2024 Finlandia Trophy Men's Free Skate

[jersey1302]

I have a few thoughts.. Camden.. I dunno but you and Roman need a good sports psychologist.. lol. Kevin.. Way to keep it together and not totally blow up you program after a fall.. seriously whatever he did in that time off last year did wonders. He is much more complete this year and genuinely looks like he is enjoying himself. His short program is absolutely stunning.

AND DANIEL GRASSL… oh boy.. ok so.. not his fault.. its the tech panel..what in the actual **** is going on… two events now they have missed his under rotated jumps. And they’re not even questionable where you could try and give them the benefit of the doubt or close call.. they’re under rotated…period. The rest of the event was called relatively well. I did try and compare other jumps to find inconsistencies in tech panel calling and see if they missed calls on others. I did not find any other missed. I did compare Sota’s jump that was called however. His 3F<2A SEQ was less under rotated than Daniel’s 2 quads that were not called and he got a call. It bothers me to no end that some skaters seem to have other treatment. In the end Kevin had his right place but by a hair. With Daniel’s proper calling, Kevin may of won the FS and had a much higher lead over him.

 

[Arriba627]

Daniel's 4S looked pretty bad. I watched it a couple times thinking maybe I wasn't understanding how to call it under rotated, but it looked pretty short to me. He does seem to really get into his Billy Elliott FS, and I "get" the t-shirt but don't like it. I'll be very interested to see if he makes it to the GPF.

 

[auser]

Vladimir. Such a great opening with a 4Lz, and then two pops Peak cactus. Good job on recovering especially in the second half though !

Loved Mark Hanretty's polite cactus redux "consistency in the men's event is elusive".

 

[DancingCactus]

I also don't understand what is happening wirh Grassl. He's only just back and the judges are already happy to overlook his terrible jumps for no reason I can come up with. It makes me furious. Is he the opposite of Lindsay Thorngren?

 

[Ruthypegs]

Some thoughts from the rink for the men's short and free programmes:
Daniel - seems much taller - also a lot more elegant and expressive than when I last saw him IRL (Sheffield).
Camden - beautiful expression, always a class act. The group of talkative teenage girls behind me were smitten into silence....
Aleksander - loads of details and feels the music - great performance quality.
Lucas - there's something really likeable about him and his skating - lots of interesting moves.
Junwha - super quality - got the most stuffies.
Kevin - got the loudest cheers - the audience were with him right from the start- he always lights up the rink. Every detail is beautiful, he captures the audience right from the start and holds them until the end. I was right next to the K&C so witnessed his reaction to the free result at close quarters!
Yuma - just brilliant - his details, his expression, the beautiful landings, stunning. He has everything. I was never a fan of his skating until I saw him live for the first time at Angers last year. I'm definitely a huge fan now!

 

[CrazyKittenLady]

Loved Mark Hanretty's polite cactus redux "consistency in the men's event is elusive".

Also loved his comment that the men are menning.
Shout out to Mark!

 

[rabidline]

I'm very surprised most did not see the Grassl comeback coming. European GPF, Italian Olympics... the moment for Italy AND Europe to establish contenders is now and Grassl gave them a reason to overlook his jump deficiencies. He's also helped by every other men having injury and/or underperformance issues.

To be fair, Kevin Aymoz is being showed a lot of love too in terms of components after some utterly horrid performances in the last few months, where other skaters would have needed more time to claw their way back up. It's like those never happened.

 

[DancingCactus]

That's because Kevin is actually good?

And the idea that a guy who went to a controversial coach from an enemy country in the middle of a war and was banned due to doping control violations now has to be pushed because he's from the country the next Olympics will be held in is...interesting. I know skating politics are dodgy but hopefully not THAT dodgy.

 

[pesto]

The unanimity over Grassl's jumps is striking. Both Chris (last week) and Mark (this week) were surprised jumps didn't get called. GS forumistas saw at least some from both competitions as under-rotated, Jackie Wong too, and most of FS Twitter.

He was helped here by the extreme menning. When everyone is splatting and popping, a mere UR feels clean by comparison. Give it all the GOE.

 

[rabidline]

That's because Kevin is actually good?

And the idea that a guy who went to a controversial coach from an enemy country in the middle of a war and was banned due to doping control violations now has to be pushed because he's from the country the next Olympics will be held in is...interesting. I know skating politics are dodgy but hopefully not THAT dodgy.

Personally I'm not complaining and I'm glad that Kevin has gotten the second (or third?) wind and is delivering enjoyable performances. But I do wonder if GPF isn't in France this year (and to a lesser extent, Adam didn't get injured), that Kevin would be shown such leniency. I think there's a bit of a good luck in how the interest and the performance intersected here.

I wish skating politics are not that dodgy but we have seen people do stupid things in order to secure medals... especially Olympic ones. It's more out of survival instinct, IMO. More medals likely mean more money coming in for the relevant officials.

 

[rabidline]

He was helped here by the extreme menning. When everyone is splatting and popping, a mere UR feels clean by comparison. Give it all the GOE.

I agree. The calls are very generous but at the same time the extreme menning did not help anyone's cases to be put above him.

 

[Arigato]

PCS for Kevin's Free Skates:

2023 GP Fin 90.51
2024 GP Fin 89.05

2023 GP SKAM 93.24
2024 GP SKAM 91.94

The numbers don't lie. Conspiracy theories do.