Hanyu, Chen face off again in Stockholm | Golden Skate

Hanyu, Chen face off again in Stockholm

gsk8

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Country
United-States

Review top six contenders


Who else to watch?

Yuma Kagiyama is Japan’s rising star. With bronze at the 2020 ISU Four Continents Championships and gold at NHK Trophy (without Hanyu and Uno competing) he made it clear that he is competitive at the senior level. US bronze medalist Jason Brown is still struggling with the quads, but the quality of his skating overall makes him a contender in a deep field. Frenchman Kevin Aymoz and Italian Daniel Grassl are other interesting men in the competition.

Missing in action

2020 European Champion Dmitri Aliev (FSR) has been struggling this season with injury and illness and was not selected for the World team.

Prediction Contest coming soon!

 

ladyjane

Medalist
Joined
Jun 26, 2012
Country
Netherlands
Although the Pairs are my favourite, the men are definitely also highly awaited. And not just because of the top two guys Yuzu and Nathan (although I am looking forward to another show down between these two). I am already hoping for some wonderful skates, be it Jason who is always a joy to watch - whether there's a quad or not, be it Mikhail whose FS this year is sublime, Morisi whose SP - if skated well as he did at the Russian GP - is really good, Shoma whom I also adore and who is thriving under Stephane's guidance, Daniel who has two very unique programmes - maybe not to everyone's taste but I like them a lot, Matteo whose Greatest Showman actually lets us see a showman, Young gun Yuma who might not yet be perfect artistically but is refreshing to watch, Kevin whom I haven't yet seen at all this season but who has a lovely style, Keegan who can always make a splash, Jin who can be spectacular when he's on, Vincent who is back on track, etc. etc. And there are so many more in the lower ranks whom I am looking forward to see as well, like Valtter, Yan, Michel, Deniss (who had a great outing at Nebelhorn), Alexei, etc. etc. (again).

Edit: how could I forget mentioning Donovan? Yay, yay, yay!
 

mrrice

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 9, 2014
I can't believe Vincent is only 20 years old. He has another OG's in him if he doesn't do well this time. Kolyada is looking Regal in that picture. So Handsome.
 

rollerblade

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 12, 2014
(ok, clearly I need to edit this post, or maybe delete it entirely lol)

Accordng to the posted planned layout:

9 men have two planned quads in the SP
2 of them have backloaded quad
0 backloaded quad-combination
 
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DizzyFrenchie

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 9, 2019
Nathan did the 4F-3T in the 2nd half at Nationals ... I think
And I've read he planned to backload it here too, which would surprise nobody I suppose.
Both Yuzuru Hanyu's quad combos were backloaded at Nationals (maybe as much for artistic as tactic reasons, as both are 4T, toe-assisted jumps which wouldn't suit the atmosphere of the first part of his free skate).
 

rollerblade

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 12, 2014
I'm just going by the posted planned content, which clearly is a crock of shstale lima beans.

Also my previous post is only about the SP. I don't have enough brains to parse the FS lol.
 

figureskatingandrainbows

As Kao Miura once said, スケートって難しい
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 8, 2020
Country
Olympic
f78e352c778694c07ae237b349f4f8fe4fc35170.png
8c3ae63483998ac682ff4a267bbbbac8115b73cc.png

Here is the planned program content for Nathan and Yuzuru. Yuzuru is not trying the 4A or the 4Lz, thank goodness. Nathan's short program is much easier than the one at US Nationals, although his planned program content should be considered as a rough outline because he does so much of his program in the moment. They both have four quads planned for the free, but Yuzuru has two triple axels and Nathan only has one. They've backloaded their programs with 4T combos and a 3A.
BV
YH NC
32.2 33.65

74 75.3

Assuming Nathan replaces the 3Lo with a 4Lz, he will have an 81.9. At any rate, it's still quite close in terms of BV, so this should be an interesting competition.
 

readernick

Medalist
Joined
Dec 5, 2015
I don't really care who wins the men's event but I hope that both Nathan and Yuzuru have great skates. The men's field really is so deep! It isn't possible to list all the contenders in a short article, which is really a great thing because I believe we will see an embarrassment of great skating at this Worlds in men's skating. My three personal favorites (Shoma, Kolyada, and Jason) will all be trying to get into that bronze medal position. They are the skaters with the most compelling programs IMHO. I really hope Keegan can make the top 10 because Canada is definitely a country that should have at least two men's spots at the Olympics. My personal hope is for close to clean performances from everyone. (likely an impossible ask in men's skating) but I am still hopeful.
 

kolyadafan2002

Fan of Kolyada
Final Flight
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
Backloading a quad combo at worlds is an awful lot of risk with not much reward. The +Combo is disincentive enough. Try combo on first quad, and if for whatever reason you can't get combo you have another element to add the combo to.
 

Olympic

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Interesting, Nathan is abandoning the 4Z for now. I don't think he has ever done that (?) He did say at Nationals that he didn't feel like he was on top of his feet or something like that. He is keeping the difficult combo in the SP. He just put it up front but he downgraded from a 4Z -> 4T.

In the LP, he is actually downgrading from 2019, where his jumps were 4Z, 4F, and 2 4Ts. I am a huge fan but I'd be careful of too many DGs. His victories over Yuzu are largely driven by the shock and awe of his tech arsenal. Then again, Nathan is prone to changing things up at the last minute, so I have a weird feeling that depending on how the competition is playing out the day of, he might turn one of those earlier triples into a quad ...
 
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