2021 Skate Canada: Men's Short Program

[yume]

No it's not, it's the system, which Jason as an athlete is maximizing every single point he can get. Good for him.

Jason is not just a "quadless skater". What he does outside of jumps is crazy difficult and crazy athletic. Other skaters simply do not have his skill in those areas. Hanee, as much as I love his 3A, no. Matteo Rizzo? I like Matteo too, but no.

It's not reputation, and it's not big fed, it's that Jason is in fact *that* good. ETA: Although I would concede an argument that Matteo and Han should be in the 90s, if Jason were over 100.

And i have a different opinion. I don't see the overwhelming athleticism that should put him way above those two.
Matteo program was technically superior. Overall, i'm not just talking about the jumps. And artistically they were on the same level for me.
We can agree that we have different tastes.
There aren't worlds between Jason's SS and Han's. And Han's jumps, all jumps, are better. Let's agree that Jason is better on IN and his CO is usually more intricate. It doesn't justify that in the same competition, both clean, Jason will get high 95+ and Han 85+.

 

[[email protected]]

There's reputation judging in figure skating - one has to live in the ideal world to deny it. I agree with florin that Hanyu or Chen would receive higher GOE than Ignatov got for the same 4Lo. And Ignatov would never get +5 for a 3F no matter what he did.

It's hard to argue that Brown is overall a better skater than Ignatov so far. The solution for Makar then is to land his quads and gradually improve his skating.

One thing which is funny for me is that the same posters are unhappy when talking about "Eteri bonus" and how other women skaters are "underscored" vs. top Russians. But they apparently think that top men are scored fair and square.

 

[yume]

This is just demonstrably totally untrue. The current system is hugely tilted towards, not even just technical content, but jumps specifically. Far too tilted in my opinion. I find it infuriating that as soon as a skater is correctly rewarded for actual good skating instead of just piled high with points for trying quads (even botching them doesn't hurt much) that they are attacked and told they don't deserve to score well for all the things that they do better than anyone else. Frankly, I wish there was more judging like this, that actually rewarded skating and not just jumping. The fact that there's not has caused me to lose a huge amount of interest in the men's and women's disciplines over the last few years, because it's being treated as if nothing but increasing revolutions in the air matters. I'm to the point where I would welcome splitting the competition in two, where there is a jumping contest and a skating contest, where jumps would be limited. Skaters could enter just one or both. I'd absolutely welcome the opportunity to watch a field of, say, Jason, Han Yan, Kevin Aymoz and Roman Sadovsky (and of course Patrick Chan in his day) duking it out for the artistic skating title, where we could properly appreciate speed and footwork and spins and elegance and musical expression and choreography.

That why i said "when it comes to Brown". Because he's litteraly the only one rewarded. I complain since skate America. Nope, since Finlandia. There are other skaters in women and men competitions who maybe don't have the same greatness than Brown, but deserve to be treated the same.
Satoko should never be under so many skaters in PCS unless she bombs hard. I mean several obvious mistakes. I'm all for giving her even 55 TES if she deserves it. But also give her the 75 PCS she deserves. But nope, for basically everyone else, low TES = low PCS.

 

[3T3T]

Here’s the explainer on the hat. http://absoluteskating.com/index.php?cat=interviews&id=2018keeganmessing

Thanks Moonvine. That’s funny about the hat. I had assumed it was something to do with him showing his pride to be representing Canada and now being a Canadian. I was way off the mark

I read about him on Wikipedia and and an interesting fact was that his great great grandmother was the first Japanese citizen to officially immigrate to Canada. I didn’t realise he had dual US/Canada citizenship.

I hope he skates well in the free.

 

[Skate88]

Jason...I can't believe this kind of performance exists to be watched for free.
In a way, for me this SP performance was even better that seeing the program live at Finlandia few weeks ago - but I guess this is what 360⁰ skating feels like: you pick one thing live, the other watching through the screen.
While Finlandia live experience made me in awe over Jason's overall speed, agility, the sense of everything being so...tasty, organic, connected and nuanced as a whole, seeing it today through camera work made me full body goosebumps over how much detail went into creating program like that AND mastering performance of it to this quality level. The music goes, the body flows - and frankly, I don't need anything else, if the body is Jason's.
Already said it in sms commentary, but - for me, a mark of an artist is about art enriching/accentuating the author and artist enriching/accentuating art created with no separation in between. Jason shows program/performance one after another that there's NOTHING between him, music and movement, just stunned silence of the effect.
I guess it's also *haute couture* treatment Jason's programs get, especially SPs crafted masterfully by Rohene. I have this comparison often in my head towards different things, but - when majority does *ready to wear* stuff based commercial appeal, there's *haute couture* a'la Jason: unique, one of a kind and difficult to forget.

 

[Skate88]

Jason...I can't believe this kind of performance exists to be watched for free.
In a way, for me this SP performance was even better that seeing the program live at Finlandia few weeks ago - but I guess this is what 360⁰ skating feels like: you pick one thing live, the other watching through the screen.
While Finlandia live experience made me in awe over Jason's overall speed, agility, the sense of everything being so...tasty, organic, connected and nuanced as a whole, seeing it today through camera work made me full body goosebumps over how much detail went into creating program like that AND mastering performance of it to this quality level. The music goes, the body flows - and frankly, I don't need anything else, if the body is Jason's.
Already said it in sms commentary, but - for me, a mark of an artist is about art enriching/accentuating the author and artist enriching/accentuating art created with no separation in between. Jason shows program/performance one after another that there's NOTHING between him, music and movement, just stunned silence of the effect.
I guess it's also *haute couture* treatment Jason's programs get, especially SPs crafted masterfully by Rohene. I have this comparison often in my head towards different things, but - when majority does *ready to wear* stuff based commercial appeal, there's *haute couture* a'la Jason: unique, one of a kind and difficult to forget.

I completely agree. I have watched skating live at championships and on tv for well over 50 years and Jason is one of maybe 5 greatest artists I have ever seen . I think the judging today is irredeemably slated towards the GYMNASTIC ability to do MULTIPLE AIRBORNE REVOLUTIONS which have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. to do with skating. The ladies are being destroyed beyond recognition due to quads.
Jason has beautiful jumps but they are part of programs with total integrity and authenticity, cohesive in every way. I could write a thesis on what constitutes Absolutely total skating skills using Jason as the example. Most others are boring by comparison, Hanyu also falls in my top 5 but not at all due to quads. When will the judges start valuing extremely difficult footwork and spins and transitions equally with jumps instead of simply scoring the ability to rotate airborne above everything else. Basically it’s turning me off Skating after watching for most of my life. I have zero interest in watching anybody revolve above the ice at the expense of all other good skating. And it won’t change anytime soon as long as the powers at be prefer countries that stress the ability to jump. Jason’s edges alone qualify him as a great athlete. He stands out INSTANTLY by that alone…… and don’t get me started on the dog leg “ supposed laybacks” of the ladies which don’t resemble real laybacks at all…
If you doubt me look at John Curry. No quads. Sublime skating with EDGES or ROBIN COUSINS 19 FOOT DELAYED SINGLE AXEL worth ANY quad ! I dare any current skater to do a delayed single axel that travels that far over the ice, clearing the boards at the same time!! That is skating.

 

[florin]

Satoko should never be under so many skaters in PCS unless she bombs hard. I mean several obvious mistakes. I'm all for giving her even 55 TES if she deserves it. But also give her the 75 PCS she deserves. But nope, for basically everyone else, low TES = low PCS.

But she didn't.

I specially revised her FP write now - there was no difficult beautiful exit on any jump. I naturally do not understand how it is possible to demand high PСS in such a situation - this is an old figure skating. PCS - it's about presentation. It is impossible to talk about the highest level of presentation If you go to all the jumps in a classic way, according to the textbook and get out of them with your hands apart (I exaggerated a bit - Satoko is TRYING to do something , but you get my point). Satoko does not own any extraordinary spins (like Valieva for example), all she has for a presentation is just a good level of skating. That's a lot. But not 75.

 

[Ruthypegs]

I certainly don't think we all need to love the same skaters (the world would be a boring place if we did)

But the movements in Jason's Sinnerman SP are meant to be patterned after the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and the "Horton Technique" (obviously not 100%, but no skate can be 100% dance). I don't know if you will like it any better, but it might give more context.

Alvin Ailey dancers perform Sinnerman, from Revelations:

Oh wow, that was absolutely amazing - thanks so much for posting!

 

[el henry]

There's reputation judging in figure skating - one has to live in the ideal world to deny it. I agree with florin that Hanyu or Chen would receive higher GOE than Ignatov got for the same 4Lo. And Ignatov would never get +5 for a 3F no matter what he did.

It's hard to argue that Brown is overall a better skater than Ignatov so far. The solution for Makar then is to land his quads and gradually improve his skating.

One thing which is funny for me is that the same posters are unhappy when talking about "Eteri bonus" and how other women skaters are "underscored" vs. top Russians. But they apparently think that top men are scored fair and square.

Can you say who or where you have seen that? And why is that "funny"? Cannot one have an honest opinion that women are not scored correctly and that men are scored correctly?

Of course, everyone will have their own favorite skaters, and I certainly do not think that we should all have the same favorites. But why I keep coming back is that I do disagree with any implication that Jason earns his points from reputation, rather than from the athletic difficulty and performing intricacy of what he does.

As Ted Barton said:
"I don't care if Jason ever does a quad, because what we saw was just the top quality in every element ... when you watch a performance like that, if you have ever skated in your life, you understand that you have just seen greatness"

Elladj Baldé: Jason does well to "focus on the skill that separates him from everyone else in the men's field".

Now, Ted does find something nice to say about every skater, (which I adore about him) but this was beyond "Good effort, they know they need to work on the 3A, I'm sure they'll improve".

 

[[email protected]]

Cannot one have an honest opinion that women are not scored correctly and that men are scored correctly?

You answered it yourself: "honest opinion". We are all honest to ourselves in our opinions. But these are just our opnions. It's funny that some people keep trying to imply that their honest opinions go beyond that in the direction of "the universal truth" which they are not...La Comédie humaine

 

[el henry]

You answered it yourself: "honest opinion". We are all honest to ourselves in our opinions. But these are just our opnions. It's funny that some people keep trying to imply that their honest opinions go beyond that in the direction of "the universal truth" which they are not...La Comédie humaine

Oh, I agree completely. The opinion that any one skater, or group of skaters, or skaters of a particular coach, or of a particular country, is or are the best to ever skate, may be someone's completely honest opinion, but not a universal truth.

We all love what we love.

 

[Mathman]

Johnny Weir just hit the nail on the head on the TV coverage. What sets Jason apart is that his jumps (he did do a triple Axel, a triple Lutz combo and as triple flip afte all), do not detract from the performance.

Nathan Chen is sort of like that, too, when he is on. (In this performance he was OK, but not at his very best.) His quads, impressive as they may be in their own right, are part of the total performance -- "It's what I do," rather that "Uh Uh Uh, I'm going to try a quad now."

 

[Skatingcat]

Someone needs to sage the ice and/or call an exorcist before the Women/Ice Dance Teams