2015 Nebelhorn Trophy General Chat

[demarinis5]

Loved Elladi, Jorik, Michal, Florent and Peter's programs!

Best SP program I have seen from Max, well executed jumps
and much improved artistry, well done!

 

[samson]

They both should be very proud and encouraged to have beaten the likes of Menshov, Brezina, Amodio and Liebers. Hope they can carry the spirits on to the bigger events to come in the season.

Totally agree!

The protocols are out:
http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1516/csger2015/CSGER2015_Men_SP_Scores.pdf

Nice to see Max is starting to get some low 8s. I thought he was going to have troubles with that first spin, it would be great to see him get those levels up on everything. I kind of feel like seeing one level 4 spin this early though is another small for him. If he can get those levels up AND still deliver the jumps this program will really pack a punch this year and I'm sure we'll start seeing the PCS creep up.

He actually had the highest PCS of the night! And I think that's correct when you match up what he did to what the other men did.

 

[gold12345]

When all the disciplines are in one long thread, it's difficult to continue previous discussion, but this is about the pairs short.

It was obviously a fluke for V/T to have that much trouble with the triple twist. The throw triple flip is new for them and it's very big, so it's not going to be perfect every time. Some of the comments in this thread are a bit harsh- it's unrealistic to expect anyone to always skate their best. V/T haven't gotten the feel of competition in well over a year, and even just getting back into the swing of things after one off-season is challenging enough.

S/K have never really been a consistent team. In the second half of last year, for the very first time, they started to be a bit more consistent and added more difficult elements than they had previously been capable of, which improved their results. To me though this is just a return to normal for them- they didn't show me consistency for long enough to really convince me that this was the new them or their true new normal. They basically just had a few good competitions.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong though.

S/K were actually pretty consistent in their first season (but the quality of virtually all of their elements has improved since then, which I think is most important). Their second season was marred by injury. Last season they started slow and as you mentioned built nicely as the year went on, and maybe that will become their "normal" way of progressing through a season, but it's likely too early in their partnership to say. They haven't had a fall in competition since last November, and Alexa is a strong jumper, so the way she jumped today (under-rotated, which she never does) is likely not a normal thing. It's just that mistakes happen.

Also, they added a quad twist within the past year and mentioned that it has affected the timing of their triple twist. Occasionally she looks slightly over-rotated on the triple, which might have caused the small stumble today. And when your best element is uncharacteristically wonky, sometimes it isn't always the easiest to collect yourself and do a good jump right after, especially with a new program. Not to make excuses for the skaters, but mistakes happen. Especially for the teams that are regularly changing their technical content and working to improve, I think it's quite normal to see some mistakes. Aside from the mistakes, there were bright spots to S/K and V/T's skates.

 

[StitchMonkey]

Totally agree!

The protocols are out:
http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1516/csger2015/CSGER2015_Men_SP_Scores.pdf

Nice to see Max is starting to get some low 8s. I thought he was going to have troubles with that first spin, it would be great to see him get those levels up on everything. I kind of feel like seeing one level 4 spin this early though is another small for him. If he can get those levels up AND still deliver the jumps this program will really pack a punch this year and I'm sure we'll start seeing the PCS creep up.

He actually had the highest PCS of the night! And I think that's correct when you match up what he did to what the other men did.

His first spin got a CCSpB which I don't think I have seen before... I thought they put Vs at the end for problems... what does this translate to. It did look like he was not trying to tick many boxes on that one, though I suspect some people will actually enjoy its simplicity - some have been saying they want to see more of the well done classic positions.

 

[silverfoxes]

Great score for Elladj. I liked his program & Michal's the best. Florent's was a huge letdown, but maybe it will look better at the GP.

Peter's program really felt like an exhibition...and do you get a deduction if the judges can see your underpants?

 

[Rissa]

Did anyone notice the judge who slammed everybody on transitions? Florent Amodio: 3.25, Max Aaron: 5, Michal Brezina: 5.50 etc. Heh. Someone's got a pet category.

That said: Oh Florent, why do you continue breaking my haert. But I still love you, your crazy music choices and crazy costume and your face.

 

[samson]

^yeah I had a hunch that the twist struggles are related to the quad twist. Are skaters not allowed to do quad twist in the short? That's a shame if that's the case. It's kind of like in 2006 when we were still watching pairs do a double twist in short program. (Isn't it crazy to think Hao Zhang was the Olympic Silver Medalist in 2006 and only this last season he was 4th in the world!)

 

[QuadThrow]

Did anyone notice the judge who slammed everybody on transitions? Florent Amodio: 3.25, Max Aaron: 5, Michal Brezina: 5.50 etc. Heh. Someone's got a pet category.

That said: Oh Florent, why do you continue breaking my haert.

Could be

Florent's transitions were not really great this time... but 3.25... that is hard

In Interpretation florent deserved the 8.00 at least.

 

[QuadThrow]

^yeah I had a hunch that the twist struggles are related to the quad twist. Are skaters not allowed to do quad twist in the short? That's a shame if that's the case. It's kind of like in 2006 when we were still watching pairs do a double twist in short program. (Isn't it crazy to think Hao Zhang was the Olympic Silver Medalist in 2006 and only this last season he was 4th in the world!)

They are not allowed to do quads and till now noone could tell me an argument why.

 

[StitchMonkey]

Did anyone notice the judge who slammed everybody on transitions? Florent Amodio: 3.25, Max Aaron: 5, Michal Brezina: 5.50 etc. Heh. Someone's got a pet category.

That said: Oh Florent, why do you continue breaking my haert. But I still love you, your crazy music choices and crazy costume and your face.

I did see it, at least for Max that is. I was not sure how to bring it up really. i don't really know how to judge that. I can't tell if he is the one being honest of just a jerk... was there anyone he seemed to really like?

 

[samson]

His first spin got a CCSpB which I don't think I have seen before... I thought they put Vs at the end for problems... what does this translate to. It did look like he was not trying to tick many boxes on that one, though I suspect some people will actually enjoy its simplicity - some have been saying they want to see more of the well done classic positions.

oh huh I hadn't even noticed the missing V. Maybe he was really just aiming for a strong position on a base value camel and they knew that's what he was going for. He took a while to find his center and edge going into the first position and so I just assumed that's why is was CCspB but now you mention it he also did virtually no change in arms and no change in variation on the legs. Maybe his goal is simple simple with a better GOE there.

 

[samson]

They are not allowed to do quads and till now noone could tell me an argument why.

Well that's silly. With this point accumulating based system I would think the ISU would want to give skaters every opportunity to use their highest scoring elements, but I suppose it might be something about still having restrictions in the short that judges can more directly compare. However if they really wanted to do that, I'd say they should have all the teams doing double twists with highly specific features necessary to hit for full credit.

 

[StitchMonkey]

oh huh I hadn't even noticed the missing V. Maybe he was really just aiming for a strong position on a base value camel and they knew that's what he was going for. He took a while to find his center and edge going into the first position and so I just assumed that's why is was CCspB but now you mention it he also did virtually no change in arms and no change in variation on the legs. Maybe his goal is simple simple with a better GOE there.

To be honest I was wondering if he just had a momentary mental lapse and did what he could. A slight balance check unnoticeable to us seems like it could still easily cause a skater to lose count of spins...then lose track of everything after it due to thinking of the spin count - I mean they are human.

I like your idea better though. He got from a -1 to a 2 so who knows the effectiveness of it. I have to admit I did enjoy the simplicity and the holding of positions for a change. Starting to wish we could see more like that.

 

[Rissa]

I did see it, at least for Max that is. I was not sure how to bring it up really. i don't really know how to judge that. I can't tell if he is the one being honest of just a jerk... was there anyone he seemed to really like?

It's hard to say because it's not like J1 for Max and J1 for Michal are necessarily the same person, right? I just noticed some exceptionally low scores on TR on almost everybody's protocol, Konstantin, Grant and Peter got 4.75 so I'm assuming it's the same judge. I guess he/she must have liked Jorik Hendrickx because Jorik scored 6.50 on TR from a few judges and no lower. I think it's just this judge's pet peeve and he/she has no tendency to score more accomplished guys higher than he/she thinks they deserve. Other scores from that judge are often significantly higher.

 

[karne]

His first spin got a CCSpB which I don't think I have seen before... I thought they put Vs at the end for problems... what does this translate to. It did look like he was not trying to tick many boxes on that one, though I suspect some people will actually enjoy its simplicity - some have been saying they want to see more of the well done classic positions.

V is for flying spins only, which is why you didn't see one for a CCSp. But B is a perfectly valid level - it's the base level, base score. Oh Max, you and that camel spin. I'll have to watch to see what went wrong but pretty sure one of the PBPs I was reading mentioned that he "travelled halfway to his first GP" so if he had issues trying to bring it under control that could have affected his level.

Good morning everyone!

I am so very, very proud of Paris and Matthew and Andrew. They each had only 30minutes practice for this - and on the same day.

And I might have screamed a little when I saw that Max got 83.

 

[StitchMonkey]

karne - Max's performance is up BTW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNsRGnbGGJA

Thank you for the lesson, B for base - that makes sense.

 

[solani]

It's hard to say because it's not like J1 for Max and J1 for Michal are necessarily the same person, right? I just noticed some exceptionally low scores on TR on almost everybody's protocol, Konstantin, Grant and Peter got 4.75 so I'm assuming it's the same judge. I guess he/she must have liked Jorik Hendrickx because Jorik scored 6.50 on TR from a few judges and no lower. I think it's just this judge's pet peeve and he/she has no tendency to score more accomplished guys higher than he/she thinks they deserve. Other scores from that judge are often significantly higher.

Yes, and there wasn't a judge from Belgium on the panel so we'll never know. One judge gave him an 8 for transitions, no other skater received that. Maybe the french judge? Anyway, I found Henrickx rather engaging, despite the fact that I'm not sure I like the program overal, but as for transistions this wasn't bad at all. Fluent and there was an Ina Bauer in it, that must count for something.

Max Aaron was great, I really like the program and he skated very well. Overall great improvement in everything. I don't know wether the 4S-3T was planned, but I find it rather smart to put the 3T in if possible instead of doing the 3Lz-3T combo, I like it better, it's safer, I know about the missed 10% bonus for the 3T, but who cares, I want to see quad-triple combos!

 

[karne]

karne - Max's performance is up BTW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNsRGnbGGJA

Thank you for the lesson, B for base - that makes sense.

I just watched it - I'm so so so so so happy right now! And even better, he left points on the table! So 83 is just the start!!!!!! He could get even MORE! Finally!

I also found a video of Paris and Matthew, poor things looked so tight. If anyone has a video of Andrew, I'd be grateful.

 

[karne]

I don't know wether the 4S-3T was planned, but I find it rather smart to put the 3T in if possible instead of doing the 3Lz-3T combo, I like it better, it's safer, I know about the missed 10% bonus for the 3T, but who cares, I want to see quad-triple combos!

I think it probably was. They probably went to 3Lz-3T while he was working on the jumps, and switched back as soon as it was secure. Pretty sure he did 4S-2T in the SP at Collegiates. His jumps were just so here. I haven't had the chance to open the protocol yet, but if that 4S-3T combo didn't get +GOE I will be seriously peeved.

 

[StitchMonkey]

Max Aaron was great, I really like the program and he skated very well. Overall great improvement in everything. I don't know wether the 4S-3T was planned, but I find it rather smart to put the 3T in if possible instead of doing the 3Lz-3T combo, I like it better, it's safer, I know about the missed 10% bonus for the 3T, but who cares, I want to see quad-triple combos!

I agree completely. If you have the ability to tack on the 3T after the quad, do it and look good doing it. It gives more options and more safety. Also it looks better in someways than planning it the other way around and taking the 3T on later. This is more like a positive surprise, rather than what some could perhaps see as an error.