LET’S TALK ABOUT THE WOMEN!!!! I’m about to wax some lyrics!!!
They were absolutely stunning, especially in the free skate. They laid it down, you heard me?! For starters, four ladies attempted 3As in the SP and
all four landed them clean. Two of them were juniors which is always interesting since 3As are stupidly still not allowed in the SP for junior ladies.
Oka’s programs are among the best this season, especially her SP. I already knew her SP would blend right in even among seniors as it stood out so much in the JGP, but her LP fits right in choreographically with the seniors as well. She was sixth with two cleanish skates with a 3A in each program. She’s a podium contender for Junior Worlds! I can’t wait to see more from her.
Shimada : I thought this will be the year that she wouldn’t land on the podium as she wasn’t looking as strong on the JGP and barely won Junior Nationals. But it turns out she was closest to winning than ever and she also landed a 3A in both the SP and LP. She had the 4T as a novice, but it just isn’t there anymore. She’s not even landing it in practice, unlike Sumiyoshi. I think she’ll be better off replacing it with a 3A combo next year when she finally goes senior.
Watanabe : She gave a career-best performance, hitting three 3As across both programs but never had the chance to be considered for the Olympic team unless she was on the podium. And then she didn’t get assigned to any championships, but is first alternate for all of them. I do appreciate that she just goes for it and doesn’t hold anything back.
Nakai : She hit the 3A in the short but did one of those weird pops in the LP that could cause a Zayak depending on how it’s called. The interesting thing is that she was the second pick for the Olympics (not the third) so Japan is considering her for the team event instead of Chiba if one of the switches are used for women. Her 3A is definitely more consistent than it was as a junior and suddenly she’s now an Olympic podium contender.
Aoki : Like Oka, I think she has one of the best set of programs this season. Her LP can only be skated by her as she has the musicality and attention to detail to pull it off. If she is clean, she will get the PCS she’s due. Not only was she clean, but she delivered the best free skate of her career and the judges went all in! It was refreshing to see her so rewarded.
Higuchi and
Mihara delivered their swan songs and no one watching had dry eyes. Well, mine were of course.
Chiba was all business, refusing to give in to pressure and repeat her free at GPF. It’s still on her mind, though, but her focus won her the bronze medal. She’ll have to tighten up the qs and URs but she’s still very much a threat for the Olympic podium. I think her free is the best among the ladies this season, but she’ll need to perform it like she did in GP Finland or Kinoshita Trophy, not here. Those were her best performances ever.
The only downside was Sumiyoshi. She was heartbreaking. I hope she doesn’t break out with the R word and continues. I’m not as sad about Yoshida not making the free because I was kind of expecting it.
The ladies were just amazing all around, especially the top 10. I think most of the top 10 scored 210+. This was the competition of the season for me.
The men were awful except for Sato. I was so disappointed that I didn’t even leave my room the entire day. So I’m not going to waste any more space posting about that.
Pairs : M/K withdrew after the SP so Nagaoka/Moriguchi won the championship. They actually probably would’ve won the LP even had M/K been there. Their free skate is one of my favorites in the discipline this season. They are a legitimately great pairs team that, barring injury, will be podium threats next quad.
I’m definitely seeing the possibility for more competitive pairs in Japan. There are definitely enough talented singles skaters for it! So what is Japan waiting for? Start poaching! Even Moriguchi was top 10 at Nationals that one time.
Nope, I
still haven’t forgotten that. I’m going to be on that forever. Heh, matter of fact, I think it was the same year he won the pairs competition for the first time.
Ice Dance : Following Japanese figure skating has taught me that competing as a singles skater is an advantage in pairs but a huge deficit in ice dance. Ice dance is not something you can just switch to when your singles career doesn’t pan out. Morita/Yoshida are undoubtedly the best pair in Japan but they will also struggle to make a free skate right now. And I really don’t trust the judging. Let the judges tell the story and Kushida/Shimada will be breathing down M/Y’s necks very soon and that’s just not what I saw. They do go together incredibly well and have that special unnameable something, though. The thing is Kushida also has that mysterious unnameable as a singles skater.
Anyways, M/Y are WAY ahead of the other teams and it’s not close. I think Rika/Nishiyama have better potential in the elements than K/S but it’s going to take them much longer to gel as a team. Singles skating isn’t really the way to go, but Japan has to start
somewhere but they’re going to continue to be years behind the rest of the world if there are skaters starting in singles first and skating as such until adulthood before switching.
Also, a huge BZ to
@tsuyoboogie! She posts videos of entire Japanese competitions, organizing them by warmup groups so you can feel like you’re watching live. And she stays up for an impossible amount of time to do it!
But it's in the first half of their free dance where it is especially noticeable how much dancers skate in parallel nowadays. I think it's a good news for the pair that they made it feel like a dance, but this part of their free dance kinda asks to be skated in a dance hold, the rest of the program to is fine the way it is.
