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That's probably true, but I do not think it good or inevitable. What I long for is a scoring system that incorporates different cultural angles on performance and PCS, and judges who are trained accordingly to be able to go beyond the limits of their own cultural background so that e.g. Japanese skaters do not feel forced to comply with the Anglo-Saxon take on "emoting" or "connecting to the audience" to gain points in a manner which is just foreign to their own culture. This cultural favouritism is just so outdated in the world in which diversity, pluralism and respect for differences are the values which matter most.
I absolutely agree. You can't ignore the fact that in some parts of the world the ideal of a young man is modest, obedient, not showing his personality, not talking about his feelings (this applies to Asia as a whole). In other parts of the world, bright, able to show themselves, people with a bright personality are more valued. This cannot help but affect the presentation of any material by an athlete. Compare the presentation of classical music by the same Kostornaya (with her terrible character, but absolute brightness on the ice) and any Korean figure skater. The Russian viewer falls asleep at the first seconds of the Korean woman's performance because it is not bright enough for them. Perhaps for people who grew up in a different culture, on the contrary, such a spectacle is a kind of cultural benchmark, and Kostornaya's dance to Vivaldi is too assertive, while the American style may seem too rough. Those are differences, that's what it is, and you can't just ignore it.
These skaters with the vibrant personalities on ice. They worked hard at it. That's probably why we talk about geniuses or at any rate outstanding athletes.
But exactly, obviously they are just great in channeling emotions and connecting to the audience, no doubt about that. And audiences respond to that in a huge way, no doubt about that. Yet despite, because they use sometimes different means of expression which in many cases is culture related, they do not tick all the boxes in the PCS scoring system, or rather some judges' minds, which I also know for a fact. That's what I meant by adjusting the scoring system guidelines to be more inclusive for different ways of stage presence which are culture / stage-tradition related. I never meant to say they lack connection to their audience or do not express or excite emotions, quite the opposite.
Let me give you an example from a country with which you do not have such a close connection as Japan, since apparently my mentioning it makes you repulsed and eager to argue. Let's focus on a more neutral example. Elizabeth Tursynbaeva (Kazakhstan, Asia) is a telling example. I still consider the staging of the free program of the 2019 season for Elisabeth unsuccessful precisely in terms of not understanding cultural differences. She was set to tango, tango is a music that implies engagement, passion. Elizabeth is from a country where a girl should "keep a face", be sweet and reserved, modest and beautiful, but not show character and passion, emotion. She is musical, she shows beauty of gesture, choreographic training and even opens up a bit on the steps of the sequence (but again, it's the sincere joy of a successful roll and the feeling of support from the audience), but she doesn't show what I would call immersion, storytelling, passion. It's not what we expect from a performance of tango on ice. In the eyes of a person of Western culture, of course. From the point of view of a person of Eastern culture everything can be quite different, and the main thing is beauty, airiness, elegance and restraint, and emotions are not a necessary element at all.
Mark-specific compliment is 'na courage'--or at least he gets it more often than anyone else, because, well, he is Mark. It does not actually mean 'courage', more like Geronimo/Hell or High Water attitude. Again, part of the national character, when you cover yourself with a sign of a cross and rush into something dumb and grand without considering odds.
Just because I don't accept sweeping opinions about a culture I'm somewhat knowledgable about, doesn't mean I want to "argue". It just means I don't accept your argument as true. I hate it when people from one cultural beackground just get lumped together as if they're all made from the same mold an not able to have deviating personalities.
I always snoozed through Scherbakova's skates. Not every Russian woman is Trusova. On the other hand, no problems connecting with Uno. Both were scored high by Russian judges.
I think this kind of sums it up. Maybe, Russian coaches, fans, and judges do value good flow, edges, and glide less than some other countries and give high TES skaters high PCS. ( This is a problem hardly restricted to Russia only) but such a view is wrong regardless of individual opinion because the bullet points clearly show PCS should not be linked to TES in this way.
In Russia, at domestic competitions, judges are traditionally generous to leaders, and this also applies to PCS points. And Sasha Trusova at the Russian Championships 2021 and 2022 received more PCS points than at the Olympics. Probably, such facts give rise to ideas about some kind of split in judging. But in this case, what is important is not the value of the PCS itself, but the ratio of the PCS of Trusova, Shcherbakova, Valieva and (at the 2021 championship) the PCS of Usacheva, for example. Comparing these numbers, it is not difficult to discover that Trusova's PCS is significantly less than Valieva's or Shcherbakova's PCS and is very close to Usacheva's PCS - despite the fact that Daria did not have quads or 3A. In other words, there is no direct connection between jumping content and PCS in Russian judging.
