2016 JGP St Gervais Ladies SP

[YesWay]

Lots of new talent here!

1. Alina Zagitova: She has good spins, great jumps (and rippons!!!), and solid footwork. But 40.80 TES...what were the judges thinking ...this is higher than any senior international TES from last season, and this was set by a debuting junior. Alina is really talented, but honestly most of her GOEs were way too high. She also skates a bit cold as well so 27 PCS isn't really reasonable either...

2. Kaori Sakamoto: Kaori seems to have improved a lot and I enjoyed her! Beautiful 3Lo and nice performance throughout.

3. Rin Nitaya: She needs a bit more power into her skating, but overall her performance was good. Also, :yay: for choreo from Akiko!

4. Ye Lim Kim: To be honest, I had huge expectations for her after the national JPG qualification competition and the Asian Open, so this was kinda disappointing to me. She skates colder than Alina, which is now much more evident with the better camera angles. I had her in 2nd (now 1st because of Anna Tarusina's withdrawal) for my predictions, so I hope she at least gets onto the podium.

5. Emmi Peltonen: I actually enjoyed Emmi the most. The program is nice to watch and the combo was great. Too bad about the pop though.

6. Alexia Paganini: Same as above. Her program is nice and she did very well other than the pop.

Also shout out to Olivia Gran for ending her program solidly after the interruption. Honestly, it's not her fault that her CD decided to be disruptive...the judges should've let her start again...

And also the news about the bus crash was devastating to hear. I hope that everyone involved will be okay soon.

Good summary, I agree with all of that - although eppen and samkrut make good points regarding Zagitova's TES.

I especially liked Sakamoto - deeeeep edges, sharp footwork, good speed. Nice program and she delivered it well. I can see her scores rocketing if she can perform consistently.

Also Peltonen - great improvements, and she has BIG jumps! Might have been in the top 3 if she hadn't popped the loop - but as it is, probably too far behind now :-/

Looking forward to the FS...

 

[Layback11]

After a day to think about it:

2. Alina Zagitova - extremely impressive debut! Her jumps were airy and her spins and StSq were good as well. She could be more expressive, but I like her. (Rule of thumb: it's ALWAYS better to like a skater from the beginning than to decide not to. I have decided to like her because there's lots to like and I feel like she's going to make a splash, so it's better to like the skater who will probably be winning things.)

2. Kaori Sakamoto: I liked her jumps last year, but I was amazed by how much more I liked her overall performance! She's become much more expressive. That program was really a joy to watch, and I will never understand how she got a 3T around without falling on her face after that 3F

3. Rin Nitaya: technically strong skate, but I feel like she was a little stone faced.

4. Ye Lim Kim: she left me a little bit cold and when the jumps aren't really there, she's just a little...meh.

5. Emmi Peltonen: a surprise highlight of the event for me. Her 3T-3T was a stunner, the 2A got really nice height, and the choreography was fantastic! I loved the little tango-ish hand and leg movements throughout and the StSq was very well-choreographed.

6. Alexia Paganini: gorgeous program! The 3Lz-3T was nice and I loved her transitions (especially the knee slide into the layback!) and footwork. She's improved SO much over the summer, both artistically and technically-she's got a solid 3Lz-3T, and her interpretation and presentation are really nice. I also loved her dress!

Can't wait to see how this shakes out in the FS.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

Why on earth they choreographed Kaori's SP to go into that spin right when the music picks up with the swing beat is beyond me. It just sort feels like a huge disconnect takes place and starts to deflate the program. It would have served the mood better to go into some nice steps here to introduce the changing rhythm with character. I'm afraid this music is a bit of a mismatch for her and she is completely swallowed up by the charisma of the swing but of course...YMMV. I expect a better FS but hope she can show us the program's dynamics a bit more effectively.

 

[[email protected]]

Why on earth they choreographed Kaori's SP to go into that spin right when the music picks up with the swing beat is beyond me. It just sort feels like a huge disconnect takes place and starts to deflate the program. It would have served the mood better to go into some nice steps here to introduce the changing rhythm with character. I'm afraid this music is a bit of a mismatch for her and she is completely swallowed up by the charisma of the swing but of course...YMMV. I expect a better FS but hope she can show us the program's dynamics a bit more effectively.

Totally agree. I cannot say that the music was bigger than her because it's not that big music. But it requires different skating. Mao had an ex program to a similar music last year - I think she would nail it. Or Yulia in 2014 when she managed to include an amazing number of movements per unit of time. Kaori was too smooth and classical for that music.

 

[hippomoomin]

Totally agree. I cannot say that the music was bigger than her because it's not that big music. But it requires different skating. Mao had an ex program to a similar music last year - I think she would nail it. Or Yulia in 2014 when she managed to include an amazing number of movements per unit of time. Kaori was too smooth and classical for that music.

Zijun Li skated to the same music in her LP pervious season. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPSqkQcXnI0

Zijun did pretty well with this piece, and she is a very lyrical skater.

Kaori's SP seems to be a cheap copy of that.

 

[gkelly]

Interesting～
Since there's no anonymous judging now, can we assume Judge 1 is the first judge introduced thus Judge 1 is from Japan, Judge 2 from Russia etc?

There was never anonymous judging on the JGP. The judges' columns were always in the same order that the judges were listed on the cover sheet.

The change this year is that that is now also true for senior events (and Junior Worlds).

 

[randomfan]

I second samkrut on this - TES is the less subjective of the scores as it depends upon how how difficult the elements are and how the skater executes them. Zagitova was definitely solid and the program was difficult particularly with the backend jump passes. She was just 3 points behing in BV the winner of the mens SP and 2 points ahead of him in the final TES score. With 100% components she would have beaten all the guys... (As would have Sakamoto and Nitaya.)

Zagitova'a TES is driven first by her jump backloading with 2 Rippons, second by very difficult SS, third by fast spins with many positions. May be one could argue a bit about GOE. But then you praize Kaori and Rin's skating and here I have problems. If the "fair" score for Alina is 68 -3 = 65 then Kaori should have received 64 - 3 = 61. The relative scores of the leading three for me are absolutely correct.

Actually you guys made a point about the TES. Re-watching the performamce several times, now I do see that it's reasonable why the TES was so high.

But to samkrut, I'll point out that I did praise Alina too, which was the first sentence. She deserves her 1st place completely.

Also Peltonen - great improvements, and she has BIG jumps! Might have been in the top 3 if she hadn't popped the loop - but as it is, probably too far behind now :-/

Yeah, too bad about that pop. But she really became a skater that I want to watch more now. I really enjoyed her a lot!

 

[ordinary person]

Pauline Wanner's?

If so, I don't like it. Not because it looks homemade or anything, but because it clearly doesn't fit her!

Last year, I was criticising Maria Sotskova's dress for looking like her bra was sticking up above her dress. It wasn't - it was a sparkly part of the dress rather than a sparkly bra.

Here, Pauline's bra WAS sticking up above her dress. That is a big no-no with a sweetheart dress.

It almost looked as if the dress was too small and wouldn't fit over her boobs.

CaroLiza_fan

With the many, many, many butts and crotches we already see, i really doubt anyone truly cares. Her dress on the other hand did look too small.

 

[YesWay]

Zijun Li skated to the same music in her LP pervious season. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPSqkQcXnI0

Zijun did pretty well with this piece, and she is a very lyrical skater.

Kaori's SP seems to be a cheap copy of that.

Zijun Li is 3 years older and skating in seniors. So it's not really surprising.
Sakamoto's team-mate at this competition, Nitaya, is also more graceful, elegant, lyrical... and 3 years older.

Sakamoto has time to grow...