- Joined
- Nov 9, 2007
S&Z had a gorgeous high, fully rotated triple twist that scored high GOE. T&M had a chest crashy triple twist. The rules were changed so that a double twist with a lot of features could score as high as a triple twist, particularly if the triple twisting lady didn't do an extreme split before the rotation (Shen's was not extreme).
Worse, S&Z used a triple toe for their single jump and a triple toe double axel sequence for their combination. T&M did a 3t2t combination and a 3S. It was forbidden to do the 3t seq 2A if the 3t was the single jump. Trying to get a different combination/sequence led to Zhao's injury, for that matter, as well as taking the hit.
Although these 2 changes may not have been deliberately created to favor T&M, they surely did favor them.
I wouldn't have thought T/M needed much help in winning the Gold. They had won both worlds before the Olympics, though Shen and Zhao did have problems in both worlds that T/M won. I wonder why they would downgrade the triple twist though. It's one of the 'highlights' of Pairs skating. A double is much less spectacular. Is that why the pairs were all doing double twists in the SP at the Olympics?
It is interesting to see that the twist rules now favor doing a triple twist rather than a double twist again, which looks even more suspect to me.
The Germans, the Chinese and the Ukranians are the only one with good triple twists. V/M have the best twist I think, in terms of height and rotation, but they aren't even considered threats for the Olympic podium at this point in time. So the new rules would favour the Germans and the Chinese, whom the battle for Gold is between, at least from what we've seen from 2008-9 worlds.