The men- splatfest or miracle?

[skateluvr]

The GPF should show us who handles the nerves best but remember Sochi men’s event? Not so clean. I just already feel the ladies will rise again and show up the men at the GPF and Olympics. I think this many quadsters can only lead to a splatfest. I don’t know if I can watch it really.

How can we possibly see anything clean under such pressure? Quad triple, quad, quad, triple axel, triple axelcombos. Another quad. Uh. I’m nervous already.

Who is the best bet to get through the programs with the least errors? IMO put money tho not too much on Nathan. And something tells me Boyang will be ready. I think Nathan is a tough competitor and is very hungry to blow away the other guys. Already he is the one who might skate best but I think he should do 4 quads in the long not 5. Thoughts on who will bring it? Who will tank? Kinda sad for a Javi. A great perfect Sp then LP wins but only because Shoma had bad day too. I wish Javi gets a medal and Nathan. So that leaves on and I hope it is Shoma.

 

[Bluediamonds09]

Too hard to tell! And maybe the winner won’t even “bring it” at all. U can still win with multiple errors.
My biggest fear is that the men’s event will be a complete splatfest. The Gold Medalist will have a fall and other errors but will receive high pcs.

 

[discombobulated]

It is Nathan's first Olympics. His first world's obviously brought out the nerves and I think the same might happen at Pyeongchang but it is the Olympics and as always, expect the unexpected! During most Olympics I have watched, especially the men's competition, it seems as though the athletes that stick to what they know and do well, like Javi is opting for this season, seem to do well.

 

[college pat]

part of me likes seem men skate clean.

however since so many men are doing quads, i rather seem a man tried, a quad and fall on one (not on all) than just skating clean
the attempt.

 

[Sam L]

I would like to see a clean Patrick Chan with two quads take the gold.

 

[Ic3Rabbit]

I would like to see a clean Patrick Chan with two quads take the gold.

Oh yes! You are my new friend lol!

 

[brens78]

Prays to the figure skating gods that Javi gets it together with 2 clean programs and a podium finish ( gold preferred !

 

[skateluvr]

I would like to see a clean Patrick Chan with two quads take the gold.

I would not bet on Patrick given what we saw. He is a long shot for gold. His time is over. I love to watch him skate but he has never been a consistent jumper and recall board going nuts when they held him up with crazy PCS despite huge mistakes. He and Yuzu were subpar last Olympics. Chen is fierce. Anyone wanna bet some real money? How about Bitcoin? Just kidding I don’t have any bitcoin. So my monopoly money is on Nathen for Gold Yuzu for silver and Shoma or Boyang for 3-4. Javi May spoil and I hope he does but if he skates like he did this week he could be 5-7. Hopefully Brian has him so trained he can do autopilot. I will be thrilled if Javi skates clean. That is all I want for Christmas except in February

 

[mskater93]

Diagree on Nathan and nerves. He mistimed replacing boots around Worlds last year, so his boots were unable to support him. There's an article about this and you can see it in the jumps fron Worlds. This kid is pretty unflappable in general.

 

[noskates]

I don't like sloppy skating. Not from men on the elite level. I would much prefer they stay in their own wheelhouse and do what they can and skate clean. I really dislike the going trend to try all these quads probably knowing you aren't going to land them but "oh boy" you'll get points for trying. That's like saying in the high jump - "wow, I jumped high but I hit the bar!" Go me! I'm pretty tired of the splat fests and like many others I think a fall should not give you high points no matter how many times you rotated in the air. From following skating for more years than I will admit, seeing a skater fall several times and winning a gold medal just doesn't synch for me.

 

[silverfoxes]

I don't like sloppy skating. Not from men on the elite level. I would much prefer they stay in their own wheelhouse and do what they can and skate clean. I really dislike the going trend to try all these quads probably knowing you aren't going to land them but "oh boy" you'll get points for trying. That's like saying in the high jump - "wow, I jumped high but I hit the bar!" Go me! I'm pretty tired of the splat fests and like many others I think a fall should not give you high points no matter how many times you rotated in the air. From following skating for more years than I will admit, seeing a skater fall several times and winning a gold medal just doesn't synch for me.

I couldn't agree more. And it makes me very sad that skaters who do everything they can to skate clean still can't beat the scores doled out to far sloppier performances just because of BV and being perceived as one of the "top men." Fine, you can say that someone with 0 quads or only 1 doesn't deserve to be on top...but I will say that men with multiple errors in their programs, no matter how difficult, don't deserve to be on top either. Time for some balance and much more severe punishment for falls.

 

[Ender]

Diagree on Nathan and nerves. He mistimed replacing boots around Worlds last year, so his boots were unable to support him. There's an article about this and you can see it in the jumps fron Worlds. This kid is pretty unflappable in general.

He was landing a lot of quads in practice at WC 2017.

 

[LiamForeman]

To be honest I am preparing myself for a total splatfest. I think Vincent Zhou is a perfect example. He attempts four or five and maybe lands two or three and falls on the rest. Yuzu started his Oly LP out with two bad falls. It makes for a crappy event. I hope that ISU changes the scoring so that a fall receives NO POINTS. No guts, no glory.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

To be honest I am preparing myself for a total splatfest. I think Vincent Zhou is a perfect example. He attempts four or five and maybe lands two or three and falls on the rest. Yuzu started his Oly LP out with two bad falls. It makes for a crappy event. I hope that ISU changes the scoring so that a fall receives NO POINTS. No guts, no glory.

I also am expecting a splatfest. I don't get the sense that any of the guys are really comfortable doing the jumps they have to do. Maybe Yuzuru will feel a little less pressure because he has already achieved winning an OGM, but I hope we'll see at least a couple of great performances worthy of a gold medal.

 

[skylark]

What goes around comes around. I recall the conversation after Vancouver ... we must reward men for taking bigger risks. Therefore more points went to a rotated splatted quad. Possibly the pendulum is swinging back, and after Pyongchang some adjustments could be made. Don't forget that Plushenko would say Misha Ge's gorgeous program without quads is "ladies skating." Real men must jump quad!

Having said that, I think Nathan Chen is the best bet to complete his layout of quads. He's also working very hard on his presentation marks. It's interesting to think about why this is: If he should win the Olympics (which is still a very big ask, because if the older big names splat they'll still get sky-high PCS), then teen-age men will have won the gold medal at the last two Olympics. Why? Possibly, as with ladies, a younger body is now an advantage. I remember when Ilia Kulik won 1998 OG, Scott Hamilton talked about his "skating young," that he still could develop mature artistry. Kulik was 21; that was young then for a men's Oly champion. Most have been in the 23-26 range, at least in the previous 30 years before Hanyu.

Javier Fernandez is the only contender who has come right out and said that he's sticking with the quad layout that he knows he can do well, because performing well and making his programs enjoyable for the audience is the most important thing for him. I hope he wins gold and Nathan wins silver.

 

[rabbit1234]

Why do not you argue based on facts?

ISU World Figure Skating Championships・ Winter Olympics　　SP+FP
Number of deduction

year ： 24competitors ： TOP6 ： TOP3 ： TOP1

2006 ： 24 ： 5 ： 3 ： 0 2006 Winter Olympics
2006 ： 12 ： 2 ： 0 ： 0
2007 ： 19 ： 2 ： 1 ： 0
2008 ： 12 ： 1 ： 0 ： 0
2009 ： 11 ： 3 ： 1 ： 1
2010 ： 19 ： 3 ： 1 ： 0 2010 Winter Olympics
2010 ： 18 ： 4 ： 2 ： 0
2011 ： 19 ： 3 ： 0 ： 0
2012 ： 18 ： 5 ： 3 ： 2
2013 ： 18 ： 4 ： 2 ： 2
2014 ： 18 ： 4 ： 3 ： 2 2014 Winter Olympics
2014 ： 13 ： 0 ： 0 ： 0
2015 ： 18 ： 3 ： 3 ： 1
2016 ： 19 ： 3 ： 2 ： 0
2017 ： 19 ： 5 ： 1 ： 1

The number of deduction is not increasing.
In recent years, only Patrick's 2012, 2013 won the ISU World Figure Skating Championships with deduction 2.00.
Despite the large number of deductions, the only competitor that can win is the PCS high competitor.

As a matter of fact, competitors with many quads do not have many mistakes.
In reality, in ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2017, TOP 3 hanyu, uno and jin had little mistakes and hanyu had only 1 dedication at SP, shoma and Jin were deduction 0.
The top３ deductions were the lowest level in the past.
The more mistakes were made, such as Chan and Javier with few quads.

If you do not like the risk of fall, should you go to see ICE DANCE and professional ice show?
I do not think that a professional ice show is more popular than an amateur competition. In fact, there was also a professional competition, but now it is gone. The reason why the professional competition was abolished is probably because it is not popular.

I think that it is exciting because there is a risk of failure. It is because I do not know what will happen.
If, like synchronized swimming, the rank has been decided by reputation from the beginning, I think that it is not exciting at all.

 

[LiamForeman]

What goes around comes around. I recall the conversation after Vancouver ... we must reward men for taking bigger risks. Therefore more points went to a rotated splatted quad. Possibly the pendulum is swinging back, and after Pyongchang some adjustments could be made.

But it wasn't just Vancouver. In Turin, much was made of Jeff Buttle knowing he had no chance in hell of landing his quad toe but if he could rotate and splat he'd get more points. I didn't begrudge him, I'm a nerdy mathematician too, and if I can squeeze out more points I'd do the same thing. Which is what the Eteri school is doing. Look, this is the system they are faced with, so they want to maximize it with Tanos/Rippons/backloading/silly transitions that mean nothing/etc. I read a recent interview with Dick Button, and he basically said "I can hardly bear to watch skating anymore, but it's not the skaters' faults, it's the system." And I agree 100%. I think it would help if like I said upthread that falls get ZERO points. That is sport. Reminds me of Dan O'Brian in 1992 when he was the favorite for Oly gold and he blew himself off the Olympic team by botching the pole vault at Oly Trials. He, I guess, was trying to conserve his energy and started off at a really high starting height and proceeded to miss both tries. Sure, if he had just started at the lowest level just to get it out of the way he would have made the Olympic team, but he gambled and BAM all that Reebok Dan versus Dave went to hell. It's heartbreaking, but it's sport. I don't see how you can reward a failure?

 

[draqq]

The insertion of multiple quad passes in men's long programs has essentially rendered them into percentage games. It really just depends on the day whether someone will land their quads or not. Trying to predict the men's competition right now is like trying to catch water with a net.

 

[skateluvr]

The insertion of multiple quad passes in men's long programs has essentially rendered them into percentage games. It really just depends on the day whether someone will land their quads or not. Trying to predict the men's competition right now is like trying to catch water with a net.

Truer words but it is fun to speculate given what we have seen. This quadmaniaa is really very new and maybe ISU needs to see a bad competition to make changes to bring Sanity into the sport. Some where between Nathan Chen and Jason Brown there is a balanced and consistent skater. And I agree with zero for a fall. Clearly there will be many rotated splats and that makes for viewers turning off from the sport. Really it is insane right now when you have only a handful of men in the world who can even attempt these overloaded jumping bean programs. I don’t blame Button. Watching him skate was beautiful even though he was pushing the tech back then. But there was balance and without training figures the edge quality of many men is not there. Plushenkomsaid without the jumps it is ice dance. Plushy is amazing in his way but his skating skills were sub par. No edges just the big quad triple double at the outset to set him apart. Yagudin was better but got injured. People forget Timmy Goebel who was slammed for hunched shoulder. It wouldn’t matter much now his quads would carry him even further perhaps.

Maybe IJS rules should limit quad passes and make the layouts conform to choreography standards of old. The ten percent bonus is so abused by Eteri yet her girls win. I don’t think Alina deserves all that because her programs are so busy and to have Swan Lake and Red Ballerina have a split second of hiking leg up sideways and no spiral sequence for alleged ballerinas on ice. Ugh. Well let’s hope the pendulum finds middle ground. It’s so inconsistent this multi quad game that any result is possible. Voronov won a Grand Prix Gold at 30 years old. Strange things can and will happen at Olympics.

Will kolyada and the girls from Ru even be there? It is all in the air so to speak. No wonder ice dance has become the discipline many prefer to watch. It is really as of now still the most beautiful figure skating we can relax and enjoy.

 

[mrrice]

I don't want to see a splatfest. If the top skaters fall more than once, I'd rather see Patrick Chan win with 2 quads. Then I'd like to see Jason Brown take the Silver with 1 quad, and see Misha Ge take the Bronze with No quad......