Oh well, can't argue with the placements. Nice to see Jeremy medal, but it was Adam who actually went for the quads and got the rotations, but in the end, Adam paid heavily for his nerves and tightness (e.g., on footwork in the sp; and on the camel spin and one of his 3 axel attempts in the fp). In any case, I really hate the quad. I don't care about that extra revolution at the expense of everything else. But kudos to all these skaters who work so hard to do the impossible and still try to maintain a semblance of what figure skating at its essence is about.
When Oda first came on the scene, I did enjoy watching him more than I do now. He doesn't really skate to the music and he doesn't have much depth or artistry. Fine he's a great jumper with magic knees and great height (and a bouncy lightness) with deep edges, but even then he does not have aesthetically pleasing lines. Mainly I find his telegraphing (especially at the beginning of his NHK freeskate) very distracting, and as someone else mentioned, he skates a lot on two feet and he doesn't have good transitions. Once again, his fp scores at NHK were overly high on PCS. He has some good skating skills, but for me (outside of a few of his skates over the years), Oda has never put it all together. I don't find him to be a complete skater, although he is better than Mura in many aspects. I like Kozuka better of these three Japanese men. And I even like Machida more than Oda (I know: sacrilege!). In Oda's case, his tech skills count for a lot and carry him far. I find Oda to be very overrated as an expressive skater in terms of presentation.
Very nice to see Dai coming back so well here, especially in his final NHK appearance. I doubt much of what we've seen so far this season will be a good predictor of what's going to ultimately happen in Sochi.
