By your criterion, you don't have many non-mediocre Japanese ladies after Ando and Asada.
2018-19 Japanese Ladies' figure skating
- Thread starter yume
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By your criterion, you don't have many non-mediocre Japanese ladies after Ando and Asada.
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2014
I don't think Ashley Wagner's career was mediocre. Sure, she wasn't Michelle Kwan or Sasha Cohen but she has kept the USA in the medal mix for many years, she has a World silver medal and multiple GPF medals. She can be proud of her career, as Satoko can be proud of hers at the still young age of 20. Your continuous attempts to minimize her achievements won't take away her medals.
Her pcs rose by 1 point in FS since skate America where she was perfect. Not like Rika who jumped from 67 at NHK for a clean free to 72 at GPF for a free with a mistake.
Still better pcs than Mai but not a major rise.
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2018
Then by your standards, you must be a hardcore Hanyu fan! :shocked:
I don't think there's much to discuss since you've already made up your mind, but to most of us here, her "mediocre" career carried Team Japan for seasons. That's my only point of contention.
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2014
Mediocre is not a term I would use for a WORLD CLASS athlete who has earned many spots for Japan for Worlds and Olympics and essentially kept Japanese ladies relevant in the top field after Mao. Sure she doesn't have the career achievements of Mao Asada, BUT WHO DOES??? Rika wasn't in the senior circuit right after Mao wasn't winning events, Satoko was and still is. Please continue to ignore Satoko's World silver and bronze. :sarcasm:
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- Dec 9, 2017
lol
Then she better be in the top three. The only one guaranteed a spot is Rika. Otherwise the top three will go. Countries like their nationals to be important and Rika is the only dominant one right now.
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- Apr 13, 2017
Never thought I'd see the Japanese ladies thread united in defence of Satoko! Anyway, there is no question that Satoko was team Japan's rock for the last quadrennial, consistently being in the mix for medals and earning some great accolades in an era of Russian domination and in spite of her fairly obvious limitations. She was also the one to bear the immense weight of Mao's legacy, who iirc remains to this day the most popular female figure skater in Japan despite being retired for years. People have predicted her upset season after season but not one skater stepped up to actually dethrone her at Japanese nationals. Nowadays it is clear the other upcoming ladies (Kaori, Rika...) look up to her as a skater to emulate, for her work ethic and artistry. Put some respect on ha name! :dev2:By the logic of PCS though, that means she should get even higher PCS next competition when she's clean because she wasn't clean at this one. So there's still hope.
Unfortunately for Mai and the others, they'll have to do something to stand out more before the judges will give them the PCS they deserve. I wonder how Wakaba will be scored when she comes back from injury--will they remember her lights out skate at Worlds? I hope so.
Satoko's jumping technique has not changed fundamentally since 2013 Junior Worlds. All she has done is minor adjustments to hide UR. She would need much more speed when she takes off to make her jumps bigger, but she would have to sacrifice her trade mark consistency by doing so because the more speed you have, the more difficult to control. Her speed into jumps hasn't increased as she is too afraid of taking a risk.
I don't think Ms. Hamada is capable of teaching a jumping technique for a senior lady with a mature body.
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2014
Are you a jump coach? If not, it's kind of disrespectful to state that all she has done so far is "adjustments to hide her URs". As is to assume she is too afraid of taking risks. In my view, she is anything but afraid. She has worked on her technique with Yamato Tamura and Ilia Kulik in the past. Now she's learning a new method with Ghislain Briand. You have expressed your personal dislike of Satoko many times in the past, but that does not mean you have any inside info on how she works or what she thinks.
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2017
In all of this, I just saw the protocols again, and Kaori escaped a 3Lze call. The gap between her and Liza would have been larger, then, in the results.
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2014
A 1 point rise with her mistakes is pretty telling given her setback from Helsinki. Comparing her with Rika isn't really useful imo. Rika won both of her GPs and has cumulatively had a lot more high-scoring clean tech on the circuit than Kaori. On the whole, Kaori's packaging this season is more competitive than Mai's and is going to give her a higher ceiling when she's clean.
I'm really not seeing the degree of competition to make the World team that some people are seeing. I do not believe they wouldn't take Satoko if she came in 4th at Nationals. High GOEs and PCS are not easy to come by for Japanese ladies.
If you’re gonna use an American example: Sasha Cohen only has ONE big title by your standards...winning the GPF one season. But she is still largely remembered by many figure skating audiences to this day, and most people wouldn’t say she had a mediocre career.
I would definitely take Satoko as the 3rd team member if she's not top 3 at Nationals. Her consistency is amazing and she can definitely help to keep the 3 spots in a worst case scenario at worlds. She made a lot of progress this season and deserves to be on that team. Next season could be more challenging, though...
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2018
Am I the only one that thought that Kaori‘s lutz edge looked like flat/slight outside even in the replay? Because I‘ve seen a lot talking on the power ranking thread that it was inside and she escaped a call and now I‘m confused. Does someone have frame to frame pictures? Maybe I‘ll have to watch it again...
I also thought it looked flat/slight outside even in replay. People talk about UR reputations but I think skaters can a Flutz reputation... both are deservedly so... that being said, it *looked* like it took off on the right-ish edge to me! :confused2:
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2017
https://youtu.be/JsVN9XwOsxk?t=366
She goes into a deep outside edge, and changes her curve before she picks in. It could be a flat. But doesn't look outside to me at all. I think it should have been a (!) at least. Not sure if there's a better angle?
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