Below are some reflections in response to the overwrought and/or dismissive responses to my earlier posts:
To the poster OS who brought up Grant. Believe me, Grant was the farthest skater from my mind when I posted earlier. You've got to be kidding that I'm at all thinking about Grant's PCS! Not. Grant is in his final year and reportedly he's had to cut some of his training time because he's coaching to supplement his income for life expenses as well as skating expenses. He's not been performing up to his abilities this season in any case. Under those circumstances, I certainly never had any expectations of Grant being a factor at CoC. Much less is it of any importance to me to compare Grant's PCS with anyone else's at this comp.
Yes, I only state things objectively how I see them, and with passion simply because I have been following the sport for so long because I love figure skating, but it's a frustrating sport. Obviously, the scoring is not about 'conspiracies,' but all of you are rather naive if you don't understand how political this sport actually is. There doesn't need to be any conspiracy when we know that the judges are all affiliated with different countries and therefore conflicting interests are always involved. The judging was kept anonymous for years for a reason. There have been a number of judging scandals over the years, which doesn't mean that most of the judges don't try to do their best with the complicated and messy IJS/COP. Nothing was a conspiracy at CoC, and I'm not complaining about any 'conspiracy theories'. Far from it. But that always seems to be the 'go-to' accusation by some fans when they object to or don't understand another fan's comments about political scoring and inaccurate scoring on PCS.
That politics are involved in the scoring is nothing new. It's been that way forever in figure skating. Of course the Chinese fed backs their quad-talented skater in Jin Boyang and expect him to get on the podium and they support him politically in that effort. And they are going to do all they can to help talent. I was simply pointing out how Boyang's success came down quickly due to his quad abilities rather than any prodigious skating talent. I think it's rather curious and indicative of the quad era that Boyang's success was mainly based on his jumping ability, and then after making the World podium he's being helped to improve his skating and presentation skills. In the past, a skater at least had to be a bit more well-rounded before making the podium. And I think that's how it should be rather than the other way around, no matter what country you come from as a skater! Whatever! The quad has changed a lot of things in men's figure skating.
As I said, it's the quad factor and Boyang's jumping ability that bounded him to the top before he actually had the skating skills to back him up. There's nothing wrong with his fed putting everything into helping him improve. There are advantages and disadvantages to the reality of being fully funded by your federation. That generally means you have less power over your own decisionmaking. Still, it is interesting to examine the differences among countries today in how skaters are developed, funded, packaged, etc. I'm stating the facts, not saying that Max needs in any way to be pitied. The U.S. is vastly different in how their skating system is set up, and in fact the U.S. is somewhat behind the times in its organization and competitive structure and selection process, just like the ISU is in the way they run the sport.
The scoring has always been based not only on what the skaters do on the ice, but on buzz and status quo rep and politics. And how much the judges believe in and trust a skater. Clearly Russian fed is adept at politics (and they are always preparing their skaters to excel in the lead-up to an Olympics), plus there's that Russian aesthetic tradiition that's often blindly over-valued by the sport. As well, Canada has a lot of talented skaters and reputable political power. Japan has respected political power because a lot of the money and fan interest, as well as top level skating talent is in Japan. Meanwhile, the U.S. has never been adept politically, but they did have more power and influence during the era of U.S. television contracts, which doesn't exist anymore. The U.S. also lost a lot of political influence and status with the ISU after the Ron Pfenning led coup attempt in 2003 in the aftermath of the 2002 SLC judging scandal.
On the positive side, the U.S. has always welcomed skaters and coaches all over the world to come to the U.S. to take advantage of the variety of training resources available here. Certainly, the U.S. ice dance program has benefited from Russian ice dance coaches making a difference here with young, talented skaters over the past 30 years or so. It's actually a good thing how the sport has become so global, and I think there needs to be more cooperative and global efforts. We see a lot how the growth of the sport is benefited by skaters being able to partner with skaters from other countries (and this has especially benefited and influenced ice dance, and to some extent, pairs). In fact, I think the country over-emphasis in the sport should change with it's heavy reliance on country affiliation rather than talent in how the competitive selection process is handled.
The sport needs to provide more opportunities to all skaters, as there is increasing depth in all the disciplines, but a lack of competitive opportunites and chances to be rewarded and to build competitive experience and momentum. Clearly, U.S. skaters have more options to either skate or not to skate if they can't make steady progress in the sport, whereas in Russia, skating can be a skater's main ticket to a better life, or at least it has been that way for many Russian skaters. In Japan, the sport is very different and skaters are treated like rock stars. That has never been the case in the U.S. which I find fascinating, but not something I'm looking at judgmentally one way or the other.
As you can see, I don't talk in soundbites. I recognize that the issues and problematic challenges involved in this sport are complex and not easily solvable. Too many fans just accept what happens and shrug it off or make excuses for it. I don't do that. There's a lot going on both behind the scenes and underneath the surface that too often no one wants to address head-on. Bottom line: Boyang's PCS are a tad overly high because he's respected for his quads and he's seen as one of the big time players who could land on the podium at the Olympics. But this showing at CoC is a low point for both Boyang and the sport. And I include Kolyada in that assessment because
neither came out and fought like they wanted to win, and yet they were still overly rewarded. I also question Kolyada being in third at Cup of Russia over Misha Ge. As well, some of the other guys tanked at CoC. Or some guys were better in one program or the other. It's gotten overshadowed how well Kevin Reynolds skated in the fp, after putting himself in the dungeon in the sp. Grant wasn't able to maximize his abilities to any notable degree here (and I had no expectations that he would). Tanaka skated a bit over his abilities, what with now having some fairly decent quads in his arsenal.
Meanwhile, what I have also tried to point out in regard to CoC and just in general, is that I think
Max's efforts to improve his aesthetics are not fully appreciated. Part of that is due to the fact that he faltered in being consistent with his quads over the past few years. And because the U.S. men have so much depth that the fed has not been behind any one particular guy to the exclusion of everyone else. The U.S. fed has also struggled with how to handle the quad vs complete skater conundrum, since their best skaters in recent years have been inconsistent on quads. It's not that the U.S. has lagged so much in men who can perform quads. Timothy Goebel was the first man to perform 3 quads in a fp. Brandon Mroz was the first man to land a quad lutz in competition. Even Evan Lysacek landed quads on a number of occasions, including a quad-triple at 2007 U.S. Nationals (although Evan is consistently blamed for not performing a quad at 2010 Olympics, when few men there did). Through the years, U.S. men have been instrumental in pioneering the quad. If you are young and new to the sport, you might not know that unless you study the history.
I mean fine if Javi had stomach problems. Still suck it up, and don't use that as an excuse for skating poorly. He's skated poorly before, but not with quite as many mistakes as he had at CoC. After winning Worlds two years in a row, and spectacularly in 2016, Javi found himself off the podium in 2017 because he simply didn't perform well. I say this at the same time that I like Javi and I enjoy his good performances and I root for him. He's very likeable and obviously the entire sport has adopted him as a loveable favorite. Most likely Javi had some pressure to perform in order to make the GPF as one of the sport's huge stars. But if he wasn't well, he shouldn't have gone out there. It's counterproductive, and benefits no one.
TBH, I'm not particularly a huge rabid fan of Max Aaron like someone here, but I do support Max and all of the U.S. men who are fun to watch (regardless of quads). Some of the U.S. men I enjoy watching the most are Alexander Johnson and Sean Rabbitt who don't have quads. So the point is that I comment with strong opinions because I'm looking at everything that goes on in this sport objectively. You can think what you will about some of my comments that can be easily misconstrued and misinterpreted on an Internet forum. There's really a lot that's going on in this sport that actually should be addressed, debated, and examined in a thoughtful and intelligent way. But that usually doesn't happen, especially not on Internet forums. And the suggestion that U.S. skaters are somehow better off financially is not true. The majority of them do not come from rich families, despite the perception that they do. The U.S. should not be seen as big-bad U.S. with all these advantages. Every skater in the U.S. as well as in other countries need to be looked at on an individual basis regarding their particular backgrounds and circumstances. There are certain generalizations about how different countries programs operate, but we should all be careful about making too many generalizations.
In addition, I would have to say that the skaters I have been a huge fan of over the years are no longer skating. These days, I tend to enjoy a lot of skaters regardless of country. And I do support many U.S. skaters, because I'm more familiar with them. But I am realistic about every skater's strengths and weaknesses. I was a big fan of Dai Takahashi, and I liked Hanyu a lot in the beginning. But he lost me with the sport's overemphasis on his quads to the detriment of him working on building his overall aesthetics. I think Hanyu has fabulous quads when he's on, but he's over-rated artistically. The skaters I have been the biggest fan of have been Babilonia/Gardner, Michelle Kwan and Johnny Weir. Plus I've enjoyed Midori Ito, Chen Lu, Meno/Sand, Brian Boitano, Pang/Tong, Gordeeva/Grinkov, Paul Wylie, Salle/Pelletier, Anissina/Peizarat, Shen/Zhao, Davis/White, Dai Takahashi, Takahiko Kosuka, Savchenko/Szolkowy, Jeremy Abbott, as well as currently competing skaters Adam Rippon, Jason Brown, Nathan Chen, Alexander Johnson, Alexandrovsky/Windsor, Hawayek/Baker, Duhamel/Radford, James/Cipres, Denis Ten, Deniss Vasiljevs, Papadakis/Cizeron, Hubbell/Donahue, the Shibs, Gilles/Poirier, Weaver/Poje, et al. But as I said, I mostly enjoy the sport as a whole these days, and I like watching a lot of skaters. And I look at the complexities in total, while filtering the hype and the status quo with a strong lens.
The French Federation likes Papadakis and Cizeron, too. I don't think we can draw much information about scoring from this Cup of China competition. In the LP Max Aaron gave an excellent performance, won the segment, and moved up to 3rd overall. Kolyada followed an outstanding short with a disappointing long, but held on for the victory. Jin was OK in the short, terrible in the long. He held on to second. Vincent Zhou shook off his SP (8th), got 2nd in the free, and pulled up to 4th overall.
