I was under the impression that inflation referred to Chan winning thanks to his super-high PCs scores, cushioning him when he had less than stellar performances. I am not sure how Hanyu getting 78 in PCS could be considered inflation. Curiously, these are almost exactly the same components he got at Rostelecom Cup last year, when with a comparable performance in the free skate (fall on rotated quad and fall on the footwork, and a lower base value than today due to having only one quad) he beat Fernandez to gold and qualified for the Grand Prix Final. And he was virtually nobody to the judges back then, never been to Worlds, fourth at the previous GP.
With that said, up to now I don't like his free skate much, and his low PCs are more than justified by the fact that they lightened up the choreography as much as possible so that he could get to the end of the program. Orser and Wilson probably made that choice of music because they felt that it would have forced him to pace himself and pay more attention to his lines and arm positions, but right now he still has to work on that a lot. He's always been a bit rushed in his movements, something that works well with stronger programs like his SP or Romeo last year, but doesn't go well with soft music. It's not like he can't do it period, but he probably can't do it right now in a competition program: his Swan Lake program ended up looking much better as an EX, for example. With experience it will get better. His stamina too is a bit better, but could still be much improved. It's something that takes time, and I hope he continues doing run-throughs. Still, I think that interpretation-wise this was way better than Finlandia, when he was so much focused on landing every jump and getting to the end that he almost seemed to forget there was music in the background.
I do like that they changed the layout: having two triple axel combinations in the second half is smart and racks up more points, and so is changing the last jump to a lutz and doing it earlier in the program. His flip is more unstable compared to his lutz, and tiredness makes him lip noticeably, like he did in Finlandia. Another smart thing is moving the Biellmann spin at the beginning of the program: when he did it at the end of his free skate last year it was always veeery slow and laboured, I don't think he ever got a level 4 for that one at the end. Today he did.
About Daisuke: I like his programs better than I did at the beginning of the season. His artistry is not under discussion, but when I look at the programs he's skating now and the programs he was skating last year, I find them forgettable. He could do so much better. I'm not sure if this is Morozov's fault, but I can't help but think it is. The free skate looks suspiciously as if he's put his hands over it, I can't believe that choreography is just Shae-Lynn and no one else. Still, he's great and the only thing he needs to work on right now is consistency on his jumps. The improvements he's made with the quad in the past two years are tremendous, but he's competing with guys that have better consistency on that jump and can easily make it look effortless (Fernandez, Hanyu, Chan when he's on) and unfortunately one very good quad can top any PCS advantage he might have. I'm pretty sure he knows this and that he knows what to do, though.
Also, our commentator (who's a huge fan of Daisuke and usually does a pretty bad job of concealing it) remarked at the end of his free skate, that yes his interpretation was very good as usual, but that she'd been very let down by the fact that he didn't do much in terms of transitions. She literally said "I was jotting down the transitions while we were watching the program and all I could write was 'crossovers, crossovers, crossovers'." She said that in comparison to last season's programs this is a huge difference and that it might be because of the higher tech content. I am not an expert so I can't comment on this, though.
With that said, up to now I don't like his free skate much, and his low PCs are more than justified by the fact that they lightened up the choreography as much as possible so that he could get to the end of the program. Orser and Wilson probably made that choice of music because they felt that it would have forced him to pace himself and pay more attention to his lines and arm positions, but right now he still has to work on that a lot. He's always been a bit rushed in his movements, something that works well with stronger programs like his SP or Romeo last year, but doesn't go well with soft music. It's not like he can't do it period, but he probably can't do it right now in a competition program: his Swan Lake program ended up looking much better as an EX, for example. With experience it will get better. His stamina too is a bit better, but could still be much improved. It's something that takes time, and I hope he continues doing run-throughs. Still, I think that interpretation-wise this was way better than Finlandia, when he was so much focused on landing every jump and getting to the end that he almost seemed to forget there was music in the background.
I do like that they changed the layout: having two triple axel combinations in the second half is smart and racks up more points, and so is changing the last jump to a lutz and doing it earlier in the program. His flip is more unstable compared to his lutz, and tiredness makes him lip noticeably, like he did in Finlandia. Another smart thing is moving the Biellmann spin at the beginning of the program: when he did it at the end of his free skate last year it was always veeery slow and laboured, I don't think he ever got a level 4 for that one at the end. Today he did.
About Daisuke: I like his programs better than I did at the beginning of the season. His artistry is not under discussion, but when I look at the programs he's skating now and the programs he was skating last year, I find them forgettable. He could do so much better. I'm not sure if this is Morozov's fault, but I can't help but think it is. The free skate looks suspiciously as if he's put his hands over it, I can't believe that choreography is just Shae-Lynn and no one else. Still, he's great and the only thing he needs to work on right now is consistency on his jumps. The improvements he's made with the quad in the past two years are tremendous, but he's competing with guys that have better consistency on that jump and can easily make it look effortless (Fernandez, Hanyu, Chan when he's on) and unfortunately one very good quad can top any PCS advantage he might have. I'm pretty sure he knows this and that he knows what to do, though.
Also, our commentator (who's a huge fan of Daisuke and usually does a pretty bad job of concealing it) remarked at the end of his free skate, that yes his interpretation was very good as usual, but that she'd been very let down by the fact that he didn't do much in terms of transitions. She literally said "I was jotting down the transitions while we were watching the program and all I could write was 'crossovers, crossovers, crossovers'." She said that in comparison to last season's programs this is a huge difference and that it might be because of the higher tech content. I am not an expert so I can't comment on this, though.
hwell:
I think Ross looks fine, plus he has great programs that suit him. I agree with one of the earlier posters who said that Ross is resilient as well as a hard worker. He's also very consistent and I'm happy to see him land that quad and stick the rest of his program too and be rewarded. It's brave of him to keep working hard at the quad and putting it into his competitive performances. Ross is such a consistent skater that I think the few mistakes he made in sp at this and his other GP are totally related to his focus on perfecting the quad. However, he didn't shy away from working things out, and at least this time, when he faltered on getting the quad in the sp, he did not allow it to derail any of his other jumps. Because he skated so well in the majority of his sp, he was able to pull out a season's best score in the sp, which gave him confidence for the fp and he was great. ITA that Ross also has wonderful posture in comparison to both Fernandez and Hanyu. While Ross can continue to improve his artistry and presentation, he has well-choreographed programs (Tom Dickson), and I feel that he has charisma in the way it's evident how much he enjoys skating.
