So you are saying some of Michelle's (the actual one with the skating skill ability)
This is the part of a hater post where I stop reading. Please make a note of this to save yourself time in the future.
I think there's still reputation scoring in CoP.
There certainly is, but the judges hands are more tied now. Elements are elements and now they're all assigned points, which add up. Fudging the numbers only does so much now. Not that they don't try their hardest to fudge numbers, of course. But the negative result is that the soul has been sucked out of the sport. All to hinder cheating, rather than actually expose or create oversight to stop it.
Moreover, I think that if Michelle and Sasha had grown up under CoP, they'd have trained for it and flourished under it
I'd say Michelle "managed" under CoP while Sasha did quite well compared to her 6.0 performance, since under CoP her chronic falls didn't necessarily end her chances in any given program. I'm looking and the only major competition I can find Michelle skated under CoP was '05 Worlds where she finished 4th with 200.19, just behind Carolina Kostner with 200.56, Sasha 214.39 and Irina 222.71. I could have sworn she won her last nationals under CoP but wikipedia lists it as 6.0.
I always think back to the 2002 Olympics ladies free, with the quote "but she wasn't CLEAN, Scott!" That quote echoes in my head every time I watch a skater blow jumps or have ugly falls and walk away with gold under CoP (sometimes casually strolling away with the gold, even after 2 huge mistakes) simply because they earned enough points on other jumps and elsewhere (whether fairly or not) to quite literally pay for their mistakes. Sasha walked away with the OSM in 06 after 2 huge mistakes. I do not believe that could have been the case under 6.0. I guess skaters could have coasted to silver under 6.0 with 2 big mistakes, but in that instance I don't know.
Clean... used to mean something. It has no relevance in and of itself now. If you have an identical program to your competitor other than one double axel where you landed on your butt, you'd always win under CoP, since even the butt-landed 2A counted for something more than the paltry -1.0 deduction for a fall. Still boggles my mind that it's only -1.0 for a fall under CoP. There needs to be some kind of escalating penalty ... not sure, but -1.0 for something that visually wrecks a program is a joke and an utter travesty. The continuing divide between the huge point loss for UR and the smaller point loss for a fall is like a knife in the belly of the sport. The audience is just never going to accept it.
if (all other things being equal) Michelle had been able to work with those two today, she'd have had splendid results, given her great skating skills, her work ethic, and her coolness under pressure. Sasha's limberness would have shown up in her great spins, and her general excellence (leaving out her less stellar stroking and suchlike) would have carried her through also, I imagine.
Ignoring Michelle's age & injuries, I was under the impression that she simply never had very high jump difficulty. I know she lost the OGM in '98 due to Tara's much better jump difficulty. This lack of jump difficulty was often made up for in other areas under 6.0 (fairly or unfairly...) but I think that this would not be nearly as possible under CoP. If I'm wrong on that, feel free to correct me. But if I'm right, I think the lack of difficult jump combos would have precluded her from much real success under CoP, just like it precludes many others now. And why we see strings of skaters in the lower ranks / early groups falling on their face trying to do jumps they're incapable of, since without attempting those jumps they have no chance of even being relevant.
The truth is that in American skating, we probably need another Michelle. That's what the Japanese skaters and YuNa are: they are Michelles in terms of their excellence (though each has a different combination of traits to add up to that excellence).
Again, I don't think it's humanly possible to have Michelle Kwan consistency with the technical difficulty required now. Yuna Kim is the closest we've seen to that kind of superhuman ability, but look at how short her run was. (I also persist in the belief that while Yuna was a genuine phenom, her scores were quite often inflated, unless someone can prove to me how they weren't.) And I would not put ANY of the japanese ladies anywhere near the league of Michelle Kwan in terms of consistency. Mao may be "back", but she had seasons so bad people questioned whether she was washed up.
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About Gold, I just want to post that I watched her live for the first time at 4cc. She was amazing. Her jumps had a lot of height and distance, probably the best in ladies. Her new gala program is very emotional and she should perform more programs like that. Good luck to her at London Worlds.
