Ladies vs. Men and the CoP

[DarkestMoon]

Very interesting gkelley. How would you relate your thoughts here to some of the troubles we are seeing with the Ladies this season. Is it possible that an entire generation of Ladies suddenly grew into the wrong body type?

I don't mean that as either silly or sarcastic - but was wondering why so much sloppy skating this season?

Or am I expecting too much - and it just isn't going to be possible for too many ladies under the current scoring system to pull off such busy programs??

I don't think it's a body type issue. Most of the ladies today lack in basic skating skills and a good spring in their legs to vault into their jumps.

Under the CoP, the programs are more demanding. The ladies need good strength and core training to help off set the body changes.

Another reason for so much sloppy skating may be not enough training during the offseason. Yuna and Mao trains about 40 hours or more(?) per week. That's like a full time job. Where as some of the other ladies have full time school, dance lessons, etc. Notice that Kwan put skating first before education during her competitive years. I am not saying education is a bad thing, but probably there is a lot of sloppy skating is due to lack of quality practice plus bad technique. There is no victory without sacrifice.

 

[gourry]

This is a very interesting thread.

So far most of the ladies (except Yuna, Akiko and Alena) showed somewhat disappointing results. I also wondered why and have a hypothesis and it doesn't have anything to do with COP.

IMO, when your main competitor is breaking 200 points, you also have to make your points maximized. To do so, you can either add more difficult elements or find a way to increase GOE and PCS.
It was my impression that this season most of the ladies added more transitions, choreography, steps in and out of jumps, and etc. Joannie, Miki, Mao, Ashley came to my mind first but there are many more I think.
So, I don't think their skating got deteriorated or anything. Their programs simply became more difficult to excute cleanly.

Mao for one said she'll make her program easier(something like that. I don't remember exact words) while she keeps her jump layout same.
Johnny also toned down his LP a bit and performed much better here at NHK.
So I suppose we will see more toned-down-but-seemingly-cleaner performances later this season.

 

[prettykeys]

Wait, so have we established whether the majority of good female skaters from the last 15 years of 6.0 would have been hit by downgrades on jumps as much as the current crop of girls?

Yes, or no?

 

[gkelly]

Wait, so have we established whether the majority of good female skaters from the last 15 years of 6.0 would have been hit by downgrades on jumps as much as the current crop of girls?

Well, it's hard to say for sure. At best we can look carefully at videos of the jumps and say whether they look downgradable to us. We can do the same with today's jumps, but sometimes we disagree with the tech panels (or with each other). Camera angle can be a confounding issue.

I suspect a majority of the ladies' triple-triples other than 3T-3T from the 6.0 era would have been downgraded.

 

[evangeline]

Am glad one person got it.

Even if you are a "young'un" I must remember never to underestimate your exceptional intelligence and dazzling wit again Evangeline.

I never knew there were so many Evan fans here. Where is seniorita when you need her?

Awww, Janetfan, you really know how to stroke this young squirt's ego! *blushes* All I can say is, likewise, likewise

Anyways, prettykeys--on your question of whether the ladies of 6.0 would be hit with downgrades as much as your current crop, I would say....probably. Off the top of my head, skaters like Sarah Hughes and Shizuka Arakawa's 3-3s would not have passed muster.

 

[Olympia]

This is a fascinating thread, with a lot of interesting material to consider, especially the physics.

What worries me is that if it's this hard to succeed in skating, a lot of promising skaters will give up early, and we'll lose out on what they would bring to the sport.

Somehow the thought that we have to be ruthless in looking for excellence doesn't work as well for me in skating as it would in, say, golf or track. The reason is that while each golfer plays basically the same game and each sprinter runs basically the same course, each skater does not contribute the same thing to skating. Okay, I'm simplifying a bit, but a golfer wins by getting the lowest score over 18 holes. A sprinter wins by finishing first. A skater doesn't just achieve a particular score: he or she skates a program to music. Though skating is definitely a sport--skaters are certainly better conditioned than, say, baseball catchers--it's also got a lot in common with a performance art. Each skater brings a unique flavor to the sport. Why would we want to weed out, say, Alyssa Czisny?

On another thread, a bunch of us are discussing Joesitz's comparison of Michal Brezina with John Curry and Kurt Browning. Several people expressed admiration for Brezina. Others talked directly about Curry and Browning. Some people mentioned a preference for other current skaters such as Abbott. Mention of Curry brought his contemporary, Toller Cranston, into the mix. YouTube links created new fans for each of these skaters.

None of these skaters can be mistaken for anyone else. A few are legendary. Interestingly, a few of them don't have the gold medal hoard you'd expect. Notably, Browning and Cranston never won the Olympics, and Cranston never won a Worlds. Quick: which of them can the annals of skating do without, because he doesn't measure up?

 

[prettykeys]

Love your post, Olympia. Now I feel bad for having been so hard-nosed before. Your post highlights a lot of important points.