Heartbrokem for Yulia - this year might be difficult to get a spot on a team
My quick thoughts:
Medvedeva: Definitely the winner here. Strong SP, solid FS aside from the fall on the 2A. I think she's one of the strongest debuting juniors we've seen in a while but the judges must have been drunk while handing out these scores. Some of them gave her 9s in PCS. Give me a break! She's a solid high 7s...maybe a low 8 in PE. The excess of mid to high 8s and even 9+s was purely ridiculous.
Gracie: Good to finally see her stand up and deliver. She doesn't bring nearly enough personality to her performance which I expect was due to her focusing so hard on the jumps. Hopefully this performance was a confidence builder for her and she'll do better at her next event. It's obvious she can't afford to miss one jump (let alone two) if she wants to make it to the top this year. Gracie was the only one of the medalists not to fall...that's progress.
Satoko: Lovely performance as always. I just love the fluidity and control in her movement. She's simply gorgeous to watch. That fall on the lutz wasn't good but at least she was able to finish out everything cleanly. She will never get the kind of PCS she deserves and I'm just going to accept that. Shame.
Julia: At least there were no flower girls' feelings for her to hurt this time and good thing too. She looked ready to kill someone sitting in the K&C. She is really struggling. Her stroking around the ice looked a bit labored and uneven, the jumps were AWOL...she still has a lot of work to do.
I agree with the placements but I'm totally put-off by the scoring at this event. Evgenia was over-scored in PCS by about 6 points total and Gracie was over-scored by 4 points. I sure hope this mega-inflated scoring is confined solely to this competition and that this isn't a glimpse of things to come. If this is what we can expect for the rest of the season, it's going to be an immensely bull excrement filled year.
The placement on the podium is right. Gracie won FP with a shortage of 1 triple. If she had 7 triples and jumped the flip in SP she would have won this. Then if Evgenia did not fall it would have been a close call. I think Gracie would have won with about 211 against Medvedeva's 209. Although I would still give the first place to Zhenya. I just did not see the firebird at all - no emotions, no aggression. Then Gracie's 8.8 for interpretation is a mystery to me. Anna last season was imo much closer to the image although she fell all the time.
Miyahara was a nice surprise today although her jumps are still as tiny as always. And I do feel for Yulia. In this dress it is obvious how different she is. She has quite sizeable breasts now. It may be such a pain not to control your body as you could before. I hope she and Eteri will figure something out and adjust to changes.
I suppose that would have been the best skater to leave out, considering how poorly her FS went. (Pretty sure NBC didn't know that ahead of time though.)
Thanks for the update! I will watch it when I get home, along with CBC and British Eurosport.
I wish I can see more positivity here!
Not until the judges stop with those extreme inflation.
I don't mean to be rude, but that was a little uncalled for to snap at me.
What makes you think I was snapping period, much less at you? I have no reason to snap at you.
I agree as well. Both Gracie and Evgenia had similar content - 6 triples for Gracie and 7 for Evgenia with a fall. Gracie is a bit more polished, but Evgenia had more transitions and seemed to skate with more speed and freedom. I also found Gracie's FS to be so dull. I'm not surprised the scores were so close in the FS. I don't usually like the Russian baby ballerinas, but Evgenia deserved the win overall tonight.
I forgot to say that one of the introductory bits before it was time for YL's live free skate was that NBC showed a b-roll montage of the top five ladies (per the SP) with audio from the skaters themselves making comments. (Satoko was speaking English for her comment, BTW. Subtitles for the comments in Russian from YL and EM.)
And ... the reason I mention it is that the montage ended with the five ladies each saying her own name -- first name and last name. (Made me smile -- in case you and Doris do not have an EM video yet for the GS pronouncer thread??)
I'm sorry, it's just the way it looked translated to that you were annoyed that I was trying to be positive and happy. Please forgive me.
All's forgiven. But I should have been more clear with my comment that posters would be more positive if the judges weren't over-inflating scores for some skaters.
Long story short, Chartrand did not exist as far as NBC was concerned.
Her FS was not shown; her name was never shown or spoken; not one frame of her was ever seen (AFAIK) ... although she was in the final group.
The other five Ladies free skates from the final group were shown live in entirety.
No SP was shown in entirety. Some b-roll and commentary re Gold's SP in particular. Plus an SP montage of Gold plus the other four ladies (but not Chartrand).
Basically no mention of any other discipline whatsoever. Basically no mention of any Team USA skaters except Karen and Gracie.
(A few frames of other disciplines were seen in the opening animations re GP series as a whole and re Skate America. Possibly a glimpse of Jason in that context??)