How Sotnikova beat Kim - Move by Move

jenaj said:

I think there are similarities to Tara vs. Michelle, with the added element of suspect judging. Someone could nitpick Tara's program to find flaws in her technical elements (there are some) and say that the scoring was incorrect, just like they are saying with Adelina's scoring. I think Adelina did skate with more passion and energy than Yuna, just like the accepted wisdom on Tara vs. Michelle. Others may see it differently, of course. But even before the Olympics, I thought Yuna's long program was kind of blah. And others did, too. Look back at the threads on Korean Nationals and Golden Spin. The difference between 2010 and 2014 is that the field had gotten stronger technically. More ladies were doing the difficult jumps. In fact, the field had gotten stronger since 2013 Worlds, with Julia Lipnitskaya, the new and improved Gracie Gold and Adelina, who had done well on the Grand Prix circuit. Yuna chose to stay in place. And one can see why--she had run away with the gold medal at Worlds. But the Olympic gold often goes to those who take risks. Not only Tara, but Sarah Hughes, too. With the biased judging, Yuna probably couldn't have won even if she had revived her triple loop (or otherwise upped her technical content) and picked more stirring music. But she would have made it a closer competition and harder for the judges to deny her the gold.

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That was a very thoughtful post. You will probably be crucified here for saying that though.

wootie said:

Yes, after watching the final group of ladies one more time, it was rather obvious that Yuna and her coaches weren't expecting her to win despite being perfect. If you look at the three of them in the kiss and cry area, they are all very calm and look like they're pretty much ready to accept the inevitable outcome of this whole ladies event: that the corrupt judging was going to hand the gold medal to a Russian skater as long as one of them managed not to fall. When the scores appeared, Yuna put on a good sport face that basically said "yup, I knew this would happen...no worries." Also, both of her coaches (who seem really sweet) looked at each other briefly and smiled. They knew what was coming and were gracious enough to not complain about it even though I'm sure they knew it wasn't the right outcome. Thankfully, the rest of the skating world can voice our disapproval over the circus that was the results.:disapp:

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They knew the "writing was on the wall" when they saw her marks in the short skate, Kiss and Cry; a season of hyper inflation and yet her numbers were in the low 70's.

jenaj said:

I think there are similarities to Tara vs. Michelle, with the added element of suspect judging. Someone could nitpick Tara's program to find flaws in her technical elements (there are some) and say that the scoring was incorrect, just like they are saying with Adelina's scoring. I think Adelina did skate with more passion and energy than Yuna, just like the accepted wisdom on Tara vs. Michelle. Others may see it differently, of course. But even before the Olympics, I thought Yuna's long program was kind of blah. And others did, too. Look back at the threads on Korean Nationals and Golden Spin. The difference between 2010 and 2014 is that the field had gotten stronger technically. More ladies were doing the difficult jumps. In fact, the field had gotten stronger since 2013 Worlds, with Julia Lipnitskaya, the new and improved Gracie Gold and Adelina, who had done well on the Grand Prix circuit. Yuna chose to stay in place. And one can see why--she had run away with the gold medal at Worlds. But the Olympic gold often goes to those who take risks. Not only Tara, but Sarah Hughes, too. With the biased judging, Yuna probably couldn't have won even if she had revived her triple loop (or otherwise upped her technical content) and picked more stirring music. But she would have made it a closer competition and harder for the judges to deny her the gold.

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I think it really depends on what you think figure skating should be. Could Yuna have made her program "more difficult" by adding in another triple jump? Probably. Does Adelina having one more triple jump in her program mean her program was more difficult overall than Yuna's? Um, no. Figure skating at its best has always been about more than just the jumps (although they're important, of course)...and choreography, glide across the ice, expressiveness, and all the other little nuances of skating skills that create the overall impression of performance in figure skating are equally as important.

So, yes, Adelina Sotnikova landed one more triple jump. Let's look at glide across the ice (for example). Adelina essentially spends almost the entire program skating in a circle into and out of her (at times) impressive jumps. That is the majority of her choreography aside from two moments in which she does some nonsensical arm movements in order to "appear" artistic. Contrast that with the ice coverage in Yuna's long program. She uses the entire rink consistently and, as usual, glides with ease and elegance into and out of her jumps AND integrates moments of sensual choreography and two passionate, intricate step sequences seamlessly into the overall performance to create a unified whole. Now that's not as obviously technical as landing a triple loop, but judges who are judging accurately understand that those aspects of skating are as difficult or more difficult than just sticking another triple into your program.

So, I guess what it comes down to is if you think skating is just about the jumps and the feelings that accompany landed jumps or if you're actually looking at the program as a whole piece. Adelina certainly had some nice jumps (although Yuna's were landed with more beauty and finesse), but I think the vast majority of people would look at the construction of both programs and how they were skated the entire way through and be able to see the difference in quality and beauty.

wootie said:

I think it really depends on what you think figure skating should be. Could Yuna have made her program "more difficult" by adding in another triple jump? Probably. Does Adelina having one more triple jump in her program mean her program was more difficult overall than Yuna's? Um, no. Figure skating at its best has always been about more than just the jumps (although they're important, of course)...and choreography, glide across the ice, expressiveness, and all the other little nuances of skating skills that create the overall impression of performance in figure skating are equally as important.

So, yes, Adelina Sotnikova landed one more triple jump. Let's look at glide across the ice (for example). Adelina essentially spends almost the entire program skating in a circle into and out of her (at times) impressive jumps. That is the majority of her choreography aside from two moments in which she does some nonsensical arm movements in order to "appear" artistic. Contrast that with the ice coverage in Yuna's long program. She uses the entire rink consistently and, as usual, glides with ease and elegance into and out of her jumps AND integrates moments of sensual choreography and two passionate, intricate step sequences seamlessly into the overall performance to create a unified whole. Now that's not as obviously technical as landing a triple loop, but judges who are judging accurately understand that those aspects of skating are as difficult or more difficult than just sticking another triple into your program.

So, I guess what it comes down to is if you think skating is just about the jumps and the feelings that accompany landed jumps or if you're actually looking at the program as a whole piece. Adelina certainly had some nice jumps (although Yuna's were landed with more beauty and finesse), but I think the vast majority of people would look at the construction of both programs and how they were skated the entire way through and be able to see the difference in quality and beauty.

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But that's the thing, though, isn't it. We are all looking at this through our own, personal lens of "this is what good skating is." There is no single answer to that question. We are all free to make up our own, and love who we love.

The skaters, though, aren't competing for love. They are competing for medals. And when it comes to medals, there is one and only one definition of "good skating" that counts, and if you don't want to call it "good skating", let's call it "rewardable skating." ISU, as a governing authority of the sport, gets to decide what they want to reward. Skaters, being athletes, will do what ISU wants them to do. If you have a philosophical difference with the concept of rewardable skating as currently held by ISU, that's your prerogative, but it doesn't change the facts on the ground. ISU, and ISU alone gets to decide how much a triple loop, a step sequence, a spiral, an artistic program is worth, and indeed what it is that they are. ISU alone gets to decide what "quality of skating" they wish to reward. You and I don't get a seat on that committee.

Nadya said:

But that's the thing, though, isn't it. We are all looking at this through our own, personal lens of "this is what good skating is." There is no single answer to that question. We are all free to make up our own, and love who we love.

The skaters, though, aren't competing for love. They are competing for medals. And when it comes to medals, there is one and only one definition of "good skating" that counts, and if you don't want to call it "good skating", let's call it "rewardable skating." ISU, as a governing authority of the sport, gets to decide what they want to reward. Skaters, being athletes, will do what ISU wants them to do. If you have a philosophical difference with the concept of rewardable skating as currently held by ISU, that's your prerogative, but it doesn't change the facts on the ground. ISU, and ISU alone gets to decide how much a triple loop, a step sequence, a spiral, an artistic program is worth, and indeed what it is that they are. ISU alone gets to decide what "quality of skating" they wish to reward. You and I don't get a seat on that committee.

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Um, time to brush up on your reading skills. No philosophical difference with what should be rewarded exists. We can all agree that objectively better step sequences should be rewarded with higher scores.

Objectively, most of Yuna's (and Carolina's) technical components (we're not even talking about the PCS) were superior to Adelina's (not a subjective assessment...everyone from Katarina Witt to Sonia Bianchetti to pretty much anyone with eyes and a mother can agree on that) and their GOE's should have reflected that. The only technical component that Adelina should have been scored higher in is related to her jumps. She did have more triples and backloaded them, so we can all give her that. She was a very impressive jumper in Sochi. The rest of the components, um, no. Just no.

Also since her program is virtually the same one she skated since the beginning of the season, how is it that her total LP score magically went up by 20 points? She did skate a clean LP in Paris at TEB and somehow managed a 129.80. She skated as well (perhaps better) than she did in Sochi and yet, she was scored 20 points lower when she wasn't skating on Russian soil. No matter how you justify Adelina's scores, it's just a fact that she was ridiculously overscored in Sochi. Her performance (or lack thereof) didn't magically become 20 points better in Sochi compared to Paris.

Scores are generally a bit inflated at the Olympics, but only the two Russian girls' scores were raised to such exorbitant levels.

Lol now Yuna fans and sotnikova haters are trying to say teb was better than Olympics and just ignoring no 3/3 and no 3 jump combo just saying nonsense that because teb was clean somehow her Olympic performance was inferior! No 3/3 and no 3 jump combo made teb vastly inferior to her Olympic performance and that's why her score was lower.

gmyers said:

Lol now Yuna fans and sotnikova haters are trying to say teb was better than Olympics and just ignoring no 3/3 and no 3 jump combo just saying nonsense that because teb was clean somehow her Olympic performance was inferior! No 3/3 and no 3 jump combo made teb vastly inferior to her Olympic performance and that's why her score was lower.

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Oh whoops! I forgot that a 3-3 combo compared to a 3-2 combo is worth 20 extra points. Silly me

Her performance in teb was very weak and subpar and it was reflected in many areas. No 3/3, no 3 jump combo, not anywhere near the performance in sochi, missed levels on spins. She was weak there. And yeah all of that plus usual Olympic inflation for all could mean 20 points.

gmyers said:

Her performance in teb was very weak and subpar and it was reflected in many areas. No 3/3, no 3 jump combo, not anywhere near the performance in sochi, missed levels on spins. She was weak there. And yeah all of that plus usual Olympic inflation for all could mean 20 points.

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Right, her spins were definitely inferior in Paris. So inferior to the ones in Sochi! Also, that 3 jump combo in Sochi was executed brilliantly. I especially love that graceful step out at the end of the double loop. Beauty incarnate.

wootie said:

Um, time to brush up on your reading skills. No philosophical difference with what should be rewarded exists. We can all agree that objectively better step sequences should be rewarded with higher scores.

Objectively, most of Yuna's (and Carolina's) technical components (we're not even talking about the PCS) were superior to Adelina's (not a subjective assessment...everyone from Katarina Witt to Sonia Bianchetti to pretty much anyone with eyes and a mother can agree on that) and their GOE's should have reflected that. The only technical component that Adelina should have been scored higher in is related to her jumps. She did have more triples and backloaded them, so we can all give her that. She was a very impressive jumper in Sochi. The rest of the components, um, no. Just no.

Also since her program is virtually the same one she skated since the beginning of the season, how is it that her total LP score magically went up by 20 points? She did skate a clean LP in Paris at TEB and somehow managed a 129.80. She skated as well (perhaps better) than she did in Sochi and yet, she was scored 20 points lower when she wasn't skating on Russian soil. No matter how you justify Adelina's scores, it's just a fact that she was ridiculously overscored in Sochi. Her performance (or lack thereof) didn't magically become 20 points better in Sochi compared to Paris.

Scores are generally a bit inflated at the Olympics, but only the two Russian girls' scores were raised to such exorbitant levels.

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Sarcasm doesn't advance your argument plus you aren't good at it, so let's just stick to the debate. Here's what you said:

" She uses the entire rink consistently and, as usual, glides with ease and elegance into and out of her jumps AND integrates moments of sensual choreography and two passionate, intricate step sequences seamlessly into the overall performance to create a unified whole. Now that's not as obviously technical as landing a triple loop, but judges who are judging accurately understand that those aspects of skating are as difficult or more difficult than just sticking another triple into your program."

Whether or not "those aspects of skating" are more or less difficult than sticking another triple into your program isn't really a judgment call unless you want to make it. Triple jumps have numerical values and "those aspects" have numerical values too. One is either more or less than another.

Then you say:

"The only technical component that Adelina should have been scored higher in is related to her jumps. She did have more triples and backloaded them, so we can all give her that. She was a very impressive jumper in Sochi. The rest of the components, um, no. Just no."

First, I think it's a universal consensus that Adelina's SPINS are the strongest in the field and certainly stronger than Kim's. So her jumps aren't the only technical component on which she achieves superiority. Plus I believe you are conflating the component score and the technical score. Spins and jumps are graded in the technical part, not the component score.

mskater93 said:

I would agree with BoP on this one, and I don't always agree with what he has to say. Tara's contributions to the commentary team are questionable (and often juvenile and trite, but that's for another time/thread) and it's quite clear she doesn't understand IJS. BoP GETS IJS.

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I would have to agree. I dont always agree with BOP but it is clear he is studied and well versed in COP and takes his judgements on scores given under COP very seriously. Which cant be said of people like Hamilton, Lipinski, or Bezic who even admit publicly they think the system is a joke and they frankly cant give a flying fig about it (despite being payed to speak on it supposably).

jenaj said:

I think there are similarities to Tara vs. Michelle, with the added element of suspect judging. Someone could nitpick Tara's program to find flaws in her technical elements (there are some) and say that the scoring was incorrect, just like they are saying with Adelina's scoring. I think Adelina did skate with more passion and energy than Yuna, just like the accepted wisdom on Tara vs. Michelle. Others may see it differently, of course. But even before the Olympics, I thought Yuna's long program was kind of blah. And others did, too. Look back at the threads on Korean Nationals and Golden Spin. The difference between 2010 and 2014 is that the field had gotten stronger technically. More ladies were doing the difficult jumps. In fact, the field had gotten stronger since 2013 Worlds, with Julia Lipnitskaya, the new and improved Gracie Gold and Adelina, who had done well on the Grand Prix circuit. Yuna chose to stay in place. And one can see why--she had run away with the gold medal at Worlds. But the Olympic gold often goes to those who take risks. Not only Tara, but Sarah Hughes, too. With the biased judging, Yuna probably couldn't have won even if she had revived her triple loop (or otherwise upped her technical content) and picked more stirring music. But she would have made it a closer competition and harder for the judges to deny her the gold.

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I agree with this somewhat. The difference is COP is not arranged to reward overall impression such as extra energy or passion. So 6.0 was designed perhaps to reward a skate like Tara's in Nagano's over Michelle's. The same would not have been true under COP, and was definitely not true under COP guidelines for Sotnikova vs Kim (or even Kostner). Instead the judges fudged and manipulated the scores in countless wrong ways given COP guidelines to come up with the scores and results they did.

Not to mention Tara's win over Michelle was atleast very close. Sotnikova's already controversial win over Kim and Kostner incredibly was not even close. She was given a large points margin victory, a further insult to the credability of the result, the event, and the sport as a whole. When she got her marks and was a whopping almost 10 points over Kostner I laughed out loud, although wasnt surprised once I looked at the panel, technical specialist, and saw Putin in the crowd, knowing hours before that it was a set up all from the very first skater.

Nadya said:

Sarcasm doesn't advance your argument plus you aren't good at it, so let's just stick to the debate. Here's what you said:

" She uses the entire rink consistently and, as usual, glides with ease and elegance into and out of her jumps AND integrates moments of sensual choreography and two passionate, intricate step sequences seamlessly into the overall performance to create a unified whole. Now that's not as obviously technical as landing a triple loop, but judges who are judging accurately understand that those aspects of skating are as difficult or more difficult than just sticking another triple into your program."

Whether or not "those aspects of skating" are more or less difficult than sticking another triple into your program isn't really a judgment call unless you want to make it. Triple jumps have numerical values and "those aspects" have numerical values too. One is either more or less than another.

Then you say:

"The only technical component that Adelina should have been scored higher in is related to her jumps. She did have more triples and backloaded them, so we can all give her that. She was a very impressive jumper in Sochi. The rest of the components, um, no. Just no."

First, I think it's a universal consensus that Adelina's SPINS are the strongest in the field and certainly stronger than Kim's. So her jumps aren't the only technical component on which she achieves superiority. Plus I believe you are conflating the component score and the technical score. Spins and jumps are graded in the technical part, not the component score.

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Actually, Lipnitskaya's spins are better. She was overscored, too, but it's a "universal consensus" that her spins are superior to Adelina's.

Anyway, GOE marks are part of the technical score and have a numerical value, and Adelina objectively didn't deserve all her +3's in Sochi considering that she rarely received them earlier in the season, and her performance in Sochi wasn't magically better than it was in Paris or at Europeans. So, yes, she was over-scored on every technical element merely because she was Russian.

Basically, the argument that she should have won based on the technical score is pretty BS-ish as it is since it's based solely on the addition of one extra triple while ignoring edge calls that were not called by the technical controller, an ugly step out on a 3 jump combo and an UR 3T. Combine that super shaky technical score reasoning with the PCS, and it becomes clear that the whole thing doesn't add up whatsoever and is only defensible if you choose to ignore what makes skating beautiful and unique and choose to focus all your attention on one extra jump. That is certainly one's prerogative, but hopefully going forward our sport will reward complete skaters and not be as beholden to politicking.

jenaj said:

I think there are similarities to Tara vs. Michelle, with the added element of suspect judging. Someone could nitpick Tara's program to find flaws in her technical elements (there are some) and say that the scoring was incorrect, just like they are saying with Adelina's scoring. I think Adelina did skate with more passion and energy than Yuna, just like the accepted wisdom on Tara vs. Michelle. Others may see it differently, of course. But even before the Olympics, I thought Yuna's long program was kind of blah. And others did, too. Look back at the threads on Korean Nationals and Golden Spin. The difference between 2010 and 2014 is that the field had gotten stronger technically. More ladies were doing the difficult jumps. In fact, the field had gotten stronger since 2013 Worlds, with Julia Lipnitskaya, the new and improved Gracie Gold and Adelina, who had done well on the Grand Prix circuit. Yuna chose to stay in place. And one can see why--she had run away with the gold medal at Worlds. But the Olympic gold often goes to those who take risks. Not only Tara, but Sarah Hughes, too. With the biased judging, Yuna probably couldn't have won even if she had revived her triple loop (or otherwise upped her technical content) and picked more stirring music. But she would have made it a closer competition and harder for the judges to deny her the gold.

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Unsurprisingly I couldn't disagree with you more. If you are unable to tell the vast improvements between this Olympic performance versus her previous ones, then you are not capable of assessing it correctly or fairly.

Adelina's difficulty was similar to many younger skaters. e.g Li Zi Jun who beat her convincingly at last worlds, who competed with 7 triples and ends up 4th in the FS due to inability to compete with the veterans on their artistry. The only unexplainable difference is how all of a sudden at this Olympics, all of Adelina's historical technical faults are all over looked by the CHAIRMAN of technical committee in power since 2002 in the wake of Salt Lake City Scandals, who's previous CV include being the vice president of Russia Figure Skating federation. Adelina along with Julia were getting overwhelming GOEs and overall some 50 points from her season opening scores, inflation starting Russia Nationals, then European Championship (which 2 of the replacement panel judges at this Olympics were also there responsible for inflate her PCS from 60 to 69 there. She wasn't even 1st in the FS, Julia was. She even beat Kostner in the short then, with her PCS then and caused a few raised eye brows including mine). How her choreography, performance and interpretation are awarded 9.75 by at least 2 judges at the Olympics, 0.25 away from perfection (when it is obviously flawed) from the beginning of the season all lead to one conclusion.

Did Michelle and Tara received different preferential judging as they did here? The Sochi Olympics is distinctive by how ALL the skaters are judged through out the competition vs the Russians, more than what they actually did on ice. They are totally different circumstances.

One just need to ask how is it possible for anyone to gain such miraculous improvement to justify these insane level of PCS improvement never seen in the history of ladies figure skating? Surpass Kim's PCS in Vancouver. Only 0.09 difference to Kim here. (Despite Kim got 7.75 in one of her marks). Has this ever happened to anyone in the history of this sport? Undisputable facts are: there are irregularities and unprecedented artificial inflation. IF there were consensus with field wide PCS inflation through out the season, then why aren't these inflation applicable for all skaters including Kim but just reserved for the Russian skaters only at this Olympics?

Many of Kim's programs through out her career have all received negatively feedbacks by the usual suspect, it is nothing new in skating. Her Gershwin, Homage, Les Miserable, Giselle, Kiss of the Vampire and now Adios, all ends up became her classic that won her multiple championships. Kim did clean back to back at this Olympics all with positive GOEs, that usually get clean bonus especially skating last but of course that didn't happen. I'd argue GOEs have been used similarly to how PCS have been used. Judges have enough wiggle room to manipulate the scores just by relative scoring, similar to how PCS are used as placement holders rather than than marked on what they see on the day. Carolina did 7 triples (no 3/3) and Mao with 8 (Despite UR issues - I'd argue it was EVEN GREATER achievement than Vancouver due to the circumstances and yes I teared up). Apart from they deserve to beat Adelina in TES, they should also have beaten her in components score by a fair margin. This did not happen, even as world champions putting out the best Free skate of their life against a 9th ranked world championship finisher with no major podium finish to speak of.

Kim separate from the pack by her ability to realize a program holistically. It is not just about a particular component or element for her. At most one can say she is not your cuppa of tea (style, expression, form, no one is immune to criticisms based on personal preferences in this sport etc.) but her programs are far from blah even if one is to really study it academic and artistically. Take for instance, her El Tango De Roxanne was one of the first great COP SP program that demonstrated great balanced placement of elements, multiple direction skating, make full use of the rink, coverage, variation of expression, excellent musical choreography through and through. This Adios program despite being a Free program still shares many of the great qualities that made El Tango special but with a far more refined, mature and wistful presentation that remains truthful to the mood of the music to bookend her career.

wootie said:

Actually, Lipnitskaya's spins are better. She was overscored, too, but it's a "universal consensus" that her spins are superior to Adelina's.

Anyway, GOE marks are part of the technical score and have a numerical value, and Adelina objectively didn't deserve all her +3's in Sochi considering that she rarely received them earlier in the season, and her performance in Sochi wasn't magically better than it was in Paris or at Europeans. So, yes, she was over-scored on every technical element merely because she was Russian.

Basically, the argument that she should have won based on the technical score is pretty BS-ish as it is since it's based solely on the addition of one extra triple while ignoring edge calls that were not called by the technical controller, an ugly step out on a 3 jump combo and an UR 3T. Combine that super shaky technical score reasoning with the PCS, and it becomes clear that the whole thing doesn't add up whatsoever and is only defensible if you choose to ignore what makes skating beautiful and unique and choose to focus all your attention on one extra jump. That is certainly one's prerogative, but hopefully going forward our sport will reward complete skaters and not be as beholden to politicking.

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I was writing a response to this yesterday but my power went out with the East Coast storm.

It seems to me that you are now changing your argument from "it's unfair to win on one extra triple jump" to "this triple jump wasn't done well to begin with." Let' say - and I am not saying it didn't actually happen - let's imagine for a moment, for the sake of the argument, that Sotnikova's jumps were perfect (I don't think anyone has criticized her spins yet). That still would not have made her any more sensual, lyrical, "complete" - whatever that means - skater. It still would not have silenced her critics who prefer that a more "complete skater" wins.

What I'm getting at is this: there is no requirement that the winning score be achieved in any particular way. There is no requirement for a skater to be sensual, lyrical, mature, complete, whatever. The road to victory lies through achieving a superior score, and the scoring rules are clearly laid out and available to all and sundry. That magical unicorn - a complete skater - is as elusive as it is relative. It is not rewarded to the exclusion of everything else. Say you have a complete skater, and then you have a somewhat-less-complete skater who executed one more jump. Win or not? What about two more jumps? Three more spins? Four more spirals? There is no requirement on the books that the "completeness" of skaters, or the "holistic" nature of their program is rewarded above everything else.

I understand very well that you prefer the scoring rules to be revised to reward what you care about, above all else. That's completely normal. We are all entitled to our preferences. But it's not "unfair" for a different skater to win based on the rules as they exist today.

wootie said:

I think it really depends on what you think figure skating should be. Could Yuna have made her program "more difficult" by adding in another triple jump? Probably. Does Adelina having one more triple jump in her program mean her program was more difficult overall than Yuna's? Um, no. Figure skating at its best has always been about more than just the jumps (although they're important, of course)...and choreography, glide across the ice, expressiveness, and all the other little nuances of skating skills that create the overall impression of performance in figure skating are equally as important.

So, yes, Adelina Sotnikova landed one more triple jump. Let's look at glide across the ice (for example). Adelina essentially spends almost the entire program skating in a circle into and out of her (at times) impressive jumps. That is the majority of her choreography aside from two moments in which she does some nonsensical arm movements in order to "appear" artistic. Contrast that with the ice coverage in Yuna's long program. She uses the entire rink consistently and, as usual, glides with ease and elegance into and out of her jumps AND integrates moments of sensual choreography and two passionate, intricate step sequences seamlessly into the overall performance to create a unified whole. Now that's not as obviously technical as landing a triple loop, but judges who are judging accurately understand that those aspects of skating are as difficult or more difficult than just sticking another triple into your program.

So, I guess what it comes down to is if you think skating is just about the jumps and the feelings that accompany landed jumps or if you're actually looking at the program as a whole piece. Adelina certainly had some nice jumps (although Yuna's were landed with more beauty and finesse), but I think the vast majority of people would look at the construction of both programs and how they were skated the entire way through and be able to see the difference in quality and beauty.

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plan to have difficult program and actually execute all planned program is totally different matter. Sotnikova did not execute all her jumps properly....wrong edge...underrotated two footed sloppy jumps....

Yuna v. Sotnikova's performance-----simply, artistic mature quality performance vs. unpolished sloppy junior level of performance

ks777 said:

It also fail to mention how bad Adelina's posture is. Her skating skills doesn't even come close to Yuna's. It's like Kevin Reynolds beating a clean patrick Chan and trying to justifiy it by saying he did one more triple.

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PEOPLE PLEASE WATCH THIS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhWmXsE2k1w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBiKiV60ja8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOXQWv0nCaY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVvRd4WSVRQ

It is shameful and embarrassing

cuon_alpinus said:

PEOPLE PLEASE WATCH THIS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhWmXsE2k1w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBiKiV60ja8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOXQWv0nCaY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVvRd4WSVRQ

It is shameful and embarrassing

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It's not enough to make fuss. More like a sour puss of desperate soul. Did Yuna's mom a.k.a ATS sue The New York Times for making fake or at least ask to remove it from the paper? Still pending?

Yuna fans: for the rest of life. Other fans: . Adelina: .

Yuna fans, do what they suppose to do: compiling data to support Yuna
Other skating fans: compiling data to fight for the justice of figure skating.
Adelina Sochi win supporter (not necessarily her fans) , fake data to mask her underserved win.
Yuna fans are actually so happy and gracious that Yuna left 2 more clean programs in Sochi. Yuna's programs are her legacy and gift, Also the most powerful evidence in her defense. Yuna fans will live the rest of life live in peace and satisfaction.
Adelina Sochi win supporters will spend the rest of their lives to live in uncertainty and wasting their lifes to cover up Sochi fraud.

yyyskate said:

Yuna fans will live the rest of life live in peace and satisfaction.

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Really?