2021 Skate Canada: Men's Free Skate

[rollerblade]

The pairs medal ceremony is hilarious. And the podium is too small for the silver and bronze medalists.

 

[ancientpeas]

I love Sui and Cong. When they skate I feel something.

 

[msteach3]

Jason's Schindler's is the only program I truly enjoyed. The music is moving and he is able to skate to it, rather than alongside it like most of the other men. Too many of the music choices were mute-worthy, which when added to the technical issues made it a very disappointing event for an Olympic year.

Nathan's skate was somewhat a redemption for him after last week, but I'm still not sold on the program. I think his skating is much better suited to something faster and more upbeat. It'll be interesting to see if he makes changes down the road.

Raf stepped out of bounds? What? I'm sure he's triple vaxxed, so really?

 

[auser]

Completely agree. The top skaters are always overscored. However, man a lot of these men don't have a lot left to admire when the jumps go wrong....

So true, unfortunately.

 

[labgoat]

Anyone know if the CBC Canadian feed for the Pairs SP had the same blackout as the ISU and Peacock feeds? I've put a link to it on the video page but do not have time to check it.

 

[anonymoose_au]

It’s okay here. Hope you can get it on rerun.

Indeed! I got it going again, but I was at my at my parents house so I had to close my laptop and head home.

I missed the medal ceremony though, so boo.

 

[gsk8]

USA's #JasonBrown #SCI21 FS (165.55/259.55) "I'm a little disappointed with my FS, but the GP is an opportunity to find out what works and what doesn't. I'm thrilled to be up here with these two! It's a real honor and it's incredible to watch Nathan push the sport in his way."

USA's #NathanChen #SCI21 FS (200.46/307.18) "An honor to be up here with these two guys! Jason always pushes the sport. I've had better outings than I have here, but I'm always pushing forward. I'm excited to get back home and train."

Russia's #EvgeniSemenko #SCI21 FS (168.30/256.01) "I think I skated well for my first Grand Prix. I'm happy with my skate and it's also a great honor to skate with Nathan and Jason!"

 

[ancientpeas]

Canada has very strict Covid rules in place. I'm sure Raf's mistake was an honest one but it was still an error. If he wasn't punished they could shut down the whole event.

 

[moonvine]

This fire ant hill I am laying in is much more fun than this competition that never happened.

 

[SaDa]

Those were some really, really scary falls. I was so scared for all the skaters. Two weeks straight in a row now that I've seen a bloody nose in the men's. What on earth...

Congrats to all the winners. I'm happy for Jason and so glad to see Nathan hit 300(even with such a watered down free). Also, I love this Mozart/"Requiem" program no matter what anyone else thinks

 

[lariko]

Be thankfull he got silver with that skate. One lucky dude.

Luck has nothing to do with that. Silver has potential for the GPF for the skaters who are unlikely to win gold. Brown sells tickets, because he had been around for many years and glides well. Semenenko doesn’t. Hence, Brown got silver.

 

[eterialskating]

A good reminder of why I stopped watching the men and to think they were far and away my favorite event once.

 

[Wafflecakes]

Luck has nothing to do with that. Silver has potential for the GPF for the skaters who are unlikely to win gold. Brown sells tickets, because he had been around for many years and glides well. Semenenko doesn’t. Hence, Brown got silver.

Luck has a TON to do with it.

In ANY field that wasn't a giant mess Jason wouldn't have gotten a wiff of a medal with that skate.

 

[century2009]

First time seeing Nathan's FS and I actually like it. Mozart was a smart choice and do like that ending techno. I actually didnt even think it was techno.

It is actually interesting and more modern with it.

This is much better and contemporary if he had done one piece of a Morzat.

 

[Flying Feijoa]

Then once it was clearly locked up took a few more risks. Not loving the programs this year, though his main competitor is Hanyu who is king of uninspired recycled programs, so I am not sure it matters. Not sure any of the mens programs have me interested this year.
....
Not really feeling Jason's Schindler's List. IDK.... just get nothing from it. Pale imitation of Joshua Farris's from years back.

Not even sure if that is the main rivalry now, Vincent and Shoma looked pretty good last week. If Yuzuru skates like at World 2021, they would have beaten him.

Glad someone else remembers Joshua! I actually prefer Slaughter on 10th Ave for Jason, but I understand it's a minority view, SL is more meaningful to him and goes down better with judges and audience.

Another minority view: Jason's PCS stands out now among the current batch of competitors, but comparing apples to apples I wouldn't say he's the best ever. To me he's one of a group of great artistic skaters (including Chan, Buttle, Takahashi etc., and if Farris and Ten had not had their careers tragically truncated, they would have cemented their place in this pantheon). Not to say that Jason isn't unique, rather everyone in this group is one-of-a-kind. Basically, I will miss him when he retires, but artists appear in every generation and I'm looking forward to seeing who will step up to fill his shoes next quadrennial.

 

[Wafflecakes]

Not even sure if that is the main rivalry now, Vincent and Shoma looked pretty good last week. If Yuzuru skates like at World 2021, they would have beaten him.

Glad someone else remembers Joshua! I actually prefer Slaughter on 10th Ave for Jason, but I understand it's a minority view, SL is more meaningful to him and goes down better with judges and audience.

Another minority view: Jason's PCS stands out now among the current batch of competitors, but comparing apples to apples I wouldn't say he's the best ever. To me he's one of a group of great artistic skaters (including Chan, Buttle, Takahashi etc., and if Farris and Ten had not had their careers tragically truncated, they would have cemented their place in this pantheon). Not to say that Jason isn't unique, rather everyone in this group is one-of-a-kind. Basically, I will miss him when he retires, but artists appear in every generation and I'm looking forward to seeing who will step up to fill his shoes next quadrennial.

Meh. One good(ish) skate by Shoma and one great skate by Vincent does not a rivalry make.

Both have a half a decade of embarrassment working against them with the only constant in their skating being inconsistency.

 

[lariko]

Luck has a TON to do with it.

In ANY field that wasn't a giant mess Jason wouldn't have gotten a wiff of a medal with that skate.

I meant vs Semenenko. This specific choice was very deliberate, because it could have gone either way. It was not a random play of numbers. Brown literally only jumped triples and doubles.

 

[eterialskating]

Luck has nothing to do with that. Silver has potential for the GPF for the skaters who are unlikely to win gold. Brown sells tickets, because he had been around for many years and glides well. Semenenko doesn’t. Hence, Brown got silver.

He's damn lucky he stayed this long to see this lousy era of the men's.

 

[SaDa]

Look, all respect to his talent and competitive steel, but it always looks to me he only remembers he has a program during his stsq. I guess it's a sticky spot when you honestly need that many quads to win it all.

The choreo sequence? Or the step sequence??? I never understand exactly what people are complaining about...and some really have no clue what they're complaining about either. He didn't need that many quads to win but he did it because it qualified him for the GPF AND he's aiming for the most difficult jump layout in the history of the sport at the Olympics so why wouldn't he do quads in competitions for practice? This performance was quite watered down for a Nathan program, actually. Why do people feel the need to complain about everything? Good lord.

 

[georgia]

Luck has nothing to do with that. Silver has potential for the GPF for the skaters who are unlikely to win gold. Brown sells tickets, because he had been around for many years and glides well. Semenenko doesn’t. Hence, Brown got silver.

Of course it does. With two failed jumps he earned silver, because the rest failed to do their work. How often do you see that?