Like you, I also dont understand all the fuss, but I dont see things as you do. I love both teams and find them very close in abilities with different strengths.
Last year at Worlds, V&M lost because they did not skate clean. Tessa had injury and surgery, so they were not able to train and compete part of the season, but they are amazing athletes and maybe they were missing that one more performance in front of the judges, but what they showed in free dance was very very good. We dont know how would D&W do if one of them was injured and went through season like V&M and I am hoping we wont find out. The thing is - V&M lost because they did not have the best performance, while D&W had the best performance of the night and won.
Difference this season is that D&W had program that was more dancing than storytelling like V&M. So acting was more important part of V&M program.
My impression is that D&W had the performance of the evening, while V&M were tense and had 2 moments of insecurity which is generally unlike them. That is why I think they did not deserve to win free dance.
I hope Doris writes a report on this. I tend to understand things better when she brakes them down
I don't understand the fuss either but I also think the result is really simple to understand. It basically came down to the diagonal step sequence where V/M got a level 4 and D/W got a level 3. Hence V/M got higher scores here, accounting for virtually all of the point difference. I gather D/W had gotten a level 3 on that sequence virtually all season long, so it shouldn't have been a big surprise. The PCS of the two teams was virtually identical, with a small advantage to V/M. All that means is that enough of the judges disagreed with your assessment of who had the better components on the evening to make the difference. It's also worth noting that V/M very deservedly won the SD.
As for last season, I liked V/M's program a lot more than D/W's, but I thought it was perfectly clear and perfectly fair that D/W won gold at worlds. V/M's program was still noticeably rough in places and just didn't have the competition miles on it that D/W's had from competing and improving it all season. I don't think there was anything remotely controversial about it.
I find the press articles, particularly those from some of the American press, do a disservice to the sport when the writers essentially stamp their feet and act like children over a result they didn't like (often spurred on by nationalistic bias), rather than trying to do anything to understand said result, or the technical aspects of the sport in general.
Let's face it, the general armchair fan most often can't tell the difference between a double and a triple during a live performance, let alone distinguish between different levels of footwork in dance. So they rely on the commentators etc. to inform them. This has been a real problem in the U.S. with the institution of COP where many of said commentators and even the federation were very late to the party in adopting the new system. Thus they just complained about the new system rather than trying to explain it to fans, so fans were really set adrift about what they were seeing.
But even before COP this was a problem. Everyone, of course, wants to support the athletes from their own country, but the Cold War really took things to a whole other level. It made for great storytelling, of course, but not necessarily for a great understanding of the sport. Suddenly the athletes competing against your guys and gals were "enemies" not just rivals. Never mind that the Russians often won because they had some of the best basic skating technique. I'm not suggesting that there weren't judging blocs and vote swapping, because I think enough has come out about that to prove that there certainly were some shady deals made. And in dance, of course, there was the frustrating issue of the traditional protocol, where skaters had to wait their turn to move up the ladder. But looking back now it is quite plain to see that at least some of the outrage over the years about results stemmed more from the general fan's lack of knowledge than from hinky behind-the-scenes doings. (See also why inflated nationals scoring isn't necessarily helpful.)
I guess I'm just responding in general to the notion that the ISU somehow needs to change the system to make it so that the results will automatically reflect what one particular live audience found most crowd-pleasing. I find that to be an appalling idea, since, as I noted earlier, the general fan is fairly ignorant of even the most visible elements that make figure skating an actual sport. The only thing most general fans can see is if the person fell or not. Put it this way, Ralph and Hill got a standing ovation for their tango FS. Should they be on the podium?
And now I've rambled enough.
Just because I'm not a moderator, I don't think it's unreasonable to say, "Hey let's be cool, guys." That's all I intended to do.
They said that after that they did some soul searching and re-focussed on skating for themselves and for each other. I think you can totally see it. Their performances from Nationals onwards have been worlds away from what they were doing in the fall.
