Men - Free program | Page 16 | Golden Skate

Men - Free program

blue_idealist

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 25, 2006
It's too bad Chan won after his splatfest in the SP, but really, no one else deserved to win the LP. Everyone was kind of subpar.. good job Chan for landing the quad, though.
 

hongligl

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 18, 2004
Why so many people bashing Chan when he actually did a very good job with the LP? IMO it's way too much. It was a bit surprising for the SP score before seeing the protocol, but it makes a lot more sense after studying the breakdown of points. Chan appears to be a very honest person, not diplomatic at all. He's still young and needs to learn his lessons to be liked by people:) He didn't give himself high marks. So is it so hard to give him a break? I myself was not totally convinced for the SP scores/placement. But I'm not that much engaged to defend anybody; it's a newly tweaked scoring system anyway. We as audience may as well take some time to get used to it.
 

NorthernDancers

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 15, 2010
Wow. I read all the comments here before watching the event on PVR. I was expecting to see a disaster of a skate from Chan, and stellar skating from everyone else based on the comments ripping Chan to shreds. Then I watched the PVR and this is how I saw the skating:

Javier – REALLY entertaining (and let’s face it, he’s pretty easy on the eyes); no complexity, and ran out of gas in a serious way before the end of the program

Alban – not so much a fan of this, kinda dull, actually; his posture is weird

Patrick – Just wow….a skater in my house commented on just how fast Chan is – only 2 cross-cuts to get all the way across the ice. It is all complex choreography and difficult edges throughout, with jumps along the way. Finally landed a great quad jump. Looking at the scores, he got -3’s for his fall on the 3A. He also got a lot of 0 GEO’s for his jumps. He got -1’s on the jump later in the program. The judges seemed to agree with each other, so I’m not sure how that could have been political or preplanned. So far the only skater that actually skated to his music in a meaningful way. He has such ease of movement in his entire body in this program. Thankfully, with CoP, it takes a WHOLE program to win, not just jumps. Others focus on just jumps. And you can see when a jump is about to happen each time. If they miss some, there is nothing else to garner points. With Chan, he got deducted for the jump he fell on, and paid in GOE on other jumps as well, but all the rest of the stuff is such quality, the points add up. And yes, his footwork at the end did deserve the big GOE. And I watched his brief interview in the Kiss N Cry. I honestly don’t see the fuss. He said he has been working on dance and expression, and he feels like he has more connection with the audience and judges with this program this year. Don’t think there is anything horrid about that comment.

Adam – the other person to skate to his music tonight. Absolutely love his lutz with the arms above the head. But it just doesn’t have the goods of Chan. But I think Rippon is definitely one to watch going forward. Really like him.

Kevin – he is a jumping machine, except when he misses. What was most exciting was to see him start to put some real expression into his skating. He is really young, and I have to think he is going to just keep getting better with age, experience and overall maturity. I wonder if a switch to Mariposa or Cricket would help him on his journey.

Nobunari – it was just boring. He did mostly a good job with his elements, but it looked like it was all business, and was not exciting at all. I can completely see why he did not get the PCS points of Chan. It was not as complex, and was very introspective. Interesting that his technical scores were almost as good as Chan. It's the PCS that make the difference here, and I have to say that Chan's skating skills, edges, speed, linking steps, overall body involvement, complexity of choreography, etc are just superior to anyone else in this competition. By a country mile.
 

chuckm

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 31, 2003
Country
United-States
Even if Oda had skated better technically than Chan, he wasn't going to get the PCS scores to put him ahead, no matter how he performed his FS. He knew that from the get-go. Chan's score was so outrageous (for a performance with a fall and mostly wonky jumps) that NO ONE was going to top it.

This competition was NO WAY on a level playing field for all the competitors. Chan was going to win no matter how he skated --- or how anyone else skated, for that matter.

If I were a figure skater from another country, NO WAY would I want to compete at Skate Canada. It's an exercise in futility.
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
Chan deserved to win the LP, for sure, but his score was still much too high. BTW, the tech specialist was wrong yet again in downgrading Chan's 3-3 combo. It was rotated to at least 1/4 of a turn. The problem was on controlling the landing and the further problem is that the scoring system needs to penalize messy jumps FAR more severely. I'm going to keep repeating that over and over and over and lobbying within ISU until it is fixed.

And, yes, he WAS gifted on the GOE's. The Triple Flip should have been -1 across the board. If you take the proper amount of deduction from that jump, and the proper amount of deduction from the 3Axel fall (you should NOT receive 4.5 points for falling on a terribly-crooked-in-the-air 3Axel attempt), and then decrease his undeserved scores on the Quad and some of the spins and the last footwork sequence, and then finally decrease his PCS to something that is more reflective of the performance...then the total score would have been appropriate. He should have been in the mid 150's (Oda and Rippon were both a bit overscored as well, yes).

RE: the PCS - Patrick deserves extremely high scores for skating skills and, yes he performed better than anyone else at THIS competition in the LP, but Chan's skating still lacks real soul, originality, and connection to the music. I'm going to keep pointing at Takahashi's "Phantom of the Opera" from 2007 Worlds. If you compare the programs, Chan clearly lacks the same level of emotion, interpretation of music, and uniqueness of movement. Chan can do turns and steps brilliantly and move across the ice with ease, but his actual movements don't provide much of a personal statement of expression. Nor do they provide a great reflection of the music. Also, note how Chan ended his program a full second ahead of the music.
 

Jaana

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Country
Finland
I haven't seen it, but from your comment I'm getting an impression...so, Chan ends SC with a
score higher than Takhashi at Nagoya...:disapp::rolleye::eek::laugh: ...no comment...

Also Oda got a higher score and Rippon was veeery close to Takahashi´s NHK result.
 
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mishieru07

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 23, 2009
You don't "need" to, the bullets are only guidelines, but yes judges tend to take it literally in most cases. it's RIDICULOUS that there is only one GOE bullet for both the height and distance of a jump when those are the most important qualities of a jump.

More generically speaking, the judges are marking according to a set of criteria no? So as long as you "tick the boxes" (I quote B.Eurosport), you'll be rewarded accordingly based on how they see it. I say this because people used to complain about Yu Na getting +2 (maybe +3s occassionally?) on her spiral even though her free leg position wasn't particularly good. We forget that her other qualities make up for it; depth of edge, speed and flow. And I suspect the same thing with Patrick. As you pointed out, height and distance is only 1 of the many listed points. Whether it should be valued more is another question that has to do with the IJS system, not judging.

I tend to believe some skaters like Chan and Kostner are vastly overrated but apparently their speed, command of the ice and good basics don't come across on a screen as well as they do live. Maybe that's why I always feel that their PCS is too high!
 

ever

Rinkside
Joined
Oct 28, 2010
In this case. who do I have to blame? SC or judges or Pchan? Maybe ISU and $peedy?
 

bekalc

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Wow. I read all the comments here before watching the event on PVR. I was expecting to see a disaster of a skate from Chan, and stellar skating from everyone else based on the comments ripping Chan to shreds. Then I watched the PVR and this is how I saw the skating:

Did you actually watch the short program too. I have no issue with Chan coming out on top in the free, but I have a huge issue with him coming on top overall. (Yes Oda and Rippon had issues in the free, but its not like they were so much more messier than Chan) And Patrick had count them 3 falls in the short. But is 3 points behind Rippon seriously.

And here's the thing to Adam Rippon and Oda are not bad skaters. Yes Patrick has great edges, speed etc. But so does Nobunari Oda. And Oda had difficult entries in all of his jumps, and better landings than Patrick and got less GOE (high way robbery).

Adam isn't as good of a basic skater as Oda or Chan, but he's not horrific either. Even if Patrick won by a even lets say a five/six point margin, he didn't deserve to win overall based on his mess in the short.
 

NorthernDancers

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 15, 2010
In THIS competition, there were only 2 skaters that skated with their music: Chan and Rippon. You might want to add Javier, but I don't really count a whole lot of posing as skating, as entertaining as it was. Judging THIS competition, Chan was the class of the field in the LP, and completely deserves the scores he received. He absolutely skated with his music, and he comes across as genuine, from the heart. Of course it will only get better with maturity and age, but even now already, in THIS competition, his PCS deserved to be the best. If I recall correctly, the new updates to the rules means that there is LESS penalty for wonky jumps. I think that had something to do with some Olympic proportion sour grapes from the other side of the world? It's hard to compare scores from competition to competition. The judging panels are different each time. The point is in THIS competition the scores were consistently applied. Again, in an international panel of judges, when all judges come up with basically the same scores, it's pretty hard to say that the scores are "cooked". I'd buy the argument if the judging was all over the map, but it wasn't. Chan is a whole skater. He is coming along with the jumps, including a very clean quad which gives him big points thanks to changes in the system this year, and rocks the house on every other element. With CoP designed to reward the whole skater, it is not a surprise he comes out on top.
 

bekalc

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
In THIS competition, there were only 2 skaters that skated with their music:

Your joking right. Actually while Chan has amazing skating skills, a lot of times his movements have nothing to do with the music and everything to do with fitting some transition in there. And if what you say is correct once again Adam skates with the music and manages not to fall 3 times in his short program in comparision to Chan and only gets 3 points more. Yep 3 points more. Sorry if the rest of us think that its more than a little unfair.

And I'm sorry Northern Dancer this is a sport with all kinds of wheeling and dealing going on. And one thing is always clear that there are always questionable HIGH INFLATED scoring for Canadian skaters when skating in Canada.
 
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wallylutz

Medalist
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
I think Oda failed to capture the Gold medal here because he didn't show that he understood his chosen music (IN), a choreography that did not accentuate the highlights of the music (CH), performance with limited emotional involvement based on almost no change in his facial emotion throughout (PE) and transitions that are no where near Chan's level (TR).

The 10 points difference in PCS was instrumental to Oda's loss against Chan so it deserves to be discussed at length here. My observation is that Oda's performance remained mostly at one level - the music did not suit him, it seems as though he was executing those movements b/c someone told him so, not because he wanted to. His choreography in general lacks sophistication b/c he didn't really understand what he was skating to, thus unable to accentuate or better personalize parts of his program to better capture the attention o the audience. There was little to none audience involvement, unable to engage his viewers very much with minor disruptions here and there, including a fall that was not particularly material. Overall, the PE is solid but nothing memorable. Nobody comes close to Chan's ability to execute highly complex transitions as smoothly even though Oda's isn't bad.

It would seem that Chan scoring higher PCS than Oda is entirely justified here IMO.
 

wallylutz

Medalist
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
Your joking right. Actually while Chan has amazing skating skills, a lot of times his movements have nothing to do with the music and everything to do with fitting some transition in there. And if what you say is correct once again Adam skates with the music and manages not to fall 3 times in his short program in comparision to Chan and only gets 3 points more. Yep 3 points more. Sorry if the rest of us think that its more than a little unfair.

Both Hanyu and Oda just skated passed their music in very business like manner. I agree with the panel in penalizing their PCS accordingly. Again, you exaggerated select negative aspects of Chan's skating and then completely ignore the raison d'etre for his win. Technically, Chan only beat Oda and Rippon by 2~3 points. It begs to ask why Chan scored much higher in the PCS. One of my concern re: last year's World is that PCS did not properly reflect the set criteria and just acted as a place holder. However, I am pleased to see that this year, PCS has started to be taken seriously, not just at the top level but we are also seeing it in the lower level as well, e.g. Hanyu vs. Ten Otherwise, this just becomes a jumping competition.

As for your 2nd claim re: inflated scoring, since you didn't show any evidence to support your claim, one can construed your statement as a slander, therefore, I won't dignify it with a response.
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
If I recall correctly, the new updates to the rules means that there is LESS penalty for wonky jumps. I think that had something to do with some Olympic proportion sour grapes from the other side of the world?

"The other side of the World."

Nationalism. :disapp:

The new rules have nothing to do with that regardless. What happened is whoever is in charge of coming up with the final version of the IJS rules for the season was extremely lazy and/or unknowledegable. They had to change the -GOE grades so that downgraded jumps don't get penalized with as harsh of a value as fully rotated jumps do. Unfortunately, instead of coming up with new GOE values for just underrotated jumps, they came up with new GOE values for underrotated jumps and lazily applied them to fully rotated jumps as well so that they wouldn't have to create a new table of values. This is a BIG, BIG mistake.

In 2006 under CoP, you received 5 points for falling on a Quad Toeloop. Gaining that many points for falling on an element was not balanced, so they changed the table of values. Now, for the 2010-2011 season, whoever finalized the judging system seems to have forgotten what a big problem this was and made it WORSE. You now get 6.3 points for falling on a Quad Toe and 4.5 points for falling on a Triple Axel. You also get 2.9 points for falling a Triple Lutz.

I've had a table of values setup for YEARS that details exactly how jumps should be scored, including underrotated jumps and their own set of GOE values. The people in power within ISU are ignorant, though.

The point is in THIS competition the scores were consistently applied. Again, in an international panel of judges, when all judges come up with basically the same scores, it's pretty hard to say that the scores are "cooked". I'd buy the argument if the judging was all over the map, but it wasn't

You don't seem to understand the way judges are influenced and the incentive there is for modulating the scores so that skaters who belong to powerful skating federations get scored higher when international competitions are held in their country.

Additionally, the IJS is set up so that if a certain judge's scores go too far outside the "corridor", the judge receives an infraction. Thus, judges are somewhat forced to conform more.

Regardless, it's not at all impossible that most of the judges were simply WRONG either. The bottom line is that Patrick Chan was overscored. It happens all the name to people who are "anointed". Suddenly everything they do becomes seen as better than the things "lesser" skaters do, even though that is often not the case.

The anointing of Patrick Chan + the politics of Skate Canada + the awful judging system + the poor judging all came together to create the drastically overinflated scores he received. Nobody is arguing he didn't deserved to win the LP, but that doesn't mean he wasn't overscored. ESPECIALLY in the Short Program.
 

bekalc

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Wally, what I'm most angry with is that Short program score of Patricks sheer ridiculousness. 3 falls from Patrick only 3 points behind a clean skate from Adam Rippon and only 8 from a clean Nobunari. No.No.No. I can concede Patrick being better than Oda when Patrick skates well in the long. But I can't concede when Patrick gives a disasterous performance in the short that he's only 8 points better than Oda.

Why freaking have a competition when we get results like these. And a fall on a fully rotated quad being worth more than a 3lutz? Is the freaking ISU insane? I'm all for quads being worth more but thats when they are landed and clean. Not when they are fallen, not when they come up with a big stumble? How hard and ridiculous is it for the system to reward when clean and punish when they aren't clean.
 
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gmyers

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
Lots of fans and powerful members of the ISU don't want the quad to disappear as it was in danger of after the results of 2008, 2009 worlds and 2010 Olympics. If a technical progression becomes so risky (and the quad with mistakes was going down to zero points) that skaters don't do it to many that is technical regression. When the three Japanese skaters at NHK all did quads the president of the Japanese federation was thrilled.
 

bekalc

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Lots of fans and powerful members of the ISU don't want the quad to disappear as it was in danger of after the results of 2008, 2009 worlds and 2010 Olympics. If a technical progression becomes so risky (and the quad with mistakes was going down to zero points) that skaters don't do it to many that is technical regression. When the three Japanese skaters at NHK all did quads the president of the Japanese federation was thrilled.

Why not let them get 3 points for a fully rotated quad. That I can live with, and keep the high points for a LANDED clean one. But nobody should be getting 6 points for a fall.
 

skatinginbc

Medalist
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
LMAO. You don't "need" to, the bullets are only guidelines, but yes judges tend to take it literally in most cases. For Patrick's Quad he certainly did NOT have #1, he didn't have #2, he didn't have #3, #4 is NO (/questionable) and it's RIDICULOUS that there is only one GOE bullet for both the height and distance of a jump when those are the most important qualities of a jump, #5 is questionanble, #6 is a YES, #7 is a YES, #8 is a NO.

He deserved +1 or maybe +1.5 if the GOE grades were allowed to be input like that (they should be).

Since you said with such authority that #8 is a NO , I would like to ask you if there is a more detailed official definition in the figure skating world regarding "element matched to the musical structure". I am not saying I am definately right, but to my trained ear, I--a person who had won a piano concerto contest, who had taught piano for living--could not agree with your assertion. Maybe in figure skating, the so-called "muscial structure" has a special definition. I don't know. Can you shed light on it?


If #4, #5, and #8 are debatable, #6 and #7 are definately Yes, it is not so outragious that he received +2 or even +3 for that element, is it?
 
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