Replay Lounge 2026 Olympics | Women

[R.D.]

Man, I was curious to see what was going to happen here, especially after seeing what happened last year in Boston, but have to say I was not quite expecting this result...

Glenn - she almost had it.....again! But it was enough for a very respectable 5th place finish. Goes to show it's certainly not over till it's over.

Levito - I think she seemed a bit off her game here - but it's good experience if she plans to stick around for another cycle.

Petrosian - I was wondering if she was going to hit that quad(!!!) but alas, Olympic pressure strikes again. When I heard she was going to compete I figured she certainly had the ability to play spoiler if she brought it. Then again, it's quite a big stage to be thrust into when you've been competing nationally all up to this point.

Chiba - Like in Boston, solid skater and I think she flies under the radar somewhat. However, I think she had a chance and just one too many little mistakes here and there added up...

Liu - I'm not sure if I've ever seen a skater so carefree and unburdened, especially not on a stage like this. Being on that next level of competitive toughness seems to be incredibly rare. You could tell she truly did not care about the result, she just wanted to skate and then let the chips fall. That was reflected in her skate and THAT ended up being the difference. US skating finally gets a ladies Olympic medalist - an Olympic champion - after 20+ long years! I think she will inspire many in the younger gen to follow in her footsteps...

Sakamoto - Solid, although perhaps a bit tentative, somewhat lacking her usual spark in my opinion. She looked very tense before she took the ice...and I saw that reflected in the skate. Definitely felt some extra pressure after Liu's skate. But she still had a chance until the end...she hits that 3-3 and she (probably) would have won...

Nakai - the next young phenom (along with Petrosian). Someone to watch, I'd say. Strangely enough, I think one could make a case that she should have been 2nd and Sakamoto 3rd. I'd probably lean towards that myself. She really brought the tech and was just edged out due to her own slip ups and Liu's performative edge. In the same vein, I think her tech should have had her just ahead of Sakamoto, especially given the latter's mistake on the 3-3.

 

[Janice4th]

I looked for it. Frankly the placement was correct for the short.

 

[Jhar55]

Ladies was wonderful tonight, a somewhat surprising had Sakamoto to take gold. Was really surprised Amber finished in 5th after being down in 13th place.
In end happy with results
Congratulations to all the skaters and all hard work they did just making an Olympic Team

 

[skatedreamer]

Just saw a replay of Alyssa's skate. Yup, NBC/Peacock bleeped out the f-bomb.

I don't blame them for doing that but will still cut Alyssa some slack. In the heat of the moment with all that excitement and adrenaline overload...well...sometimes stuff just happens.

 

[Blades of Passion]

her skating program is not as intricate as others

Alysa's program was not intricate. It was also slower and had shallower edges and less extension than Ami's program. It was somewhat more seasoned on a performance level, but hardly a masterful display of moving to disco music. And she had 2 years of skating the same programs, but there was no further refinement.

What's also disappointing is that while Alysa has more personality than Eteri skaters, her jump technique is similarly flawed. Of course she's consistent, with those heavy pre-rotations. She likely wouldn't be so consistent if she had to jump with cleaner technique. I'm not even talking about totally textbook technique. I'm talking about how her Lutz turns MORE than 1/2 on the entrance (and of course her Toeloop).

 

[skatedreamer]

I think I'm figure skated out, at least for the next few weeks.

 

[yfan1]

Ami is not someone I cared about going into these Olympics, but she gave career best performances and rose to the occasion.

Yes. Sorry to say and to be a bit snarky, Michelle Kwan finally beat Tara Lipinski Because Nakai's skating was the same kind of jubilant as Lipinski in Nagano.

 

[4everchan]

STRUCTURAL OBSERVATIONS

A. Panel Assignment​

The ISU's decision not to assign Rosenstein to the FS panel was the single most consequential structural factor in the women's event.

​

Thank you for sharing chatGPT's analysis ... however, it's hard for me to trust much about it because already, it has a flaw on the rules of judging panels.

The ISU didn't decide not to assign the US judge to the FS panel. It was done by a draw. So it's just not accurate of a statement.
If chatGPT is not aware of basic rules, how can they make such in depth analysis ?

When they are counting deviation and what not, are they aware that the highest and lowest scores are dropped ?

When they are looking at anti-rival biases... I was surprised to see names in there that in theory are not at all contenders. Why would a judge have a national bias against a Korean skater or even Petrokina ? I mean, it was very unlikely from the get go that one of these skaters would be a factor in the rankings.

My analysis here is that chatGPT decided that skaters who were close to one another may have suffered from an anti-rival biases... but the reality is that I doubt that there was an anti-rival bias here because the rival identified by AI are not "direct rivals"

In any case, I am always interested of seeing anyone's analysis, even AI analysis but I doubt that there is much to find here other than some judges did have different tastes and that nobody was harmed in the process. I didn't think the rankings in the SP were wrong at all. I haven't seen the LP yet but from looking at protocols, it looks to me that Kaori sealed her own result by not being able to tag a combo on her second triple flip and she lost her points there... End of story. As much as I love Kaori and as much as I believe that she's a better skater than anyone else on the planet right now, I don't think it would have been justified to rank her first... so I am glad it didn't happen.

Congrats to Alysa, Kaori and Ami.

 

[rollerblade]

so similar to ice dance, i also asked ChatGPT re: whether any judges and their nationalistic bias made a statistically significant impact on the ranking...

I'm surprised your AI answers did not come with an ad.

 

[rollerblade]

Well yeah, but everyone posts everything else here why not that? LOL

https://skatingscores.com/2526/oly/sr/women/i/long/tss/

Too long didn't click: Judge 8 Vessela Popova BUL

 

[moonvine]

Thank you for sharing chatGPT's analysis ... however, it's hard for me to trust much about it because already, it has a flaw on the rules of judging panels.

The ISU didn't decide not to assign the US judge to the FS panel. It was done by a draw. So it's just not accurate of a statement.
If chatGPT is not aware of basic rules, how can they make such in depth analysis ?

They can’t. I don’t trust AI for anything.

 

[yfan1]

It's really frustrating to see someone like Mone try to jump with more spring and without excessive pre-rotation on the second part of the combo, and then just because she has a tighter landing edge they call it as being 1/4 short, when it's not.

BTW am I completely off-base that this has been happening for a while now, for both men and women. I clearly seem to remember both Jin and Hanyu getting "<" calls on jumps that looked perfectly fine on the landing in terms of rotation, rotated less on take-off before getting up than others, got more height than others, but judges only looked at them landing too low in the knee or a bit too flat on the edge, clearly decided they were 'saving' the landing, and gave the < call. I think it was 4T and 4S for them respectively.

The (!) calls on flips that take off on slight inside edges but ignoring blatant flutzes also has been happening for a while. Even though a Flip is fine on shallow inside edge, whereas a flat or inside edge for a Lutz is a major error when textbook Lutzes go off deep outside edges...

 

[Livi]

She wasn’t perfect and her skating program is not as intricate as others. She is great at selling it, though, and she has an incredible career ahead of her.

Yes you're right but her free can't be 9th, she could take the 5th or 4th free without problem, I think she deserved better components

 

[yfan1]

Yes you're right but her free can't be 9th, she could take the 5th or 4th free without problem, I think she deserved better components

She did, IMO, she actually deserved the highest Performance component of the night - her glide across the ice was better than Alysa's, and that really added to the overall impression. Skating skill also better than Alysa, and composition was about equal. The mistake is made up for by the 3A!

It's actually probably Mone who deserved the highest PCS here - second highest skating skill score (behind Kaori), highest composition score, and while her performance could be better, it was still a polished performance.

I get the other posters here, I too thought Alysa deserved it when I was just fresh off the final group. Not to mention, she beyond question has the best SP of the entire quadrennial. But I do think her PCS are a bit too high, and it's just true that she was let away for her 3Lz+3T<

 

[DancingCactus]

What a great event overall! So many interesting, non-cookie cutter, well skated programs and so many by women in their 20s, not teens.

I also hope Alysa is going to continue not giving a f**k about being a perfect ice princess. She is a modern woman with personality.

 

[Blades of Passion]

BTW am I completely off-base that this has been happening for a while now, for both men and women.

Well there's always been a problem with underrotation calls, because the panels are not properly trained to measure the rotation of jumps and there's never even been a set rule about how to measure rotation.

But this problem of landings automatically getting called if there's any imperfection in the rotation at all is a more recent thing. In the past it was more of a reputation judging thing, which of course still happens, but now we additionally have this crap of a 'q' being frivolously given anywhere possible if it seems like there's a jitter or some amount of turn on the landing. As if it's not totally normal for jumps to exhibit a turn on the ice when they land.

The 'q' needs to be removed from the judging system. It's done absolutely nothing to improve the sport or anyone's jump technique. What we need are calls for excessive pre-rotation, so that people have to fix their spindly new-age jump technique, and what's also needed at this point is a "no pre-rotation" call, so that people who do the Lutz and Flip without cheating the rotation can be rewarded for it.

 

[yfan1]

But this problem of landings automatically getting called if there's any imperfection in the rotation at all is a more recent thing.

I actually clearly remember it happening at worlds 2018 with Jin's 4T in the SP, and Hanyu's 4S at 2019 worlds in the LP. So really depends on the definition of "recent"

 

[Dr. Jenn]

I finally got to see some of the women's FS performances, as Channel 9 (Australia) replayed them this evening. Here are my thoughts:

-Adeliia: I don't want to sound rude, as she seems like a nice girl, and she was under immense pressure and handled it pretty well, but I honestly don't see what the hype is around her. Other than the fact that she can do a quad (but didn't do it successfully here), the rest of her skating seems mid-level to me. Her jumping technique is not great, she's not an exceptional spinner, she doesn't perform very well, and she seems to skate slowly, with a lack of ice coverage.
-Mone: Seeing her perform directly after Adeliia was a study of contrasts in terms of skating skills. Mone is so impressive in that domain! She's very well-rounded as a skater, with great basics and lovely speed and flow across the ice. I found her performance a bit subdued here though, until the latter part of her program, and some of her jumps appeared under-rotated in real time.
-Alysa: She's the only skater of those whom I saw who actually performed throughout her entire program. She's so refreshing as a skater, in a variety of ways, and I always feel like I can trust her when she skates. I can't remember when I last saw her fall or make any sort of egregious mistake. She's just so reliable! I love her verve and joyful reaction to her skate. She's also one of the most impressive spinners in the field, a point that I don't feel gets mentioned enough - Her spins are fast, well centered, and have lovely positions.
-Kaori: She is definitely the grande dame of the field, with the best skating skills and speed. It's a shame that her 3F was forward so that she couldn't do a combination. Otherwise, she skated very well. I completely understand why she selected the programs that she did this year, but I do prefer edgy Kaori. Congratulations to her on a most impressive career!
-Ami: She has such a pleasant presence on the ice and genuinely seems to love skating. As with Mone and Kaori, she has excellent skating skills, speed, and flow. It's too bad that she had some jumping issues, but I'm very pleased that she hung on for the bronze medal. I found her reaction at the end of the program to be very endearing. I also loved her interactions with Alysa once she figured out that she was third overall, as well as all the interactions amongst the three medallists, who are all wonderful ambassadors for the sport.

 

[freedomlover]

My only issue is that I think both Sakamoto and Nakai, but Nakai specifically should have had a bigger SP lead.
If a 3A, Lutz-Toe and 3Lo as well as everything being level 4 don't break 80 anymore then what does?

 

[yfan1]

My only issue is that I think both Sakamoto and Nakai, but Nakai specifically should have had a bigger SP lead.
If a 3A, Lutz-Toe and 3Lo as well as everything being level 4 don't break 80 anymore then what does?

She doesn't deserve 80 - even a 75 level skate really should be considered to be something like Mao Asada's SP at 2014 worlds. Or if people want to be even more specific, then at least up until 2010 there used to be that additional spiral sequence, so at least rewarding it to a particularly fantastic women's SP back then made sense.

Compared to Asada's SP, if you were to give her 9 on SS, 8.5 on transitions and 9.5 for the other three components, that adds up to 36.8 PCS. Nobody here deserved more, and she'd decidedly deserve to outscore them on the step sequence GOE as well.