Serious Question about Patrick Chan's skating ability compared to other skaters

[yelyoh]

Another benefit Chan has received is being his nation's unequivocal #1 male singles skater. Had Jeff Buttle continued to compete, I wonder if Patrick's PCS would be as high as they are. Abbott has always had Lysacek to compete with in being considered his nation's #1. Kozuka has always had Takahashi or Oda to compete with in being his nation's #1. We all know politics exist in figure skating.

Good points.

 

[lavender]

Miss Jeff...

 

[pangtongfan]

Nothing should be read into his Skate Chanada scores as it is clearly a silly and heavily political event catered to the Canadian skaters, and most of all their stars like Chan. Had the event been held anywhere but Canada, Chan would have been lucky to place even 3rd with everyone doing the same performances, and if he skates like that at Worlds in Japan he will finish 7th after a 16th place finish in the short program.

 

[Tinymavy15]

One thing about Patrick's skating that is perhaps sometimes overlooked is his speed. He is a faster than several other top skaters.

yes, he is rather fast, and that is one thing judges cant resist. Carolina, Yu-na Kim both are fast skaters and their PCS are through the roof. While I agree that speed often makes a program look much better and the skater appear more confident I can't say that this is the overwhelling factor in making a performance good or not. Patrick does not have great flow coming out of his jumps, as Nobu and Kozuka do. His triple axel gets a lot of ice coverage, but some of the other triples are not very big or powerful.

Although he has great edge control, he does not seem to be able to really get into the character of a piece. He skates to the music, but not to the emotion of the music. In that way he is very different than Sasha who always skated to the music, but also played a character inspired by emotions of the music. Patrick is not a performer, he seems introverted in a Johnny-like way on the ice (although Take 5 is a nice step away from that). Personally I perfer a skater such as Daisuke who will perform the music, not just skate to the rhythm.

I have watched Chan live. He is more impressive live than on TV, he does have presence on the ice, but certainly not more so than Brian Joubert or certainly not Dai.

 

[dorispulaski]

Patrick is not as impressive for his speed as Carolina-she can run rings about everyone else on the ice in most groupings. I haven't seen Yu Na live (it's evident from TV that she is also fast) to know whether Carolina is faster, but certainly faster than anyone else I've seen live. Patrick is noticeably faster than Ryan Bradley, for example, (one reason among several that Ryan's skating skills should be significantly lower than Patrick's) but not to some of the other skaters out there. He doesn't stand out in a warmup goup for speed in the way Carolina does. He's speedy, but not jawdropping, IMO.

 

[Ellen]

Probably my post will be very strongly-worded, still I think everyone has a right to express his/her opinion.

Should not the "Skating Ability" also include the stability in completing the strong elements? How can judges give Chan high marks for the "Skating Skills" when he failed on the most important elements like a novice junior skater? "Skills" means the mastery to skate without errors on important competitions. Otherwise the skating with 3 falls in Short Program means the complete lack of mastery and skating skills.

It is said that Chan has the transitions. What is the transition? - It is one-two extra rotations or some simple steps on two feet. So if someone had a transition but failed to complete the jump that followed it - how could he be marked higher than a skater who had no transition but landed the quad?

For me Chan is the only skater who I feel very strong antipathy to. There are many reasons for that: his self-praised interviews, his look (short with short legs), his apelike movements, lack of artistic skills. I think that skaters like Chan are the mockery of men figure skating. Men skating is not dancing on ice, it is mostly the strongest elements, many revolution jumps, etc.
It is very sad that now Canadian FS Federation with its great traditions in men skating has to promote such poor skater like Chan. The results of SP at Skate Canada are really painful. Daisuke Takahashi failed on one jump at the Olympics and he was immediately placed lower than he deserved. Chan had 4 falls, failed to complete 3 jumps and won the competion!! How unfair to other skaters who managed to complete all hard elements and skated really well. So are the "skating skills" of Oda, Rippon, Rainolds are much-much worse? If they loose to someone with 4 falls including a fall on 3A, looks like they (Oda, Rippon, Reynolds, Fernandez, Preaubert) cannot skate at all.

On different forums I read a lot of criticism and attacks on the Russian FS Federation for some stair-work. OK, please explain how should we call this promotion of Chan then?

 

[Nadine]

Ellen, you have a very good point, and I am glad you will see for yourself Patrick Chan's skating at COR in a few weeks time, to judge for yourself how good he is skating live, or isn't as the case may be, lol.

As for myself, like I said before, I saw him live at the Olympics, and I was impressed, which I duly admit. But not so much impressed that I think he has a 4 fall advantage over the rest of the field, no way. One fall, yes, two falls, not for anybody, I don't care who it is you're out. A fall demonstrates weakness, either mentally or technically, or both, *not* mastery.

A poster at another forum actually summed it up perfectly for me when he stated the following:

My problem is, I find the SP to be "sacred". The SP is about "required" technical elements that must be done. Falls don't belong in the SP. To me, falls in the SP should come with a higher penalty since they are required elements.

Still, I'm not really stressed out over this competition, it's done, over with, time to move on for me. But if this had happened at the Olympics (which it would never have done so), then I would have been outraged. But these GP events seriously do not reflect what will actually happen at Worlds, but most especially the Olympics, where the standard is on another plane, a higher playing field. These GPs favor their own, be it SC, SA, COR, NHK, et al. I've come to accept it, though I disagree for the most part. But what can you do? C'est la vie...

 

[sorcerer]

A part of the answer to the question of the first post is in Lynn's article on IN:

Chan acknowledged his role as a judges' favorite, saying he's grateful to be recognized for his skating skills.
"It's a good position to be in," he said. "I know [coach and choreographer] Lori [Nichol] speaks highly of me to judges, and I want to perform the way she says I can."

I personally don't like these lobbying by choreograhpers to the judges.
It should only be genuine competition of performances on the ice and not anything off-ice.
Figure skating becoming a competition of lobbying in a sad thing.

 

[mot]

Ellen

At Vancouver, Daisuke not only fell, but his quad toe was severely under-rotaed. His 3F-3T combination was downgraded, he received edge call on the lutz twice, his last step sequence was out of sync with the music, and lost balance and stepped out in the final combination spin (Lv2). His TES was therefore quite low, but he received the highest PCS of the day to make up for it.

I love Dai and I personally believe his Oly performance was wonderful enough to justify the PCS. But it is my personal opinion. I can also understand if some other, who has different preference / taste / whatever, think it was unfair and unjustifiable due to a number of technical faults - a bit like Patrick's SP at SC, although he fully rotated all jumps despite fall and received level 3/4 for his spins.

I also wish you had not listed your personal preference on skater's look as one of the reasons for disliking him in the thread, in which we are meant to be discussing his skating skills.

 

[trains]

From Ellen:
"Should not the "Skating Ability" also include the stability in completing the strong elements? How can judges give Chan high marks for the "Skating Skills" when he failed on the most important elements like a novice junior skater? "Skills" means the mastery to skate without errors on important competitions. Otherwise the skating with 3 falls in Short Program means the complete lack of mastery and skating skills."
Ellen: your make good points that make sense but the reality is that the completion of the jumps is scored on the technical side of the report card and the skating skills are scored separately on the component side.
Looking at the competition report card, you can tell by looking at the skating skills mark versus the technical marks who was a strong skater that did not skate well, and who was a weaker skater that had a great day technically. Sometimes one beats the other and visa versa. It depends on how the points add up.
But never underestimate that skating skills mark. That is what the judges really think of the skaters' ability, whether or not they landed any or all of their jumps. How many times have we heard "well he/she can do all these jumps but they can't skate" from the judges. This means skating skills, and they still look to that to set their base line for judging a skater. That was where the old 6.0 system got all fudgy and questionable. It made that kind of evaluation too obscure and to easy to maipulate. At least now the skaters are also clearly accountable for their jumps etc. in separated points catagories, and we can read on paper what actually happened in the program.
It is said that Chan has the transitions. What is the transition? - It is one-two extra rotations or some simple steps on two feet. So if someone had a transition but failed to complete the jump that followed it - how could he be marked higher than a skater who had no transition but landed the quad?
You're right transitions are turns and steps between elements, but that catagory also takes into account how well they are done. Did the skater step from a clean back outside edge completely to a clean forward outside edge? Or was it just a vague backward step to a vague forward step? etc. It takes a highly trained eye to see this. Some combinations of transitions are much more difficult than others and all are more difficult with speed, like anything. And you are also absolutely right that the jumps should be completed as well. Put it all together and you have the perfect skater! I think we may never see that!
I also think that Carolina Kostner is the best ladies "skater" by far. But she can't always put it together either.

 

[Ellen]

Still, I'm not really stressed out over this competition, it's done, over with, time to move on for me. But if this had happened at the Olympics (which it would never have done so), then I would have been outraged. But these GP events seriously do not reflect what will actually happen at Worlds, but most especially the Olympics, where the standard is on another plane, a higher playing field. These GPs favor their own, be it SC, SA, COR, NHK, et al.

Nadine, I have to disagree with you on both points.
1. This HAD already happened at the Olympics. Chan was places above Weir, very unfair. I heard T.Tarasova's comments at the Olympics TV broadcast of men LP and can quote her as saying that "judges always have given him too high marks "...

2. GP events are important because skaters get their rating scores. At Worlds they will be placed at groups according to their current ratings. Now Chan has a wrongly high rating, he stands above Oda, etc. Judges take the skater current rating into account, no doubt.

 

[gkelly]

Should not the "Skating Ability" also include the stability in completing the strong elements? How can judges give Chan high marks for the "Skating Skills" when he failed on the most important elements like a novice junior skater? "Skills" means the mastery to skate without errors on important competitions. Otherwise the skating with 3 falls in Short Program means the complete lack of mastery and skating skills.

No, that's not what Skating Skills means in terms of the program components. It's specifically defined as
Balance, rhythmic knee action, and precision of foot placement
Flow and effortless glide
Cleanness and sureness of deep edges, steps, and turns
Varied use of power/energy, speed, and acceleration
Multi directional skating
Mastery of one foot skating

See: http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-152086-169302-64121-0-file,00.pdf

See the discussion in the current COP thread. Mathman suggested renaming this component to something like "Stroking and Edgework" to avoid just that kind of confusion.

And novice skaters don't attempt quads, triple axels, or level 4 footwork; junior skaters very rarely. Failing on those elements doesn't make a skater look like a less advanced skater -- it makes the skater look like an advanced skater who failed on a difficult, high-risk element.

It is said that Chan has the transitions. What is the transition? - It is one-two extra rotations or some simple steps on two feet. So if someone had a transition but failed to complete the jump that followed it - how could he be marked higher than a skater who had no transition but landed the quad?

No, transitions are everything that happens in the program between the elements. The short program is 2:50 in length. Only about 5 seconds or so of that time are spent in the air -- counting the time spent in immediate takeoffs and landings, and in spin and step sequence elements, which each take more time than the jumps, that still leaves about half the program time for getting between one element of the next.

That can include difficult turns and steps as well as simple ones, glides in difficult positions like spread eagles or shoot-the-ducks, nonlisted jumps like split jumps and walleys, and direct connections between elements (e.g., stepping from the last step of the step sequence directly into double axel or spin, or from the landing of a jump directly into a spin).

The criteria for judging transitions are Difficulty, Variety, Intricacy, and Quality.

Try looking at all the stuff the skater is doing between the jumps and spins and official step sequence. Are they doing a lot of turns in both directions and often changing direction (forward-backward, and clockwise-counterclockwise) unexpectedly? rockers, counters, brackets, loops, choctaws, outside mohawks as well as three turns and inside mohawks? toe steps, edge pulls, etc., for variety? Do they include highlight moves like half jumps or extended glides in position? How difficult is that position, and how well is the move performed? How often do they do these moves immediately before or immediately on the exit of the required elements, or go directly from one element to another?

Skaters who do all of the above and do it well deserve high Transitions scores. Let's hope all the judges notice and reward them appropriately.

Some skaters use no more one-two extra rotations or some simple steps on two feet in their programs, and a bunch of crossovers and other simple stroking or posing. Those are the skaters that should lose points for transitions.

This thread is about Chan, but I don't want to get specific about one skater. Just to point out that if you want to try to understand the scoring, it helps to have a more accurate idea of the rules and guidelines the panels are using to come up with those scores.

 

[figureskatingfan22]

Thanks for all your input. One problem with Chan is IMO that the casual viewer can't measure his extraordinary skating skills. And he's not such an expressive, emotional and / or interesting performer like some of his competitors. Therefore the casual or not-so-knowledgeable viewer can't understand his high scores. Plushenko also dominated for some time and was not liked by everybody, but since he was very good at jumping, the casual viewer could somewhat understand his dominance. It's different with Chan whose greatness is for the most part only understood by experts.

 

[ciocio]

Thanks for all your input. One problem with Chan is IMO that the casual viewer can't measure his extraordinary skating skills. And he's not such an expressive, emotional and / or interesting performer like some of his competitors. Therefore the casual or not-so-knowledgeable viewer can't understand his high scores. Plushenko also dominated for some time and was not liked by everybody, but since he was very good at jumping, the casual viewer could somewhat understand his dominance. It's different with Chan whose greatness is for the most part only understood by experts.

That´s funny! Are you joking? According to your description the only thing than Chan has are extraordinary skating skills (which is absolutely true), you suggest that´s enough to get high scores, despite the falls, crappy performance, etc ??????

 

[Blades of Passion]

At Vancouver, Daisuke not only fell, but his quad toe was severely under-rotaed. His 3F-3T combination was downgraded, he received edge call on the lutz twice, his last step sequence was out of sync with the music, and lost balance and stepped out in the final combination spin (Lv2). His TES was therefore quite low, but he received the highest PCS of the day to make up for it.

His Quad was not severely under-rotated. Look at where he leaves the ice in comparison to many other skaters who did the Quad. His amount of rotation in the air on the Quad was MORE than Jeremy Abbott's, and Abbott didn't get downgraded on his Quad at the Olympics. The downgrade on the 3F-3T was also not accurate. Tech controllers tend to have a thing about downgrading jumps that have noticable flaws on the landing. Two jumps can have exactly the same rotation, but if one of them had some kind of other problem on the landing, they'll generally downgrade it. The calls on the Lutz were "!" and not "e" and those jumps didn't deserve the -GOE they received. They were better Lutzes than Plushenko's and Plushenko received +1 GOE for his first crooked Lutz and didn't receive any -GOE for his second Lutz that was tilted in the air and wobbled on the landing (it was landed on the wrong edge).

Takahashi's step sequence was not out of sync with the music, at least not anymore than anyone else's, that's an odd assertion. Nor did he step out of his final combination spin. He was attempting to do a change-of-edge in his Layback, which is quite difficult, and he just wobbled a bit. The spin already was at a Level 3 (backwards entrance, crossfoot position, catch-foot sit spin), so even if you don't count the change-of-edge as a feature because of the wobble, the spin shouldn't have been called as Level 2. That is unless you don't count his position in the sit spin as a feature, but if you're not going to count Takahashi's, then Lysacek and Plushenko's lazy "cannonball" positions most CERTAINLY should not have been counted either.

Takahashi got screwed over in the TES mark at Olympics.

 

[Mathman]

That´s funny! Are you joking? According to your description the only thing than Chan has are extraordinary skating skills (which is absolutely true), you suggest that´s enough to get high scores, despite the falls, crappy performance, etc ?

Well, that is the topic of the thread -- does Patrick have extraordinary Skating Skills.

So..yes.

Does he have outstanding Transitions? Yes

Does he have outstanding P/E, CH and INT? There seems to be a difference of opinion on these components. The consensus seems to be that these are areas where he can improve.

One problem with Chan is IMO that the casual viewer can't measure his extraordinary skating skills.

As a decided non-expert, I have to disagree a little bit here. True, the average fan can't judge whether his center of gravity maintains a perfect balance over the center of the blade, and things like that. But I do think the average fan can watch his feet and see that he is doing a lot of cool stuff that other skaters don't.

 

[demarinis5]

--Snip--

As a decided non-expert, I have to disagree a little bit here. True, the average fan can't judge whether his center of gravity maintains a perfect balance over the center of the blade, and things like that. But I do think the average fan can watch his feet and see that he is doing a lot of cool stuff that other skaters don't.

Agreed. I am so busy watching Patrick's feet (amazing) I sometimes lose my concentration on what is going on above the waist.

 

[wallylutz]

I think Kozuka and Oda have very soft knees which make their landings look very smooth. However, that is far from the only thing to consider in Skating Skills. Chan is not tall but Kozuka and Oda are dwarf like based on North American standard - this is not a criticism, just an observation having seen both skated live many times. In any event, Oda's SS mark isn't very far apart from that of Chan at Skate Canada, his closest component category compared to Chan's. When people cite it here as a justification of their perceived injustice, it comes across as stretching the reality to me. Most posters here are very smart and knowledgeable in my view, there is no reason why they shouldn't know better to deliberately ignore other factors they know very well in their arguments. I think many here are not entirely honest in their assessment and rather let their own emotions overcome their logic. Even tony Wheeler's posted grading of the top 3 at SC and his written justification left a lot to be desired. He would have failed the evaluation process when he suggested that judges were too lenient on Chan's GOE when he himself failed to explain and include the other factors to be considered in making up the grading of GOE on a jump, which is not solely based on the stability of landing. Reading Mr. Wheeler's review, he ended up understating the correct GOE vs. what judges gave precisely b/c his thinking process wasn't thorough enough.

 

[doubleflutz]

I think Kozuka and Oda have very soft knees which make their landings look very smooth. However, that is far from the only thing to consider in Skating Skills. Chan is not tall but Kozuka and Oda are dwarf like based on North American standard - this is not a criticism, just an observation having seen both skated live many times.

So... Chan has better Skating Skills than the Japanese guys because he's tall, is that what you're saying here? Because I really can't think of what else you could possibly be implying there. Or are you saying that Chan should effectively get bonus GOE on his jumps because he's tall, and it's harder to jump the taller you are? That would certainly help Evan Lysacek if he decides to come back.

When people cite it here as a justification of their perceived injustice, it comes across as stretching the reality to me. Most posters here are very smart and knowledgeable in my view, there is no reason why they shouldn't know better to deliberately ignore other factors they know very well in their arguments. I think many here are not entirely honest in their assessment and rather let their own emotions overcome their logic.

I could say pretty much the exact same thing to all the impassioned (and often Canadian!) defenses of Chan going on around the net. There are many, many reasons why I personally think that Patrick Chan was overscored at Skate Canada, and his Skating Skills are pretty much the least of them. Or is a discussion of his skills and how he should be scored in relation to the rest of the top men out of bounds now?

 

[wallylutz]

So... Chan has better Skating Skills than the Japanese guys because he's tall, is that what you're saying here? Because I really can't think of what else you could possibly be implying there. Or are you saying that Chan should effectively get bonus GOE on his jumps because he's tall, and it's harder to jump the taller you are? That would certainly help Evan Lysacek if he decides to come back.

In 2008 Beijing Olympics, some female gymnasts of a certain nationality were questioned for being possibly under-age. Why do you think that was an issue and what advantage(s) that gave them for being small and, in their case, very young?