2020-21 European Men's Figure Skating

[snowflake]

High time for the Europen Men's thread. Would love to hear about all the hard working men, seniors and juniors, from this part of the world. Not only the ones at the top.

The latest results from last season:

European Championships 2020
3 Morisi KVITELASHVILI GEO 246.71
4 Daniel GRASSL ITA 244.88
5 Matteo RIZZO ITA 237.01
6 Deniss VASILJEVS LAT 232.67
7 Michal BREZINA CZE 231.25
8 Paul FENTZ GER 230.01
9 Vladimir LITVINTSEV AZE 221.09
11 Adam SIAO HIM FA FRA 219.89
12 Alexei BYCHENKO ISR 219.03
13 Gabriele FRANGIPANI ITA 218.00
14 Irakli MAYSURADZE GEO 214.47
15 Nikolaj MAJOROV SWE 212.57

26 Kevin Aymoz 64.91 (Grand Prix Final 2019/20 275.63 in third place)

Probably there will be some competitions with European skaters only(except for the Russian skaters). Starting with Nebelhorn Trophy, september 23-27.

Entries men:

1	Maurizio ZANDRON	AUT	1
2	Jiri BELOHRADSKY	CZE	2
3	Aleksandr SELEVKO	EST	3
4	Mihhail SELEVKO	EST	3
5	Valtter VIRTANEN	FIN	4
6	Paul FENTZ	GER	5
7	Kai JAGODA	GER	5
8	Thomas STOLL	GER	5
9	Graham NEWBERRY	GBR	6
10	Gabriele FRANGIPANI	ITA	7
11	Matteo RIZZO	ITA	7
12	Deniss VASILJEVS	LAT	8
13	Sondre ODDVOLL BOE	NOR	9
14	Nikolaj MAJOROV	SWE	10
15	Noah BODENSTEIN	SUI	11
16	Lukas BRITSCHGI	SUI	11
17	Nurullah SAHAKA	SUI	11
18	Burak DEMIRBOGA	TUR	12
19	Ivan SHMURATKO	UKR	13

 

[flanker]

Nika Egadze, 4T+1Eu+3F:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QdOm0MFBf4

 

[snowflake]

Matteo Rizzo: "I will always try to improve myself"

Catching up with Sondre Bøe

Deniss Vasiljevs hopes to show different side for 2020-21

Nikolaj Majorov training quad salchow https://www.instagram.com/p/CEXAO-WJ0eF/

26 years old Marcus Björk coming back to competition after more than three years and training 3 axel

 

[Tolstoj]

I've just watched Nebelhorn, very interesting event.

Gabriele Frangipani really impressed me, he's making moves. added the quad toe both in the short and the long, landed in the free, the second 3a is in the bonus and he landed that. Physically he looked well trained, at this point of the season, with the big elements landed, it's just up to hold it together and keep the focus for the entire program.

Programs were good too, the Peaky Blinders free in particular.

Team Magri with Grassl and Frangipani is probably my favourite right now from the italians: they go for the quads, level 4 spins and steps, and it seems they train more their programs.

Very nice to see Deniss Vasiljevs landing the 4sal, beautiful spins as always, the components really saved him here cause both programs had some big mistakes.

Matteo Rizzo, i think he was a bit undermarked on the components here, i'm not sure going for the lutz-loop is a smart strategy: i get that they want to increase the difficulty, but loop combos need that perfect position in the air on the first jump and the base value is not that much higher than the toe, personally i'd rather stick with the lutz-toe or flip-toe in the second half, it seems more reliable but we'll see this season.

 

[lariko]

Grats to Vasiliev on the win and the quad! His spins are out of this world.

 

[elektra blue]

i think the biggest surprise was Zandron. many of you might not be familiar with him, but until last season he couldn't be clean to save his life, let alone 2 times in a row. he really impressed me

 

[elektra blue]

Zandron did it again, he almost skated other 2 clean programs in a row, scored 200.80 and placed 5th overall. Daniel won the competition but messed up the free he scored 233.04, 3rd place went to Selevko with 204.88

 

[eppen]

Getting somewhat up to date with the little new skating we are getting these days and have to say, the European men have delighted me at least a little bit.

Was happy to see Vasiljevs with a quad - I just hope they did not waste some of his best years into trying to get the 4T to work when apparently the 4S would have been much easier to reach?! Not sure about the programs though - the SP especially is such that if his face was substitued with Lambiel's, you would not be able to make them apart. The FS left me also lukewarm - the death scene was more unintentionally funny than dramatic, I must say.

One of my fave new programs so far is Aleksander Selevko's SP - a pretty good take on hiphop/street dance style in a competition program. I cannot really remember a complete competition program in that style, bits and pieces, yes, but not a whole one. Love the ease of his whole body movement and hope he will get those jumps going for him!

E

 

[snowflake]

Is the Italian competition taking place this weekend? I saw somewhere that the top Italian guys will be there.

Is there a competition thread?

 

[ladyjane]

There is no competition thread as far is I know. There is a thread under 'The Edge' which contains the info you need to watch. It's called 'FISG launches the Italian Grand Prix'. This weekend there are men, ladies and pairs.

Watch at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKGTWYnNCtrmQnn6aXQX89Q/featured (FISG youtube Channel) this saturday and sunday.
Scoring: http://www.fisg.it/upload/result/5357/index.html

With thanks to 'gone with the wind' and 'pete' in the FISG thread for providing the information above.

 

[elektra blue]

Is the Italian competition taking place this weekend? I saw somewhere that the top Italian guys will be there.

Is there a competition thread?

we can make one, it starts tomorrow

 

[Tolstoj]

Gran Premio Italia 2020/21 - Prima Tappa (Bergamo)​

Men Short Program

1. Daniel Grassl 95.72
2. Matteo Rizzo 77.04
3. Gabriele Frangipani 68.51
4. Phillip Warren 63.39
5. Mattia Dalla Torre 57.28
6. Alberto Vanz 50.70

Gran Premio Italia 2020/21 - Prima Tappa (Bergamo) - Short Program

Sabato 24 e domenica 25 ottobre sul ghiaccio dell'IceLab di Bergamo prende il via la prima tappa del Gran Premio Italia, il circuito nazionale organizzato da...

youtu.be

 

[Tolstoj]

Gran Premio Italia 2020/21 - Prima Tappa (Bergamo)​

Men Free Skate

Unsurprsingly after the short, Daniel Grassl won the event with a total score of 284.99 pts (189.27 for the free). Clean programs back to back for him, the free is very ambitious with 4ltz, 4f, 4lo and 3 3-3 combos (3a-eu-3s, 3ltz-3t, 3f-3t). I was particularly impressed by the quad lutz and flip, they looked bigger and cleaner here. Always very strong in the spins with truly unique and difficult variations and the movements in the choreo also very unique. Mid-program costume change as well.

Matteo Rizzo in second with 214.01 (136.97). He had only one quad toe (two footed landing), the 3lo right after might become a quad loop later in the season. Popped several elements here, although good fight on the triple axel changing plans mid-program, very nice steps sequence at the end. He's a very artistic skater, with good posture, great speed/ice coverage, and great expression also, i think for his skills they could add a bit more transitions into his programs, you see it even in his scores, his components are never as big as they could in my opinion (he's an 8-9 type of skater), though i understand the need to go clean with the jumps.

Bronze for Gabriele Frangipani (206.82, with 138.31 in the free). I think he had an opportunity to beat Rizzo again after Nebelhorn Trophy, and this was a bit of a step back. Very powerful skater, not always in control, jumps were often on a lean here (particularly the two lutzes). However on the positive side, he tried the 4 salchow, after showing the 4 toe at the previous event, so he's working on including multiple quads, which i think is important to compete in seniors. Out of all the top three here, i liked his free more.

 

[cake]

Thanks for the links to the Italian competition. Italy has three fine young skaters in Grassl, Rizzo and Frangipani. Grassl very impressive with a clean 3-quad-program. The Joker-program is very interesting though I´m not sure he can handle such a "heavy" theme yet. But I´m intrigued to watch how it will develop.

 

[elektra blue]

as i said in the competition thread, Daniel was relaxed here so he went clean and delivered a great performance (i read he is the first man landing 4F, 4Lz and 4Lo in the same program). who weren't relaxed were both Matteo and Gabriele, the latter is stil young and he looks like he wants too much too soon

 

[TontoK]

Thank you @Tolstoj for providing the video links and your recaps. I might not have seen this otherwise.

I much prefer Rizzo from an artistic perspective, but there is no denying the huge strides Grassl in making with his difficulty, and there is plenty of room for that to improve even more. The programs will get more interesting in time, I'm sure. The music in the free was heavy and ponderous, and somehow made his skating seem sluggish... even as he was popping off those quads in the opening. I'm not going to search out the protocols, but were all of those fully rotated? I think they were... but it can be hard to tell on video.

This is a young man on the move up.

 

[ladyjane]

If you want more on this competition, please go to the competition thread I set up. It's to be found under 'national competitions'. Perhaps these specific comments could be incorporated in that particular thread? Or with this one? I don't know what is best. But it's a pity to see these comments here when there is also a thread dedicated to this particular competition? Yeah, I am winking at the moderators/administrators now to fuse the threads somehow....

 

[Tolstoj]

If you want more on this competition, please go to the competition thread I set up. It's to be found under 'national competitions'. Perhaps these specific comments could be incorporated in that particular thread? Or with this one? I don't know what is best. But it's a pity to see these comments here when there is also a thread dedicated to this particular competition? Yeah, I am winking at the moderators/administrators now to fuse the threads somehow....

Yeah it's just like others pointed, it was easy to miss this event in between Skate America and Russia's domestic events, and many tend to post and visit more often the edge section, so i kinda wanted to mention it here for visibility, since this thread was also not very used before, and because GP France is cancelled, these competitions are the only chance to see european skaters.

I'm okay using the other one when the competition are live tho.

 

[flanker]

It should be mentioned that Tomáš Verner became a father. His wife Tammy Sutan, former figure skater representing Thailand, gave birth to their first son Tomáš

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFfUynPHZJb/

There is also interview with him:

Tomáš Verner: Měl jsem dojem, že mám na vítězství právo. Omyl - Novinky

Vypadalo to na zářnou kariéru. Ještě před deseti lety vítězil krasobruslař Tomáš Verner (34) na různých šampionátech a měl našlápnuto i na olympijské úspěchy. Pak ho ale zradila psychika a opustilo štěstí. Před šesti lety skončil. „Za to, že mám sport ještě rád, vděčím hlavně Danielu Landovi,“...

www.novinky.cz

He talks about his family, new role as a father and his sport experience, of course. He metions that when he became european champion, he started to have psychological problems and lack of confidence which he was unable to fully overcome.

As many figure skaters he expresses his love for Japan and his fans there, there are even fans who learned czech because of him

He also mentions that the problems with sport now are thet average children today lack the normal physical activity which makes start of any training worse. Though he (as some other former athletes ) started his figure skating academy and tries to do his best with them.

 

[elektra blue]

congratulations to Daniel Grassl 3rd time national champion