2023 Skate America Men's Free Skate

[throw_triple_flip]

Ilia malinin is starting to be more strategic, which has paid off.

Kevin Aymoz was masterful- I just watched the free skate with someone who hates skating and even they were impressed. Liking the new trend of being right in front of the judges faces at the end of a program too.

Also enjoyed the choreography and presentation from Sato, Livintsev, Naumov and Nordeback.

I think Nika Egadze has a huge amount of potential, but i'm really not a fan of how he and his coaches/choreographer have chosen to present him.

 

[Ruthypegs]

In 2022 at Europeans he beat Mozalev and has a Bronze medal, last season he got a bronze medal on the GP, so having a few bad skates does not define a career that is now in its 14th season. 3 years as a novice, won all but one competition, 3 years as a junior , medals from all three years, this is his 9th senior year, and the previous 8 he has at least one medal every year.
Hallelujah was choreographed by Shae-Lynne. Its a little rough still from transitioning from exhibition to competition.
Deniss like some other skaters had problems with the rink size.
He has stated he plans to compete through to 2026 Olympics.
And why am I a fan of his. 2016 Worlds Boston, he was just adorable. I feel like I've watched him grow into a handsome, intelligent, sweet man. I love his skating because he is so committed to the programs he skates, his beautiful spins, step sequences, 3Lutz, and his smile at the end.

Absolutely! (And Deniss got a bronze small medal and a silver overall at the Sheffield Grand Prix - I was there to see him, and both programmes were fantastic - the audience adored him, and I'd say that he was probably THE most popular skater there, as Mark Hanretty confirms in his commentaries)

 

[throw_triple_flip]

Yeah, i know he beat Mozalev in Europeans. I kinda hoped he would add a quad after that, but he didn't. Kinda opposite from Mozalev, who I wish would take one quad out. Overall though, I am more and more becoming convinced that there is simply no substitute for jumping ability. They can help jumpers to get a bit better with delivery, but non jumpers just slide down to start falling on triples and their PCSs all get lost fast too. Anyway, didn’t like either program, but free was probably worse.

Skating isn't all about quads. Look at how Jason Brown scores.

Also pretty silly to write him off and act like he's going to lose his triples because he had a rough skate (or couple of skates). His component scores here were decent anyway. If he were to concentrate on a clean skate with no quads they'd probably be stronger.

 

[el henry]

Skating isn't all about quads. Look at how Jason Brown scores.

Also pretty silly to write him off and act like he's going to lose his triples because he had a rough skate (or couple of skates). His component scores here were decent anyway.

Although I agree with you about quads, sadly, the judges have shown that you need to have the once in a generation excellence of a Jason Brown to even consider being scored fairly without quads. And skate for years and years in the sport. That needs to change, IMO.

It is far more likely that a quadster, even the less exciting ones that concentrate solely on jumps, will lose their quads, than a skater skilled in the other elements will lose their triples.

Kévin Aymoz, for example, more than held his own and for many both in the arena and outside, was the of this event. He has one reliable quad. And he wasn't the star just because those of us watching are bamboozled by performance ability or don't know how to evaluate skating.

Deniss has a skating persona that when he is "on" mesmerizes the crowd. I do worry if he is less precise in the elements that he has up until now mastered, but I trust him to rework those and to come back strong.

 

[lariko]

Skating isn't all about quads. Look at how Jason Brown scores.

Also pretty silly to write him off and act like he's going to lose his triples because he had a rough skate (or couple of skates). His component scores here were decent anyway. If he were to concentrate on a clean skate with no quads they'd probably be stronger.

He might have been scored that way, but I didn't see it. Torgashev was failing jumps, but his PCS were present. I also saw Aymoz skate short in Vegas with terrible falls, but he kept PCSs. Both of them though have a reliable quad though, at least in practice. So, I feel that jumping ability is something that is necessary, so when people say that if they don't jump quads, they will skate better, ijust don't think so. They will not skate any better and fall from lower level jumps. Brown was actually the same, he never landed a quad, and started falling from triples. I saw him in a show only, not in competition, and I didn't see any particular greatness in skating skill, while in say Uno, Hanyu and Chen it was evident.

 

[el henry]

He might have been scored that way, but I didn't see it. Torgashev was failing jumps, but his PCS were present. I also saw Aymoz skate short in Vegas with terrible falls, but he kept PCSs. Both of them though have a reliable quad though, at least in practice. So, I feel that jumping ability is something that is necessary, so when people say that if they don't jump quads, they will skate better, ijust don't think so. They will not skate any better and fall from lower level jumps. Brown was actually the same, he never landed a quad, and started falling from triples. I saw him in a show only, not in competition, and I didn't see any particular greatness in skating skill, while in say Uno, Hanyu and Chen it was evident.

Jason never started "falling from triples".

Can you please give the competitions where he started falling from triples? .

I adore Andrew T. , the all-American boy, as everyone knows. I have watched (I think) every competition that he has skated since 2014, at least that those that were available to me. He does not have a reliable quad, not even moving to California has (yet) given him a reliable quad.

Can you show me the three comps in a row where he has landed the quad? Even two (although my memory may be failing me there). I would give my right eyeteeth for Andrew to have a reliable quad, so that he would be confident in showing the rest of the world his performance gifts.

Of course everyone can have different opinions on skaters, that is why we are here. But I am puzzled by these statements.

 

[lariko]

Jason never started "falling from triples".

Can you please give the competitions where he started falling from triples? .

I adore Andrew T. , the all-American boy, as everyone knows. I have watched (I think) every competition that he has skated since 2014, at least that those that were available to me. He does not have a reliable quad, not even moving to California has (yet) given him a reliable quad.

Can you show me the three comps in a row where he has landed the quad? Even two (although my memory may be failing me there). I would give my right eyeteeth for Andrew to have a reliable quad, so that he would be confident in showing the rest of the world his performance gifts.

Of course everyone can have different opinions on skaters, that is why we are here. But I am puzzled by these statements.

Torgashev was landing 4T fine in practice, multiple times in a row, actually quite well, so he just doesn't have nerves for competition. He overall doesn't compete much, it seems, but it might change now, because they will need to find teammates for Malinin, and both Chen and Zhou are out for now. Brown was falling from triples in NHK before pandemic. Then he didn't even try quad in Olympics, lol. I dunno if he is going to compete again. If he does, I sure don't expect anything cool there. I'd rather watch Naumov and Torgashev tbh.

 

[icewhite]

He might have been scored that way, but I didn't see it. Torgashev was failing jumps, but his PCS were present. I also saw Aymoz skate short in Vegas with terrible falls, but he kept PCSs. Both of them though have a reliable quad though, at least in practice. So, I feel that jumping ability is something that is necessary, so when people say that if they don't jump quads, they will skate better, ijust don't think so. They will not skate any better and fall from lower level jumps. Brown was actually the same, he never landed a quad, and started falling from triples. I saw him in a show only, not in competition, and I didn't see any particular greatness in skating skill, while in say Uno, Hanyu and Chen it was evident.

I am absolutely puzzled by your remarks and wondering if you have any idea what skating skills means or if you are interested. I myself have stated I wouldn't give Jason Brown the 10s in PCS when he's not absolutely on, but to say you didn't see any greatness in skating skill while it was evident in Chen... I'm not trying to be nasty or something, it just leaves me speechless.

 

[lariko]

I am absolutely puzzled by your remarks and wondering if you have any idea what skating skills means or if you are interested. I myself have stated I wouldn't give Jason Brown the 10s in PCS when he's not absolutely on, but to say you didn't see any greatness in skating skill while it was evident in Chen... I'm not trying to be nasty or something, it just leaves me speechless.

Chen was so good live. Like, incredible. But I saw him in competition and I only saw Brown in a show. And it was this spring. So, i dunno if he was tired or whatever, but I expected to see something like low knees versus straight and the blade on the incline. I didn't see anything really special/different. He seemed much like others in the show. Chen really really impressed me live. I didn't expect it, because everyone keeps bashing him like he is like Gogolev or something, but who can actually jump lool. And it even wasn't his good event. Uno and Hanyu are super different then others. So was Messing.

 

[icewhite]

Chen was so good live. Like, incredible. But I saw him in competition and I only saw Brown in a show. And it was this spring. So, i dunno if he was tired or whatever, but I expected to see something like low knees versus straight and the blade on the incline. I didn't see anything really special/different. He seemed much like others in the show. Chen really really impressed me live. I didn't expect it. And it even wasn't his good event. Uno and Hanyu are super different then others. So was Messing.

Okay, but that certainly is possible for every skater, that he doesn't have the best day. That's difficult to use as an argument?

 

[lariko]

Okay, but that certainly is possible for every skater, that he doesn't have the best day. That's difficult to use as an argument?

I only trust what i can see myself and live. I saw many, many times how TV coverage changes speed and glide to the point beyond recognition. I also don't trust other people because they have huge biases.

So, for me, in my personal perception, and only the skaters i had seen (men) who impressed me specifically with skating, not jumps or spins, was Uno, Chen, Hanyu, Aymoz, Torgashev and Messing.

I had never seen Cha and I really want to. Will be trying next year again.

 

[el henry]

Torgashev was landing 4T fine in practice, multiple times in a row, actually quite well, so he just doesn't have nerves for competition. He overall doesn't compete much, it seems, but it might change now, because they will need to find teammates for Malinin, and both Chen and Zhou are out for now. Brown was falling from triples in NHK before pandemic. Then he didn't even try quad in Olympics, lol. I dunno if he is going to compete again. If he does, I sure don't expect anything cool there. I'd rather watch Naumov and Torgashev tbh.

Thank you for clarifying that you were talking about practice for the other skaters, and one practice in particular for Jason.

I am thrilled that Andrew was reliably landing every quad in practice you saw. I did not see that in practice reports from the rink, which showed him falling on as many quads as he lands. And of course Jason has landed multiple quads in practice, but not in competitions. There are many times I wished practice counted for my faves.

Jason's strategy for the Olympics was wonderful, I agree. Do what you do so well and force the judges to score you at least somewhat fairly. I know we won't agree on his skating, and he wasn't at Skate America, so I am going to leave this part of the conversation here.

I am glad you were able to attend the comp and I hope you had a good time!

 

[lariko]

Thank you for clarifying that you were talking about practice for the other skaters, and one practice in particular for Jason.

I am thrilled that Andrew was reliably landing every quad in practice you saw. I did not see that in practice reports from the rink, which showed him falling on as many quads as he lands. And of course Jason has landed multiple quads in practice, but not in competitions. There are many times I wished practice counted for my faves.

Jason's strategy for the Olympics was wonderful, I agree. Do what you do so well and force the judges to score you at least somewhat fairly. I know we won't agree on his skating, and he wasn't at Skate America, so I am going to leave this part of the conversation here.

I am glad you were able to attend the comp and I hope you had a good time!

I didn't call his strategy wonderful. It was an admission of defeat.

 

[Jammers]

I've just watched Kevin and Illia's FS, and they couldn't be more day and night. So much that I just felt compelled to write all of this (sorry in advance for quite a long post).

Illia has amazing effortless jumps, nice speed and the spin he does at the end is very cool. But the overall program is very very dull It's just jump -(waiting for jump) - jump - (waiting for jump) and repeat till there are no more jumps left, and then, the end. Illia transmits no emotions, his face is fixed during the whole program and all his movements and hand waving lack cohesion and any connection to the music.

I'd have thought that having Russian blood in him, artistry would come naturally to him. Sadly, this is not the case. I haven't been following his past performances close enough to say whether or not this is an improvement, but if in fact it is, he must have come from a very low point, and he has an enormous way in front of him.

Sadder still is that this performance received nearly 88 points in PCS, only less than 6 points less than Kevin's PCS. I understand this is his local event and judges will most likely overscore him, but I think this will probably set the trend for the season as ISU/US Fed/ powers that be try to market him as a "complete skater". He will most likely win Worlds and everything in between, with overblown PCS scores that are completely inexistant (and btw not even needed, as his TES alone do in all probability guarantee him a medal /victory).

And the thing I find really worrisome is not that this will of course give him no incentive at all to improve, but that it will demotivate all other skaters, specially thoose who clearly have better performance and skating skills, and know it. If this kind of performance becomes the winning norm in the near future, it sure will be sad days for the artistic spirit of figure skating

This just sounds like what people were saying about 5-6 years ago about how Nathan was starting to get PCS comparable to some of the top PCS skaters of the time. If anything Nathan's PCS climb and how fast he closed the gap was faster then what Ilia is doing. Ilia will have about twice as much time to raise his PCS for Milan then Nathan did in his runup to the 2018 Winter Olympics so he has time.

 

[ChristineB]

In 2022 at Europeans he beat Mozalev and has a Bronze medal, last season he got a bronze medal on the GP, so having a few bad skates does not define a career that is now in its 14th season. 3 years as a novice, won all but one competition, 3 years as a junior , medals from all three years, this is his 9th senior year, and the previous 8 he has at least one medal every year.
Hallelujah was choreographed by Shae-Lynne. Its a little rough still from transitioning from exhibition to competition.
Deniss like some other skaters had problems with the rink size.
He has stated he plans to compete through to 2026 Olympics.
And why am I a fan of his. 2016 Worlds Boston, he was just adorable. I feel like I've watched him grow into a handsome, intelligent, sweet man. I love his skating because he is so committed to the programs he skates, his beautiful spins, step sequences, 3Lutz, and his smile at the end.

Silver at GP last year! I love Deniss's skating so much. Seeing him live 3x now, I'm blown away by his speed and command of the ice. He also had great jumps in the warmup, so if he could JUST transition these to the actual competition...sigh.

 

[Jeanie19]

Silver at GP last year! I love Deniss's skating so much. Seeing him live 3x now, I'm blown away by his speed and command of the ice. He also had great jumps in the warmup, so if he could JUST transition these to the actual competition...sigh.

I loved your pictures. I saved one of Deniss, he looked amazing.

 

[ChristineB]

I loved your pictures. I saved one of Deniss, he looked amazing.

Thank you!!! I'm so happy to hear that.