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Kozuka won the SILVER medal at the GPF in South Korea. What on Earth are you talking about?
What will the 2010/2011 Season bring us from the MEN
- Thread starter ImaginaryPogue
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Kozuka won the SILVER medal at the GPF in South Korea. What on Earth are you talking about?
I do not have data at hand but I don't think Oda's success rate for the quad is not something to write home about either. How many times has he tried one - let alone landed a clean quad in the competitions?
I remember once he landed a beautiful quad toe - triple toe in 09 Worlds, but ruined his chance completely by doing one too many jump combos afterwards... and came at the 7th, one place behind Kozuka. I wonder his problem may be psychological - how many times has he executed one too many combination jumps in the big competition? I think he did in all his free skates at the Worlds - 06, 07 and 09.
What kinda bothers me is his unwillingness even to try. He tried only once last season at Japan National and he fell. We heard often he landed beautiful quads or quad combos during official practices, but he didn't attempt one in the competitions - I wonder why.
I remember once he landed a beautiful quad toe - triple toe in 09 Worlds, but ruined his chance completely by doing one too many jump combos afterwards... and came at the 7th, one place behind Kozuka. I wonder his problem may be psychological - how many times has he executed one too many combination jumps in the big competition? I think he did in all his free skates at the Worlds - 06, 07 and 09.
What kinda bothers me is his unwillingness even to try. He tried only once last season at Japan National and he fell. We heard often he landed beautiful quads or quad combos during official practices, but he didn't attempt one in the competitions - I wonder why.
Seriously. I don't understand your point of vew, did Takahiko eat your lunch or something? Geez.
JF should be proud to have such a talent among their best skaters one of the best blade magicians in the whole world (if not the best) and you say they will dump him? Send him ANYWHERE else, they would welcome him with open arms.
That performance surely doesn't worth a silver. It's a pure case of "appreciation based on expectations". Plus I suspect he was held up as a de facto home skater, and as a compensation to push down Asada and Ando.
Can you read my point? Hanyu is absolutely better than Kozuka, technically and mentally even for now. The JSF should send him to worlds instead of 21 y.o. who never masters the quad. I'm not saying they should do any special "favors" for Hanyu. Just abandon false hopes for Kozuka and don't give him too much PCS advantage. I can understand other countries (esp. USA and CAN) will welcome Kozuka. Because he won't be any threat for the world podium unlike Hanyu.
Oda's quad record
2010 Kinki 4T +1.8
2009 Nationals 4T<(fall) -3.0
2009 WTT 4T(fall) -4.8
2009 WC 4T+3T +1.4
2009 4CC 4T<(fall) -3.0
2008 Nationals 4T<(fall) -3.0
2008 Western Sectional 4T -3.2
2008 NHK 4T -1.92
2008 Karl Schafer 4T(fall) -4.57
fall 5 of 9, clean 2 of 9
Kozuka's problem is not just the quad. Look at his poor rate of the 3A!
2009-2010 3A records of Japanese Men
Takahashi 21 attempts
+GOE 18, Pop 1, Fall 0
(clean 2 at 2010 NHK)
Oda 16 attempts
+GOE 12, Pop 3, Fall 0
(clean 3 at 2010 Kinki)
Kozuka 19 atempts
+GOE 8, Pop 4, Fall 3
(-GOE 1, popped 1 at 2010 JO)
Hanyu 25 attempts
+GOE 18, Pop 0, Fall 4
(clean 2 at 2010 NHK)
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I don't think Hanyu will be a threat to for the world podium this season. He isn't getting the PCS scores yet. Hanyu isn't all that consistent too. The one thing about him is that when he falls i don't know how to put it. It's like most people fall and like part of their body goes down but when Hanyu falls it's like he lays on the ice for a little bit then gets back up. I think Kozuka deserves higher PCS than Hanyu at the moment. In my opinion he skates faster and connects to the music more than Hanyu at the moment. Hanyu connects to the music to but I feel like he does it in a "Johnny Weir" fashion. I don't know how to really explain it.
Hanyu acutally landed 3 clean 3A at NHK
I found it pretty astounding that Hanyu was able to add both the quad and 3lz-3t in such a short period of time (still waiting on that lip though) but I'm not exactly certain Hanyu has the stamina to complete an entire program, much less an entire senior season yet.
I think I'd wait until Kozuka completes an entire event this season before I sell him down the river. His score in the SP in Torino showed they were 100% willing to put him on the podium, and justifiably so! He was marvelous in every way.
I think I'd wait until Kozuka completes an entire event this season before I sell him down the river. His score in the SP in Torino showed they were 100% willing to put him on the podium, and justifiably so! He was marvelous in every way.
To some extent, PCS is a reflection of national ranking orders (or, seniority). Hanyu's PCS is low because he is currently #4 or #5 position among Japanese men. That can be changed, to some extent, by the JSF's decision. Hanyu seems to have some magical charms to change the judge's mind. In the case of 2008 Junior nationals, Machida was supposed to be the winner and sent to Jr worlds. However the judges changed their minds after Hanyu's performance, he actually WON by unexpectedly high PCS. I can see the same thing could happen at Senior nationals this year.
Hanyu may not be a podium threat this season. But he needs to make an impression at Tokyo worlds to be a contender in Nice.... and Sochi. Kozuka won't be a serious contender anywhere. When a title or a medal is in sight, he always blows it. That's enough.
When viewed in hindsight, if Hanyu didn't make an impression at 2009 Jr Worlds, he may not have that huge success in the next season.
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No, Hanyu is not better technically than Kozuka. You cannot compare only the jumps. In technique there are many more things to take inconsideration. Hanyu is not as fast as Kozuka, nor has his edges or spins. Give it a rest.And also, Oda has not proven internationally that he is a better threat than Koazuka. The only japanese skater who is a shoe in on their team is Takahashi. Nobody else.
the rest will have to fight it out. And they are all young. So many more years ahead of them Not just one, several years. About Hanyu PCS, he is very young and he still skates young. Those PCS will take a LOT of time to go up. I like him a lot, but he is not there yet.
If some messy skates would cause the skater to lose the appreciation of judges, Takahashi would not be the World Champion. He used to be so unstable a jumper that the Japanese press dubbed him "Ace of Glass". Even at the beginning of the last season he had a lot of messy skates; he missed the podium at NHK and lost to Oda at GPF.
Kozuka's appreciation is based in facts: he won Junior Worlds, medalled in his debut season on the senior circuit and won silver @GPF. His PCS dropped recently because, as you said, he's 3rd in his country now after Oda and Takahashi came back, and, IMHO, he's shooting himself in the foot with the choice of his programs (not that they are bad, but most of his recent programs are in the same dance-y, calm style and I think the judges are getting tired of that). That said, I don't see Hanyu surpassing Kozuka yet, unless Kozuka bombs and Hanyu skates the lights out. Hanyu's skating skills, posture, style and edgework are not on the level of Kozuka's yet.
His PCS were actually lower than Machida's, and just one point higher than Nakamura's. Yuzuru won on TES - he landed a triple axel and 7 triples, while Machida messed up his second 3A attempt and popped 3Lz, landing only 5 non-3A triples.
If Weir spent as much time on improving his skating skills as on designing his costumes, his PCS would be higher. As it is, his SS aren't it the league of Takahashi, Chan, Oda or Kozuka.
I don't think Oda lost the judges favor - if he skates cleanly, he scores high. The problem is that whenever he manages to skate cleanly a few times in a row and build up reputation and expectations, he arrives at high-pressure event and takes himself out of contention due to his nerves.
In men's figure skating, more than 70% of TES comes from jumps. In the case of NHK Trophy, the average was 72.3% (Takahashi 71.8%, Hanyu 74.0%). It's safe to say, better jumper = better technician. Apart from jumps, Hanyu's change-foot sit spin is clearly better than Kozuka's. Hanyu has more variety of positions (Bielmann and donuts). His footwork is not that strong but Kozuka has nothing to brag about it. New rules on footwork will help jumpers. The quads and the 3A are what matter most in men's technical strength.
Takahashi is a TOP skater and the national favorite. The judges can give him some benefit of doubt. Kozuka is not in the same league with him.
He won Jr worlds with only 180 points. He was given a NHK medal by usual home advantages (same as Murakami and Takahashi-Tran).
That's a typical way of praising poor jumpers. I see Kozuka is the weaker version of Patrick Chan. The judges will consider those things if they want to push him higher.
In principle, Japanese nationals (Jr and Sr) are ruled by seniority orders. Asada has never medalled when she was a novice. Nishino has lost to Suizu three years ago. Murakami lost to Mari Suzuki by only 0.5 points two years ago. I short, they usually place older skaters above younger when there's no much difference.
Hanyu's case is an aberration. Machida had a 13 points lead in the SP against Hanyu, but the final difference between them was only 1.2 point. Hanyu's victory was quite surprising from the past practices.
Falling on what jump is not important. What matter is the judges consideration when there's not much difference. They would go with Machida undoubtedly, if they didn't find something "special" about Hanyu.
And yet both Kozuka at Japan Open and Hanyu at NHK had about the same base value, with Kozuka a bit higher, (70.5 vs 72) and recieved about the same total TES (72 vs 74) despite Kozuka falling and popping his axel vs. Hanyu popping his loop.
I highly doubt that Hanyu will do the biellman or donut forever. At least I hope not. He may pick up the feature for difficult variation, but deserves no goe for speed, centering, or even strength of position.
Aside from that, Hanyu has some jump issues to sort of his own. If he doesn't do a 3lz-3t, 3f-3t or some quad combo with positive GoE and fix his flip, he will be behind all of the other top men in the SP which will effect his skating order and reputation in LP.
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Haven't you watched NHK? Hanyu did a 3lz-3t he got -.3 GOE because of the tilt on the lutz. He can do a 3f-3t. He did it at 2009 jr worlds. He also landed a beautiful quad at NHK getting him +1.29 GOE and a 3A-3T after the half way point with +GOE. That's higher +GOE than Takahashi's quad. He had the highest TES at NHK in the short program. Have you seen the beauty that is his triple axel? Yes Hanyu does have a lipping problem but hopefully he can fix that. Even Takahashi gets called on his lip. I really like Hanyu but I think that at this time Kozuka is still better than Hanyu. I think the thing Hanyu has that Kozuka doesn't is time. He's only 15 years old he can wait until 2018 if he has to.
Yes, I watched NHK and noticed he has problems controlling his lutz. His triple axel is indeed beautiful and must be responsible for his high TES, but a 3a-3t will do him no good in the sp. I have seen his quad and was amazed by it since seeing practice videos, but it's still just one quad, not a whole program or season by any means.
He did not do a 3f-3t at junior worlds. He did a 3lz-2t in the SP, which is part of the reason why he landed 3rd behind Dornbush, who did not at the time have a 3a. He did a 3s-3t in the LP though. It didn't affect him there because he was the heavy favorite, but as a rising skater, who knows?
I think it's kind of unfair to compare Hanyu's lip problem to Daisuke's lip/flutz problem. The number of instances where Daisuke has been hit by an edge call is probably equal to the number of times in which Hanyu hasn't been hit by a lip call.
I think he has tremendous potential and time is absolutely on his side, but like Oda, Kozuka, and especially Takahashi who showed enormous talent at a young age like him, he will have setbacks, so I feel it's wrong to hold the setbacks these skaters have had against them when they are still getting higher scores than him.
He did land a 3F-3T in 2009 junior worlds FS when he finished like 10th or 11th place. http://www.isuresults.com/results/wjc2009/wjc09_JuniorMen_FS_Scores.pdf
He got called on his lip there too. I think he has been called on his lip quite consistently. If you check detailed results for 2009 he got edge calls of some sort on his flip for almost every event he skated. I think he actually only got one correct flip called in his entire 2009 season. He didn't do a 3A-3T in the SP at NHK he did it in the second half of his FS which got him bonus points and +GOE. I think he didn't bother to do a 3-3 in the short during his junior season because he didn't need it to win because he was a better FS skater than the rest of his competitors. It's not like he won 2010 junior worlds because of PCS. He landed two 3A in the FS one in combination after the second half of his program getting him bonus points and +GOE along with the 3S-3T at the end of his program which got bonus points and +GOE. Even in his junior season his main 3-3 in the FS was the 3A-3T after the second half of his program. The problem was that he fell on the second 3A sometimes. For the senior ranks he knows he needs a 3-3 in the SP to stay near medal position so that's probably why he put it in.
I totally agree with you though Hanyu is probably gonna meet a few bumps since he is so young. I don't think that JSF is going to send Yuzuru to senior worlds this season because he isn't better than the top 3 Japanese men just yet. Junior worlds is where he is most likely to go hopefully to win another gold medal. Sorry for the long post.
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Japan Open ... What a joke?
See how Rippon scored at Skate Canada. His score will drop 10 points or more. It's quite useless to compare scores of different competitions.
I don't think Hanyu has much problem with 3Lz-3T as you protest. Since he admires Plushenko, Hanyu definitely tries 4-3 in the SP sooner or later. He seems more easy with 3A-3T than 3Lz-3T. The Lip isn't a factor to decide win or lose in men's figure skating anyway. I bet he invests more efforts on the 4S (which is already underway) and 4-3 rather than "correct edges". Which comes sooner, Hanyu's 4-3 or Kozuka's "+GOE" 4T?
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I wasn't that impressed with Hanyu after having read some of the raving posts about him last year. I thought his program was pretty generic and he moves pretty generic... A talented junior young skater, but nothing more. Kozuka is a way better skater than Hanyu - effortless glide and jaw dropping edges, and musicality.
At this point I find Machida way more interesting as well. I think he has a lot more personality and skates with lots of heart.
At this point I find Machida way more interesting as well. I think he has a lot more personality and skates with lots of heart.
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