Replay Lounge 2025 NHK Trophy

[gsk8]

2025 NHK Trophy is happening!

This is the place to dive deeper and continue conversations from the fast-paced competition threads!

Who impressed you the most? Any standout programs or surprises? How did your favorites do? Want to analyze scores? Share your thoughts!

Please remember to keep things friendly and respectful.

Have fun!

British duo Fear and Gibson secure NHK Trophy gold

2025 NHK Trophy: Ice Dance Great Britain's Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson won their fourth Grand Prix gold medal in the Ice Dance event with two charming

www.goldenskate.com

Italian Pair Conti and Macii triumph at NHK Trophy

2025 NHK Trophy: Pairs Figure Skating Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii of Italy moved up from second to first place overall to claim their second Grand Prix

www.goldenskate.com

Japan's Yuma Kagiyama claims fourth consecutive gold at NHK Trophy

2025 NHK Trophy: Men's Figure Skating Yuma Kagiyama of Japan claimed his fourth consecutive NHK Trophy gold in Osaka on Saturday. Teammate Shun

www.goldenskate.com

Japan's Kaori Sakamoto dominates women's event at NHK Trophy

2025 NHK Trophy: Women Japan's Kaori Sakamoto dominated the Women's discipline at 2025 NHK Trophy, taking her fourth gold medal at this event by over a

www.goldenskate.com

 

[BlissfulSynergy]

Wow. The RD scores in ice dance were very low and tight. I thought the Shibs did very well considering the pressure and how long they've been away. Perhaps having to skate first kept their scores down, which IMO, led to a fairly low bunching up of scores altogether. I thought the Shibs should have been moreso around 73 to 74.

Wolf/Tsar are very good technically, but relatively new to seniors. They actually skated senior in their first season together and then returned to the junior ranks to gain more opportunities and credentials. Wolfkostin competed in juniors and partly in seniors with J. Chen, too. The commentators tend to act like these back-and-forth teams are entirely new to seniors. But, oh well, that's figure skating. Wolf/Tsar's score was decent for an up-and-coming senior team, just besting the Shibs.

It was nice to see that Michael Parsons recovered enough from the injury he sustained at CoC to compete very well with Caroline Green at their second assignment in Japan. As Mark Hanretty said, Gr/Par had great depth of edge. They were excellent. For me, the best ice dancers overall in the RD were the Taschlers and Green/ Parsons. I think Guignard/ Fabbri received a sympathy score in the RD, and they weren't very pleased with even that much. Marco made a mistake on the twizzles and their material is no better than what we saw in France.

The scoring is a joke. Taschlers were great. Fair judging IMO would have Taschlers in first, Gr/Par in second, and Fear/ Gibson in third. Factoring in how rep and politics work, I get F/G being awarded first. But, in that case the Taschlers should definitely be in second, with Gr/Par third, and Gui/Fab fourth. Honestly, Wolf/Tsar and the German team had better material than the Italians, too. Certainly, the Finnish team paid heavily for their twizzle mistake, but the Italians didn't. If compulsories were still part of ice dance, Taschlers, Gr/Par and Wolf/Tsar would be ahead for their blade expertise, along with Gui/Fab, Shibs, and Fabbri/ Ayer also placing well.

Lots of political scoring and laughable scoring at these Olympic season GPs.

 

[BlissfulSynergy]

Pairs: Unfortunate fall for Camille Kovalev on the sbs jumps, which dislocated her right shoulder. They did not need to show the replay more than once. That's too bad for the Kovalevs, as they recently came back from injury. Hopefully, her arm will be healed in time for them to still compete in the Olympic team event for France. They are also first alternates for the individual pairs event if Uzbekistan does not send a team.

I would have liked to hear what Chris Howarth might have said regarding the post-CoC discussion of Sui/Han getting away with performing a group 4 lift instead of a group 5 lift at CoC without being dinged. It was Tony Wheeler of the Skating Session who first noticed the discrepancy and broadcast it on social media, along with messaging officials. Of course, no adjustment in the scoring was made. The sport is a laughing stock when officials pander to federations or are too clueless to efficiently perform their job. Hanretty carefully tiptoed around the issue by only mentioning during the lift at NHK that Han's arms had to be above his head. Otherwise, no reference to the inaccurate scoring at CoC. Of course, Hanretty is employed by the ISU, so he sugarcoats controversy.

Conti/Macii were tight and not at their best, yet did not receive negative GOE on their throw nor on their slightly out-of-sync spins. It figures because they are usually helped politically. Pavlova/ Sviatchenko are in third despite skating better and smoother overall than C/M. I had to laugh at Niccolo's upset face at their second place score. He surely looked angry that they are behind Sui/Han. Sara tried to calm him down. I get it, though. Surely a lot of teams are not happy that S/H came back and were outright gifted a bronze medal at CoC. I hope Sui/Han finish off the podium at the Olympics.

Alisa Efimova has the best aesthetics and graceful positions of all the pairs ladies at NHK, and Misha is a solid partner, but it goes w/o saying, Alisa has got to gain the confidence and skill to land sbs jumps consistently. Had they made no errors, Alisa/ Misha would have placed above Nagaoka/ Moriguchi and perhaps over Pav/Svia, too. Nag/Mor scored 70+ for the first time, with judges missing Nagaoka's free leg touching down on the throw. Nag/ Mor's coaching switch from Marcotte to Savin's camp is paying dividends.

Chan/Howe scored 71+ at their recent Challenger event with a clean skate, but they couldn't repeat that effort at NHK. Too bad, as they are a mature and entertaining team to watch.

 

[Skating91]

Samo was great, really announced herself as a medal threat at the Olympics if she has two clean performances let's hope she can win silver. As always really strict with her levels, and PCS is at the level of a skater who had a big fall interrupt their program. Kaori is just untouchable if they are not going to give that lutz a wrong edge, then they are simply never going to judge that element as it appears. What are the officials scared of exactly if they ding it with a wrong edge? For me this program is a lot incongruent arm waving while skating as fast as possible, hopefully they can tweak it before the Olympics. The short track skating some what detracts from the program imo she does not feel the music. Still, Kaori was clearly the best skater, but the gap to Samo is absurd.

 

[Mathematician]

if they are not going to give that lutz a wrong edge, then they are simply never going to judge that element as it appears.

Oh, wow. I just checked the scoresheet and I am confounded. I did not even care to check, since as the commentator himself pointed it out I was sure this would be given a call.

Check this out, it looks like one jump from multiple angles, but it's a mix of both a Lutz and Flip!

Nope! The 2nd and 3rd picture are not the same jump! Can you believe it?

"It should have a back outside edge, but... it does not. So, the judges should take this into account." - Official ISU commentator, live during replay.

 

[lariko]

My biggest takeaway is that the sooner they give Chris a boot and replace him with Mark, the better. Having knowledgeable, researched commentary that was well placed was so good.

 

[snowball]

Wow. The RD scores in ice dance were very low and tight. I thought the Shibs did very well considering the pressure and how long they've been away. Perhaps having to skate first kept their scores down, which IMO, led to a fairly low bunching up of scores altogether. I thought the Shibs should have been moreso around 73 to 74.

Wolf/Tsar are very good technically, but relatively new to seniors. They actually skated senior in their first season together and then returned to the junior ranks to gain more opportunities and credentials. Wolfkostin competed in juniors and partly in seniors with J. Chen, too. The commentators tend to act like these back-and-forth teams are entirely new to seniors. But, oh well, that's figure skating. Wolf/Tsar's score was decent for an up-and-coming senior team, just besting the Shibs.

It was nice to see that Michael Parsons recovered enough from the injury he sustained at CoC to compete very well with Caroline Green at their second assignment in Japan. As Mark Hanretty said, Gr/Par had great depth of edge. They were excellent. For me, the best ice dancers overall in the RD were the Taschlers and Green/ Parsons. I think Guignard/ Fabbri received a sympathy score in the RD, and they weren't very pleased with even that much. Marco made a mistake on the twizzles and their material is no better than what we saw in France.

The scoring is a joke. Taschlers were great. Fair judging IMO would have Taschlers in first, Gr/Par in second, and Fear/ Gibson in third. Factoring in how rep and politics work, I get F/G being awarded first. But, in that case the Taschlers should definitely be in second, with Gr/Par third, and Gui/Fab fourth. Honestly, Wolf/Tsar and the German team had better material than the Italians, too. Certainly, the Finnish team paid heavily for their twizzle mistake, but the Italians didn't. If compulsories were still part of ice dance, Taschlers, Gr/Par and Wolf/Tsar would be ahead for their blade expertise, along with Gui/Fab, Shibs, and Fabbri/ Ayer also placing well.

Lots of political scoring and laughable scoring at these Olympic season GPs.

I don’t have a figure skating background but this sounds accurate. I did observe a few big mistakes from the Italian team and they didn’t have to pay the price (the male skater). Did sui and Han do the fake group 5 lift? That I cannot tell from my eyes

 

[Mathman]

To me, Sakamoto's advantage over a fine performance by Samodelinka was in overall skating skills, together with spin and footwork levels. In the SS component, Kaori got an average of 9.25. which is fairly comnsistent from pine competition to the next for her, while Sofia came in at a somewhat low-balled 7.75.

In non-jump technical elements Kaori had threelevel 4s and one level 3, compared to one level 4, two level 3s and one level 2. for Spfia. These levels are hard for amateurs like me to evaluate, but I don't see anything to endanger my blood pressure over.

Should Sakamoto have gotten an e instead of a ! on her triple Lutz? To the tech panel it was "unclear." Some fans and commentators claim greater clarity.

On to the LP!

 

[throw_triple_flip]

Samodelkina's short program was the highlight of the day. She is so charismatic and effervescent. I think it's a bit of a shame that we saw gloomy ballad Loena Hendrickx- uptempo short programs tend to play to her strengths better.

Sui and Han.. wow. What an amazing improvement in such a short space of time.

I had a sneaking suspicion the Shibutanis would end up middle of the pack but was quite surprised they were the lowest placed Americans. Green and Parsons were great fun.

Also really enjoyed Yuma Kagiyama's quick and deft footwork. That music really works for him.

 

[readernick]

Enjoyed the top three men's skates here despite the menning that occurred. Shun gave one of his best performances ever despite the q on the 4lutz..... Yuma's technical elements was slightly less perfect than normal but his program is incredible and so are his SS. Junhwan was pretty good but I am worried for the free.

Green/Parsons were the best in the Ice dance field. I'm never impressed by F/G and G/F did have some messy twizzles. The Shibs were fine and their ranking was correct.

Kaori's SP is incredible. Yes, her lutz is a flutz. It varies in how severe of a flutz, this one was pretty bad. However, she did get a warning and Sofia doesn't have a clear outside edge either and she got no call. So, fair enough. Happy Young and Sofia did well. I think their PCS scores were also correct compared to Kaori. Yuna was the best artistically but the jumps just aren't great. Loena had a rough outing but the quality in her skating is still evident. It wasn't a great event.

The pairs event was the least menny with the obvious exception of the French. I hope her injury isn't severe. Enjoyed all the other teams. The new Japanese team is going to make a huge splash next quad. No one does lifts like they do... Sui/Han are much improved from Cup of China.

 

[Skating91]

My biggest takeaway is that the sooner they give Chris a boot and replace him with Mark, the better. Having knowledgeable, researched commentary that was well placed was so good.

I prefer Mark even with the thick accent. Chris has his favourites that he gushes over, will ignore all their obvious errors (even in super slow motion replay as it's happening he will gaslight us), and other skaters he jumps in mid-performance to highlight every minor error.

 

[Skating91]

To me, Sakamoto's advantage over a fine performance by Samodelinka was in overall skating skills, together with spin and footwork levels. In the SS component, Kaori got an average of 9.25. which is fairly comnsistent from pine competition to the next for her, while Sofia came in at a somewhat low-balled 7.75.

Samo lowballed on skating skills but Kaori deservedly ahead, but I would have the presentation and composition ahead of Sakamoto. I found Kaori's arm waving sloppy and distracted me from the performance. Movement for the sake of it.

Should Sakamoto have gotten an e instead of a ! on her triple Lutz? To the tech panel it was "unclear." Some fans and commentators claim greater clarity.

On to the LP!

If they don't see the inside edge on take off, then the tech panel needs to be stood down.

 

[Arigato]

The 2nd and 3rd picture are not the same jump! Can you believe it?

Yes, I believe it. But then I am not blind. The words behind her are not the same nor are the colors or the fonts. Furthermore, people are behind her in one photo and the other photo has none. What exactly is the point of all this?

 

[Mathman]

What exactly is the point of all this?

Post of the year.

 

[Mathematician]

The words behind her are not the same nor are the colors or the fonts. Furthermore, people are behind her in one photo and the other photo has none.

We got Scooby-Doo over here solving mysteries. Really impressive.

 

[moonvine]

My biggest takeaway is that the sooner they give Chris a boot and replace him with Mark, the better. Having knowledgeable, researched commentary that was well placed was so good.

I LOVED his commentary.

 

[throw_triple_flip]

Just caught up on dance and pairs frees.. I think Green and Parsons have the best free dance out of all the senior American teams. And I love her dress.
I feel really bad for the Czech dance team, they did not comfortable out there. Wolfkostin and Tsarevski looked great- wasn't struck on the free earlier in the season but they nailed it here. Confused by the Shibutani's obsession with Coldplay.. Really hard to see them getting close to the medals at Nationals at this point. Fear and Gibson were excellent, deserved win for them. Final being in Japan is definitely going to give them a boost too.

With a cleaner skate could the Japanese pair have won here? Huge score. Sui and Han looking much better already and I was so impressed by how she saved that lift. The Hungarian team look like real contenders for a European medal.


Unrelated but the official handing out the mascots in the medals ceremonies makes me chuckle. He's so chatty!

 

[lariko]

The bets part for me is Samodelkina on the podium with Sakomoto and Hendrickx! Perfect debut! And she is skating with such a joy she reminds me juniors who just hit the JGP and are elated to be there.

 

[paulusfr]

A missed opportunity for Efimova/Mitrofanov, but hardly surprising.
So as I understand Kam and O'Shea need a 2nd at GP Finland with a score of 200,94 or above to qualify for the GPF. Otherwise it's going to be Pavlova and Sviatchenko.
Sui and Han are unlikely to make it, but overall they might be back in the game once they get more fit. They have some time and the judges' loyalty.

Yuna Aoki is the best performer out there. She will be missed on the circuit.

 

[lariko]

P/S challenge in pairs was even stronger this stage. They just need another growth period like before this season and I hope they'll catch their fire bird into the sack. Like, they feel on the cusp. Japanese are a bit father from it, but are also developing.