higher scores because he/she has more clout" we should be actively getting angry and pushing for better judging.

Well, I agree that a better judging is needed, it has been needed for a long time, LOL. One should feel angry towards judging and not towards those skaters who are getting reputation scores. It is though difficult to change something which has been a habit as long as I have watched figure skating. I sure hope that with the present scoring system one day in near fugure the judges will give scores for what actually happens on the ice in that particular competition.

I have to say that although I don´t always agree with the scores, the actual placements of the skaters I have rarely thought to be wrong.

 

[PolymerBob]

The problem with reputation judging is that it may not be intentional. It's like well executed jumps have a psychological effect on judges, making all the other elements look prettier.

 

[Blades of Passion]

Lambiel's jumps were messy and scratchy all way through his program vs. Weir landing everything perfectly (aside from the 3Loop, his weakest jump, but it was still clean). Patrick Chan's mistakes don't impress me either. Just silly that those two placed ahead of Weir.

Negative GOE needs to have a more significant impact on tech elements. Instead, the recent rule change for this coming season actually makes negative GOE have even less of an effect on scores.

 

[Tinymavy15]

The problem with reputation judging is that it may not be intentional. It's like well executed jumps have a psychological effect on judges, making all the other elements look prettier.

Right. there just no way to say "you can't judge this event with prior opinions/biais/knowledge." COP is a step in the right direction compared with 6.0, (think Kozuka cleaning up at his first GP and Kimmie's Worlds Win) but still isn't anywhere near perfect. Florent Amodio and Kozuka are still largely ignored for the Evans and Plushys of the world. PCS increase in relation to major titles. is it fair? no. but in a sport where so much is subjective, what can be done?

 

[Jaana]

Right. there just no way to say "you can't judge this event with prior opinions/biais/knowledge." COP is a step in the right direction compared with 6.0, (think Kozuka cleaning up at his first GP and Kimmie's Worlds Win) but still isn't anywhere near perfect. Florent Amodio and Kozuka are still largely ignored for the Evans and Plushys of the world. PCS increase in relation to major titles. is it fair? no. but in a sport where so much is subjective, what can be done?

On the other hand if a skater is really good, he will get high marks, although he has no or much reputation. Just thinking of Kulik in his first Europeans (10995), he won the event. Also in his second Worlds although he was second to skate in the whole sp, he still won the sp (and was second in over-all results). And all this was in the 6.0 era...

Lambiel's jumps were messy and scratchy all way through his program vs. Weir landing everything perfectly (aside from the 3Loop, his weakest jump, but it was still clean). Patrick Chan's mistakes don't impress me either. Just silly that those two placed ahead of Weir.

No, that is not silly at all. Yes, Weir was better in technical elements and that´s why the judges rightfully gave him higher scores than for Lambiel and Chan. As mentioned so many times, Weir lost because he did not have a CoP-friendly programme in a CoP-competition like Lambiel and Chan (and other top skaters with the exception of Plushenko who got reputation points) did. That is the reason why Lambiel and Chan rightfully placed ahead of Weir in the results.

 

[Blades of Passion]

No, that is not silly at all. Yes, Weir was better in technical elements and that´s why the judges rightfully gave him higher scores than for Lambiel and Chan. As mentioned so many times, Weir lost because he did not have a CoP-friendly programme in a CoP-competition like Lambiel and Chan (and other top skaters with the exception of Plushenko who got reputation points) did. That is the reason why Lambiel and Chan rightfully placed ahead of Weir in the results.

Bullsh*t. Lambiel's performance was nervous and uninspired throughout the whole thing. It's not CoP friendly to skate in a lackluster fashion. He got a massive reputation boost, plain and simple.

As for Patrick Chan - yes, he does lots of transitions, but his interpretation is quite lacking. There isn't much real emotion or true understanding of the music. It's just a bunch of (difficult) showboating choreography that doesn't really add up to much. Having LOTS of choreography doesn't necessarily mean you deserve a high choreography score either. There needs to be purpose and unity. The bullet points of the scoring system as it is written even specifically say that.

Weir's program had a better concept than both Lambiel and Patrick's programs did. His performance quality was superior as well. You can say Lambiel and Patrick deserved higher marks than Weir for Skating Skills and Transitions, but they didn't deserve a higher Program Component score overall when bringing the Performance and Interpretation components into the mix as well.

Aside from that, you failed to listen to the other point I made - mistakes on technical elements need to be punished more than they currently are. When you fall on a Triple Axel, you shouldn't still get 4.5 points (and that's after the fall deduction) for the element. When you step out of a Triple Lutz (one which didn't have much amplitude), you shouldn't still get 4 points for the element; Patrick got 4.2 points for a Triple Lutz he stepped out of in the first half of the program, in fact. Weir's technical score was barely a point ahead of Patrick's and Lambiel's, which is not accurate given the mistakes they made.

 

[PolymerBob]

mistakes on technical elements need to be punished more than they currently are. When you fall on a Triple Axel, you shouldn't still get 4.5 points (and that's after the fall deduction) for the element. When you step out of a Triple Lutz (one which didn't have much amplitude), you shouldn't still get 4 points for the element;

We may not have a full appreciation of how much falls are actually penalized. When Yu-Na fell twice and stepped out once in her free skate at Skate America. She didn't lose 3 points, she lost about 20. In fact, she finished 2nd in the free skate. Those ugly falls made all the other elements in her program look uglier. The judges think they can separate the jumps from the other elements, but usually they can't.

 

[herios]

Lambiel's jumps were messy and scratchy all way through his program vs. Weir landing everything perfectly (aside from the 3Loop, his weakest jump, but it was still clean). Patrick Chan's mistakes don't impress me either. Just silly that those two placed ahead of Weir.

:

Johnny fans keep forgetting that he is "lipping".Therefore from the judges point of view, that is not a clean technical shhet, and he is penalized for that. And because he is using that jump in both SP and LP, that cost him easily 4 points at least of his total.

 

[ImaginaryPogue]

Didn't Wier fall out of a spin at the Olympics? And didn't Chan and Lambiel get credit for having harder footwork and spins? Wier had two level four elements. Lambiel had three and Chan had four. I'd probably still agree that Wier deserved to beat Chan (who yes, got a PCS boost) but I'm not sure that I'd say that he should've beat Lambiel.

 

[Jaana]

Weir also had bad luck as he had to skate after Takahashi, who rightfully got the highest PCS in the freeskate. Compared to Takahashi the emptiness of Weir´s programme became even more glaring, and Takahashi also has more speed than Weir.

 

[Blades of Passion]

We may not have a full appreciation of how much falls are actually penalized. When Yu-Na fell twice and stepped out once in her free skate at Skate America. She didn't lose 3 points, she lost about 20. In fact, she finished 2nd in the free skate. Those ugly falls made all the other elements in her program look uglier. The judges think they can separate the jumps from the other elements, but usually they can't.

She lost that amount of points because the falls caused her to leave out valuable combination jumps from the program, not because of the deductions for those mistakes themselves. In this coming season mistakes like that are going to be penalized less.

Johnny fans keep forgetting that he is "lipping".Therefore from the judges point of view, that is not a clean technical shhet, and he is penalized for that. And because he is using that jump in both SP and LP, that cost him easily 4 points at least of his total.

It has nothing to do with "fans" (I think Lambiel is better than Weir and you don't see me praising his performance), it's about objective scoring of the sport. Yes, Johnny lipped, but that's a less serious mistake than stepping out of a jump, both technically and in terms of the presentation (because it doesn't hinder the flow of the program).

 

[PolymerBob]

She lost that amount of points because the falls caused her to leave out valuable combination jumps from the program, not because of the deductions for those mistakes themselves. In this coming season mistakes like that are going to be penalized less.

Possibly, but I think the psychological effect is very strong. Regardless of what arithmetic they use, falls will make the rest of the program look less pretty and cause PCS to go down. Even if all other elements were executed well, falls make the score drop much more than a point per fall.

The one factor that does not seem to effect the judges is audience reaction. Yukari got the loudest standing ovation at 2008 Worlds, but is seemed to have no effect on the judges.

I am not sure if skater's reaction to his/her own skate has any effect on the judges. If a skater is ecstatic after a skate, will the judges respond more favorably then if he/she is dejected?

 

[Mathman]

If a skater is ecstatic after a skate, will the judges respond more favorably then if he/she is dejected?

Sell it, sell it, sell it! One time in a cheesefest Sasha as Juliet fell on her closing pose and tried to play it off as Juliet stabbing herself. Thirteen-year-old Naomi Nari Nam did a triple toe in her SP at 1999 U.S. Nationals and carried on like it was a feat never before attempted on the planet (Peggy Fleming commented on the air, "come on now, it's just a triple toe.")

I don't know how many points Maria Butryskaya lost over the course of her career by always looking like she wanted to find a hole to hide in after every performance.

 

[Blades of Passion]

Sell it, sell it, sell it! One time in a cheesefest Sasha as Juliet fell on her closing pose and tried to play it off as Juliet stabbing herself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7aFu_fpoJc

I don't know how many points Maria Butryskaya lost over the course of her career by always looking like she wanted to find a hole to hide in after every performance.

The bigger problem was Maria looked like that during her performances.