Men OGM Contenders 2018
- Thread starter mrfarmer
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2016
so let's break it down:
OGM Contenders & their advantages vs. disadvantages:
Yuzuru Hanyu: Adv- experience at the olympics, in his prime (22years old), consistently scores high GOEs, PCS, and TEC; Disadvantage - crippling pressure since he's the reigning world and olympics champ, has trouble putting two clean skates back to back
Shoma Uno: Adv - high PCS and TEC, considerable mental strength; Disadvantage - no real olympic experience, not yet in his prime, jumps are not yet fully secure
Boyang Jin: Adv - high TEC, consistent, has mentality of underdog; Disadvantage - no real olympic experience, not in his prime, PCS much lower than other top medal contenders (hanyu, uno, chan, fernandez)
Javier Fernandez: Adv - lots of olympic experience, consistently high PCS; Disadvantage - past his prime, jump content not as high as the top medal contenders (chen, uno, jin, hanyu)
Patrick Chan: Adv - lots of olympic experience, best skating skills in the group, high PCS; Disadvantage - consistency, past his prime, jump content not as secure nor high as the top medal contenders
Nathan Chen: Adv - extremely consistent in difficult jumps, high TEC, judges assign him pretty good PCS despite relatively empty programs compared to skaters like Chan or Brown (like it or not this is an advantage for him), strong fed backing him; Disadvantage - a lot of pressure on him as the US's only chance to medal in this event, not yet in his prime, no olympic experience
The way I see it these are the real medal contenders....i could include kolyada, brown, and perhaps even reynolds but im too lazy
if we were to assign points to each skater it would be-
Hanyu - 3 advantages, 2 disadvantage
Uno - 2 advantages, 3 disadvantages
Jin - 3 advantages, 3 disadvantages
Fernandez - 2 advantages, 2 disadvantages
Chan - 3 advantages, 3 disadvantages
Chen - 4 advantages, 3 disadvantages
some advantages will weigh in more than others, not sure if this helps anything but do what you will with this
I'd add for Uno that he is the only one shielded by another country man from the pressure
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2010
So true.
And the point of my earlier post is that since exceptions can happen and we know who the top skaters are, let's compare THEM not look at generalizations of age as it applies to stamina.
For Shoma, this can actually ADD to the pressure, if he wants to be the #1 man in Japan.
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2016
I don't think so. Being number 2 of your country doesn't matter when you were 2 points away from the world title, because that means the judges won't care and will give him the candies as much as they will hanyu. At most, pressure will be divided equally between them. And also, I don't think shoma is obsessed with being the frontrunner. He wants to beat hanyu in competition, not in isu rankings.
I think all top 6 are within the generalization and none of them is an exception. There is no way to measure their exact stamina. I just look at their layouts, execution and consistency and compare them.
Both Fernandez and Chan attempt 5 quads in total (SP & LP). It probably means they only have the stamina to do 5 quads with some consistency. Fernandez is a bit more consistent than Chan because he has been those layouts for a few seasons while Chan just started attempting them this past season.
Uno and Jin both attempt 6 quads, but they water down the in-between elements. So, I don't think their stamina is better than Chan or Fernandez, maybe similar. Uno is more consistent than Jin, but I don't think it's because he has more stamina than Jin but because he trains harder than Jin throughout the whole season.
Chen attempts 6-8 quads. He also waters down the in-between. I don’t think he has the stamina to do 4-6 quads without watering the in-between. I think 4 quad LP is within his comfort zone, 5 quads is pushing his limit and 6 quads is beyond his ability now. (So doing 6-quad LP under adverse condition at WC led to messy performance because I don't think he had the ability to execute 6 quads at that time.) He is quite consistent. I think he is more consistent than others because he pushes his limit a lot and trains hard throughout the season, not because his stamina is stronger than Uno or Jin.
Hanyu attempts 6 quads in total and doesn’t water down the in-between. So I think Hanyu has the strongest stamina among the top 6 and he is the only one in prime age. I think he is less consistent than Uno and Chen because he started practicing new quads and quad combos at an older age (late teens, early 20) than the youngsters (15-17). So he learns slower than the teenagers. If he only does jumps he is comfortable with, he would be more consistent.
IMO, Hanyu, Chen and Uno are the most likely skaters to medal at the Olympics. They are the ones that medaled at 4CC, the Olympics test event, which means they are in relatively good form at that time and at that venue. Also, they are the more consistent skaters among the top 6.
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2013
But we saw with Sotnikova rising to the occasion when in Sochi, people had pegged Julia as #1 after Euros (even though Adelina won Nats). It'll be interesting to see what happens in the skating order is between Hanyu and Uno.
And also by narrowly beating out Hanyu at WTT, and narrowly losing to him at Worlds, he knows his name is in the mix, and slowly but surely adding consistency even while adding tech content. He's doing just enough to set himself up for a Sotnikova-esque win, but the lack of experience might get to him.
But pushing your limits and training hard will also increase your stamina. I think Chen has more stamina than you're giving him credit for. Ashley Wagner once mentioned that Raf's style was to tire you out and then train which is one way to improve your stamina.
I think Hanyu's experience is more of a factor because he probably has a better sense of when he can push limits and when he can't when it comes to competition, in general, and the distractions that surround the Olympics.
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2013
After successfully landing 5 quads in a FS and attempting 6 quads, I don't think anybody can question Nathan Chen's conditioning or stamina.
After successfully landing 5 quads in a FS and attempting 6 quads, I don't think anybody can question Nathan Chen's conditioning or stamina.
Especially when he had his boots literally falling apart on him during his FS. :agree:
Conditioning, stamina and peaking at the right time will be critical. Will be curious to see if Shoma does as many events as he did in the latter part of last season. He was a competition machine, reminiscent of Tukt a season before, competing almost every weekend. For Nathan, his equipment needs to keep up with him, and with his plans to "compete" at Japan Open that would seem to be his de factor Senior B event, so he'll need boots to be primed every 4 weeks from October.
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2014
:agree: In a recent interview, Maxim Trankov said he'd recently had the opportunity to observe Nathan's training, and he was astonished by all that Nathan does on a daily basis.
It's deceptive in a way, because Nathan's demeanor is so calm, more gently happy than exuberant -- except in his skating. But he creates an impression slightly counter to the reality that he's one of the most driven skaters, internally driven.
And because of that, I'm sure he already has a plan of how to ensure his boots won't fall apart again. And a plan for handling his nerves better. His calm demeanor makes me wonder if he ever had been more than a slightly nervous at a competition before Worlds. The nerves at Worlds may have only been an issue because it was a new sensation for him.
If Chen can execute a 5 quad LP with good quality, no watering down the rest of his skating from start to finish, then his stamina is impressive. But as of now, he must sacrifice the rest of his skating, and jumps in the 2nd half to just get through a 5 quad LP. (He put 4 quads in the 1st half. At national and 4CC, his jump execution in the 2nd half just got worse and worse as he got more tired by the end of the program.) He is barely getting through a 5 quad LP with watered down transitions, and minor mistakes here and there, even when he is in top form. Most of other guys are also just barely getting through the rest of their programs. So I don't see his stamina as being better than other men in the top 6. (When men add more quads, the rest of their skating suffers because the stamina they have is limited and they can't improve their stamina significantly in a short time. Most men have to water down their tech in some other ways when they try to upgrade their layout, e.g. recycling old programs, or skate the same type of music or same choreography, or water down transitions.) He is nowhere near getting through a 6 quad LP even when he is in top form, let alone when he is not in top form or top condition under enormous pressure. I believe that's the main reason he gave a messy performance at WC. The boot problem was secondary and just made it worse. The thing is skaters only take calculated risk. They study their own protocols and their rivals' protocols. They try some risky jumps to test a new layout, but they won't stick to a layout that has proven to be not working. As of now, he has a 50/50 chance to get through a 5 quad layout with room for improvement. If he does a 6 quad or more quads layout, I'm afraid the chance of him being off podium will significantly increase.
I'm saying this as someone who really likes Chen. But I don't want to over-rate his ability and chance. (The other medal contenders' ability and chance is not better or much better either.)
When you talk about stamina, it would be amiss no to consider the amount of one-foot skating in a program.
Jeffrey Buttle said in a recent interview that it's physically so much more demanding to do one-foot skating than two-foot skating and that Hanyu and Chan are two excellent examples who are constantly taking up this challenge.
Jeffrey Buttle said in a recent interview that it's physically so much more demanding to do one-foot skating than two-foot skating and that Hanyu and Chan are two excellent examples who are constantly taking up this challenge.
After successfully landing 5 quads in a FS and attempting 6 quads, I don't think anybody can question Nathan Chen's conditioning or stamina.
when did he do that? he only landed 4 of 6 in his lp at worlds...
And because of that, I'm sure he already has a plan of how to ensure his boots won't fall apart again. And a plan for handling his nerves better. His calm demeanor makes me wonder if he ever had been more than a slightly nervous at a competition before Worlds. The nerves at Worlds may have only been an issue because it was a new sensation for him.
Oh he's got a plan alright. Although it's more along the lines of having a back up ready instead of making sure they won't fall apart.
Similar threads
