2022 Olympics Team Event Day2: Women's Short Program

[Scott512]

A year ago she didn't even know, she will be a connected to Georgia somehow and now she represents this country at Olympics. It's a farce.
If russian ladies are so talented, why not try to win at Russian nationals? It's not the unique situation. There are a lot of disciplines with only one quota for olympics, but not so many talented athletes, who wasn't able to win this quota change their citizenship.
It will kill a sport if all Russian ladies will try to find a new country to represent. ISU and Olympic committee must support the development of sport all over the world but not this farce.

The switch to Georgia was in the works from the spring of 2020. The Russian figure skating Federation knew about it and approved every step of the way which is why this happened.

Not all Russian ladies will look to leave maybe one in 20. That won't kill a sport it will actually make a sport grow in another country. Then in five or ten years a country like Georgia will grow their own homegrown talent at a higher level than they already do.

 

[brigit66]

Well, when the expert opinions on pre-rotation and such start showing up, it's probably best I leave this thread.

I may disagree to varying degrees on some of this, but I do respect the opinions of those who talk about it in a clear and rational manner. However, I am bothered by the posts that are just seething with resentment and do so in such a demeaning way. Using terms such as "cheating" and then posting links to that bastion of integrity sports.ru. Sure, it's not "bashing" in the strictest sense, but I still find it mean-spirited.

Well, at least no one has called her a "stupid skinny girl" or a "robot" ---- yet.

Just as an aside, I often felt Mao Asada was penalized way too much. It seemed to be her misfortune to be competing at a time when the judges started to over-analyze (in my mind) the jumps, while at the same time lessening the value of some of the aesthetic parts of skating. In that way it really put her at a disadvantage against Yuna Kim, who was very artistic, but in my opinion not at the same level that Mao Asada was. Overall, I thought they were evenly matched. Yuna Kim I think was more consistent, but I wonder if part of Mao's problem was due to focusing too much on fixing her technique.

You dont understand it. It makes me very angry that girl is called the best of all time/exceptional/full package(lol) because she gets such score which she doesnt deserve . That's the point. Her jumps are very very bad. she literally does 2 rotations in the air, her combos are hideous. they shouldn be called combinaton in first place. Her steps are very mediocre, ice coverage of her step seq is VERY centered. lack of ice coverage is very visible overall Her spins are very good, but that's all. PCS are a joke, offending to other skaters. No 15 years old should getting almost 39 after few months competing in first senior year. Unreal in men category.
I don't even mention kicking your leg every few seconds because I talked about it many times. Why she does it so often?Somebody,please explain. To show that she is flexible? We get it ,girl. This is the best thing and favourite you can do on the ice? Rising up your legs?

 

[Tomadeur]

You dont understand it. It makes me very angry that girl is called the best of all time/exceptional/full package(lol) because she gets such score which she doesnt deserve . That's the point. Her jumps are very very bad. she literally does 2 rotations in the air, her combos are hideous. they shouldn be called combinaton in first place. Her steps are very mediocre, ice coverage of her step seq is VERY centered. lack of ice coverage is very visible overall Her spins are very good, but that's all. PCS are a joke, offending to other skaters. No 15 years old should getting almost 39 after few months competing in first senior year. Unreal in men category.
I don't even mention kicking your leg every few seconds because I talked about it many times. Why she does it so often?Somebody,please explain. To show that she is flexible? We get it ,girl. This is the best thing and favourite you can do on the ice? Rising up your legs?

I mean we all now that the russian skaters are overscored in PCS and GOE (as all top skaters in the last two decades), that PCS is often based on TES for no reason, that most of Team Tutberidze struggle wit the Lutz and quads dominate the scoreing to the detriment of artistry.

Does that change the fact that these girls including Kamila are exceptional? Absolutely not.

But of course it's absolutely fine to criticize skaters, scoring or whatever, but it's also about the way you express yourself. And 90% of your comments in the women competitions (might be exaggerating here) bring a negativity that is just absolutely unnecessary imho so I fully understand lesnar001's comment.

 

[flipsydoodle]

I don't even mention kicking your leg every few seconds because I talked about it many times. Why she does it so often?Somebody,please explain. To show that she is flexible? We get it ,girl. This is the best thing and favourite you can do on the ice? Rising up your legs?

Clipped for focus

I'm with you on this one. I don't understand how a skater can get style points for leg-flagging that has nothing to do with the music, theme, anything. There's a lot of random arm flinging, too. I mean, this is supposed to be a program in memory of a grandmother? How does this even all go together?

As I see it, the flinging about doesn't come from the center of the body. It's more like aerobics, not ballet: like kicks, not grand-battement which comes from a center with power, control, and at the same time a letting-go, with joy in the limb, a story-telling in every muscle. I hope the dancers here will understand what I'm talking about.

Yes, aerobics is a good way to describe what I see in the Eteri skaters. No meaning or intentionality in the limbs. Just exercise. This may be why they can't cover the ice, too. Taking up space requires a bigness of intentionality and it requires real artistry.

IMO you get that kind of random limb-flinging if you're being told how to represent feeling and you mimic. It's not real feeling. The Eteri skaters leave me feeling empty because they seem so devoid of real emotion. They just make it look like emotion, but there's no soul in it. They do a kind of wince-y thing with their faces to create the "sturm und drang" look, but there's nothing there. IMO that's the difference between junior and mature senior skating: the brilliant seniors display physicality that conveys feeling.

 

[brakes]

It's not Georgia, it's Russia-2. I don't think it's their turn to complain about anything.

Degrading some National Team to another country's second echelon is a disgraceful chauvinism.

 

[[email protected]]

Not only judges from countries that have nothing to do with Russia - well, in fact it's on the opposite - some former non-Russian top skaters acknowledge what a phenomenon Kamila is. Then some random account appears on GS, the nameless account - just a bunch of letters and numbers to say that Kamila is a fluke. It's just ridiculuous. Go on - the world will laugh at you.

 

[amc987]

Does anyone know why the US and ROC didn't make swaps for the free skate? I'm not sure why the US would leave off Mariah Bell entirely. And while Valieva is clearly the best ROC woman, why not give Shcherbakova or Trusova a chance to win a team medal? Surely they could place well enough for the ROC to help the team.

 

[Joe Mendoza]

Does anyone know why the US and ROC didn't make swaps for the free skate? I'm not sure why the US would leave off Mariah Bell entirely. And while Valieva is clearly the best ROC woman, why not give Shcherbakova or Trusova a chance to win a team medal? Surely they could place well enough for the ROC to help the team.

c/b was the other swap already. and as much as id really love for Davis/smolkin to do the FD, I guess Team ROC wants a sure win with valieva and s/k and m/g

 

[yume]

Just as an aside, I often felt Mao Asada was penalized way too much. It seemed to be her misfortune to be competing at a time when the judges started to over-analyze (in my mind) the jumps, while at the same time lessening the value of some of the aesthetic parts of skating. In that way it really put her at a disadvantage against Yuna Kim, who was very artistic, but in my opinion not at the same level that Mao Asada was. Overall, I thought they were evenly matched. Yuna Kim I think was more consistent, but I wonder if part of Mao's problem was due to focusing too much on fixing her technique.

YES.
And sometimes her scores were so low that someone could think that she bombed while the girl was staying on her feet. The UR calls (automatic downgrade with negative GOEs) were just too harsh and she was usually getting low GOEs.
Just an example. Yuna won the SP at 2008 GPF with a popped 3Lz while Mao was behind (less than a point) with a apparent clean program with 3F-3lo/3Lz/2A. Curiously the lutz looks flat at worse here. Don't know how it went to the point she wasn't attempting it anymore the next season.


This is actually her most harshly scored program imo. Some GOEs were -1 for clean jumps without calls. Makes me think that either judges were seeing the uncalled URs and decided to punish her anyway or the overall technique was actually mattering and she was punished for it.

 

[yume]

You dont understand it. It makes me very angry that girl is called the best of all time/exceptional/full package(lol) because she gets such score which she doesnt deserve . That's the point. Her jumps are very very bad. she literally does 2 rotations in the air, her combos are hideous. they shouldn be called combinaton in first place. Her steps are very mediocre, ice coverage of her step seq is VERY centered. lack of ice coverage is very visible overall Her spins are very good, but that's all. PCS are a joke, offending to other skaters. No 15 years old should getting almost 39 after few months competing in first senior year. Unreal in men category.
I don't even mention kicking your leg every few seconds because I talked about it many times. Why she does it so often?Somebody,please explain. To show that she is flexible? We get it ,girl. This is the best thing and favourite you can do on the ice? Rising up your legs?

Aaaah, your rant reminds me how much i was outraged by the gap between Medvedeva and the two Japaneses at 2017 WTT. Especially between Higuchi and her, almost 25 points. I just wasn't understanding were all those points were coming from when Higuchi was clean, had higher BVs, better jumps and artistically a far better SP (i recognize the FS wasn't that great). But then i had to read some say that her arms above the head were justifying the TES and that her 37/78 PCS were somewhat justified.

It won't get better, trust me. Overscoring always existed but it is reaching new heights since 2015. You better drink some tea and just watch. It's better for the mood and for the atmosphere here.

 

[Tinymavy15]

Kamila the goddess. Pressure? What pressure?

 

[treblemakerem]

She had tendency to do that, but kamilas level of cheating is out of this world.

Kamila isn’t doing anything wrong. It is her coaches, her fed, and the judges. I wish she would just be scored correctly. She would still win without it. It’s a shame.

 

[Tomadeur]

Aaaah, your rant reminds me how much i was outraged by the gap between Medvedeva and the two Japaneses at 2017 WTT. Especially between Higuchi and her, almost 25 points. I just wasn't understanding were all those points were coming from when Higuchi was clean, had higher BVs, better jumps and artistically a far better SP (i recognize the FS wasn't that great). But then i had to read some say that her arms above the head were justifying the TES and that her 37/78 PCS were somewhat justified.

It won't get better, trust me. Overscoring always existed but it is reaching new heights since 2015. You better drink some tea and just watch. It's better for the mood and for the atmosphere here.

If you get GOE points for Rippon/Tano because that's a criteria for GOE than it's no overscoring. You can criticize the rules, but not that they are applied correctly. Like backloading it msot probably wasn't a good rule, but you can't critize the skaters and coaches to play by the rules. The difference in BV was minimal with 1,32 points in SP and FS combined. Taking into account that Higuchi had !-calls in both programs, Medvedeva was nearly flawless and that on every jump element Medevedeva had a GOE advantage cause of Rippon/Tano the TES lead was quite right imho.

I won't comment on PCS because PCS is just super subjective in my eyes, but I can say this much that Medvedva's FS at WTT 2017 was her best performance ever imho.*

*Edit: Even though I said I wouldn't comment on PCS, I want to make it clear that I agree that top skaters were and are overscored in PCS and therefore the gap is often too large, I just don't think that a discussion about wheather it should be 5 or 15 points difference is going anywhere.

 

[Fluture]

If you get GOE points for Rippon/Tano because that's a criteria for GOE than it's no overscoring. You can criticize the rules, but not that they are applied correctly. Like backloading it msot probably wasn't a good rule, but you can't critize the skaters and coaches to play by the rules. The difference in BV was minimal with 1,32 points in SP and FS combined. Taking into account that Higuchi had !-calls in both programs, Medvedeva was nearly flawless and that on every jump element Medevedeva had a GOE advantage cause of Rippon/Tano the TES lead was quite right imho.

I won't comment on PCS because PCS is just super subjective in my eyes, but I can say this much that Medvedva's FS at WTT 2017 was her best performance ever imho.*

*Edit: Even though I said I wouldn't comment on PCS, I want to make it clear that I agree that top skaters were and are overscored in PCS and therefore the gap is often too large, I just don't think that a discussion about wheather it should be 5 or 15 points difference is going anywhere.

Coming from a very vocal (and I guess pretty biased lol) Medvedeva fan, that score at WTT was ridiculous. And if Higuchi got two ! calls, Zhenya should have gotten an e for her very clear flutz, which, well, was ignored by judges for the majority of her career. Also I remember her having an unstable landing on her already weak 2A and most judges still gave her +2 for it. So, yeah… I do think she was the best at that particular competition. But even I can see that the difference wasn't anywhere near 25 points.

And imo, such a discussion is warranted. Because judging like this gives the impression that certain skaters are unbeatable and out of reach no matter what happens on the ice. But they aren't, or rather shouldn't be.

 

[moonvine]

Wakaba's skating was beautiful, I was surprised Daniel Weiss didn't have anything bad to say this time. But the music choice was a bit bland and everything just pretty, she had way more interesting programs in the past...

Agreed. Her “Bird Set Free” program made me fall in love. But Olympic year program choices are often safe and boring.

 

[Greengemmonster]

I'm at the point where I have to laugh now.

It looks like the mob can't call Kamila a "scrawny girl who will lose her jumps after puberty" anymore so let's move onto "pre rotation and bad bad bad technique"

Surprised there are no videos on her edges. Isn't that an all time favorite as well???

I'm going to get the popcorn ready to see what will be said about the Fabulous Sofias in a few years.

 

[moonvine]

Clipped for focus

I'm with you on this one. I don't understand how a skater can get style points for leg-flagging that has nothing to do with the music, theme, anything. There's a lot of random arm flinging, too. I mean, this is supposed to be a program in memory of a grandmother? How does this even all go together?

As I see it, the flinging about doesn't come from the center of the body. It's more like aerobics, not ballet: like kicks, not grand-battement which comes from a center with power, control, and at the same time a letting-go, with joy in the limb, a story-telling in every muscle. I hope the dancers here will understand what I'm talking about.

Yes, aerobics is a good way to describe what I see in the Eteri skaters. No meaning or intentionality in the limbs. Just exercise. This may be why they can't cover the ice, too. Taking up space requires a bigness of intentionality and it requires real artistry.

IMO you get that kind of random limb-flinging if you're being told how to represent feeling and you mimic. It's not real feeling. The Eteri skaters leave me feeling empty because they seem so devoid of real emotion. They just make it look like emotion, but there's no soul in it. They do a kind of wince-y thing with their faces to create the "sturm und drang" look, but there's nothing there. IMO that's the difference between junior and mature senior skating: the brilliant seniors display physicality that conveys feeling.

A friend has called the leg flinging the “dog pee leg” move.

 

[yume]

Agreed. Her “Bird Set Free” program made me fall in love. But Olympic year program choices are often safe and boring.

The ones she had for previous olympic season were bolder and better imo. And the costumes were on fleek.

 

[taikwan]

What are you talking about exactly? That's not what was expected of Karen. No athlete can go out there thinking what you have expressed. The best way to perform is to stay within yourself, believe in yourself. Learn how to make the nerves work for you, and simply call upon what you are able to do. Don't try to do more than what you can do. Just your best. That's what a number of skaters were able to do, regardless of where their countries were in the standings. The placements you have to put out of your mind.

Going into a team event, athletes clearly must realize that any eventuality could present itself prior to them skating. So they need to be prepared for anything, by keeping focus on what they know they can do. The nerves will always be there. Learn how to make them work for you. That's it, that's all.

Obviously, this doesn't always work out, because athletes are human. Many of us fail at various endeavors But for athletes, the stakes are always tremendously high. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Sometimes for athletes in figure skating, they are put out of the kitchen, often without being coddled and given chance after chance, like Vincent and Karen.

In 2015, Adam Rippon knew that U.S. fed was trying to send him a message that they no longer believed in him or cared about giving him anymore chances, with the lowball sp score they gave him after a stellar skate. Did Adam shrivel up? No, his character asserted itself. He made the decision for himself that he was NOT going to be 'phased-out' by U.S. fed. He made the decision, and in the fp he gave the fed no other choice but to reward him, even though he didn't get rewarded with a U.S. National championship then, which he'd skated superbly enough to achieve (but it was Jason's turn that year).

After asserting himself and deciding the course of his career for himself, Adam proceeded to live up to every challenge over the next three years to the point where after fluke mistakes in the fp at the 2018 U.S. Nationals, he was still in a position to be chosen for the Olympics due to his stellar BOW. You can't say the same for some athlet

Come on! It wasn't all up to Karen. Everyone who competed had pressure on their shoulders, and most of the athletes delivered, aside from Roman in the men's, etc. As others here have said, this is sport. Understand what you are capable of doing emotionally, and stop lying to yourself. U.S. fed lives and dies playing favorites. That's a big part of the problem.

someone is needlessly grumpy

 

[taikwan]

But, it's not fair for small countries who just don't have enough skaters. So, while it would be good to see more skaters from Russia, the US, Canada, and Japan it isn't a good idea.

You definitely have a point. Smaller countries or those with less support for skating may never be in a position to vie for a team medal. That doesn't seem to jive with the Olympic spirit. But I don't have an answer on how to remedy the situation.