2015 Cup of China Pairs Free Skate

[Mrs. P]

Another member of the 33 y.o club here.

I"ve only watched Yuko and Sasha. I loved it!!! When I think that FS couldn't get better, they go and add a freakin' throw quad loop!! And totally shallow thing, but I love Yuko's new hairdo... She is beautiful!!

 

[NAOTMAA]

Wonderful performance for Yuko and Sasha!!!

But why do they have to torture me so They do so well at the beginning of the season and I feel so positive only to be let down when they let it slip away at the end at Worlds. They've let multiple chances in the past slip away But I as always pray it ends differently this season

 

[Ilvskating]

S/H's coach Hongbo Zhao said congratulations to K/S and they deserve the win. He also mentioned that Sui had an injury to her right ankle on Tuesday and had to use medical treatment to get on ice, that was why they decided not using quad throw. Sui also told the journalist who is an acquaintance that she had to use pain killer and bandage to keep practice but didn't practice any throws. She said with the serious injury she persevered and did most of what she could do, but there was some regret( not doing the best I guess), as it was in front the home crowd.

http://sports.sina.com.cn/others/figureskating/2015-11-07/doc-ifxknius9736524.shtml

 

[OS]

Are the people questioning the judging really serious?!!!!!

K/S is the last team anyone can accuse of being judges' favourites.

I think we just need to ban any Russian skater from any ISU competition from now on to keep this board happy. Never change...

It is perfectly natural to question all judging after ALL events. Are you seriously telling people not to question any judging just because

1. The winner is Russian? ...but if is American, Canadian, Japanese, Chinese like we do here everyday it is perfectly okay?

2. Ignored the fact Pairs event is practically most Russian figure skating fans's favourite event (or that was my impression having spoke with some of them). If I was to take a guess, it is the main one the federation want the most out of all 4 events at Cup of China. Given the Pairs is something over the years Russia have done really well and developed fierce rivalry with the Chinese. Especially now that Savchenk and Szolkowy no longer competes, but there's the amazing rise of Canadian Pair Duchamel/Radford the reigning World champion (PCS 71.10 last WC beaten by K/S here 71.38). Therefore Russia federation's objective would certainly including 'containing' and 'handling' potential rivalries as well prop own team whoever possible to rectify the 'situation'. Especially considering Sui/Han had just beaten their own OSM pair team Stolbova and Klimov at Skate America. The fact at last worlds there were no Russian team on the pairs podium further support this interest especially considering Russian won 2 out of 3 @ Sochi: Gold and Silver.

3. Alla Shekhovtseva happened to be judging here at BOTH short and long here, and that she is historically known as one of the most notorious ISU judges after Yuri Balkov for years since the age of 6.0 with the culture of nationalist judging deeply embedded in how she marks (do some research on 2002 scandal). If Russia don't want to attract interests to question the judging, then stop sending her to 'judge' your own countrymen against their biggest rivals. When results are close and unusual, people are going to question.

4. S/H despite an upward momentum, home crowd fav, and pundit's favourite was beaten by very high PCS 71.38 at home event.
Looking at the protocals, we can only speculate which judge S/H 8.50 and 8.75 consistently across the board, while everybody award them at least a few 9s. Who is it? With anonymity we will never know. And fans SHOULD be allowed to speculate given the results ARE close and it can go either way. It can come down to just one swing vote.

5. K/S despite so called 'inconsistencies' and 'not favourite' did received a higher PCS here than the reigning world champion DUHAMEL / RADFORD skating at Skate Canada and last year's World Championships with higher TES. There's no need to play down K/S underdog status to justify the win. For one thing, they are a Russian Pair that naturally comes with the prestige of the Russian Pair legacy which is tremendous. That despite their so called inconsistencies they did still manage to win 5 out their last 8 events as well being 2 times and current reigning European Champion no lesser than Javier (70.12 last EC 2015). In summary, they are undoubtedly one of Russia's leading pair teams and this year's world championship contender from Russia, compares to Stolbova/Klimov who got beaten by Sui/Han at Skate America last week.

6. Those who claim K/S is clearly superior, the score here tells a different story, at least in the short. They are close. S/H did win in the SP. The difference ends up separate the 2 pairs out of both event is just 0.38, i/e it can go either way, it CAN just comes down to the opinion/bias of one judge. The PCS difference of 0.35 separate them in the Long made a difference. To deny this simple fact is nonesense.

7. Ignore the fact K/S was the winning pair from the notorious Mordovian Ornament famous for Russian Federation boosting. And now they have been given the sport's highest PCS since Sochi, sooo... To give some context. STOLBOVA / KLIMOV's Sochi inflated PCS at Olympics was 71.20 with lesser content but skated relatively clean.

...in summary, having reviewed all the above factors. Can anyone still seriously telling me having someone of Alla Shekhovtsev's reputation judging here for both short and long wouldn't have made a difference of 0.38 still?

 

[MsLiinaLii]

...in summary, having reviewed all the above factors. Can anyone still seriously telling me having someone of Alla Shekhovtsev's reputation judging here for both short and long wouldn't have made a difference of 0.38 still?

God, stop embarassing yourself.. or trolling...
But if you are serious, I feel sorry for you

 

[Violet Bliss]

God, stop embarassing yourself.. or trolling...
But if you are serious, I feel sorry for you

Personally I'm very happy for K/S even though I really like S/H and believe they are WC possibility, sooner or later. And I don't always agree with Os' views. However, when someone made a list of factors and detailed arguments to support their opinion and question, they deserve an equally logical response rather than personal disrespect.

 

[whatif]

God, stop embarassing yourself.. or trolling...
But if you are serious, I feel sorry for you

Don't even bother with idiocy. Besides the post being derogatory to a person who is actually a respected technical specialist within the ISU, the post is just simply filled so much hatred and inaccuracy I don't even where to begin. But to sum it up, accusing any judge of given higher PCS to K/S than S/H is just LMFAO level stupid and K/S won because of FS TES not PCS here and if you want blame judges one need to blame Technical Panel not judging one. In fact, judges threw more GOEs on S/H than they did with K/S.

Thank you forum for the ignore future.

 

[iamchrislao]

Yes Drama, The 6th component

 

[eta]

ISU results for Sui/Han says TES 71.19, PCS 71.03, but they add to 142.22 instead of 141.22... did something get typo-ed?

 

[ice coverage]

ISU results for Sui/Han says TES 71.19, PCS 71.03, but they add to 142.22 instead of 141.22... did something get typo-ed?

No typo. Sui/Han received a deduction of 1.00 as well.

http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1516/gpchn2015/SEG006.HTM

 

[eta]

No typo. Sui/Han received a deduction of 1.00 as well.

http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1516/gpchn2015/SEG006.HTM

Oh thanks! Still learning to read these things, appreciate the help!

 

[Skater Boy]

Pairs worlds are going to be outstanding but also sad since there are 5 or even 6 teams who can win! SO some of these great teams are going to be out of the medals.

So many good teams and the envelope is being pushed - just hope it is not too fast and too much. My early impression is the Russians other than K and S are late to the technical game and may find themselves out muscled by the Chinese in particular who have the whole package and D and R who really have a nice look. I thought Sui and Han were unbeatable but I do think at COC the Russians were undermarked in both and especially he long. They deserved higher pcs in the long for sure. Not sure what they are going to do about their sbs they need to up the ante but I guess a double axel sequence is worth more than double axel double toe double loop. I actually like Yuka's hair better this year it is more mature and it looks good on her. She and Duhamel could do with a bit of volume so good for them. You can have short hair and still look awesome. What a battle there will be to get on the Chinese team. It is even possible the Americans could medal although I have to say they would need some help from the Russians and Chinese to stumble as well you can't count out the Germans but I do think the Italians are slipping out of medal contention. If everyone skated their very best wow it could even be a Chinese sweep though I do think and kind of hope a Canadian or Russian would mess that up. The gap just got closed; I thought Sui and Han looked like easy faves but I m not so sure now.

 

[Blades of Passion]

How is anyone complaining about this result? S/H were completely sloppy on their SBS combo jump, had tight landings and questionable rotation on the SBS 3S, and were not as in sync on the SBS spin. Kavaguti/Smirnov had the more difficult program and performed it better.

 

[Sandpiper]

Sui/Han are my favourite pairs team right now, but is anyone seriously questioning the result? If anything, I thought the gap would be greater. I even expected an uproar about home inflation.

There are plenty of reasons to prefer either team. But Kavaguti/Smirnov won fair and square because they had a riskier LP and made fewer mistakes across both programs.

Congratulations to S/H for making GPF and delivering two lovely programs. Wishing Sui a thorough recovery as they prepare for the Final.

Congratulations to K/S for that astonishing LP , and for silencing the critics who say they should retire. We hear so much of younger, "current" teams threatening two quads (Stolbova/Klimov, Duhamel/Radford, Sui/Han) but who's the first to actually try it on the ice? Still these two. :yay: They were doing quads before it was cool, and I'm not surprised to see them continue to add difficulty.

Brave of Yu/Jin to go for the quad throw. It wasn't a great attempt, but in retrospect, it was smart to try it here. Considering how the top 2 skated, they weren't going to move higher than bronze, so it's no loss to try it now. Wang/Wang were a little disappointing.

I must say, I loved Astakhova/Rogonov's free. It's getting better with every outing. It was a story of multiple acts, on ice. In the short, I found her a little cold. The free, however, was just perfect.

I liked Iliushechkina/Moscovitch's free better than their short, but the mistakes really took away from it. It seems like the kind of program that only works when everything's spot on.

I must say, the CBC coverage was... not ideal. Firstly, they were weirdly selective about which Canadians they showed (Elladj Balde was shown while I/M weren't). Secondly, the commentary... outright ruined the performances. I tried my best to watch, but ended up turning it off halfway and searching for Eurosport videos. The Eurosport guys may have questionable taste at times, but at least they know to keep comments succinct during the actual performance. I really didn't need Carol Lane's erroneous comments on programs or Kurt Browning sharing his long-winded, negative opinion about K/S during S/H's skate.

 

[Blades of Passion]

I've no idea who that Carol Lane woman is but her commentary was indeed completely useless.

 

[OS]

How is anyone complaining about this result? S/H were completely sloppy on their SBS combo jump, had tight landings and questionable rotation on the SBS 3S, and were not as in sync on the SBS spin. Kavaguti/Smirnov had the more difficult program and performed it better.

Just curious how would you mark them in short and long?

I have no idea my post would have stired up so much hate and resentment... just what is that people are afraid of? At worse, I am wrong, so show me. (Yes ignore is a very good feature, I recommend you to use them for those are highly sensitive). I enjoy contemplating factors that affect judging when results get close, and these are very narrow gap (and I am annoyed now I am going to drop so many places on TSL fantasy league ). I can't believe Sui/ Han lost on time violation, just how??!!

As I have said, I enjoyed Yuko/Alex, but the score is close, and the high pcs, and the Alla factor raised a red flag, considering Sui/Han did win the short and they are skating at home, but again no home benefit for Chinese skaters as consistent with the history of Cup of china, not enough to make the ranking difference anyway. Can we agree at least Cup of China is the least home inflated event out of the grand prix series?

 

[solar]

I really didn't need Carol Lane's erroneous comments on programs or Kurt Browning sharing his long-winded, negative opinion about K/S during S/H's skate.

I didn't listen to CBC commentary at all, and maybe it's good that I didn't. Why bother spewing negative nonsense about another pairs team during another pair's skate?

 

[solar]

I can't believe Sui/ Han lost on time violation, just how??!!

Sui/Han were behind their music by a lot...
Last year they often had that problem with their SP (they even modified their ending pose to make it happen sooner!).
Normally they're a couple beats behind their music but during the COC FS I noticed that they were more behind than usual. That's probably why.

 

[Sandpiper]

Just curious how would you mark them in short and long?

I have no idea my post would have stired up so much hate and resentment... just what is that people are afraid of? At worse, I am wrong, so show me. (Yes ignore is a very good feature, I recommend you to use them for those are highly sensitive). I enjoy contemplating factors that affect judging when results get close, and these are very narrow gap (and I am annoyed now I am going to drop so many places on TSL fantasy league ). I can't believe Sui/ Han lost on time violation, just how??!!

As I have said, I enjoyed Yuko/Alex, but the score is close, and the high pcs, and the Alla factor raised a red flag, considering Sui/Han did win the short and they are skating at home, but again no home benefit for Chinese skaters as consistent with the history Cup of china, not enough to make the ranking difference anyway. Can we agree at least Cup of China is the least home inflated event out of the grand prix series?

And should the scores have even been that close? The only question here is whether Sui/Han benefited from home inflation to put them at a near-win despite those mistakes. Why can't you see the other side? Just because Sui/Han lost mean they weren't (potentially) the beneficiaries of judging, rather than the opposite way around.

(I am not suggesting there is some Chinese conspiracy. But if you're going to consider "factors of judging," that's the one to consider, not anything favouring K/S.)

Lol, high PCS. Across two programs, S/H received higher PCS total.

 

[4everchan]

i guess you don't follow Ice dance then do you?

I've no idea who that Carol Lane woman is but her commentary was indeed completely useless.