- Joined
- Dec 9, 2019
There we're completely off-topic so I'm putting a spoiler.Nathan didn't have amazing glide nor particularly noteworthy way of transferring weight. He was also never the fastest - it's pretty obvious at 2017 worlds where he was the slowest of the top 6 (of course, he was also the youngest of the top 6). To say he didn't have transitions and had "flat" skating is silly. Right in the PyeongChang LP you can see him do a spread eagle into a 4T, lol.
In the aforementioned 2019 GPF LP, one of the few times I thought he deserved to beat Hanyu on PCS, he does running threes, power pull into a 3A, as another example.
You can see in his Nemesis and Mao's Last Dancer and Philip Glass programs that he can do steps with great body movement and flow and depth of edge.
Chen's weakest component, btw, was interpretation. He never showcased a personal point of view in his skating (nor particularly interesting points of view, in my book). He also had problems with projecting to the audience when he was younger, but this was fixed as he grew older and more confident.
He used to go to IAM to get his coaching...
As for discussions about "contempt" for artistry - I have to wonder how people reach the conclusion that Chen had contempt but all the others who don't skate well - in fact skate with worse line and skating skill and jump technique and spin technique than him - are somehow "only delivering what the TES and PCS require NOW" (aka Sato, Shaidorov; Malinin for everything apart from jump technique, and for that matter when it comes to jumps/spins Siao Him Fa, and when it comes to jumps solely, Kagiyama). Try not to let your own contempt for a skater cloud your judgment too much.
He may have been slow in 2017 but as you say, he was very young and he progressed on this topic, though as you say, he never had the best glide (nor the worst, particularly if we take some Russian Women in the panel, his was more visible because he wouldn't shape his Crossovers to fit the program, he'd do them as if he was doing some speed skating attempt). I'm not saying that he had no Transition at all, I'm saying that he had less than the rest of the top skaters, that's the meaning of my "lacked". And that's, it's true, because the previous Olympic cycles had seen a spectacular progression in Transitions, both in quantity, difficulty and quality of execution. Shoma Uno, who couldn't follow more than Nathan Chen in their quantity, managed to have quality of execution, be it in Steps or in Crossovers, and more one-foot skating, edges, better Spins of course...
He did work on it and it's very deserving because he was probably not encouraged in this direction, but when he would, they would look awkward, laboured, I disagree with you in that flow was lacking, as to his body movements they wouldn't endanger his balance, certainly he knew that it was his weaker point. I don't know completely about projecting to the audience because I've never seen him skating live, but in his earlier program he was able of some Interpretation, I thought that it was thanks to Marina Zueva, maybe IAM was in the loop too. In any case, it would all come to (nearly!) nothing when five Quadruples were jumped, sorry. If you have in mind an inflated "regular" scoring for his Rocketman and an underscored "regular" scoring for Origin, then of course the graphs may cross. But if you compare (glps!) both skates with the same grid, they don't get anywhere close.
He did express a contempt for artistry in this interview, which I don't think was his real thought, rather some imparted reflexion, maybe told him in contempt by someone else when he would try to gain part of his Components, which went out at that moment, maybe because he felt defensive?
As to myself, please don't accuse me of contempt. I know that a French author once said that one ought to gift one's contempt only parsimoniously, because of the great number of those in need of it. But in terms of contempt, I'm worse than parsimonious, I may be the worst miser. Even for someone like Ari Zakarian I don't have any contempt, in spite of all his exertions to get some. So, please, don't imagine that I might have even the slightest idea of considering any particle of contempt for someone with apparently an usual share of merits and faults (most of which I don't even know) like Nathan Chen!
I won't go further on other skaters because this was already sooo off-topic.
He did work on it and it's very deserving because he was probably not encouraged in this direction, but when he would, they would look awkward, laboured, I disagree with you in that flow was lacking, as to his body movements they wouldn't endanger his balance, certainly he knew that it was his weaker point. I don't know completely about projecting to the audience because I've never seen him skating live, but in his earlier program he was able of some Interpretation, I thought that it was thanks to Marina Zueva, maybe IAM was in the loop too. In any case, it would all come to (nearly!) nothing when five Quadruples were jumped, sorry. If you have in mind an inflated "regular" scoring for his Rocketman and an underscored "regular" scoring for Origin, then of course the graphs may cross. But if you compare (glps!) both skates with the same grid, they don't get anywhere close.
He did express a contempt for artistry in this interview, which I don't think was his real thought, rather some imparted reflexion, maybe told him in contempt by someone else when he would try to gain part of his Components, which went out at that moment, maybe because he felt defensive?
As to myself, please don't accuse me of contempt. I know that a French author once said that one ought to gift one's contempt only parsimoniously, because of the great number of those in need of it. But in terms of contempt, I'm worse than parsimonious, I may be the worst miser. Even for someone like Ari Zakarian I don't have any contempt, in spite of all his exertions to get some. So, please, don't imagine that I might have even the slightest idea of considering any particle of contempt for someone with apparently an usual share of merits and faults (most of which I don't even know) like Nathan Chen!
I won't go further on other skaters because this was already sooo off-topic.
As GPF 2019 Origin has been put forth, also off-topic, by people who may not know that Yuzuru Hanyu had spoken of it (being asked) in his latest Menship Radio two days ago, so here we are...
