Replay Lounge 2026 Olympics | Men
- Thread starter gsk8
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- Dec 27, 2024
Yeah but my question is: Wouldn't that have been the case anyway, if Ilia won?
Does he have better skating quality than Plushenko, Lycaseck (sorry if I mispelled him), Hanyu or Chen?
People have shared their grievances about the loss of good carriage, posture, speed, edges, transitions as the IJS continued to favour quad landings (no shoddy how they might have been- not Ilia, but other male skaters who cheat their jumps) and dismissed balanced skating.
When those criticism were laid out or penalised as in GPF 2024, Ari Zakarian went out and printed Ilia's protocol on a hoodie and sold it, and went on to call Ilia underscored.
I have nothing but utmost respect for his athletic abilities, but not much else.
As you mentioned, we had multi quadsters ever since... 2015 and before. Jin Boyang was not calling himself the Quad Lutz King (even if he rightfully could have.) Nathan Chen wasn't allowing press to pump out articles about how he was the greatest skater to have ever touched the ice- even when he now still holds the Short Program and Combined Total WR. Ilia was naming himself Quadgod before his first World Title even.
When you have media on standby to hail him as the best thing to have ever happened to figure skating as soon as he won gold - and everyone knew he was the overwhelming favourite; then the reaction going to the opposite when you can't deliver on the world's biggest stage is not a surprise.
It's not as if his Olympic run is over. He will be 25 in 2030, 29 in 2034. He is likely to be the best US Figure Skating is going to have for a good while- but dismissing everything his predecessors did- saying he was on the same level as two-time Olympic Gold medalists (be that Hanyu or Chen) after the GPF was going to invite scrutiny.
It is horrible that it had to end like this- you don't wish a skate like that on anybody at the Olympics. I could not sleep until 4am because my brain hadn't processed what I just watched. The 238 Free Skate score was ridiculous, but at that point I had just accepted that this is the way the sport would go.
My biggest beef is with whomever allowed Ari Zakarian to run amok. Quadgod merch, talking about how the Quad Axel would revitalise Ice Shows, still running comparisons with Hanyu even when he has gone professional, saying to the press that Ilia does the LEAST off ice-training out of all top contenders (why would you say something like that?!? you're just setting him up at that point). I have said it once and say it again. Having Ari Zakarian in your team is just cancer to your competitive spirit.
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2018
My unblushingly amateur ideas on the thread about limiting jumps (not in favour) to balance with artistry (in favour but some other way) notwithstanding, I can't see that any such changes would have made much difference here? Both the skater seen as artistically supreme at the minute and the one seen as technically so crumbled. Mikhail would have won simply as the last man (quite literally) standing...
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2025
Same, it bothers me a little bit that I don't have anything to rewatch multiple times. I loved Junhwan and I will probably watch his short again and again, but while his free was great, that one fall in it was so awkward it took him couple of seconds to untangle himself from the wall. It's like a sore spot you can't ignore, which is a real shame, because choreo and step sequence and everything in between was just lovely. Couldn't he fall normally?
Then I'd be happy to just ignore the fall and enjoy the rest as if nothing happened (I'm good at ignoring falls, sometimes I don't even remember if a skater has had any falls in a program; I consider it a very cool feature of mine)Turandot was supposed to be THE olympic moment and it didn't happen either. Although I actually thought Yuma skated with a lot of great flair and commitment (in between the moments of shock on how slippery the ice is, that is), but I think I'm in a minority here with that opinion.
Adam always has a potential for greatness, but well, not on that day.
Shun was better in team event.
The rest of the bunch - greatly underwhelming.
I guess we should be happy about a couple of great sp and also team event.
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- Joined
- Apr 6, 2025
What do you want us to say? That Shaidorov didn't deserve the gold and oh my goodness this is THE END of figure skating, the ultimate DEATH OF BEAUTY in pursuit of mindless jumping and we should take away the OGM from him or better yet CANCEL THE WHOLE EVENT because IT'S NOT WORTH WATCHING??
Come on. We all know Shaidorov is not a great skater. He didn't win because of his killer edges and complex footwork. And on top of that, we have another thread running for months now, where we discuss if quads are in the way of "artistry". You can't blame a skater for playing the game.
The main difference between him and Ilia is that with Shaidorov no one is trying to convince us he is an awesome skater and not just jumping bean. My problem with Ilia was not with Ilia himself (even though I'm not a fan of his approach - he can be whoever he wants to be and I am allowed to not like that version of himself he decided to present to us), but with scoring, judging and PR push. His PCS went from reasonable to basically perfect after one off-season. And his skating is far from perfect. Various people are trying to convince me he is now such an artist and I don't even know what that means. Ari Zakarian is not doing him aby good either.
The fact that Ilia was jumping a lot and not skating a lot was not a big problem. It's perfectly reasonable way to win competitions, even though some fans don't like it. The problem was the judging.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
Mikhail Shaidorov is not the worst skater of all time. He is not an albatross around the neck of figure skating, dragging the sport down to the depths of oblivion. Good grief! He competed at the Olympic Games and won a gold medal. On that day he was higher, faster, stronger than anyone else. Good for him!
Oh well. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Welcome to the loving arms of figure skating fandom ("the leeche's kiss, the squid's embrace") .
Water. Duck's back. That's the ticket.
Oh well. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Welcome to the loving arms of figure skating fandom ("the leeche's kiss, the squid's embrace") .
Water. Duck's back. That's the ticket.
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Of course he isn't. He kept it together, and showed himself to be a competitor on a night filled with skaters who couldn't keep it together. One may argue that figure skating is already in the depths of oblivion, through no fault of his own - nor anyone else who skated here - and they'd probably be right.
My pedantic nature is my own beyond that.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2017
And he has a 4CC gold. Silver at both junior and senior Worlds.
Anyway, coming back to the skating that happened here. Shaidorov got 84 PCS almost, for his skating here. It's entirely undeserved for him to be only 3 points behind Cha - that's a clear "quad bonus" that was given to him. Cha was even the skater who'd skated right before him, so it's not like the judges were all too pleased to be finally seeing one good skate or something.
I expect this to only increase next season (if he skips worlds). If people thought such and such with a world title and then two had too much of a boost - then Olympic Champions are going to have a much bigger boost.
I expect this to only increase next season (if he skips worlds). If people thought such and such with a world title and then two had too much of a boost - then Olympic Champions are going to have a much bigger boost.
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2007
Why are people so awful? If it’s so easy then let them do it.
This is exactly what I mean. "Somehow" all the people who were so critical of Malinin's skating for so long - well they're celebrating him having a disastrous skate, being absolutely hideous online, and "somehow" all their concerns vanished with our winner here.
Even in the SP, how many were simply focused on Malinin's PCS, and not that Kagiyama got too high scores despite a mistake?
Even with the Team Event, he was treated absolutely horribly online. Yeah he's overscored. Guess what, he's still got more skill than the person who overall won here who also barely got a PCS disadvantage compared to the skater who won that score.
Quite a lot of those people are not just happy, but proud. I congratulate them and their 100% realistic concern with the quality of skating for the past four years.
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2025
That could be true. To be honest, I was fully expecting the crazy PCS and GOE bonus to start after he landed that 3a+4sal for the first time. But then to my surprise it didn't really happen. And there wasn't even too much noise about making history with new combos and what not.
Now we'll have to wait and see how it goes.
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2025
I feel like you are fighting with smoke and imaginary problems. Online hate is not cool, are you upset Shaidorov doesn't get enough hateful messages in comparision to Ilia? And are we sure those haters of Ilia are actually on this forum? Because I wouldn't say so, honestly. At least I don't see anyone here celebrating Ilia having the worst skate of his career. And if you have opinions on Kagiyama and others and their PCS, you can always talk about it, start a thread, say what you mean instead of complaining that no one is talking about it.
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- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
Really? Speculation about what might happen if this skater were to be magically transported back in time "says something?"
The reality is that he wasn't.
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2018
Especially given that the scoring system was so different that they declared the WRs at the end of 2017-18 as 'historic' and fixed.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
This is how I think it will go. If someone can do a 3A+quad combo, then surely we are about to enter the quad/quad era. Get ready to crown someone the Quad-squared Emperor next year (I got dibs on the Q2E t-shirt concession.)
This wil allow the skaters to out-flank the ISU once again if they cut back on the number of jumping passes. If they allow only four jumping passes, a skater could do 3 quad-quad combos and a 3A-quad = 7 quads in all.
Will this have any effect on PCSs? Probably about the same as now. Skaters will tend to get higher PCSs for programs that contain hard elements than for programs that don't, skaters will tend to get higher GOEs on hard elements than on easier ones of similar quality.
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- Joined
- Dec 20, 2022
Ilia was on today wearing his olymoic team gold medal.
They show statements by Tara Lipinski and Scott Hamilton that backpeddled on their claims of him prior to olympics.
They added how one moment shouldn't define him.
Wow amazing of all the times they claim their ogm is their defining moment and career defining one.
How they label other skaters when they didn't win.
an oGm is never a defining moment.
It a great moment in their life but not defining
They show statements by Tara Lipinski and Scott Hamilton that backpeddled on their claims of him prior to olympics.
They added how one moment shouldn't define him.
Wow amazing of all the times they claim their ogm is their defining moment and career defining one.
How they label other skaters when they didn't win.
an oGm is never a defining moment.
It a great moment in their life but not defining
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2019
I would also like to point out that in the days when musical copyright has become a huge and increasingly contested issue for figure skaters, the Kazakhstani singer whose song Shaidorov used is all the way behind the figure skater and is buying Shaidorov a car. I know, I know, nobody loved that music, but what a way to give a high five and embrace the figure skater from Kazakhstan! All and all, Shaidorov's gold is full of positive things and 'that's the way to do it, peeps' for me.
I hope this will trailblaze the cooperation between musicians and skaters. Skaters and skating teams have choreographers. Maybe it's time they have musicians as well.
I hope this will trailblaze the cooperation between musicians and skaters. Skaters and skating teams have choreographers. Maybe it's time they have musicians as well.
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2018
To be fair, the Diva Dance was actually written by French composer Eric Serra so he would (also?) have copyright rights. I wonder if he watched it? - given that it was written to be unsingable, for him to see it win the Olympics....
