Why Mao Asada must get bronze, Kim (1) and Kostner 2
What still bothers me is that the scores for the Russians (GOE'S and PCS) and Gracie Gold (PCS) were so inflated over the course of the SP and LP that even those who claim the judging is corrupt have difficulty granting the possibility, much less the certainty, that under fair and equitable judges Mao would have gotten a bronze. My friend who has no real knowledge of figure skating but really enjoyed watching proclaimed that Mao was way, way better than Sotnikova in her free skate without being prompted as if he was spontaneous reacting to how overwhelmed he was by the massive number and wide array of elegantly executed triple jumps. When I asked why, he simply said it was obvious from the smoothness with which she moved and her fluidity through the jumps. By contrast, he said that Sotnikova’s landings and choreography seemed lacking by comparison. It's good and worthy of a distant 4th place in free skate. But, it is not great like the numbers indicate. Even scores of 200 are quite difficult to obtain in international competition for champions and medal winners, and we know Sotnikova’s had no championships and that her average during the Grand Prix season was about 45-50 points lower than her performance at Sochi; therefore, her score of 224 score is quite simply impossible.
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My friend saw through the veneer of fabricated greatness that had been tailored for her with the score inflation at the Russian and European championships. Furthermore, she did not skate clean with under rotations missed, two footed landings, step outs and flutzes not to mention hunching over as she headed into jumps, circular skating, skating that covered a far smaller circumference of the rink than Asada. The spins were well done though! Not to mention the absurdly high GOE’s which were more than Costner and Yuna combined and more than 5 times the number of 3’s that Asada had, after a casual observer had already said that Asada’s smoothness and execution appeared to be far superior. If we take off 15 points in PCS for the whole competition, which would still be above her season average, and 10-15 points from her tech scores, which seems conservative considering the absurd number of 3’s and the near total lack of deductions she received, she is already down to around 195, which is ALREADY below Asada’s bare bottom, lowballed score of 198. But of course, under more equitable judging she would score at least a couple of points higher on Tech scores and at least a point or two on PCS alone, thus putting her over 200.
I saw a video on youtube claiming that the PCS scores were almost certainly fixed ahead of time for Kim and Adelina because a competition under COP has never taken place in which the top two competitors finished within half a point of each other in PCS score, yet the difference in this competition was an UNPRECEDENTED .06 in the short and .09 in the long; therefore, it seems possible that the judges. predetermined a PCS score for Mao that was based on her season's average which is around 69.6. Asada is the one who is most severely punished by this rigged result because she is the only one who seems to have been obviously lowballed in order to give Lipnitskaya a chance to leapfrog her, though it took an utterly ludicrous PCS of 70 about 8-9 POINTS above her seasons average to do it.
Furthermore, the insidiousness with which Lipnitskaya's and Sotnikova's score incrementally escalated between the Grand Prix season from an average of around 178 to 202 at worlds to 216 or so at Russian championships makes the process seem more plausible. Yet in a mere month or two through by some form of Protean transformation Lipnitskaya's PCS is magically elevated to the virtual equivalent of the world record held by Yuna Kim and almost 5 POINTS HIGHER than Mao Asada, who was the first woman to break the 200-point barrier three consecutive times in international competition. I think this is impossible. This Gold Medal Theft of the Olympics Glamor Event may very well be a Russian act of diplomatic aggression as Putin flexes his muscles in the Crimean making an appeal to ethnic alliances across the Ukrainiam border to extend his grip on the ex-Soviet states. If there is a possibility of pre performance rigging that would suggest that quite a few judges were involved.
Gold’s PCS was also dramatically inflated by 10-15 points over the competition which would drop her down to below 190 with her fall.
It seems that those who plotted this coup on the great artists in the sport worked out the details with such subtle subterfuge that even those who picked up on the corruption would still be willing to grant the possibility that one of the two Russians had suddenly “risen to the occasion” and become a Level 1 skater. , which is ludicrous because they had never won any adult championships, though they were suddenly scoring even higher than Mao Asada. So, from her astronomical plunge Asada suddenly soared to become a medal threat, so she had to be held down with under-rotated, edge calls and criminally low PCS. Then, Lipntiskaya was propped up with a PCS higher than Asada despite two falls and and considerably inferior footwork and interpretation.
What worries me is that even those who are critical of the results are so willing to even hold Sotnikova or Lipnitskaya in the same category as Asada in the LP, and Costner and Kim for both SP and LP. I am also for moving Costner and Kim up a slot. I hope that this does not happen at Worlds in Japan, but I am really concerned that many will half way fall for this FULL BLOWN FARCE.
I already disliked the Intro & Rondo Capriccioso before the muzak, so Adelina just gave me more reason to hate the piece.
