I was devastated to be missing both the SP and LP for this event, but now I'm rather happy. Because if I watched this live, I'd be flipping tables and my house would've been destroyed by now. :curse::ddevil:
1. Evgenia: This girl is amazing! Skating last as the 1st-place finisher is very difficult. I congratulate her on her well deserved GPF gold and her back-to-back JGPF/GPF titles. But that's it. She deserved the win here because she skated the best...BUT THESE SCORES ARE STILL OUTRAGEOUS. In the SP thread yesterday, I said this:
At this rate, they may score her 146+ for a clean FS.
Although I was shocked to see them actually score her higher than 146 (nearly 148...), I was kind of expecting this, so I was really nervous even before the warm-up. But this is just messed up. That was certainly not 8 points better than Ashley and Satoko. Her TES should've been around 73 to mid-74, not 75. And that PCS should not have even surpassed 69. Yes, there is the "clean performance bonus" for the scores. But even with that it's still way too high. And the total score of 222...3rd highest-ever total score of all time. She beat Mao and Carolina's best-ever scores, along with Yuna's 2013 Worlds and 2014 Olympics scores. These judges are out of their minds. The word "confusing" will not be enough to describe how bad the scoring was.
2. Satoko: As a new Satoko fan starting from NHK, I realized that her other fans don't have to worry about her too much because she is so consistent. Her FS is my favourite of this season (and probably one of my most favourite programs ever). But the scores she got were honestly pretty absurd as well. I was only able to watch the results page live, so when I saw Satoko get a TES of
72.89, I was like "How in the world did that happen?!" I did not have too much of a problem with the PCS (though 66 is more reasonable), but that TES was very inflated. She was better than at NHK, but I expected a clean performance from her to score about 136-137. But even so, I'm really happy for her right now!
3. Elena: TES was okay, PCS was confusing. I love Elena, but given the performance she had here, I don't think she was any better than Satoko. In fact, she did look really tired here as well. Anyways, I loved the reaction everyone in the audience gave when she once again added the 3T to another jump and landed it. And even with some mistakes, Elena showed us that she is a fighter and that she is still capable of being on the podium even through puberty. Rest well Elena, and I hope that you give it your all at Russian Nationals!
4. Ashley: I knew it was a good idea to put her 4th in my predictions. Even after seeing her bomb the SP yesterday, I knew that Ashley would never accept last place and fight through the end. Her FS was brilliant and it was good to see it so close to scoring 140. This was the performance of the night for me. Like many of you said, it seems like Ashley does well when she is the underdog. I would've put her on the podium, but I'm okay with her being 4th.
5. Gracie: I do feel really bad for her. After skating so well at SA and TEB, it was sad to see her fall apart here. Like JO, she had 3T issues today, which is not good, considering that her 3Lz-3T and 2A-3T are her money jumps. Again, the PCS was too high but I'm not surprised to see that. Hopefully, she can fix her problems in time for U.S. Nationals.
6. Mao: I'm devastated. I wonder if she completely recovered from her illness. When I saw her results on the page, I wanted to cry. :sad14: Japanese Nationals is coming up in 2 weeks, right? I hope that she recovers so that she could get on the podium.
Along with the 2014 Olympics, this event is one of the most badly-judged major events in the IJS...at least in my opinion. Still not as bad as Sochi, since the placements weren't controversial (although I would re-order 3rd and 4th if I could). If this keeps up, we'll have bogus WRs coming up in 2016. The only skater in the current field that deserves to beat (or at least be close to) Yuna's WRs is Mao right now. Also, it seems like the ISU wants their judges to score PCS extremely highly this season. I have a small analysis of last season:
Best SP PCS: Elizaveta Tuktamysheva - 33.53 at World Championships
Best FS PCS: Elizaveta Tuktamysheva - 68.47 at World Team Trophy
Prior to the 2014-2015 season, Mao, Yulia, and Adelina were the only skaters in this season's field to have beaten these scores. Yulia and Adelina (other than Mordovian Ornament - which was also a badly-scored event) have never received these scores since then (and I don't think they ever will anymore, sorry) while Mao has. But now Evgenia, who just came up from juniors, beat these scores by incredible margins. Satoko and many other skaters have also beaten either SP or FS scores by at least a small margin. Many of these skaters did in fact get more artistic, but not yet enough for so many of them to be part of the exclusive 33.50+ group and 67+ group. Something doesn't seem right.
:2thumbs: Love you Lena proud of you
Never again :roll5:
cry: Mao... and I'm not quite sure about Gold?)
