So, I‘ve watched it all and I’m not as thrilled as I expected to be, given my favorite winning and all. I think everyone knows by now what a huge Aliona fan I am and yet today I thought the scores just weren‘t .. right. Her 3As both looked UR, with the first one being close to a downgrade, her lutz edge is flat and due to the mistakes her interpretation in the beginning wasn’t as sharp as I’m used to. And... she still wins the FS? Today, I thought Rika was better, even lutz-less. Aliona should have won overall, given the pristine SP and her BV advantage but the FS today was not as good compared to Rika. I can‘t say I‘m angry, I‘m just disappointed at the judging:
No ! calls for either Alina or Aliona and huge GOE even though their edges were clearly flat? Ignored URs for both of them? And that’s not even mentioning PCS. A FS where an Alina who was understandably mostly focused on the jumps and only showed some interpretation in the step sequence gets the highest scores for interpretation? Where she beats Aliona AND Rika in skating skills who are two of the best in the business? The only thing I thought was appropriately judged was Aliona’s composition mark being the lowest of her components. You can be angry at me for saying this but her FS, as much as she likes it (and as much as I have admittedly come to enjoy it) is just not a well choreographed piece. I‘m by no means a huge fan of Rika‘s FS but imo, it shows very well how you combine multiple music cuts without it becoming jarring and confusing. Today, I would have had the PCS: Rika > Aliona > Alina with a reasonable difference from first to second and an even bigger difference from second to third. And just to say that now, this has nothing to do with the skaters. Alina‘s FS is great and had she skated it like at test skates or JO, my ranking might have looked very different. But today she was focused on something else and that was getting the jumps done. More or less the same can be said for Aliona but she at least has good skating skills backing her up.
On any rate, it seems like the letter the ISU got worked. And that just makes me question the sport I‘m watching. For the records, I think the placements are absolutely correct and I‘m happy for Alina and Aliona, they did very well and their medals are absolutely deserved. But I just do not understand the scores being given for what I‘ve seen on the ice.
Now, I‘m not going to lie either. Given the huge scores Sasha gets even for a FS with two falls, I was not too unhappy that Alina and Aliona, who I think are both way better skaters, got scores that indicated that they can compete with Sasha if they skate cleanly. But two wrongs don’t make a right and I just felt that the judging as a whole has not been better since that “inquiry“ to look into the “inconsistent“ judging. On the contrary. Congratulations to Aliona and Alina, however, and well done. But I think it’ll take some time to stop caring about that. Sometimes I manage to block out the judging and just focus on watching the skaters that I love, but today that was not the case. I’m working on it, though, because the way things are now, it looks like nothing’s going to change in quite a while. And losing so many nerves over unfair judging that‘s never going to change would be.. quite stupid. But oh well. Sometimes I just can’t help it.
But again, congrats to the girls who are not at fault for any of this. Seeing them happy certainly makes me a bit more happy too.
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