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To me, Nathan Chen's skating skills always looked wonderful the times that I saw him in person, even in exhibitions and just fooling around in practices and warm-ups. I have not seen Ilia Malinin skate in person, so I have to rely on TV, which, for me, makes it harder to judge and evaluate.

Frankly I am not enraged that Malinin got a 9.0. that Chen got a 9.5 or that Hanyu got a 10.0 on the "second mark.". Good for them!
 
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noskates said:
Wow. Instead of celebrating a skater who is bringing the sport ahead in leaps and bounds (and jumps) y'all are criticizing everything from when he started skating to every little inch of his programs. Tell me who can beat him? And don't give me the bull you-know-what that the judges are all in his favor. Those judges don't have the luxury of replaying programs over and over for days on end and examining every little nuance and then coming in here and trashing everything. Can't we just sit back and enjoy the fact that he's besting everybody who steps on the ice with him? Can't we just enjoy the fact that he's extremely consistent, has more jumps in his repertoire than anyone else currently competing, and his programs aren't warhorses. This is a TOUGH crowd! I find this diminishing of Ilia and his accomplishments AND his ability to be a very sad reflection of some skating fans. And while I'm on a roll - to think that Piper and Paul have totally removed themselves from contention for an Olympic medal after ONE competition (that they won, by the way) to be extremely ludicrous. I know alot of posters love to have contentious conversations and display their so-called knowledge of figure skating, but please don't be mean about it. In the end, these skaters are doing the best they can and deserve some respect.
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He? So you don't mean Mone Chiba who's been attacked for days because of one judging error in her favor while she was enough underscored in Components to compensate? Who can you mean then? I see nobody bringing the sport ahead by leaps and bounds and jumps, the sport is rather drowning; and I see nobody nitpicking on any male skater who would have had very little in matter of uncalled errors or any other overscoring?
 
lariko said:
Both Miura and Selevko outskated Aymoz and Tomono in PCSs in Saskatchewan. Reputation skating extends to PCSs expectations as well. Aymoz at best looked drab and slow with some ridiculous choreo -- at some point he was looking like a swimming instructor showing breaststroke, lol, Tomono looked fast and senseless, not letting music do anything for you and lyrics went down even worse for him (kudos for experimenting though). If Miura brought his best legs with him and Selevko didn't wipe the ice on 4S they should have had scores closer to Malinin, not Malinin should have had lower scores than he had.

I fully and wholeheartedly agree with the marks judges awarded Ilia Malinin in Saskatchewan. They are lower than Chen's or Hanyu's or Uno's, but they reflect his level compared to other competitors there. If a judge really likes him, he gets a low 9, if they don't, for a skate like he had in Saskatchewan mid to high 8s is right. He was fluid, fast, sure on his feet and committed to his program every moment.
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If you mean that you don't like their programs, I must confess that I don't like Kévin Aymoz' Bolero either, I've never liked Béjart's choreography (and another thread here tries to define what's an Olympic program, I would say that in spite of the popularity of the music, a program choreographed after Maurice Béjart is very unlikely to make crowds enthusiastic, and there's the costume on top of that); but we have to admit that he was a real choreographer and in fact a genius, and that Kévin Aymoz' skates reflect as well as possible his choreography of Bolero.

I would very much prefer if nobody would drag Yuzuru Hanyu in a comparison with such a skater's Components. At best, his jumps.
I think that a comparison with the competitors here would result severe enough, all the most as they have been scored much lower.
 
Mathman said:
To me, Nathan Chen's skating skills always looked wonderful the times that I saw him in person, even in exhibitions and just fooling around in practices and warm-ups. I have not seen Ilia Malinin skate in person, so I have to rely on TV, which, for me, makes it harder to judge and evaluate.

Frankly I am not enraged that Malinin got a 9.0. that Chen got a 9.5 or that Hanyu got a 10.0 on the "second mark.". Good for them!
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I'm sorry Mathman, you seem to have again a problem of memory but as you're watching more programs than I do, that's understandable. It's Nathan Chen who would have 10s, since his arrival on the stage (2016-2017) Yuzuru Hanyu started to be underscored, and he ceased to receive high Component scores, in spite of progressing so much on his already being the best; and becoming the best in every criterium so there's no room for any "special weighing" that would apply to all.

I'm delighted that you liked his Skating Skills. I've had only TV and as we say in France, in reference to horse races, "there was no photo" (no need to resort to photo to see the winner). People I saw who had watched both, said that Yuzuru Hanyu was even more impressive live, this is maybe why so many want to watch his shows. Of course as we're speaking of this time, Yuzuru Hanyu has to be mentioned. Here's a very easy to watch analysis of just one criterium because it's "speaking" with such an analysis, but everything was on par, and you have the state of their programs before the great championships, which is more advantageous to Nathan Chen (on the reverse, Yuzuru Hanyu made Rondo even more difficult and "first ever" at the Olympic Games) (the sound button is up at right, not always apparent, one may have to scroll a bit):
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Thread by @roselinewinte10 on Thread Reader App

@roselinewinte10: [Thread: Transitions Analysis – Top 5 Men SP of season 2021-22] (in collaboration with @lunnarias) Everyone is judged with the same standards. The latest, cleanest versions of SP were used to annot...…
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noskates said:
I respect your right to have an opinion - or many opinions - but I don't agree with you. It almost sounds like you really don't enjoy figure skating so much because there's so much wrong with it. Sad.
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I'm really sorry for making you sad; there are in fact many skaters I enjoy to watch, even when they have some things wrong. For those among them who are chronically overscored, it's difficult to forget it when watching them, I would enjoy watching them much more if they weren't overscored, but still. I still remember how I loved Alyssa Liu's return — and that dress! — until I saw the scores. There are people who manage not to watch them, I don't. Regarding Kévin Aymoz, I dislike only this program of his! And by the way, Shoma Uno's Bolero was worse yet I generally love his skates.
 
lariko said:
Also, to fact check the 'overscored in PCSs' statements, Malinin's only top ten PCSs score is in a short program, and he is in 10th place, despite being a world champion twice.
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That means absolutely nothing. Actually, it proves the overscoring. Ilia Malinin being judged as having one of the top 10 most artistic programs ever? What a joke.
 
noskates said:
Wow. Instead of celebrating a skater who is bringing the sport ahead in leaps and bounds (and jumps) y'all are criticizing everything from when he started skating to every little inch of his programs. Tell me who can beat him? And don't give me the bull you-know-what that the judges are all in his favor. Those judges don't have the luxury of replaying programs over and over for days on end and examining every little nuance and then coming in here and trashing everything. Can't we just sit back and enjoy the fact that he's besting everybody who steps on the ice with him? Can't we just enjoy the fact that he's extremely consistent, has more jumps in his repertoire than anyone else currently competing, and his programs aren't warhorses. This is a TOUGH crowd! I find this diminishing of Ilia and his accomplishments AND his ability to be a very sad reflection of some skating fans. And while I'm on a roll - to think that Piper and Paul have totally removed themselves from contention for an Olympic medal after ONE competition (that they won, by the way) to be extremely ludicrous. I know alot of posters love to have contentious conversations and display their so-called knowledge of figure skating, but please don't be mean about it. In the end, these skaters are doing the best they can and deserve some respect.
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Well said and right on target @noskates
 
By the way, I would like to state for the record that I had seen all men mentioned in this thread live, some of them multiple times, and I ONLY speak from the live experience, because the television does not convey things accurately. I also often saw them next to each other in practice, because I attend basically all practices when I attend a competition. I especially want to emphasize that I had seen Aymoz in 2018 and now, and he had faded a lot over the years as I compare my impressions between back then and now. Skaters do not deliver the same level of PCSs, energy, charisma and brilliance between performances. Aymoz received a placement he deserved in Saskatoon, and it wasn't simply because he couldn't jump. He performed poorly, particularly next to most other men in his warm up group.
 
Good grief, is this nonsense still going on?

Here's the breakdown. Malinin absolutely kicked everyone's tail in Canada, and the scores reflected that. And if you're worried that your favorite skater would have also gotten his tail kicked had he been there, you're right to worry, because he would have.

He's read the rulebook. He knows where the points are. He chases them to the best of his ability. And guess what? So does every other competitive figure skater. He's just better at doing it, and the other men know it. Yuma ain't working on that quad flip because he thinks it's artistic.

And you don't like his style. Well, OK. There are plenty of us who DO like men who skate with athleticism and originality combined with that undefinable electric quality that few skaters bring to the ice. When he skates, nobody is taking a bathroom break.

"It's just a jump-fest." Give me a break. Name me a major competitive skater who opens his program with a spin or footwork sequence. They ALL start their programs with jumps, as they did before Ilia Malinin hit the scene. Many of them open with four jumping passes. And after the halfway point? It's three straight jumping passes for nearly ALL of them.

And this insane "that looked like half the jumps were q to me" while watching on your little screen from home, while there is a panel of international judges right there watching it live as it occurs mere feet away, throwing +4. Could they miss one? Sure. Could they miss 5? Really? He did get q here, and he famously got many at GPF, so it's not like the judges are afraid to ding him when merited.

He's young. He's a little brash and has perhaps sports a bit too much swagger. OK, time will fix that, as it does for all of us. And one thing that time has taught me is that when anyone in any endeavor succeeds, there is a contingent of couch-sitters ready to minimize or dismiss the achievements.

Like it or not, he's transforming the sport. His competitors are looking at him, reacting to him. They're chasing him, because he is the indisputable leader right now. He's remaking the men's discipline to his liking. It's what champions do, so loosen up on those pearls you're clutching, or you'll snap the string.

Could things change? Yes, it's the nature of sport, the nature of competitive pressure. His next event may be a full-on Kevin Aymoz style meltdown. He may stumble under Olympic pressure - he certainly wouldn't be the first favorite to do that. Someone may emerge with new content and a more competitive mindset. We never know. It's what makes the sport worth watching.
 
Ilia is great and fully deserves all of his wins, but that doesn't mean he doesn't get a sizeable bump in his PCS score because he is an elite jumper. He clearly does just like almost every other elite jumper since the ISJ was introduced. Last year he was getting basically the same PCS score as Kagiyama or Jason Brown got when they went clean. In GPF he even got 10s for presentation and composition and 9.75 for skating skills from one of the judges of the short program.
 
Demandred said:
Ilia is great and fully deserves all of his wins, but that doesn't mean he doesn't get a sizeable bump in his PCS score because he is an elite jumper. He clearly does just like almost every other elite jumper since the ISJ was introduced. Last year he was getting basically the same PCS score as Kagiyama or Jason Brown got when they went clean. In GPF he even got 10s for presentation and composition and 9.75 for skating skills from one of the judges of the short program.
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Fine. He gets good PCS. This is a Skate Canada thread. Who among all the lackluster, unoriginal, paint-by-number flailing and flopping and falling programs presented here by the men (at least in the free) deserved higher PCS? "He won the PCS by nine points OMG!" Honestly, considering what else was on offer, the qap was too small.
 
TontoK said:
Fine. He gets good PCS. This is a Skate Canada thread. Who among all the lackluster, unoriginal, paint-by-number flailing and flopping and falling programs presented here by the men (at least in the free) deserved higher PCS? "He won the PCS by nine points OMG!" Honestly, considering what else was on offer, the qap was too small.
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I'd have had Selevko first in PCS. Even with the fall him being 8.5 behind Ilia in PCS was absurd to me.
 
TontoK said:
Did I miss something? Were they there for everyone else and then got up and left when he took the ice?
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No. This would be taking a bathroom break indeed.
They chose not to turn up at all, neither for him, nor for anyone else.
Just so much for his drawing power as the new dominant leader of the sport.
 
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