2023 Grand Prix Espoo: Men's Thoughts?

[lariko]

You can also go by judge, and the table for Ms. Florence is really cool. She goes all in whenever the French are on the field, and for Kevin most of all.

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[lariko]

I am a little surprised that you don't seem to know how this works... If the rule is that the highest and the lowest scores are left out and the rest is added up and divided by 7 = averaged, then you don't have to mark any of the scores as invalid or chucked out. Have you ever seen this happen in the pcs part of the protocol?

I saw that rule, but I thought that there was a threshold they had to meet to be considered an outlier first, so the 'n' is based on that (sometimes it's 7, sometimes it's 8 b/c of it). Kinda feel better that the French gal didn't get her way all the way, but her scoring sucks.

 

[Sai Bon]

Congrats to all medalists! Shun could have won I thought.I feel sorry for Jimmy. Kevin can redeem himself by French Nationals for sure. His free suits him so well, very artistic and very Kevin's.

Anyway, Kao and Shun were quite good here, especially Shun! This season so far, every time I see him skate, he surprises me, he's improving HELL A LOT!
I hope both will work on their spins more. Need more GEOs when competitions get tight. Japanese Nationals will be very interesting.

I was impressed by how much Shun has improved. He seemed calm and collected. I preferred his performance to Kao's (he's still a bit chaotic!), even though he skated to warhorses. If it hadn't been for a couple of careless mistakes and lost levels on spins, he could have won. I hope he ups his game for Nationals, which will be such a bloodbath!

 

[apgold]

I felt bad for Jimmy Ma, he pulled a reverse Amber here. I had to wonder since the two are close friends and used to train together, that Amber gave him a pep talk afterwards. I know Jimmy is not a young skater at age 28, but I hope he is seeing a sports psychologist at SCOB because he is capable of great things - I think he just needs the right mindset. I hope he has a good Nationals - he could be on the podium if he skated clean. (I always pull for Jimmy b/c he's from the same area as me and told me once he skated at my neighborhood rink on Long Island as a kid)

I enjoyed the Shun/Kao showdown, that was pretty exciting and Kevin's comeback was great, even though his Bolero wasn't as electric as it was at SKAM.

 

[Joubabe]

Kevin only got into final because Sato and also every direct competitor for was downscored by one judge (versus 8 others) in this event (French one, surprise, surprise.)

Here is the simple math of how she did it:

Judge No.3

Ms. Florence VUYLSTEKER

FRA

In short program:

Miura: 6.75, 6.50 and 8.0 (every non-French judge gave 7.75 to 9.0).
Sato: 7.0, 6.75 and 8.25 (every non-French judge gave 7.50 to 8.75).
Shimada: 5.25, 5.0, 6.75 (every non-French judge gave 7.0 to 8.50).
Rizzo: 6.75, 6.75, 7.75 (every non-French judge gave 7.75 to 8.75).

Aymoz: 8.75, 8.75 and 8.75 (every non-French judge gave 7.0 to 9.0).

In the free skate:

Miura: 6.75, 6.75 and 8.75 (every non-French judge gave 7.75 to 9.25).
Sato: 6.50, 6.50 and 8.50 (every non-French judge gave 7.50 to 8.75).
Shimada: 7.50, 6.75, 8.0 (every non-French judge gave 7.50 to 8.25).
Rizzo: 7.50, 7.0, 7.25 (every non-French judge gave 8.25 to 8.75). --> which is actually weird given the fatal flaw in Co that led to ChSq annulled; his Co should have been lower than others' in this leading group.

Aymoz: 9.50, 9.50 and 9.50 (every non-French judge gave 8.50 to 9.50).

Sato, coming in first would have won the tie with Aymoz. Sato scoring more than 279 (Aymoz in Canada) would have won the tie. So, back-calculating from that and strategic scoring is how Aymoz got into the final, not for some mysterious hand of God or that he magically rallied and produced something so special that the world stood still. He just had a judge who did the min-maxing for him.

For your theory to work, wouldn’t the French judge have to have low-balled Sato and not Miura? Since she downscored all of the top competitors I don’t see how she manipulated a win for Miura over Sato.

 

[throw_triple_flip]

While I was watching Shun Sato's free I found myself thinking that with Kao Miura left to skate, he was going to regret having to double the second jump in the Loop combination and that proved correct.. if that had been a triple he might've narrowly taken the gold. Shame as I think I prefer his programs.
Though I'm happy that the result puts Aymoz higher in the standings. Fingers crossed he makes the final.