2017 Worlds Preview: Ladies

FlattFan said:

I'm telling it as I see it. It happened. At Russian Nationals. I didn't make it up. I'm not stirring anything, you are.
If Anna so much has a bad day, she will be in free fall. This is not a conjecture or quick to judge statement.

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I would wager Carolina (who is in the process of coming back) would have a bad day before Anna did. Also, Anna has more clout now so the judges are less inclined to Worlds2014 her.

FlattFan said:

Aside from Medvedeva, the next likely medalist is Kostner. Pogo is a fall away from being dumped, even from within her federation. If she had any problem in the SP or the LP, she will be buried.
Osmond is super inconsistent, and what you see at 4cc will repeat at world.
This is World in Helsinki. Kostner got a medal in the bag.

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I agree, particularly the part about Kostner. I even think she or Anna can win if Medvedeva suddenly becomes inconsistent. Unlikely, but possible.

FlattFan said:

I'm telling it as I see it. It happened. At Russian Nationals. I didn't make it up. I'm not stirring anything, you are.
If Anna so much has a bad day, she will be in free fall. This is not a conjecture or quick to judge statement.

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I know what heppened at Russian Nationals and can understand where your opinion comes from but I still think you're too judgemental. I believe (or would like to believe ... ) that at least international tech panel / judging panel is as impartial as it can be and is not deliberetely dumping any skaters. Obviously I have some doubts too and criticize system myself but still most of the time they get it right.

Medvedeva wins, except if something very unexpected happens, and by unexpected I mean something like illness, not mental breakdown, because it won't happen.
I think Pogorilaya gets the silver if she goes cleanish. Kostner can get the bronze if she skates cleanish. If Kostner skates two perfect programs without any minor mistakes she might get the silver medal, but my bet is on Pogorilaya now.

Same I think podium might be like Euros this year but if Kaetlyn skates lights-out she could get silver.

MaiKatze said:

I'm also not a fan of Evgenia and prefer Anna much more, but I think, besides consistency I get why she is so much above anyone else. I think it's something that perhaps will also happen with Nathan Chen. It's something very few skaters have.

They make it look easy. When Evgenia skates I never think, oh, she's trying really hard to get these jumps, to sell the program, to skate at all. It just looks so damn easy, perfect, you wonder why it is so hard for the others. For example, my love Anna. She's consistent now, and clean most of the time, but for me it doesn't look as smooth, as easy. And for Evgenia it does. I don't like that she dominates like this. It's boring as heck. In my mind she is not 10 points above any other girl in her programs, unreachable. But the lightness and the fearlessness help her, even if her programs do not.

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Absolutely, both of them (Medvedeva and Chen) have similar pattern, they're good jumpers and made it looks easy. And consistent. But hard/boring to watch. For example Yuzuru Hanyu (when he's on) also did that kind easy-looking jumps but his skating so beautiful and enjoyable, he's just flying over ice. This sense of music... I think it's kind of given, either you have it or not. But he's inconsistent and that's his disadvantage. Anyway unfortunately PCS are limited unlike TES so...Medvedeva's gonna win (probably like Chen is).

qwerty1195 said:

Same I think podium might be like Euros this year but if Kaetlyn skates lights-out she could get silver.

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And if she skates like she did at 4CC, she will place 11th (that's what 184.17 got you at 2016 Worlds).

chuckm said:

And if she skates like she did at 4CC, she will place 11th (that's what 184.17 got you at 2016 Worlds).

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Uh, a) that was likely an anomaly for Kaetlyn, certainly in the SP department, and b) last year's Worlds and this year's Worlds have different fields.

To use your 'logic', if Kostner skates like she did at Euros, she will place 6th (that's what 210.52 got you at 2016 Worlds). :sarcasm:

6th is better than 11th, no?

BTW, Kaetlyn was majorly held up in the SP at 4CC. No one with 3z! and a fall got a score anywhere near 68 at Worlds 2016. Daleman got 67.38 for a clean program.

chuckm said:

6th is better than 11th, no?

BTW, Kaetlyn was majorly held up in the SP at 4CC. No one with 3z! and a fall got a score anywhere near 68 at Worlds 2016. Daleman got 67.38 for a clean program.

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Uh, nobody in the top 16 of the Worlds 2016 SP had a fall, in general. Again, you're comparing different competitions/seasons. Gabby skating clean last year gets 67, and her personal best going clean is around 72 this year -- and with a lutz issue at 4CC 2017 she scored higher (68.25) than when she went clean at Worlds 2016.

Considering Kaetlyn's personal best is 75.54 points, with 34.92 points PCS, I'd say a fall on her 2A and 3Z! dropping her 7.3 points lower is pretty fair and not "majorly held up" (her PCS was 32.79 btw -- 2.13 points lower than the GPF). Although seeing that maple leaf on her jacket, I'm pretty sure you think she deserved no more than 30 PCS.

Gracie Gold got 178.39 at Four Continents 2016. But went on to win the SP at Worlds and even with the FS problems, still managed 4th with a score of 211.29.

I think what everyone is saying is that two skaters will medal at Worlds despite skating at least one crappy performance this season.

chuckm said:

And if she skates like she did at 4CC, she will place 11th (that's what 184.17 got you at 2016 Worlds).

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Sure Chuck...lets go with her lowest season score and make assumptions from there. Never mind Kaetlyn's other performances, including the 2nd highest SP score, or the 4th best in total score this season,

Once again, denial is your best friend, as we have seen in your latest...World predictions.

Osmond4gold said:

Sure Chuck...lets go with her lowest season score and make assumptions from there. Never mind Kaetlyn's other performances, including the 2nd highest SP score, or the 4th best in total score this season,

Once again, denial is your best friend, as we have seen in your latest...World predictions.

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She's had two bad performances in a row (Nationals and 4CC), so it's not just one event. Of course, her Nationals score was inflated to keep her above Daleman. Her recent trajectory plus the fact that Kaetlyn has yet to skate a clean FS in competition, is the basis of my prediction for the ladies. And she won't have the benefit of home ice in Finland.

chuckm said:

She's had two bad performances in a row (Nationals and 4CC), so it's not just one event. Of course, her Nationals score was inflated to keep her above Daleman. Her recent trajectory plus the fact that Kaetlyn has yet to skate a clean FS in competition, is the basis of my prediction for the ladies. And she won't have the benefit of home ice in Finland.

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For me, none of the following winning silver or bronze would surprise me: Ashley, Caro, Anna, Kaetlyn, Mai, Maria S, or Gabrielle. There are always surprises at Worlds, but the field seems especially open this year because all of those skaters have showed glimpses of brilliance.

chuckm said:

She's had two bad performances in a row (Nationals and 4CC), so it's not just one event. Of course, her Nationals score was inflated to keep her above Daleman. Her recent trajectory plus the fact that Kaetlyn has yet to skate a clean FS in competition, is the basis of my prediction for the ladies. And she won't have the benefit of home ice in Finland.

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Kaetlyn did not have 'home ice', in Helsinki or Beijing this season and comps went very well, winning a Gold and a Silver in the process, and most importantly at the GP in France, achieving a Personal Best in both the SP, LP and in Total Score! Don't know why you continue to promote the idea that Kaetlyn only scores well in Canada, knowing it's a falsehood, otherwise known as "fake news".

Lets just say, denial can be a crutch sometimes, especially when one needs to hang on to the past, or glory 'daze'.

chuckm said:

She's had two bad performances in a row (Nationals and 4CC), so it's not just one event. Of course, her Nationals score was inflated to keep her above Daleman. Her recent trajectory plus the fact that Kaetlyn has yet to skate a clean FS in competition, is the basis of my prediction for the ladies. And she won't have the benefit of home ice in Finland.

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uhm, chuckm, do you look at the ISU season's bests scores?

Kaetlyn is 4th overall in the SB rankings. Both her SP and FS scores for that are taken from the Grand Prix Final ......held in France.

Your choice of statistics seems to be cherry-picked to prove your point of view, but even looking at those, I can't find credible support for your view that Kaetlyn only does well at home.

CanadianSkaterGuy said:

I see what you're getting at, but a better analogy would be comparing a tano to incorporating difficult, complex vocabulary in lieu of a more basic, simpler word. Obviously, if you use too many big words it can come across as exhausting/annoying too,

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Interesting analogy.....

And I'll extend it to say that adding all the detail is like putting 2 or 3 adjectives or adverbs on every noun. And whether or not that is considered a good thing varies by language. It's something that I had to wrap my head around as I came to understand the very different ideas about 'what is good writing.'

In French and Russian, [as I've been taught] simple grammatical formats and minimal use of adjectives and adverbs are not ideal. I recall doing exercises piling on the adjectives and adverbs in Russian, and adding nuance to meaning with more subtle and complex structures in French.

Not so for English. At least since the end of the Victorian era. Too many long complex sentences will get you comments that your writing is long, unclear, pretentious etc. Using the same sentence structure relentlessly, or a limited vocabulary, no matter how long or obscure the words, will not be well received. Using adverbs or adjectives is just considered as evidence that you don't have adequate mastery of the incredibly large vocabulary base of English: As you are unable to find the best English word, with the best connotation and nuance, you have instead had to modify an inadequate word, making things longer and more complex.

Getting back to skating, the IJS is currently rewarding a very complex grammar of choreography and what Anglophones call '20 dollar words'. However, it isn't consistently rewarding variety, and permits excessive repetition in some cases. On jumps, the GOE bullets don't encourage using a diversity of more challenging variations....

Tanos on every jump would be in English like using the same long-winded adverb on every word....: e.g. 'magnificently jumped', 'magnificently spun', 'magnificently stepped' one after the other in a text....Would you give that an "A"?...or would you write "Surely, there is more than one positive adverb in the English language? [as my profs would have done....]

But she didn't medal at the GPF, did she? And that was because of her FS, which was not clean. The FS is her bete noir and has only gotten worse since the GPF. If she had skated one clean FS at Nationals or 4CC, she might have made my predictions, but she bombed both. And BTW, I'm not the only one who left Kaetlyn out of the top six.

No and Ashley didn't even make the GPF and her best score in the short did not even break 70 points and the long didn't even break 130. And both of her SB scores came with home ice advantage marking. Which is something you seem to dismiss when it applies to Osmond or Daleman. But this year they have both outscored Ashley (in the short, long and total) and those scores were not even on home ice!

^^ As per usual, Sackie, the voice of reason strikes again. Thanks Sackie!