2014 Cup of China Mens Short Program 11/07

[msteach3]

I'm not too terribly surprised Hanyu struggled today. He hasn't competed since March and has a tremendous amount of pressure on him as the Olympic champion. The nerves got to him but I'm sure tomorrow will be another story. He'll be mad and lay it all out there!

After watching his LP practice vids, I think his Phantom program will be amazing. He was hitting all of his jumps except for the 4S, so hopefully tomorrow he will be more relaxed and nail it.

 

[lavender]

Hanyu gets high 90 to 100 plus points for his short programs so that score is way lower and the right score for someone on such a high level.

 

[Scovies]

Finally catching up a bit here.

I really like Hanyu's SP (lovely!), but those jumping mistakes were bizarre. If he even comes close to hitting his LP, he'll win here, though. I'll admit, I really haven't seen much of Kovtun, but I was actually pretty impressed. I don't like the program at all -- Bolero should be banned anyway, but especially for SPs, as that music just flat-out doesn't work when it's cut so short. But his quads were terrific, and I think he does have good quality of movement. There's no flailing with him at all; he actually bothers to finish all of his movements, which goes a long way with me. I think he just needs the right program, and this one isn't it.

I adore Han Yan's program; if only his performance level matched up to it! He's improved in that regard -- he doesn't look down as much as he did last year, and there's a level of finish on his movements I haven't seen before. But I'd give him the same advice I'd give Max Aaron -- smile! Your program calls for it! Such a small thing would make such a difference here. The choreography is great and fun, but it doesn't work when you're stone-faced the whole time. I think Dornbush (LOVE that SP of his) should have been much closer to him in the scoring, if not above him.

 

[lbc2138]

His quote does not necessarily means he thinks he's over scored. (Maybe he is surprised how much more the air and ice conditions affected the other Men. ) Was he surprised that he won the Olympics?

Let's hope the Men recover and show their goods tomorrow.

Actually he was, if you've seen any of his reactions to the results. I don't think he expected Patrick to make as many mistakes as he did.

And i think he thought he was overscored, sort of the same reaction during GPF last year.

Regardless, this is sure to hopefully bring out a better Free Program across all of the skaters.

 

[Art&Sport]

I haven't read through the entire thread yet, but my impressions on the men: Kovtun lands a couple of quads awkwardly and that warrants first place!!? Oh well. To me Kovtun needs a lot of work re refinement, skating skills and music interpretation. Egods, he is over-scored on PCS!

Loved Hanyu, despite the tech flaws. It's so obvious that Hanyu has been working hard on improving his artistic expression in order to truly become a great skater. If he comes back strong in fp, Hanyu should have the goods to win.

I don't like the cutesy shtick of Han's program. I think Han needs to work on finding his own unique identity without resorting to these types of gimmicky programs a la Fernandez.

Good performance by Richard. ITA with poster who feels that Richard should be ahead of Han. Richard was definitely low-balled, especially on PCS. Richard is also a better rounded skater than Kovtun for sure. Damn quad is too over-weighted in this sport. Plus of course the politics involved in scoring. Event is in China, so Han is in third over RD.

RD has an excellent fp, so I hope he delivers it strongly. BBC commentator said the sp was the best he'd seen RD skate. I guess that commentator didn't get to see RD perform the same program lights out at U.S. Nats earlier this year. Plus RD's Sherlock Holmes masterpiece a few seasons ago.

 

[Sandpiper]

Even when the ladies are disappointing, the men manage to outdo them. Just to be clear: There was one clean performance with a quad, and it came from Alexei Bychenko?

The motto of the Russian men this season seems to be: "Land two quads, double the axel!" (Will Voronov also attempt two quads?) Won't dispute his lead, or his technical content, but not a fan of the program. I was hoping he'd go die-hard Bolero and try to act sexy, because that at least would've been entertaining! But no, I could've turned off the music and turned on any old warhorse, and barely noticed a difference.

Yuzuru had the opposite problem: beautiful program (one of only two beautiful programs, imo, the other being Misha Ge's), beautiful skating, but the jumps just weren't there. I like how the layout allows him to do that axel right on beat with the music... but perhaps quad in the second half is just too risky. But there's positives to take from this--I don't remember loving the program so much when I first saw it during an ice show! But compared to many others, it actually hits the nuances of the music and comes across as genuinely elegant except just trying to be.

Han Yan... basically delivered the same performance he did at the ice show. Nearly no clean jumps, even if he didn't fall (credit to him for doing that 3T from no speed though... was it rotated? But I shouldn't rag on him, since I have a bit of a question mark over Kovtun's 3T as well). He was in character for the beginning, but seemed to forget entirely about the program ten seconds in... only to pick it up again on the StSq. Well, I guess it's better to have good beginning/end and blah middle, rather than the other way around... Vocal parts were unlistenable. :disapp:

Really appreciated Nam Nguyen and Misha Ge, for skating good programs cleanly. Nam played to his strengths and the audience; Misha is lovely to watch, whether he's being funky or lyrical.

 

[Aesthetics]

Hanyu has improved a lot, performance and posture wise, and his skating skills are much better (although he's still below Han Yan at the moment). I'm not too worried about his performance today, maybe it was a slow start.
This program will be beautiful once he manages to land all of his planned jumps.

This is a funny joke. Watching Han Yan live, I didn't see how Yan's skating skills could be better than Hanyu's. Hanyu had more speed, more control of the edges, while Yan was bumpy on the ice. Besides Hanyu's program and especially footwork was a thing of intricacy and beauty, while Yan wasn't there yet.

Actually Yan's basic skating skills were not that much better than even Dornbush and Kovtun. Kovtun had better posture and more character than Yan and thus the higher PCS? Cos Yan has some of the worst postures and stiff arms in the field. But Dornbush was underscored. He should score above Yan. Hanyu was on another level in skating skills and presentation from the rest of the field. His SP is already beautiful despite the jump errors. I think he has gone from an athletic jumper to something like an artistic skater like Takahashi. I hope he'll keep his athleticism with the newly gained presentation.

 

[Skater Boy]

Yuzuru HANYU (JPN)

Music: Ballade No. 1 op. 23 in G minor by Frederic Chopin

Light blue ombre sparkly blouse, black pants

3A - spread eagle entry, nice
CSSp
FCSp
3T - oh no!
3Lz+COMBO - low landing, stepout
StSq
CCoSp3p

Ouch! Two botched jumps and no combo, far from his best. He looks pale...

SP: 38.53+44.42 = 82.95, 2nd (out of 11)

Very generous scoring as expected for the ogm

 

[Skater Boy]

At least Orser learnt to curb his grumpiness at kiss and cry, otherwise will be punished by torpedo of poohs from Hanyu's fans.

This statement says it all - Hanyu has crazy fans lol. It is nice that he has such a huge fan commitment and base though it does make sites like this hard to get critical and fair and non biased comments lol. His pcs and scores were very very generous for what he did; many may not like Kov but he deserved a bigger lead.

 

[AprilS]

This is a funny joke. Watching Han Yan live, I didn't see how Yan's skating skills could be better than Hanyu's. Hanyu had more speed, more control of the edges, while Yan was bumpy on the ice. Besides Hanyu's program and especially footwork was a thing of intricacy and beauty, while Yan wasn't there yet.

Actually Yan's basic skating skills were not that much better than even Kovtun's. Kovtun had better posture and more character than Yan and thus the higher PCS? Cos Yan has some of the worst postures and stiff arms in the field. Hanyu was on another level in skating skills and presentation from the rest of the field. His SP is already beautiful despite the jump errors. I think he has gone from an athletic jumper to something like an artistic skater like Takahashi. I hope he'll keep his athleticism with the newly gained presentation.

Wow, Aethetics, are you watching live in Shanghai now, or is this an observation from before? Anything else you might want to add about the skaters that we might not be able to get watching through a screen? (and because internet chatting makes this remark seem sarcastic, it's not. I would really love to know! ).

Anyways, I was watching the videos, and I actually think Nam flutzed... (actually, I'm sure he did, I checked the ISU slow-mo replay at a further 0.25 speed just to be sure I'm sure...). Since he hasn't been called on it before (as far as I know), is this just a one off thing? :think: I'm seeing a lot of technique issues from him, and I hope that they fix them as early as possible (even at the cost of early success) so that he can keep going for longer, cause I think he's a great personality and a great competitor!

 

[Ophelia]

For those who've seen Hanyu in real life, is he among the faster male skaters? On screen, it looks like he's whipping across the ice and hurling into his jumps.

 

[hippomoomin]

Just watched Hanyu and he was sleepwalking the entire program. He does look like a "ghost" here. His pants are terrible (what's that waist?), and so is his shirt (high collar). The outfit creates an awkward proportion of him--no shoulders, and very childlike.

 

[AprilS]

This statement says it all - Hanyu has crazy fans lol. It is nice that he has such a huge fan commitment and base though it does make sites like this hard to get critical and fair and non biased comments lol. His pcs and scores were very very generous for what he did; many may not like Kov but he deserved a bigger lead.

Ummm... you don't think that many people might like Hanyu because they think his skating is great- i.e. deserves high PCS scores (instead of thinking he deserves high PCS scores because they like him/are his "crazy fans")? Why does that make comments in support of him biased (and I assume you're also implying untrustworthy because of said bias- correct me if I'm wrong please)? I for one agree with his GOEs but think that he could have scored ~2ish points lower in PCS, but I don't think his scores were "very very" generous. hwell: Just to make this clear, I'm not criticizing your opinion that he got generous scores, just your implication that his fans can't see reason due to their bias and therefore shut down criticism on him.

 

[satine]

Han&Yuzuru collision, skate, results, & drama

If you don't know about the collision please read here.

The discussion about medical attention, the decision to skate their programs, overall scores, etc. has been rapidly clogging up the CoC Men's FS AND the Health Updates thread so here is one specifically for the isolated incident and subsequent debates. Please stay respectful of the skaters and their teams, i.e., not calling them 'idiots' or anything like this.

I'm sorry if the mods feel this should stay contained within the Men's FS thread, but many users including myself thought it was getting out of hand in there

 

[gravy]

The judges should be the ultimate referees... but before them the coaches should be the people who discourage their skaters from doing the "right" thing.

Hanyu should have pulled out... instead he got a silver medal that many feel was over scored. So instead of universal praises of 'strength' and 'hope' he gets adjectives of 'decency' and 'mediocrity'. He is one of the best surely! But this skate is just deplorable. Pull out when you should! There is NO shame in doing that! Save yourself for the bigger events! European's actually make a bigger deal if you pull out of no where!

 

[Li'Kitsu]

The judges should be the ultimate referees... but before them the coaches should be the people who discourage their skaters from doing the "right" thing.

Hanyu should have pulled out... instead he got a silver medal that many feel was over scored. So instead of universal praises of 'strength' and 'hope' he gets adjectives of 'decency' and 'mediocrity'. He is one of the best surely! But this skate is just deplorable. Pull out when you should! There is NO shame in doing that! Save yourself for the bigger events! European's actually make a bigger deal if you pull out of no where!

Geez, he's 19, probably thought about making the GPF and most of all - was in a horrible state to make any decisions. There's even the possibility he has a concussion. How can you fault him for making a bad decision in that moment?

And the judges aren't medics or anything either. Why should they be the ultimate referees?

 

[satine]

The judges should be the ultimate referees... but before them the coaches should be the people who discourage their skaters from doing the "right" thing.

Hanyu should have pulled out... instead he got a silver medal that many feel was over scored. So instead of universal praises of 'strength' and 'hope' he gets adjectives of 'decency' and 'mediocrity'. He is one of the best surely! But this skate is just deplorable. Pull out when you should! There is NO shame in doing that! Save yourself for the bigger events! European's actually make a bigger deal if you pull out of no where!

Wouldn't medical professionals make more sense with having the final say?

 

[begin]

Wouldn't medical professionals make more sense with having the final say?

That might be asking for too much. The ISU doesn't seem to consider the sport risky enough to invest in professionals on standby at every competition. This COC's medical personnel was seriously lacking.

Anyway, the judges aren't supposed to make these calls. I'm pretty sure that responsibility lies with the referees.

 

[unico]

The more I think about it... I can't agree with their decisions (although no doubt they might not have been in the best state of mind while making said decisions), I can't agree with the adults around them allowing them to skate, and I REALLY can't bring myself to care an iota about who scored what or over-scoring or medalling or making the GPF or whatever trivial thing one can think of. I understand WHY they themselves as athletes would want to skate, but if one of them had fallen AGAIN and hit their head AGAIN what would have happened.

Hopefully going forth, the ISU will revisit medical regulations and protocols, the medical staff really didn't seem adequately prepared to deal with the situation. I hope that both Hanyu and Yan will recover quickly/fully, and that they'll be free of any long-term health repercussions.

 

[skatemouse]

AND: can we just say what happened to the rule of no more than 4 skaters on the ice at a time during a warmup??? We saw this with the pair teams too being squished out there so 6 teams ie: 12 skaters out there and now singles and dance in some ISU competitions. It is insane no more than 4 period for safety that should be the standing rule, not time, or what fits the schedule better. I think the US has it but not sure obviously ISU does not? dangerous.