Rachael may be capable of jumping better than Carolina, but Caro is the far superior skater and spinner, and she was rewarded for that! Flatt does not skate with Kostner's speed, musicality, extended lines, nor her command of edges.
Caro is not a "far superior" spinner. She is marginally better. Her spins often lose centering, they never are especially fast, and a couple of her positions are no better than Flatt's.
Kostner's program did not display superior musicality for me. Speed and edges, yes, but I did not see any interesting interpretation of the music. Even her speed wasn't that great either, considering she came to a complete halt on the landing of almost every jump in the program. And just like in the SP, the ending to her LP is completely unsatisfying.
I'm all for judges separating skaters by huge gaps with the PCS, but Kostner's 7-point lead over Flatt was not deserved here with the performance she gave. Rachael Flatt deserved to win the competition. LOL, and what an awful competition it was.
Two of Rachael's triples were under-rotated, one flip and one lutz, so she would have won the LP by a larger margin had she gotten full credit for those jumps.
The tech callers continue to be bad at their jobs. Rachael's Lutz and Flip should not have been downgraded. I'm extremely confused why Rachael's Flips suddenly started getting downgraded at the Olympics and have continued to since then.
What should be getting downgraded, and what
didn't get downgraded, is Rachael's 3Toe in combination. Rachael's 3-3's (2Axel-3Toe in this this case) keep getting ratified even though she ALWAYS cheats them (look at how far she pre-rotates on the ice) but then her other sufficiently rotated jumps get hit with downgrades? Really dumb.
Carolina Kostner also received an unfair downgrade on her second 3Loop. That jump shouldn't have been downgraded, it was rotated enough, the problem was that she landed on the INSIDE edge of the blade and it caused the landing to turn and scratch on the ice. Her second 3Sal was also landed on the inside edge, causing the same problem (the rotation on that jump was sketchier than on her 3Loop that got downgraded, FYI).
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So to sum up this Ladies event:
*The skating was terrible.
*The tech caller was bad and there continues to be a need for specific rules that define the rotation of jumps. The exact point they leave the ice needs to be taken into account.
*The new -GOE values need to be fixed, as I've said ever since they came out. Jumps with mistakes (aside from the mistake of underrotation) are getting MORE credit than than used to, which is not good for the sport because CoP was already was too lenient with imposing deductions for mistakes (other than underrotation, which used to be overpenalized).
*Carolina Kostner was incredibly gifted in the Program Component scores for a messy performance and lackluster program.
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