Nik dislocated his shoulder a bit in practice before the short, and was skating on two different types of boots that were heavily taped up because one of his Edeas broke before this competition. I think this was more bad luck than a reflection of his skating ability.
An hour gives you a bit more time to observe than the 6-min warm-up and the 2nd group was particularly interesting to watch. I was trying to keep an eye on all 3 top contenders. Just their warm-up routine was revealing. Adam and Yuma were doing sth useful (so to say) all the time, going for steps and turns, edge exercises etc. Ilia skated around most of the time, doing some half-hearted edge exercises. He skated along Adam at one point doing a similar pattern on one foot (Adam had his leg bent up and held it from the ankle, Ilia swung his free leg lazily on the side) and Ilia almost tripped over his feet. They had a big laugh about it. But the difference in the quality and control over blades on ice between the two skaters was very clear.
I am not sure getting a Canadian passport would give anyone higher PCS, quite the contrary... but the rest of your post was definitely very interesting.The men were the main reason why I went to France this year... How often do you get 3 top contenders in one GP? And they did not disappoint! The short program I wrote about in the competition thread.
Saturday morning I decided to go and watch the men practice. And it was overall one of the best decisions I have made in a while
The latter part of the session was cool because of massive number of quad attempts... Before his RT, Ilia started doing very big 3As and after 3-4 of those he went for the 4A for which I am very greatful especially as it did not come out in the competition.
The first group in the competition was interesting to watch because I started to think about the skating patterns and how that already discerns the good from the bad. Landry Le May and Luc Economides skated mostly from one end to another using mostly just 2-3 different jump positions, Le May probably did not come away from the vicinity of the middle long axis. Economides covered a bit more ice (and his steps were utterly delightful). Kataise and Shimada skated mostly in the left and center of the rink only visiting the right side briefly - Shimada's activities stopped exactly where the last judge in the right sat. The second group had variety in entrace patterns, lots of different places where jumps and other elements were placed. And they covered even the edges of the ice.
Boyang Jin was actually perhaps my biggest surprise despite the poor jumps. His skating skills and movement in general are beginning to resemble what a good skater should be. Good job, Brian! Hope all this does not come too late.
Camden Pulkinen has the slowest and most lethargic free I have seen in a long long time.
Lukas Britschgi is getting the consistency and although the free might be slightly politically incorrect, it fitted him quite well.
Yuma was impressive in the short, but the free felt a little empty for me, especially the first part. He had started to seem overtly cautious and never really giving much to his performance, but maybe working with Carolina Koster is starting to show. I felt also that the choice of music was a little bit unfortunate since Adam did that so masterfully in his short last year and the way the choreo for Yuma went along, it was a little bit like a poor man's version of the same. He has maybe yet to find the jackpot music and program choice.
Ilia chose to attempt quality over difficulty and it could have worked out. He still has a lot of work in making the skating skills work for his adavantage - eg the steps were s---l---o---w and uninteresting. His presentation is empty posturing, not much feeling in it. He is still young, though, I do remember seeing Nathan Chen at about the same age in Worlds 2018 and being majorly disappointed. Nathan got a whole lot better in the 4 years that followed... I think the panel liked him a bit too much - those PCS were really not in line with what Yuma and Adam did.
But my heart and the evening belonged to Adam Siao Him Fa. This was his 5th competition this season - most top men do 5 over the entire season... He has being doing brilliantly so far and I dared to hope that he would be able to do two clean programs also here. The short was exquisite and the free even better. I have no superlatives left really. The control, the intensity, the beauty of every movement, the truth in how he feels the music. I just loved every second of it.
And at the same time I thought that, yeah, just an amazing performance and then the panel will give him 8.75s tops... Was somewhat delighted to see that it was mostly 9s and above in the end. But what does he have to do to get really good scores? Get a US, Japanese or Canadian passport (Russian does not count at the mo)? I thank the Finnish and Chinese judges for the high scores!
It was truly a good competion, I was totally exhausted after it ended, skipped pairs and victory ceremonies, and went to my lodgings to get some sleep...
I'm sorry but I really can't help saying this. If you thought the men event was uninspiring (out of top 4 as you say), well then you probably didn't watch the women
In all honesty, men was the best part of this GP by a long way. At least you got some powerful skates. I was also hoping for some truly outstanding performance such as Kevin's FS, but well, those are hard to come by on a regular basis. Performances here were quite enjoyable anyway and most programs were well skated and felt lively and powerful.
And just to answer you latter post, yes, in fact, Kevin's is the only performance so far at the GPs that has truly moved me and that I would (and have) rewatch. I'm doubting we'll get anything else like that this season, they are not so many new programs that still remain to be seen.
Thank you, and yes, you read me perfectly.
Kind of off-topic here, but did you guys know that Yuma has actually skated to Uptown Funk before?Yuma doing Uptown Funk? Ooh, yes please!!! (A girl can only dream...)
It's at about 1:25:15 in the video below. I'm also wondering if he had a better performance of this at Medalist on Ice (the JNats gala) in 2019 or whether he used his other gala program...
Kind of off-topic here, but did you guys know that Yuma has actually skated to Uptown Funk before?
It's unfortunate that the music started a little too early for him, but it's easy to wonder how a modern-day Yuma would perform it.
I enjoyed the music. Always like something different. No more Lion King, please!
His impressive height is certainly a part of his appeal. I like the aesthetics of male skaters with long lines. So tall Nik already caught my eye during his junior days. Then last off-season he spent some time training in Canada and his cheeky insta posts about his adventures with "twin" Corey Circelli further endeared him to me.
