2025 Grand Prix de France Men's Free Skate

[msteach3]

His team and Ilia are brilliant. They are marketing him as more than a technician including personal voice overs to make him seem 'artistic". His transitions or moves like a back flip and raspberry are to show his athletic prowess and sense of artistry and energy. He still has about 20 more pts maybe even more come olympics Mikail and Adam are the closest maybe technically. no one has the consistency on those quads yet though. I am not sure the judges or fans see him skating from element to element. Some think by picking his fs music he is "artisitc" almost toller cranston like. Naumov and Torg were unspectacular and settled nothing in respect to the third spot for the US men. This favours Andrew as he has more international experience.

Yes on everything here. What seems to be happening with people on this forum is are they upset their favorites are not scoring nearly as high as Ilia, and they don't think he deserves the points, placements and accolades. Some would like the old scoring system back or more points given for spins, footwork, etc. Whether or not you like the scoring system has no relevance to what is reality. The sport has moved on, and quads are given the most points because they are the most difficult.

As skating fans, we all have our preferences and ideals for program music, style and content. How boring it would be if we all liked the same thing! As skating fans I would hope we'd support all skaters and wish them well. To label the world champion as nothing but a white, skinny American boy with no artistry is really hateful and unacceptable to most fans who simply love and appreciate the tremendous difficulty of this beautiful sport.

 

[Karoltyna]

His team and Ilia are brilliant. They are marketing him as more than a technician including personal voice overs to make him seem 'artistic". His transitions or moves like a back flip and raspberry are to show his athletic prowess and sense of artistry and energy. He still has about 20 more pts maybe even more come olympics Mikail and Adam are the closest maybe technically. no one has the consistency on those quads yet though. I am not sure the judges or fans see him skating from element to element. Some think by picking his fs music he is "artisitc" almost toller cranston like. Naumov and Torg were unspectacular and settled nothing in respect to the third spot for the US men. This favours Andrew as he has more international experience.

OFC judges don't see thim skating from element to element - see composition score and overall PCS. This is just my private opinion about his program. If he goes clean, I don't see him not getting gold. I'm ok with it. It's sport, the best technician wins. I'll probably be bitter about the difference in scores if Adam and Yuma also go clean. I don't know about Mikhail, I managed to watch only half of his FS, so I can only tell that I liked his choice of music but some told me it's because I didn't hear the music from first half of his FS.

 

[Karoltyna]

Yes on everything here. What seems to be happening with people on this forum is are they upset their favorites are not scoring nearly as high as Ilia, and they don't think he deserves the points, placements and accolades. Some would like the old scoring system back or more points given for spins, footwork, etc. Whether or not you like the scoring system has no relevance to what is reality. The sport has moved on, and quads are given the most points because they are the most difficult.

ehhhhhhh? I can assure you I'd be upset if Adam got TES closer to Ilia with tech content he is performing now. I'm a fan but I'm not blind.

 

[Isk]

Amen.

Who cares if the poem doesn't make sense? Who cares how he speaks Russian to his dad? Who cares that he's a white American boy? Really people, what is wrong with you? This is about skating. Period. Ilia is the best skater in the world, regardless if you like him or not. Period. Get over it.

I approve of him speaking any languages, but if he is arrogant enough to feed ladies of >=Balzac age home-grown philosophy and wisdom, he is not going to win their fandom. He could have expressed his feelings, told a story about himself in first person, instead he chose to preach. He is pretty alternatively dressed for a straight white male. What to wear is every person's choice of course, but it doesn't click with rap and vampire stuff either, so it's not quite clear what he is trying to portrait. He seems all over the place with self-identification. I don't argue that he can take off, rotate very fast, check the rotation and land on one foot quite amazingly, and that he out-jumped the competition, but that's not all skating is. Getting over it is not a problem, the real problem begins when people start fast-forwarding or taking coffee breaks over it. I caught myself thinking the other day that men's event has become a mix of poorly controlled quads and a comic-con, women are a lot more interesting this season.

 

[Isk]

Yes on everything here. What seems to be happening with people on this forum is are they upset their favorites are not scoring nearly as high as Ilia, and they don't think he deserves the points, placements and accolades. Some would like the old scoring system back or more points given for spins, footwork, etc. Whether or not you like the scoring system has no relevance to what is reality. The sport has moved on, and quads are given the most points because they are the most difficult.

As skating fans, we all have our preferences and ideals for program music, style and content. How boring it would be if we all liked the same thing! As skating fans I would hope we'd support all skaters and wish them well. To label the world champion as nothing but a white, skinny American boy with no artistry is really hateful and unacceptable to most fans who simply love and appreciate the tremendous difficulty of this beautiful sport.

This is not quite true. Late 6.0 actually gave more value to jumps and less value to other elements. The result of this was the tech race before 2002. The IJS in early years supported the non-jumps. What is happening is partly the result of the scoring tables and how they are applied in reality, partly optimization of equipment and technique, and there are multiple other factors. I don't seem to have any favourites, but it's hard to support certain things, e.g. alternative judging. They are selling pewter at the price of gold, I just don't like being cheated. Also, I find if hard to support that guys who might grow into performers and artists if they could afford doing a couple fewer quads, are forced to scrap artistry, because their artistry is valued the same as lack of it.

 

[elbkup]

Remember those pre-Ilia days when “quadless” Jason Brown was honing his craft as an “artist”? The rhetoric was off the charts, gist of arguments being Jason is finished without quads; he will never accomplish anything because figure skating is, first and foremost, a sport not an art. That argument it seems has now flipped since Ilia surfaced: art is just as, or more important than, technical mastery. Well we now realize that Art is, of course, a huge integral feature of figure skating and Jason has carved his hard won indisputable place. Ilia is a technical master no question. He is young, at the beginning of his career, Lord willing, and a work in progress. He has and continues to push limits of the sport in new directions technically and deserves kudos for it while making enormous strides toward developing his aesthetic side acknowledging who he is and what his limitations are. I applaud him. It took YEARS for Yuzaru and Nathan to balance these two facets of skating, a gift to us all. It will be interesting to see what ilia’s future holds. Regarding his “behavior and insensitivity”: he is doing just fine in that regard. His training and upbringing have given him a solid, positive, forward-looking mindset, capable of enjoying his achievements without self doubt and negativity that plagues and derails some athletes. And he has shown he is willing to learn from his mistakes, to grow up personally, professionally; from social media I have seen he has developed a light hearted camaraderie with his fellow skaters and certainly is not given to false modesty which I find refreshing. He will need his rock solid sense of self going forward. Personally I enjoyed both programs and see, perhaps, a glimmer of what is to come. I am old so hope I will be around to see what his future holds.

 

[lariko]

Remember those pre-Ilia days when “quadless” Jason Brown was honing his craft as an “artist”? The rhetoric was off the charts, gist of arguments being Jason is finished without quads; he will never accomplish anything because figure skating is, first and foremost, a sport not an art. That argument it seems has now flipped since Ilia surfaced: art is just as, or more important than, technical mastery. Well we now realize that Art is, of course, a huge integral feature of figure skating and Jason has carved his hard won indisputable place. Ilia is a technical master no question but he is young, at the beginning of his career, Lord willing, and a work in progress. He has and continues to push limits of the sport in new directions technically and deserves kudos for it while making enormous strides toward developing his aesthetic side acknowledging who he is and what his limitations are. I applaud him. It took YEARS for Yuzaru and Nathan to balance these two facets of skating, a gift to us all. It will be interesting to see what ilia’s future holds. Regarding his “behavior and insensitivity”: he is doing just fine in that regard. His training and upbringing have given him a solid, positive, forward-looking mindset without the self doubt and negativity that plagues and derails some athletes. And he has shown he is willing to learn from his mistakes and grow up personally and professionally. He certainly is not given to false modesty which I find refreshing.
He will need his rock solid sense of self going forward. Personally I enjoyed both programs and see, perhaps, a glimmer of what is to come. I am old so hope I will be around to see what his future holds.

I am also looking forward to it, and to the new programs he builds each year. Both what he will use from his arsenal and what music he choses. It intrigues me and makes competitions more interesting.