2017-18 State of U.S. Men's Figure Skating

[samson]

Just wanted to say that on Ashley's instagram story she posted a a small video of Adam doing a triple flip/triple loop in what looked like a run through of his long. I'm not sure of that's already been a part of his repertoire this summer but it was cool to see him do it. I looked back to his TEB performance and compared the music/steps leading in and it looks like he must be upgrading the flip/toe he used to do as the second jumping pass.

I have to say it looked like a beauty of a combo to me. His toe sometimes gets called under in the combo so I think it's an inspired idea to upgrade to the loop. If he's not doing a quad/triple combo in the short I'd love to see the flip/loop there too. Might as well get the extra .8 points and and make up any ground he can on his quad deficit (but hopefully he'll be throwing out clean quads!!)

 

[shine]

Even Nathan's skating skills a couple of years ago were't the best but just getting older and working on them with Marina took his skating to a new level and the same thing is happening with Vincent. He's at the age just like with Nathan where male skaters improve over just a matter of months.

Nathan always has had good skating skills and has been able to do pretty complex footwork even when he was younger. In fact that was one of the things that stood out about him and propped him up when he had no quads or 3As back then. I do agree he has improved even more (and there's room for even more improvement) but he has always had that natural ease with his blades.

 

[TontoK]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qi7IEX_Qo8 Vincent Zhou new FP

what are his chances to make the Olympic team?

Oh my. That is a 100% improvement over R&J.

Really beautiful and sensitive skating for a young man that age.

Very, very impressive. The jump elements were pretty snazzy, too. Cantilever to Rippon 3F near the end of the program. Are you kidding me?

 

[bevybean]

Oh my. That is a 100% improvement over R&J.

Really beautiful and sensitive skating for a young man that age.

Very, very impressive. The jump elements were pretty snazzy, too. Cantilever to Rippon 3F near the end of the program. Are you kidding me?

On my very long list of men I think will make it to the Olympics, I keep putting Vincent last because he is young and I figure he can always do the 2022 games. I really need to stop doing that.

 

[ice coverage]

Nice off-ice photo of Alex Johnson at Mid-Atlantics today :yay:, courtesy of our friend Upnights:

https://twitter.com/michlmint/status/906201193084538881 (Sep 8)​

It is Alex's first visit to NYC .

---

Is it just me or is Vincent looking pretty darn tall??? ....

:agree: Not just you.

 

[TontoK]

On my very long list of men I think will make it to the Olympics, I keep putting Vincent last because he is young and I figure he can always do the 2022 games. I really need to stop doing that.

I would say that not only does he have a good shot, he's almost a lock on my list, provided he delivers the content. His tech score will be incredible, and it's going to be hard for other skaters to overcome with PCS. Particularly if his skating continues to show this kind of improvement.

A lot can happen, but if the Olympic selections were made today, there would be a long list of skaters duking it out for the third spot behind Nathan and Vincent. Personally, I'm rooting for Max, but there are many other good skaters.

I'm sure you didn't mean to imply this... but I don't think these young guns are necessarily willing to "wait their turn."

 

[ice coverage]

Mid-Atlantics SP scores:

Alex Johnson 74.36 (ETA: 37.60 + 36.76)

Jimmy Ma 65.61 (ETA: 32.92 + 32.69)​

---

.... A lot can happen, but if the Olympic selections were made today, there would be a long list of skaters duking it out for the third spot behind Nathan and Vincent. Personally, I'm rooting for Max ....

:agree: I too am rooting for Max .

.... but there are many other good skaters. ...

:agree: :yes:

 

[musicfan80]

Is it just me or is Vincent looking pretty darn tall???

:agree: Not just you.

His wikipedia article says he is 5'6" - has he been that tall for awhile?

He turns 17 next month - I wonder if he has another growth spurt - some guys are notorious for ending their growth phrase later - and certainly later than most girls.

 

[Tallorder]

Even Nathan's skating skills a couple of years ago were't the best but just getting older and working on them with Marina took his skating to a new level and the same thing is happening with Vincent. He's at the age just like with Nathan where male skaters improve over just a matter of months.

Agree with this observation. And by the same token, some details can also recede if without reinforcement. I felt Nathan made remarkable progress during the fall and into Nationals while he had input from Zoueva. Later in the season, I detected a notable loss of some of the nuance and detail.

Vincent seems very much like he is at that raw material stage of development and with some timely and thoughtful input, could in my opinion be a challenger to Nathan. Vincent's "packaging" needs an injection of sophistication as well. Would put his chances at really pressing Nathan as quite high, assuming he and Nathan stay healthy, come January/February frankly.

 

[skylark]

Just wanted to say that on Ashley's instagram story she posted a a small video of Adam doing a triple flip/triple loop in what looked like a run through of his long. I'm not sure of that's already been a part of his repertoire this summer but it was cool to see him do it. I looked back to his TEB performance and compared the music/steps leading in and it looks like he must be upgrading the flip/toe he used to do as the second jumping pass.

I have to say it looked like a beauty of a combo to me. His toe sometimes gets called under in the combo so I think it's an inspired idea to upgrade to the loop. If he's not doing a quad/triple combo in the short I'd love to see the flip/loop there too. Might as well get the extra .8 points and and make up any ground he can on his quad deficit (but hopefully he'll be throwing out clean quads!!)

Adam said he wasn't working on last year's quad toe yet, but planned to later. Because it was hard on the foot that he broke, and he's being very attentive to recovery. I'm guessing that means he's not doing too many triple toes. I agree that the 3F-3loop is a very cool idea!

 

[Ic3Rabbit]

Adam said he wasn't working on last year's quad toe yet, but planned to later. Because it was hard on the foot that he broke, and he's being very attentive to recovery. I'm guessing that means he's not doing too many triple toes. I agree that the 3F-3loop is a very cool idea!

3F-3L combos are the bomb.

 

[Mrs. P]

The season has officially begun when I have created a new spreadsheet to track scores.

Here are the rundown of overall scores of the senior (domestically) men who have competed so far this season (and for the same of comparison, only including Challenger, JGP and GP competitions.

Nathan Chen 275.04
Max Aaron 261.56
Jason Brown 259.88
Timothy Dolensky 214.94
Alex Krasnozhon 209.37
Sean Rabbitt 204.46
Camden Pulkinen 203.80
Jordan Moeller 191.73
Tomoko Hiwatashi 189.89

So far, no big surprising trends. Nathan did a watered down program (for him) but did three quads, including a brand new 4Lo. His programs looked inspired though and I think he'll definitely maintain a sizable gap on the field; though it will be interesting to see whether he can maintain the feel/choreography of the programs when he adds a few more quads.

The interesting storyline for me is the one between Max and Jason. They scored very close to each other at their respective competitions with Max scoring a few points above Jason in the SP and Jason scoring a touch above Max in the FS. Max's TES is far above Jason's (143.31 v. 124.33) but Jason's PCS is way above Max's (136.55 v. 118.25). PCS does tend to go up with high TES consistency, which we saw that happen with Max leading up to 2016 Nationals (i.e. when he won Skate America, medaled at senior Bs, etc). This will be interesting to watch as the season progresses.

There are really no dark horse yet. Timothy Dolensky has the potential to be one for the Nathan/Max/Jason/Vincent etc, based on his performances at his summer comps, but he didn't show that here. For now it appears to be a 4-way (and perhaps 5 way depending on how far along Adam is) race for those 3 Olympic spots.

Alex K. may be a dark horse to get a 4CC spot (unless he wants to go for Jr. Worlds medal).

Next up: Ross Miner at Autumn Classic, Grant Hochstein at Ondrej Nepala Trophy and Andrew Torgashev at JGP Belarus. Lots to watch!

 

[Ross74]

Next up: Ross Miner and Vincent Zhou at Autumn Classic, Grant Hochstein at Ondrej Nepala Trophy and the international season debut of Andrew Torgashev at JGP Belarus. We'll see a clearly picture.

I thought Vincent was out of Autumn Classic. From the Entries thread.

 

[andromache]

Nationals is going to be a bloodbath. If Nathan stays healthy I think he's got the #1 spot all wrapped up. But #2 and #3? Major kudos to Max for mastering the 4T so he can up his TES with another quad. By late in the season, Jason, even without a quad, is incredibly reliable, and gets the PCS to outscore and outplace guys with higher TES who make mistakes (see Worlds 2015 and 2017). A clean Max probably has higher scoring potential overall, but his consistency is always a question mark. Then there's Vincent, another quad wunderkind who has made nice artistic progress, and Adam. It makes me sad to say it, but I think Adam's chances of making it to the Olympics are slim, unless 2/3 of Jason/Max/Vincent bomb at Nationals.

 

[Mrs. P]

I thought Vincent was out of Autumn Classic. From the Entries thread.

Oh, you're right. I was looking at the USFS assignments page; it hasn't been edited it to reflect that or the change in pairs at COC.

Well that's interesting...I hope he opted out of the competition cause of a new program, not because of an injury or other issue.

Well it's not that much longer of a wait-- three more weeks.

Nationals is going to be a bloodbath. If Nathan stays healthy I think he's got the #1 spot all wrapped up. But #2 and #3? Major kudos to Max for mastering the 4T so he can up his TES with another quad. By late in the season, Jason, even without a quad, is incredibly reliable, and gets the PCS to outscore and outplace guys with higher TES who make mistakes (see Worlds 2015 and 2017). A clean Max probably has higher scoring potential overall, but his consistency is always a question mark. Then there's Vincent, another quad wunderkind who has made nice artistic progress, and Adam. It makes me sad to say it, but I think Adam's chances of making it to the Olympics are slim, unless 2/3 of Jason/Max/Vincent bomb at Nationals.

I don't think Adam's chances are that slim. It sounds like he's coming along jump wise and he did have a very solid summer competition scoring in the 250s. Even if you account for summer comp inflation, it's still a pretty respectable score.

I'm interested to see how Ross fits into this...

 

[OS]

Just caught up with Nathen and Jason's programs this year. Goodness me! They mean business don't they. I simply love Nathen's package this year, contemporary, unique and rather original compared with last year. This is how you move forward guys!! It is going to really stand him out among the sea of warhorse and repeats. The Nemesis SP perfectly showing off a cool suave dynamic and offbeat side to him we haven't seen him (or many skaters) before except during his Exhibition. There's such ease about him settling his role as the US men's leader and potential future sports leader, it is quite impressive and eye brow raising. Shaelynn Bourne is doing a good job so far! I really can't wait to see her work with Ashley on Lala land.

I enjoyed Jason's FS, is it an original piece of music created for him? Not made my mind up about Hamilton yet, but at least it is very much part of him. The FS feels like what USFSA and US public demand of their artistic skater, ie/ establishment's view, while SP feels like very much the sort of quirky Jason want to put out as THE entertainer. Both side of the coin, balance nicely and fit him well. I will ignore on the insane 90+ PCS for him and Shoma @Lambardia... there must be something in the water there. The gap between them and the rest of the field is umm interesting... :roll9:. a bit unecessery.

Max seems to be doing well early in the season too, he is not an artistic skater, but these are some of his best efforts this early. I prefer Les Mis rather than Lion King. He pays so much better attention to the music and things like body carriage, lines than ever before and seems comfortable with his programs already. Very good efforts. Good luck to him.

Liam Firus was a pleasant surprise. Not really paid attention to him before but I rather enjoyed his joyous SP, but I keep thinking of Josh for some reason. His Lala land was also a delight though he lacked the energy towards the latter 1/3rd to match the epic buildup. This could be a real crowd pleaser by season end, the types that makes people stand up and even jump with applause. Whatever they are doing at the US Champ camp seems to have really worked! Good job!

So far, US/North America men seems to have made the best adaptation to the lyrics rule and created programs that are well put together and conceived. I am really keen to see what Adam, Josh, Vincent and Richard Dornbush are up to this year. The competition is going to be fierce @ US nationals this year, spine-tingling good and very likely a weep-fest.

 

[solani]

I have a question (hope that this wasn't already discussed, I didn't have the time to follow this forum in the last couple of weeks ...) - I just read in the score sheet that Chen "planned" a Quad Toeloop+Double Loop+Triple Flip. He did another element of course, but is there a video of him doing 4T-2L-3F? I guess the Double Loop is a 1 1/2 loop, right? Would be a pretty spectacular element.

 

[mrrice]

Nationals is going to be a bloodbath. If Nathan stays healthy I think he's got the #1 spot all wrapped up. But #2 and #3? Major kudos to Max for mastering the 4T so he can up his TES with another quad. By late in the season, Jason, even without a quad, is incredibly reliable, and gets the PCS to outscore and outplace guys with higher TES who make mistakes (see Worlds 2015 and 2017). A clean Max probably has higher scoring potential overall, but his consistency is always a question mark. Then there's Vincent, another quad wunderkind who has made nice artistic progress, and Adam. It makes me sad to say it, but I think Adam's chances of making it to the Olympics are slim, unless 2/3 of Jason/Max/Vincent bomb at Nationals.

Yes it is and I'm so happy that I'll be there to see it all unfold. If you asked me personally, even with 3 spots, I couldn't pick the team at this time. Now that we have Vincent in the Multi-Quad club, it makes things much more difficult. Nathan, Max, and Vincent have the highest tech potential. However, Jason is a judges dream and so is Adam Rippon. We still have skaters like Ross, Timothy, Joshua Farris and that cute dude from Minnesota who's name I can never remember. I still don't know what's going on with Ricky D. and Jeremy Abbott. It's still too soon to make a prediction. BTW, Alex Johnson is the cute guy from Minnesota.

 

[Tavi...]

Yes it is and I'm so happy that I'll be there to see it all unfold. If you asked me personally, even with 3 spots, I couldn't pick the team at this time. Now that we have Vincent in the Multi-Quad club, it makes things much more difficult. Nathan, Max, and Vincent have the highest tech potential. However, Jason is a judges dream and so is Adam Rippon. We still have skaters like Ross, Timothy, Joshua Farris and that cute dude from Minnesota who's name I can never remember. I still don't know what's going on with Ricky D. and Jeremy Abbott. It's still too soon to make a prediction. BTW, Alex Johnson is the cute guy from Minnesota.

Jeremy officially announced his retirement a few months ago. Ricky D was actually in the Kiss n Cry with Brendan at Lombardia, in a quasi coach role - Tammy was with Karen at SLC. That suggests that Ricky won't compete this year, but it's not conclusive.

 

[Mrs. P]

Just caught up with Nathen and Jason's programs this year. Goodness me! They mean business don't they. I simply love Nathen's package this year, contemporary, unique and rather original compared with last year. This is how you move forward guys!! It is going to really stand him out among the sea of warhorse and repeats. Sting (love him!) SP perfect showing off a cool suave offbeat side to him we haven't seen him before except during his Exhibition. There's such ease about him settling his role as the US men's leader and potential future sports leader, it is quite impressive and eye brow raising. Shaelynn Bourne is doing a good job so far! I really can't wait to see her work with Ashley on Lala land.

I enjoyed Jason's FS, is it an original piece of music created for him? Not made my mind up about Hamilton yet, but at least it is very much part of him. The FS feels like what USFSA and US public demand of their artistic skater, ie/ establishment's view, while SP feels like very much the sort of quirky Jason want to put out as THE entertainer. Both side of the coin, balance nicely and fit him well. I will ignore on the insane 90+ PCS for him and Shoma @Lambardia... there must be something in the water there. The gap between them and the rest of the field is umm interesting... :roll9:. a bit unecessery.

I really like Nathan's programs this year too. The FS is especially impressive -- really brought the things I like about Nathan's skating when he isn't doing tons of quads. I'm hoping he can keep that up. Honestly, I'd love it if he stuck to that program with maybe three quads. But I know Nathan's ambitious, so I won't hold my breath.

And to answer your question RE: Jason's FS, yes the music was composed by Maxime Rodriguez, who did the Tristan and Iseult piece Jason skated to for his FS back in the 2014-2015 season. The story is that Rodriguez came up to him and asked if he was interested in having a piece composed for him. The piece is basically based on the soundtrack for The Danish Girl, but I don't think you'll find many similarities as far as recognize melody.

I adore the FS, even more than The Piano, in fact I'd say its a step up from that. I remember thinking when I saw Jason gasp for breath at the end his skate at Lombardia like -- that looked so easy and you didn't do quads, why are you so tired?! I think what makes this program sing is that the end goal is that it is supposed to look floaty, so easy, but to do the choreography to get there requires a LOT Of effort. I'd argue that Riverdance Jason probably couldn't have done this program four years ago. Riverdance LOOKED hard with all the fast steps, this is that program's opposite, it's actually a nice way to show his growth as a skater in the last four years.

I'm with you that I'm not fully on board with the SP, but I can see that it's very much a program that is uniquely him and I appreciate his commitment to it. I like the step sequence and some other choreography, but I don't love it yet. In fact, I haven't bothered to rewatch it since watching it the first time, which is a pretty big indicator for me. I expect I'll grow to like it, but I'm not there yet.

As for the 90+ scores, even Jason seemed amused and surprised, so I think people know inflation when it comes around.