Chan v. Hanyu: 2015-16

[Silvia451]

I frankly don't put a lot of credence into age. Much of it has to do with conditioning. being injury free, attitude, and still loving the sport. I don't think you can count anybody out at this point in the elite group.

My thoughts exactly :agree2:


slightly off topic: Mao is at least 6 years older than Elena, Liza, Adelina, Evgenia etc

 

[4everchan]

hehe… exactly… this is what happens when people take some statistics, leaving others out and making them say whatever they want with them…. I am surprised Mr Rice hasn't mentioned his Maria yet in the age debate

Well, by that postulation, Hanyu is the only one of the Fab Four with one or two golden years left but will be past his prime by 2018, along with Jason Brown. Chan, Fernandez, and Ten are already old geezers. So are Murakami, Mura, Rippon, Dornbush, Miner, Voronov, Ge.........

Why aren't all the old geezers just withering away instead of hoarding the medals and the podium?

 

[4everchan]

ermmm as far as I know Patrick is asian too… your point being?

Actually Mr. Yagudin won Olympic when he was 21 years old 11 months, so we can count it as 22.
Mr. Fernández won his WC when he's 24 years old.
So I think golden years of the men is from 20 to 23 at max, with 22 being the best.
However Mr. Hanyu is Asian, so his growth might be different. As great as he was at NHK, he has yet to reached his full power. I think he will peak at the right time.

 

[tzazu]

This is very interesting for me to read. I can't say enough how much seeing skating live made a difference for me. In Fact, you can't see winks, smirks, and subtle movements on TV like you can in person. This may sound strange but, you can't "Feel" skating on TV. You could "Feel" the excitement when Tonya Harding skated in 1991. The applause was so loud that you could feel it in your body like a loud base speaker.

Maria B. was always pretty but, when you see her live you realize that she's not just pretty, she's a flirt, and they way she played with the judges is something you can't see on TV. Another very pretty, sexy skater was Cynthia Phaneuf. Alissa Czisny is another very pretty skater who was at the event with Cynthia. Finally, Jennifer Robinson, who unfortunately didn't skate well when I saw her, is one of prettiest skaters I've ever seen. Believe me...Live makes a HUGE difference.

And your opinion change HUGE when you see a skater that you really dislike or that you love after seing her/him/them skate live?:shocked: We're speaking about that, not about the emotion of watch it live. Of course I prefer to see it there, for that I go if I can

 

[Layback11]

And your opinion change HUGE when you see a skater that you really dislike or that you love after seing her/him/them skate live?:shocked: We're speaking about that, not about the emotion of watch it live. Of course I prefer to see it there, for that I go if I can

This happened a little for me with Evgenia Medvedeva. I thought she was boring until I saw her live and, while she's not one of my favorites, I can reasonably say I like her now. And I finally got a favorite man (for a long time I didn't pay attention to men's at all) when I saw Shoma live at Skate America. And most of the reason I love Karen Chen is because I saw her magnificent FS at Nationals in person. So it does make a difference, even if it never made me love any of my least-favorite skaters. (Probably because whoever they are, I've never seen them live, LOL.)

 

[tzazu]

I just want to say- I went to the Skate Canada free skates this year, and everyone came across pretty much how they seemed on TV. I really don't get the whole "See them live and it will change everything!!" crowd Like no... it really didn't. If anything, I think skating skills actually came across better on TV for me, since I can zoom into and concentrate on the feet when I'm watching on my laptop. I did really enjoy my first live skating experience though! (I remember thinking the amount of standing ovations were getting a bit out of hand but it was such a great experience to be surrounded by so many skating fans while watching skating!)

Also, have fun at GPF tzazu! :hap57:

I totally agree with you:agree2:, after seing live, I watch many performance once and again on my laptop, where I can appreciate many things.
And thank you, I'm travelling tomorrow to Barcelona and I'm really excited

 

[Violet Bliss]

I totally agree with you:agree2:, after seing live, I watch many performance once and again on my laptop, where I can appreciate many things.
And thank you, I'm travelling tomorrow to Barcelona and I'm really excited

Enjoy! And do as much reporting as you can please. Share your experience and insights with us the less fortunate.

 

[mrrice]

hehe… exactly… this is what happens when people take some statistics, leaving others out and making them say whatever they want with them…. I am surprised Mr Rice hasn't mentioned his Maria yet in the age debate

AGE DEBATE.......................WHAT!!!!!!!!! I need 50 pages ASAP!!

 

[m0001]

Hanyu's NHK performance would have me standing on my feet screaming "Bravo!", it was great, and his jumps are divine. He levitates over the ice on wings, he is flexible and a beautiful performer. He is also an admirable workhorse and a unique talent that is a rarity.

However, when it comes to moving me to tears, it's Patrick with or without his jumps.

Out there it's Patrick, his blades and the ice, nothing comes between them. He moves with such power, speed, grace, control, precision, definition you can see and hear the ice flying as he blazes through the curves he slices and etches on the ice. The camera simply can't catch up with him. His posture, line, body weight shifts, edges, everything...perfect. He has complete mastery and the ice is like the canvas upon which he carves his piece. He's not a performer *on* ice, the ice is his integral other half, where he toys with the forces of physics. It leaves me speechless to watch this and I pinch myself and say ok...this *is* figure skating.

I hardly even noticed his face, charisma or expressions, I forgot I'm watching Patrick Chan, I don't care if he's playing a character convincingly or if the music is Chopin or Vivaldi, I behold this Platonic ideal of ice skating I've always dreamt of.

It's like watching Brazil play in the World Cup, they might not beat teams like Germany or are endowed with movie stars looks like Beckham, but they make soccer "the beautiful game".

As an aside, I do wish Patrick would stop wearing grey with black like he did at SC - it makes his upper figure more of a blur against the white rink and his bodyline is unsatisfyingly cut off this way.:disapp:

It crossed my mind that with Jin, his insane quads, and Hanyu upping the ante with his jumps layout, Patrick might get knocked off the podium. However, as a sport, fair play needs to be applied - no shifting of goalposts in the middle of the game, not even when it's a young novice like Jin.

Say, if Patrick gets knocked off the podium, frankly I don't care too much about medals, I wish he would keep skating like Menshov, he doesn't have to jump quads, he just needs to skate the way he loves to skate, master of the ice.

Such a great article! Thanks so much qwertyskates!

 

[melmel]

I'm à Hanyu fan through and through because he id the skater who finally embodied what i daydreamed for years what my "perfect" skater would be : light, fast, flexible on ice and fearless going into the jumps and with almost unrealistic soft landings on jumps. There was also a very powerful emotional thing happening when i first wtched him : i was going through a very very dark time, and when i watched him it was like a soft wind had passed through me and made me forget all the bad thoughts and feelings for the duration of his program. And it happens everytime i watch him.

Chan is an excellent skater but it id hard for me to connect with him because i always end up with my eyes glued to his feet because it is where all the beauty is happening. Unfortunately he tends to go for too classical/standard choreographu and music to me. But that is myy taste, i always liked out of the box skaters.

Let me tell you thpugh how freaky excited i am go watch both of them live this week!

 

[Anastasi14]

Hmmm, I don' t know how many times people ask that question, like if seing somebody live could change something.

Actually, it could. It happened with me)
I haven't understood why Patrick gets such high marks for his PCS till the moment I saw him skating live. It was in Moscow 2011. Since then such question has never appeared in my mind again. The same thing with Kostner.

 

[gkelly]

With me it wasn't so much a matter of liking skaters better after seeing them live, but of understanding the results better. I started attending live competitions in 1994, and right away I noticed that speed/ice coverage and security had a much stronger effect live than on TV, that the impact of the actual skating could have more of an effect than which jumps were landed or how artistic the skater was.

For example, I saw Grishuk and Platov compete live twice early in their period of dominance over the rest of the field (1994 Olympics and 1995 Skate America). They weren't my favorite team aesthetically, but the way they covered the ice made it very obvious to me why they won. And I did find that effortless acceleration to be exhilarating to watch on its own merits. So I loved them for that, even if I preferred other teams for artistic reasons.

I have several other examples from the mid-90s. I haven't attended many elite competitions live more recently.

 

[MaxSwagg]

Actually, it could. It happened with me)
I haven't understood why Patrick gets such high marks for his PCS till the moment I saw him skating live. It was in Moscow 2011. Since then such question has never appeared in my mind again. The same thing with Kostner.

He has great skating skills. However, when comparing him to his contemporaries, Daisuke Takahashi should've been creaming him in choreography, interpretation, and performance.

 

[t.mann]

It's like watching Brazil play in the World Cup, they might not beat teams like Germany or are endowed with movie stars looks like Beckham, but they make soccer "the beautiful game".
......
......
Say, if Patrick gets knocked off the podium, frankly I don't care too much about medals, I wish he would keep skating like Menshov, he doesn't have to jump quads, he just needs to skate the way he loves to skate, master of the ice.

Beautiful post.

 

[Rissa]

It's like watching Brazil play in the World Cup, they might not beat teams like Germany or are endowed with movie stars looks like Beckham, but they make soccer "the beautiful game".

Off topic, I know, but did you watch Brazil play in the latest World Cup? Beautiful game it wasn't, lol.

 

[alia jackson]

^^^ I am very sad to see the Brazilian team of last two decades till now.

The beautiful game died 33 years ago on July 5, 1982. I watched it live as a kid on black&white TV, and was heartbroken and cried myself to sleep:sad21:. Had to get a medical cert from going to school the next day . The gods of 1982 and their brilliance....I love you Zico and Socrates :sad21:.

 

[asabarin]

Chan's skating seems boring to me. When he is in a rink, he just skates here and there. his upper body and face expression is always placid. Maybe his skating under his knees is really great. But what IMO he just skates with music. Other skaters make efforts to tell us stories no matter how their skills are, hanyu,uno and even boyang jin. they want to express themselves. But i can't feel that from Chan.
Some people say if Chan can clean his programs or get the generous pcs from judges then he can win. that's not true. it all depends on Hanyu from the beginning of this season. If Hanyu plays well, Chan has no chance even he does his best.
In this season, Chan's three SP programs all collapsed, where's his consistency? At some Asian forums, people are discussing whether Uno or Boyang Jin could stand on the podium. Hanyu and Javi are believed to get a medal. But Chan is dangerous.

However, Chan is a great skater just like Asada Mao. They can come back to the comptitions this season, they deserves the respect from audience.

 

[qwertyskates]

Sorry a bit OT...but the World Cup 2002 with Ronaldo and Ronaldhino was the one that came to mind. I knew the best players came even before, I haven't given up on Brazil yet! I'm going to look up 1982 on Youtube!

I think different fans like different aspects of figure skating, I'm a purist and minimalist, themeless, timeless skating appeal more to me, such as Patrick's FS where he incorporated modern dance movements to classical pieces, Brown's Prince SP, and the older Russians programs, eg Maria Butryskaya's 1999 SP...that was superb skating, so powerful, so daring yet so sexy, modern and ahead of its time!:agree: I don't see such sophistication in Ladies anymore...the Titanic? Really?

This is figure skating without distractions for me of costumes, narratives, acting, etc., the better to focus on the skating, technical superiority, musicality and personality of the skater, not a character he or she is portraying. This is terrifying, naked skating - either you are able to capture the audience's rapt attention with your quality and personality alone or you don't have a fig leaf to hide behind. Others may find the lack of narrative boring, of course, to each his or her own. I do enjoy on occasion a larger than life character portrayal but the skater needs to be fully in possession, and not a pale mimicry on ice.

 

[chuckm]

After the GPF SP, Chan is in 6th place, 40.34 points behind Hanyu, 20.91 points behind Fernandez, 16.34 points behind Jin, and 15.86 points behind Uno.

 

[Silvia451]

After the GPF SP, Chan is in 6th place, 40.34 points behind Hanyu, 20.91 points behind Fernandez, 16.34 points behind Jin, and 15.86 points behind Uno.

Yes he is, but...just don't do this I mean, he just had a bad day..a Yuzu-SC-SP moment.