2025 Four Continents Men's Short Program

[Magill]

Personally I think that Ilia Malinin is doing so many shows not just for money (his own and his agent's) but to practice the performance aspect of figure skating as many have found him seriously lacking in this department, and shows actually allow to focus on this, and not on jumps which are less important and mostly not even executed at their hardest versions there.
I always suspected that Yuzuru's amazing performance quality and the way he had with crowds (and has until this day) were - apart from his obvious natural talent for this - nailed when he did some 60 shows in 5 months in Japan at the end of his first senior season . The reasons were very different and unique to his situation (his home rink was damaged during the Great Earthquake and closed so he used the show ice for training) but it made him a really experienced performer despite his young age of 16. And Ilia did point to Yuzu as his skating idol many times so I'm pretty sure he knows this story and might have come to similar conclusions....
And although I am no big fan of llia, I think it might actually work to his advantage and help him develop in different aspects of skating than his obvious strengths, which in the long run might be more important than a 4CC medal or some WS points he does not really need.

 

[cailuj365]

See, everyone wins from this arrangement. A Swiss tour gets a breakout US skating star, and a young star learns to be a better performer in the Swiss Alps! Hurrah! In terms of Andrew and Amber though, I think it's just training smart and pacing themselves. The body doesn't recover as fast as one grows older. Andrew spoke a lot about this at his US Nats press conference. They're all heading into a home Worlds, and that's their priority.

Anyway, I finally watched all the men's SP... Tonight will be better, I'm sure.
Kao was actually kind of my favorite. I mean, it was a mess, but I so enjoy his energy and absolute wild power.
Misha's technical elements were so impressive. That quad lutz... yeah, there's room for an extra rotation folks.
Jimmy was also great.
Hope Jun isn't too exhausted from the back-to-back competing and gives the home crowd some happy times tonight.

 

[Skater Boy]

Yay Mikhail getting the marks some felt denied. Could be higher. Granted we are missing some of the top skaters. I do worry about Cha and having just done a competition which I don't think was the wisest move but Korea seems to like to push their skaters to do lots of competitions. Jimmy was great though imho unspectacular. Just not a lot of great skating as the Japanese men struggled here. Great skate from newbie from Canada but that's with no pressure and he is like a point ahead of Roman. I don't think he is in the running to go to worlds even if he beats roman and aleksa - unless he podiums and Roman really does bad. And we will see after the freeskate just how strong is he. Camden has moments of brilliance but I wonder and it is just me if he didn't work full time and coudl devote himself to his skating a bit more if he could use his natural artistry and some decent tricks to be stronger? Our Mexican skater always a fan favourite didn't have a super skate. The divide between first and second is huge.

 

[lariko]

If fields were deeper, peeps would be delighted to see 4cc and Eu teams being different than the world's team. It's understandable that Malinin wants to prepare for home worlds, given that he is a defending champion. He is a human being too, in case someone is forgetting it.

 

[moonvine]

Well, a 4CC win would give her more WS points than a GPF win, so where is her priorities?

And, Mone Chiba was 2nd at GPF. She will be at 4CC and Worlds.

Mone is 19 years old. Amber is 25. It makes a difference. Amber knows what her body needs and apparently thats a break from comps.

Yes, it's laughable isn't it! Athletes dissing the second most important competition of the year.

You don't see that in other sports. I follow most winter sports, but you never see a downhill alpine skier going down the city streets for money, or an biathlete shooting targets in the town square, or an icehockey player showing off his goal making qualities in front of an audience.

I know the 'show' aspect of figure skating is important and there is money do be made in it, and many fans only love this aspect, but it is also making the sport look ridiculous compared to other sports.

Maybe those athletes have sufficient money to train. Not to mentíon no one is likely to pay to watch that. Gymnastics does a big tour after the Olympics, and that’s an extremely popular sport.

 

[rabidline]

I was thinking it would be perfect for a Kazakh man to finally win 4CC at the 10th year anniversary of the first 4CC win by a Kazakh man...

 

[TallyT]

And he did!

 

[Magill]

And he did!

YAY!!!!

 

[elbkup]

Delete

 

[Skating Bobr]

To be fair to Jun, I think he needed to - winning AWG gave him that exemption (and okay, most people possibly including himself thought he wouldn't win against Yuma! - but he had to try and he did it so no regrets there) and 4CC was too close but being in Korea where he's the biggest skating star after Yuna Kim (and way more popular there than any other male skater is are in their own countries which brings its own pressure we don't always think about), he pretty much had to do it. I hope he does well in the free and then can rest up for Worlds.

As for the rest we don't know their circumstances, their fed's requirements and what they might or might not need to keep going.

Jun absolutely had to do AWG and 4CC for the exact reasons you outlined. I was more so talking about some of those that skipped 4CC and are only going to Worlds. If someone has been consistent internationally and domestically in the latter half of this season, I don't see a point in having them get more experience at 4CC. Better to offer that opportunity to someone who hasn't had as many international competitions if the federation has the depth. Of course if someone has not been consistent in the last 3 months, 4CC would be good additional experience to have heading into Worlds.

 

[Violet Sky]

It's sometimes hard being a Camden fan, but his skating is among the most beautiful, artistic and expressive in the world, IMHO. Even when the jumps don't work, there's still loads to enjoy in his programmes, and he never lets the performance go.

I wish he could give up working full time and concentrate on the skating.....

Camden made that decision after graduating to work full time and skate. Even last yr the only performance that was not cringeworthy was US Nationals and- every ISU competition this yr he has looked like he didn’t train or did run throughs until right before Nationals - when he peaks. Thank goodness for Jimmy Ma putting down the skate he did under emotional circumstances.