2018 Rostelecom Cup: Thoughts, Analysis & Reviews

zounger · Nov 21, 2018

Interspectator said:
With both Samodurova and Mako-chan, I was so impressed with them in their first GP. But being so young, the pressure may have tripped them up in their second here at COR. They are really fun to watch.

Sofia rarely bombs, but when she is too focused to deliver the jumps, yes she looses a bit of her magic. Everyone does, though in her case is more evident because of the more vibrant nature of her programs. The same "problem" she had last season in JGPF. The programs were more enjoyable during the JGPs.

samkrut@mail.ru · Nov 21, 2018

leoleo said:
lmao how random! What business does Rika have being mentioned here? from what i remember she wasn't competing at Rostelecom

The business is very simple. Who is the best in the world? What will this season in ladies be about? 2 months ago my first answer would be Alina or Zhenya. My second answer would be that this season would be about competing between the two. Now it's different - it's about Alina vs. Rika. :rofl:

plushyfan · Nov 21, 2018

TallyT said:
And watching Yagudin literally willing him through, and visibly feeling every beat of a tribute to his greatest rival, was something else

hm.. I read from Russian fans they are outraged by him. Yags' had no one word about the program, the music. Why it is the title of the program- Origin?:confused2:..They hardly believe he didn't recognize the music.

He is jealous again.....

lzxnl · Nov 21, 2018

[email protected] said:
The business is very simple. Who is the best in the world? What will this season in ladies be about? 2 months ago my first answer would be Alina or Zhenya. My second answer would be that this season would be about competing between the two. Now it's different - it's about Alina vs. Rika.

If Evgenia makes it to GPF, she will have thoroughly deserved it, and we will have a fascinating GPF faceoff between her, Alina, Rika, Liza, Satoko and whoever else qualifies. Please no injuries...

RobinA · Nov 21, 2018

A little off topic, but the discussion here made me wonder... Has anyone seen Kolyada in practice in the last year or so? Does he do the jumps when the pressure is off? I really like the guy and would love to see him rewarded for is quality on the ice. I'm no coach or skater beyond the simple stuff, so I don't really see his problem technically. He often goes straight up in the air, rotating as quickly as anyone, and the next thing he is on the ground. You see people with much crappier air position, iffy take-offs, and wonky landings do completed jumps all the time. So what's the deal? If anybody has any insight.

Colonel Green · Nov 21, 2018

Kolyada’s problem is definitely mental, not technical.

narcissa · Nov 21, 2018

RobinA said:
A little off topic, but the discussion here made me wonder... Has anyone seen Kolyada in practice in the last year or so? Does he do the jumps when the pressure is off? I really like the guy and would love to see him rewarded for is quality on the ice. I'm no coach or skater beyond the simple stuff, so I don't really see his problem technically. He often goes straight up in the air, rotating as quickly as anyone, and the next thing he is on the ground. You see people with much crappier air position, iffy take-offs, and wonky landings do completed jumps all the time. So what's the deal? If anybody has any insight.

I have to say, watching him in open practice, he struggles a lot with jumps there too. Even triples that should be easy for him. His jumps are amazing but I think the distinction between mental and physical isn't that clear cut. It could be conditioning, even. Or not being able to jump without a long setup and thus having trouble with a program in competition.

But his jumps are spectacular when he's on, especially on the good height and air position bullet.

Mrs. P · Nov 21, 2018

One thing that struck me is that Mikhail seems to loose stamina. I don’t think we’ve seen a 100 percent clean free skate from him; it’s just that he scores so many points on his quads and 3As when he hits them in the beginning that the effect of a late program pop and/or fall isn’t as detrimental as it would be for other skaters.

rachno2 · Nov 21, 2018

Mrs. P said:
One thing that struck me is that Mikhail seems to loose stamina. I don’t think we’ve seen a 100 percent clean free skate from him; it’s just that he scores so many points on his quads and 3As when he hits them in the beginning that the effect of a late program pop and/or fall isn’t as detrimental as it would be for other skaters.

Yeah, Misha hasn’t skated a clean free since 2016 Worlds IIRC. He probably will never do it again. That said, what is happening this season is not normal, even for him. I would say it’s a toxic combination of illness, the shortened free skate time, and his usual nerves.

Not making excuses for him (we all know he’s a bad competitor, doesn’t have a champion’s mentality, etc. etc.), but there seem to be a lot of negative factors at play this season. For all the men, really—I hope ISU reverses this absurd 4-minute rule, because everybody hates it. That’s the big takeaway from this GP series, for me.

Baron Vladimir · Nov 21, 2018

Mrs. P said:
One thing that struck me is that Mikhail seems to loose stamina. I don’t think we’ve seen a 100 percent clean free skate from him; it’s just that he scores so many points on his quads and 3As when he hits them in the beginning that the effect of a late program pop and/or fall isn’t as detrimental as it would be for other skaters.

I think thats the problem with all the guys (now)... But they can just choose easier layout.. (or train more)..

Jeanie19 · Nov 21, 2018

rachno2 said:
Yeah, Misha hasn’t skated a clean free since 2016 Worlds IIRC. He probably will never do it again. That said, what is happening this season is not normal, even for him. I would say it’s a toxic combination of illness, the shortened free skate time, and his usual nerves.

Not making excuses for him (we all know he’s a bad competitor, doesn’t have a champion’s mentality, etc. etc.), but there seem to be a lot of negative factors at play this season. For all the men, really—I hope ISU reverses this absurd 4-minute rule, because everybody hates it. That’s the big takeaway from this GP series, for me.

:agree:

lichi · Nov 21, 2018

Not entirely related to this, but I found out Alexei Krasnozhon trains in my city (with a coach I've worked with before :biggrin:

)! Surprised I didn't know before considering I remember watching a couple of his programs. Rewatched CoR, and I would like to congratulate him for being one of the two (?) men who were "clean" (with plenty of neg GOEs) in the FS. However not a fan of the FS outfit, and the camel is a bit... yeah.

satine · Nov 21, 2018

rachno2 said:
Yeah, Misha hasn’t skated a clean free since 2016 Worlds IIRC. He probably will never do it again. That said, what is happening this season is not normal, even for him. I would say it’s a toxic combination of illness, the shortened free skate time, and his usual nerves.

Not making excuses for him (we all know he’s a bad competitor, doesn’t have a champion’s mentality, etc. etc.), but there seem to be a lot of negative factors at play this season. For all the men, really—I hope ISU reverses this absurd 4-minute rule, because everybody hates it. That’s the big takeaway from this GP series, for me.

Regarding the time ruling, it is mostly about cutting overall time for events as a whole. Nowhere in the rules does it say men must have a 4 quad layout. I can see a lot of men lowering their technical content because of this- which may not be the horrible change many make it out to be. Were men events often clean over the last olympic cycle, when they had more FS time? No, not really. If you can't perform your content, it needs re-evaluated.

rachno2 · Nov 21, 2018

satine said:
Regarding the time ruling, it is mostly about cutting overall time for events as a whole. Nowhere in the rules does it say men must have a 4 quad layout. I can see a lot of men lowering their technical content because of this- which may not be the horrible change many make it out to be. Were men events often clean over the last olympic cycle, when they had more FS time? No, not really. If you can't perform your content, it needs re-evaluated.

I think it’s less about the quads and more about the lack of breathing room between elements. But the women don’t seem to have any problem with 4 minutes, so who knows? In any case, I don't see the technical content lowering too much in the future. As long as people can jump quads, they're going to jump them.

Anyway, Misha has a lot of issues he needs to sort out; I wasn’t trying to blame it all on the new time limit. Of course it’s the skater’s job to perform.

satine · Nov 21, 2018

rachno2 said:
I think it’s less about the quads and more about the lack of breathing room between elements. But the women don’t seem to have any problem with 4 minutes, so who knows? In any case, I don't see the technical content lowering too much in the future. As long as people can jump quads, they're going to jump them.

Anyway, Misha has a lot of issues he needs to sort out; I wasn’t trying to blame it all on the new time limit. Of course it’s the skater’s job to perform.

Good point about the stamina. That is most certainly a factor too.

Regarding the women, I think the time change rule happening now will be very interesting. Clearly, women tend to go cleaner than men. However, men have had quads for longer and much, much more commonly than women up until now. That is changing with the latest group of juniors, though. So I wonder if men will continue on with quads (perhaps pulling back a little though), meanwhile women may up their tech content to the point where both singles disciplines will finally be close to matched.

An interesting next 4-8 years in figure skating for sure!

eaglehelang · Nov 22, 2018

rachno2 said:
I think it’s less about the quads and more about the lack of breathing room between elements. But the women don’t seem to have any problem with 4 minutes, so who knows? In any case, I don't see the technical content lowering too much in the future. As long as people can jump quads, they're going to jump them.

Anyway, Misha has a lot of issues he needs to sort out; I wasn’t trying to blame it all on the new time limit. Of course it’s the skater’s job to perform.

The women dont have a 4 quad layout. They dont even have 1 quad, till the Russian juniors move up next year.

The men seems to be able to cope with 2 quads in 4 min. 3 quads still manageable. 4 quads=hard. Shoma, Yuzuru, Boyang had problems attempting 4 quads. Seems Nathan will attempt 4 quads in his LP in France, we'll see how he does.
Quads take longer time to setup.

Where just a few short years ago, 2015 I think, 3 quads was enough, to do in 4 min 30 sec.

century2009 · Nov 22, 2018

eaglehelang said:
The women dont have a 4 quad layout. They dont even have 1 quad, till the Russian juniors move up next year.

The men seems to be able to cope with 2 quads in 4 min. 3 quads still manageable. 4 quads=hard. Shoma, Yuzuru, Boyang had problems attempting 4 quads. Seems Nathan will attempt 4 quads in his LP in France, we'll see how he does.
Quads take longer time to setup.

Where just a few short years ago, 2015 I think, 3 quads was enough, to do in 4 min 30 sec.

Yeah, women can do 4 mins because there is no quads and most do 2axel, not 3 axel. It is definitely much easier program wise.

Nathan is the only man to do 5, let alone 6 quads by the olympics and worlds, in 4 min 30 secs.

I found it interesting that he is planning 4 quads in the LP but they are different quads from the SP for France.

Meaning he is doing 4 different quads but spreading it between his LP and SP.

He plans a 4F in the SP then for his LP he plans the 4Lutz, 4S, and 4T.

I dont know if he is setting up to do 5 quads in the LP for GPF and National, then later in the season for Worlds do 6 quads again maybe

That is a solid strategy actually as he works on each quad for high GOEs then add them as the season progress to the program, especially with the 4 min change.

If he can do it, then more power to him because must be tough to do this and Yale.

Heleng · Nov 22, 2018

Baron Vladimir said:
I think thats the problem with all the guys (now)... But they can just choose easier layout.. (or train more)..

...and/or incorporate smart long pauses for posing (or “smoke breaks” as one U.S. commentator likes to call them lol), see, e.g., Aliev’s short and free programs

Baron Vladimir · Nov 22, 2018

Heleng said:
...and/or incorporate smart long pauses for posing (or “smoke breaks” as one U.S. commentator likes to call them lol), see, e.g., Aliev’s short and free programs

topic: To me a lot of mens free programs this year look like skating from element to element with nothing between :biggrin:

(and you can see that also by judges marks in PCS where SS are the highest scores for almost all of them with all lacking in TR, PE, CO, IN comparing to their SS)

LRK · Nov 22, 2018

Baron Vladimir said:
topic: To me a lot of mens free programs this year look like skating from element to element with nothing between (and you can see that also by judges marks in PCS where SS are the highest scores for almost all of them with all lacking in TR, PE, CO, IN comparing to their SS)

That's what Plushy predicted would happen:

"The new judging system is a way to nowhere. When skaters jump quads, they need more time to recover. And you still need to show music, interpretation, you need to extend the program on the contrary. The new rules won’t be a good thing. We will go back on 10-20 years and we will simply skate and wave beautifully. "

(Emphasis mine.)

https://fs-gossips.com/evgeni-plushenko-the-new-judging-system-is-a-way-to-nowhere/

2018 Rostelecom Cup: Thoughts, Analysis & Reviews

zounger

[email protected]

Medalist

plushyfan

lzxnl

RobinA

Colonel Green

narcissa

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!

rachno2

Baron Vladimir

Jeanie19

lichi

sui holding a deep edge

satine

v Yuki Ishikawa v

rachno2

satine

v Yuki Ishikawa v

eaglehelang

century2009

Heleng

Baron Vladimir

LRK

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