The art, the flow, the grace is gone | Page 6 | Golden Skate

The art, the flow, the grace is gone

KwanIsALegend

Fly On
Medalist
Joined
Feb 2, 2011
Sarah Hughes used to be number 1 on my list of worst OGM ever, until Adelina unseeded her this year. I remember when Sarah won and as I recall, Irina made errors that justified Sarah being awarded the OGM over her. Adelina "winning" was just ridiculous.

Yes, that would be like Sarah beating a clean, superskate by Michelle. Sarah won because she was clean and because everything fell into place that night for her to place first. Scott said it himself that Sarah will be sending Irina flowers for the rest of her life. I never cared for Sarah's skating, I always found something awkward and childish about it. She did have a great layback though but I don't agree that her spirals were all that spectacular. Especially since we had both Sasha and Michelle doing such strong solid gorgeous spirals at the time.

I still subscribe to idea that 'it's not just about jumps' and without her jumps Adelina would be in 20th place. There is nothing there, she's rough, robotic and flat.
 

pangtongfan

Match Penalty
Joined
Jun 16, 2010
Worst OGM is a funny thing though since it depends what you are basing it on:

Most undeserving OGM ever: Sotnikova by 1000 times over, just because Kim and Kostner so CLEARLY beat her in this competition.

Worst overall competition to win OGM: I would probably say Baiul in 94. An artistic masterpiece of a short but a badly two footed jump combination, then a LP with only 4 triples and no triple combination and an old program. She benefited greatly from the super weak field that year, along with some questionable judging.

Worst overall skater to win the OGM: Poetzsch in 1980. Sorry just nothing remarkable about her, even on a good day. Not a stunning figures expert like Schuba either, even if she was the best in figures of her time. Even Sotnikova and Hughes are better skaters than her.

Luckiest OGM ever: Hughes in 2002. She needed so many things to go perfectly for this to happen. Lucky ordinals in the short to be 4th when she could as easily have been 5th or lower as the 4-8 performances and ordinals from the judges were all virtually interchangeable (I thought Suguri and Sebeysten were far better in fact). Needing Slutskaya and Kwan to make major errors, and Slutskaya barely beat Michelle in the LP which was needed to move her into 1st, and she barely beat Slutskaya by .1 in the LP to not lose the gold outright to her as well.

Worst free skater to win OGM: Schuba in 1972, but she is the best compulsory figure skater ever and that is something that should be revered and respected.
 

winky97

Medalist
Joined
Mar 3, 2014
Oh, I still think Sarah Hughes is the worst ever. At least Adelina can fully rotate those triples! Adelina has the talent to be truly extraordinary, and she probably has more good years in her than Sarah Hughes did. Still, it's hard to argue against Sarah's win considering the circumstances and the scoring system. Irina skated poorly and Michelle fell, which was an unforgivable sin under 6.0. There was real pressure to give the win to the cleanest skate thanks to the pairs fiasco. Adelina's gold is suspect at best.

I guess time will tell what Adelina's future as a skater will be. She is no doubt very athletic and can jump and spin like the Tasmanian Devil, I just simply do not care for her skating. I find it to be kind of ugly. I actually think that they screwed her over by giving her that OGM. Motivation can become an issue when you get the top prize. Adelina has some things that she really needs to improve in her skating. I wonder if the motivation will be there to improve now. I read a couple of interviews of hers after she got the OGM and she came off kind of arrogant, though that can be a translation issue. I understand that sometimes things get lost in translation from one language to the next. Since she is not going to Worlds we will have to wait to see what she does next skating season, but I don't expect much out of her. She may try to come back next year to compete, but I think she might end up more like Sarah, have a sub par post Olympic year and retire from competing. Maybe Sarah and Adelina will end up tied on my list as worst OGM ever when it is all said and done. Right now Adelina is holding it down because her OGM is so darn questionable, though Sarah is a very close second. I am trying hard to be open to Adelina showing me she does not belong there.
 

Nadya

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
We will agree to disagree on this. I stand by my position and I have many skater friends who agree with me. So I guess it is yet another debatable thing about figure skating. The point is with that jump combination Adelina should not have been almost even with Yuna Kim after SP.
With no Russian judge on the panel, what is your theory on how that came to be?
 

Anna K.

Final Flight
Joined
Feb 22, 2014
Country
Latvia
Worst overall skater to win the OGM: Poetzsch in 1980. Sorry just nothing remarkable about her, even on a good day. Not a stunning figures expert like Schuba either, even if she was the best in figures of her time. Even Sotnikova and Hughes are better skaters than her.

...and to make it more atrocious, she won over Denise Biellmann :)
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
I still subscribe to idea that 'it's not just about jumps' and without her jumps Adelina would be in 20th place. There is nothing there, she's rough, robotic and flat.

Your opinion obviously, but I actually thought that Adelina was anything but flat and robotic in her Sochi skates, especially her SP where she had more spunk and attack than we'd ever seen from her.

I also think she has some lovely original spin positions, and her ice presence and performance is continuing to improve.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
I still subscribe to idea that 'it's not just about jumps' and without her jumps Adelina would be in 20th place. There is nothing there, she's rough, robotic and flat.

Even before Sochi, Adelina was getting the 4th-6th highest PCS in the world. So without the technical elements she'd probably be 4th, not 20th. Unfortunately in the night of the LP it was Yuna who was rough, robotic, and flat. Merely caressing her face whilst skating about wasn't enough.
 

skatedreamer

Medalist
Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Country
United-States
That's why we actually remember this with no biterness. There were flaws and they were corrected. But where to go from now?

I would so love to agree w/ you re: correcting/eliminating flaws! IMO, though, the reality is that one set of problems has simply been replaced w/ another. In theory, CoP does provide a more objective method of scoring but as long as judges remain anonymous and are not required to stand behind their decisions, the issues will still exist. :disapp:
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
And yes, without her jumps, Sotnikova would be 20th. That's why Mao was 16th after the SP in Sochi, why Oda was 28th at 2010 Worlds, and why Czisny was 22nd at 2012 Worlds. Without the jumps, EVERY skater would be 20th. :laugh:
 

moviechick

On the Ice
Joined
May 7, 2008
Sotnikova would've been a well deserved bronze. I mean, I don't agree with her win but let's not go crazy here, she skated two strong programs here.
 

Anna K.

Final Flight
Joined
Feb 22, 2014
Country
Latvia
I would so love to agree w/ you re: correcting/eliminating flaws! IMO, though, the reality is that one set of problems has simply been replaced w/ another. In theory, CoP does provide a more objective method of scoring but as long as judges remain anonymous and are not required to stand behind their decisions, the issues will still exist. :disapp:

Which somehow makes me feel like the famous Harry Potter movie quote: Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right :popcorn: aw I mean :frown:
 

smileyhi

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 18, 2014
I guess time will tell what Adelina's future as a skater will be. She is no doubt very athletic and can jump and spin like the Tasmanian Devil, I just simply do not care for her skating. I find it to be kind of ugly. I actually think that they screwed her over by giving her that OGM. Motivation can become an issue when you get the top prize. Adelina has some things that she really needs to improve in her skating. I wonder if the motivation will be there to improve now. I read a couple of interviews of hers after she got the OGM and she came off kind of arrogant, though that can be a translation issue. I understand that sometimes things get lost in translation from one language to the next. Since she is not going to Worlds we will have to wait to see what she does next skating season, but I don't expect much out of her. She may try to come back next year to compete, but I think she might end up more like Sarah, have a sub par post Olympic year and retire from competing. Maybe Sarah and Adelina will end up tied on my list as worst OGM ever when it is all said and done. Right now Adelina is holding it down because her OGM is so darn questionable, though Sarah is a very close second. I am trying hard to be open to Adelina showing me she does not belong there.

I agree about the part regarding motivation. While Adelina was ok in Sochi, she is very unrefined and, in some ways, a pretty unappealing skater to watch for more than 2 minutes. She has great height on a few of her jumps, but her landing position for her first triple in a 3-3 combination is atrocious. Also, she has almost no speed or flow out of her triple flip. That's just her jumps. The rest of her skating is pretty mediocre at best in my humble opinion. I noticed in Sochi that her footwork sequences in both programs were busy but had almost no flow across the ice and actually made me tired watching them. They just looked very "rough." Ditto for her general skating skills and artistic interpretation.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
The constant referencing of Sotnikova supposably being seen as the 4th PCS girl for years (BS) is another straw grasp in a desperate attempt to try and justify Sotnikova getting the same PCS as a clean Kim and higher than a clean Kostner in Sochi (not to mention 5 spots higher than a spectacular Mao in the LP) as if it can ever be perceived as even semi acceptable even for her best skate (which it wasnt with an obvious stumble, and an obvious < that was ignored) . However even that straw grasp which wouldnt make a particularly strong argument even if it were accurate, involves some major fudging of the factual truth and is in fact not at all accurate.

I stated, and have not edited, what I said that she was generally in the 4 - 6 range with Ashley and Akiko. I don't feel the need to "desperately attempt" to justify Adelina's scores. Every judge scored her well in Sochi. You don't have to agree with me, but judges from Germany, Japan, Italy, France and Canada (I think I got those right) gave her plenty of 9's for PCS. Your bitterness about Adelina winning is fine, but the judging panel was solidly behind her because even those who had Yuna ahead likely had her winning by a very small margin.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
You have said numerous times over she was generally the #4 girl in PCS, but anyway even amending your comments it is still BS. She was constantly owned by Ashley and Akiko on PCS, never getting higher PCS (except for when Suzuki had a total meltdown in Worlds LP) and she numerous other times had lower PCS than Gold, Osmond, and others. So 6-8 range in PCS is more reflective of reality, than your fabricated "#4 girl" on PCS.

Bitter about Adelina winning, ROTFL! Why would I be bitter about something I won 8000 dollars over. The moment I saw the judging panel and Putin the crowd I put 2000 down on Adelina winning at 1-4 knowing it was a lock and thankfully I was right. I would have been very upset had the judging panel dissapointed me and actually judged the skating and not given Sotnikova her fixed win. The only thing I am bitter about is not being smart enough to put the money down when the odds were more like 1-15 after Julia fell in the SP, as the way the whole Games had been scored it was obvious they would get a Russian winner out of the ladies no matter what. You on the other hand are so bitter that hardly anyone accepts her win you have posted 50 times a day trying to brainwash people with your bogus arguments, mostly based on lies as your PCS bluff about Sotnikova proves to come around to your side. You are like the Tonya Harding of GS, trying to morph your own reality for yourself.

This is hilarious. I hope the "$8000" you won was enough to make that nose of yours shrink back down to its original size. :laugh:

You're NOT bitter about Sotnikova winning? Shall I refer you to your 100+ posts of you whining about it? :rolleye:
 
Top