2023 NHK Trophy: Men's Thoughts?

[gsk8]

Yuma Kagiyama reclaims NHK Trophy title

2023 NHK Trophy: Men Yuma Kagiyama of Japan reclaimed the NHK Trophy title that he won in 2020 on November 25, 2023, in Osaka, Japan. Teammate Shoma Uno settled for […]

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Kagiyama is back! It will be fun watching the friendly rivalry between Uno and Kagiyama!

What are your thoughts on the Men's event?


Your Finalists!

1	Adam SIAO HIM FA	FRA			15	15			30
2	Ilia MALININ	USA	15		13				28
3	Kao MIURA	JPN		13			15		28
4	Yuma KAGIYAMA	JPN			11			15	26
5	Shoma UNO	JPN				13		13	26
6	Kevin AYMOZ	FRA	13				11		24

 

[lariko]

Men delivered predictable results, which is pretty surprising. It's women that were totally out of the realm of expected. I still wished Sato was in the final instead of Aymoz.

 

[el henry]

Bravo Kévin for reaching the GPF

As for this comp, I have only seen Yuma, Shoma and Lukas, and so much to like about all three.

Yuma and Shoma, what is there to say? Japanese men are masters of blade to ice skills and they both have so much to offer.

Having watched Lukas for seven years in the senior ranks now, so good to see him steadily progress year after year

 

[Zora]

My highlight was Yuma's step sequence in his short program, he was flying over the ice!

 

[gsk8]

My highlight was Yuma's step sequence in his short program, he was flying over the ice!

Indeed! He got a level four on steps in both the short and free skate. His spins are very good too! In fact, both elements earned very high GOES (mostly +4)!

"From the start, I paid a lot of attention to my jumps, but I also cared for every single element, the spins and steps. I tried to look into everyone's face and express myself. Today, I wanted to perform perfectly. I'm happy to have reached 105 points. I also took level 4 in all spins."

He should be proud!

 

[TT_Fin]

There was a time - years ago - I always skipped men, but they have turned to be my favourite this season. The reason is that men pay so much focus on presentation today, in the past there was time when only a few of them did it. Especially I am impressed how the top two Japanese not just skate, but they hand are on the control. My husband says often that it looks like there are bugs on the arena when some skaters are waving their hands as if there were dozens of them around. Little thing, but it makes the program look better. Shoma is my favourite a little bit over others, but I really liked everybody here. Some need to pay attention more to choreo, but they have time. Men was the only discipline I watched both SPs and FSs from the beginning to the end this time. Friday's events were not possible to me watch live, but I watched all men afterwards.

 

[eppen]

This was mostly about Kevin getting to the GPF and happy to see that happen.

The tech panel was working overtime with UR calls with both women and men (carrot cake is a seasonal treat, I guess). I was particularly amazed to see the results on Shoma's quads - 1 with a < and 4 with q out of the 6 he attempted.

The scores he got for the qs were also quite unusual. Out of the 317 quads in international competition attempted since the q was introduced in 2020, only 22 (7%) have gotten a 0,00 or positive GOE. Shoma got 4 of them here. He got also one such score in the Worlds in the spring and has total of 5. Shoma is preceded only by Vincent Zhou who got 7 0,00/GOE+ scores for his q quads in the 2021-22 season.

 

[Dreamer57]

"Yuma, today as well as yesterday, was outstanding and I don’t really want to say anything to take away from that. He overcame a lot to win this title and deserves every bit of praise he receives."
Shoma, the incredible sportsman that you are

 

[throw_triple_flip]

Some beautiful skating from the top two, really not much between them at all. From a personal perspective, Yuma Kagiyama just edged it because I liked the contrast between the short and the free. Really brave choice of music in the second half for Shoma Uno, I can't really think of any other skater that could really pull that off.
Lukas Britschgi is turning into a really charismatic entertainer, both programs were great choices (and I enjoyed the slightly underwhelming costume reveal in the short).

My biggest question from this event.. what could Nika Egadze achieve if he used a different choreographer?

 

[SmileHappy34]

I only saw what I saw on nbC .

Great skate all and tough job for the tech callers and judges especially between Yuma and Shoma.

Camden nice quad . Stop doubling jumps . U a nice ce skater with fluid movement.
Dennis nice flow . Nice skate. I know u can skate better.

Lukas splendid. U skated with confidence . I enjoyed it

Who do I prefer Soma or Yuma both.

Hard to separate. Both show the tough jumps and tech content.
both are fluid with their connections. Both skate with confidence. Both show tremendous intrepretation of the music they use.

Both are stars. Japanese nationals will be interesting and fantastic.

Great skate.

 

[deedee1]

I was watching the whole comp live on TV at home this weekend.
Gosh, tech panel was SO strict both Men and Women thruout this competition wasn't it? which was really annoying for me because of the Box on the upper left on the screen... forever changing colors from green to yellow all the time indeed took my joy from watching all these good skates. Really.
Re top 2 home town boys, that's could have gone either way, with a different set of judges, Sho should have won. Is it a norm that judges have to push 0GOE button on every 'q' jumps now? Or am I mistaken? It used to be judges need evaluate jumps with 'q' but still can reward some plus GOE if jumps questioned have other thigns to value; entry/exit/flow etc. Oh well I am no expert. never mind.

 

[mrrice]

Camden is really frustrating for me as a fan. He has so much talent yet, It's difficult to rely on him skating 2 clean programs at his events. He has beautiful posture, and deep smooth edges. Maybe he needs a sports psychologist.

 

[sadya]

There was a time - years ago - I always skipped men, but they have turned to be my favourite this season. The reason is that men pay so much focus on presentation today, in the past there was time when only a few of them did it. Especially I am impressed how the top two Japanese not just skate, but they hand are on the control. My husband says often that it looks like there are bugs on the arena when some skaters are waving their hands as if there were dozens of them around. Little thing, but it makes the program look better. Shoma is my favourite a little bit over others, but I really liked everybody here. Some need to pay attention more to choreo, but they have time. Men was the only discipline I watched both SPs and FSs from the beginning to the end this time. Friday's events were not possible to me watch live, but I watched all men afterwards.

When I first began watching skating, it was the 90s and ladies and pairs were my favourite disciplines. The men were my least favourite skaters, because there were so few programs I could watch many times over (Millot and Jeannette for example).

Since the past few years this has changed to mostly enjoying the men and ice dance disciplines more. I still enjoy watching pairs and ladies too though (I miss Sui/Han!)