Who is going to qualify for the GPF?

[eta]

Or if Jin had landed one clean jump in his SP at Skate America. He lost that 4th place spot there to Voronov by a mere two tenths of a point. Even closer than his miss at Cup of China. It had nothing to do with Nathan. Jin could have defeated Adam head to head at SA, but he didn't need to. Twenty-one hundredths of a point and a finish above Voronov would have done the job.

I never said it has anything to do with Nathan. Aside from what Boyang could have done, it has everything to do with the judges.

 

[Blades of Passion]

Nathan worked dang hard for that "luck."

Yes, but he was still only the 7th best skater this Grand Prix season. Most competitive skaters work hard. *shrug*

 

[LeeJiHye19]

If judges gifted Boyang PCS like they did Chen, Boyang would have qualified.

Stop blaming Chen just because he is going to GPF and Jin is not. Jin should have had a nice skate in SA, at least if he had gotten 4th place there he would have been in instead of Adam but that's not the case.

 

[eta]

Stop blaming Chen just because he is going to GPF and Jin is not. Jin should have had a nice skate in SA, at least if he had gotten 4th place there he would have been in instead of Adam but that's not the case.

Why do you say I'm blaming Chen? I clearly said IF JUDGES, it's not like Chen scored himself? Stop putting words in my mouth.

 

[gsyzf]

If judges gifted Boyang PCS like they did Chen, Boyang would have qualified.

If Judges gave Jin more generous PCS, then they would give Chan even higher PCS, and the final placement would still remain the same. It's not the first time that Chan placed ahead of Jin by a small margin after giving a poor SP performance but a clean/near clean LP performance. E.g. 2015 GPF, 2016 4CC and 2016 COC. It seems that as long as Chan delivers, judges will place Chan ahead of Jin even if Chan screws up his SP. Judges prefer Chan over Jin.

The GP hosts trade skaters. Host A invites Skater B from Fed B, and in exchange Host B will invite Skate A from Host A. Here is my theory: USFSA invited Uno to SA and "let/helped" Uno win SA to qualify for GPF, and in exchange JSF invited Brown to NHK and would help Brown (or other American skaters) to qualify for GPF. When Brown failed to deliver and had no chance to qualify for GPF, then judges at NHK helped the next American skater (Chen) to qualify for GPF. (Skating last also gets a bonus in PCS.) The PCS in the LP is usually twice as much as the PCS in the SP. So Chen's LP PCS would probably be around low 80 (double the SP PCS) if he didn't get any bonus. Even if Chen got 80 PCS, he would still be 2nd and qualified for GPF.

What hurt Jin the most is that he gave two bad performances in SA when his rivals gave much better performances, thus caused him to significantly drop down in the final placement at SA. If the other men didn't do so well at SA, Jin's chance of qualifying for GPF would be a lot higher.

 

[sowcow]

✭ ✭ If NO flag images appear in the table below, click the link: ✭ ✭
https://app.box.com/s/a03jktp6ryif6e4rrw5ifvhl2w7jv1l1


2016 / 2017 Grand Prix Standings | Top Placements by Country

(After 6 events; countries listed alphabetically within each grouping)
​

	Ladies	Men	Pairs	Ice Dance
1[SUP]st[/SUP] place .......to....... 6[SUP]th[/SUP] place
7[SUP]th[/SUP] place to 10[SUP]th[/SUP] place

Intent of Table:

• To visually show the nationalities of skaters who qualified for the Grand Prix Final (plus the next 4 placings).
• In other words, the top-10 skater 'nationalities' in each discipline are shown (grouped separately: 1st-6th & 7th-10th)
  
• The domination of skaters from Russia, USA and Canada is clear

 

[sowcow]

✭ ✭ I was able to find some flags / symbols that work ✭ ✭

2016 / 2017 Grand Prix Standings | Top Placements by Country

(After 6 events; countries listed alphabetically within each grouping)
​

	Ladies	Men	Pairs	Ice Dance
1[SUP]st[/SUP] place .......to....... 6[SUP]th[/SUP] place		. ​ ​	​
7[SUP]th[/SUP] place to 10[SUP]th[/SUP] place	......................................	...................................... . Israel .	......................................	......................................

click for alternate copy of table: https://app.box.com/s/a03jktp6ryif6e4rrw5ifvhl2w7jv1l1

​

Intent of Table:

• To visually show the nationalities of skaters who qualified for the Grand Prix Final (plus the next 4 placings).
• In other words, the top-10 skater 'nationalities' in each discipline (grouped separately: 1st-6th & 7th-10th).
  
• The domination of skaters from Russia, USA and Canada is clear.

 

[eta]

If Judges gave Jin more generous PCS, then they would give Chan even higher PCS, and the final placement would still remain the same. It's not the first time that Chan placed ahead of Jin by a small margin after giving a poor SP performance but a clean/near clean LP performance. E.g. 2015 GPF, 2016 4CC and 2016 COC. It seems that as long as Chan delivers, judges will place Chan ahead of Jin even if Chan screws up his SP. Judges prefer Chan over Jin.

The GP hosts trade skaters. Host A invites Skater B from Fed B, and in exchange Host B will invite Skate A from Host A. Here is my theory: USFSA invited Uno to SA and "let/helped" Uno win SA to qualify for GPF, and in exchange JSF invited Brown to NHK and would help Brown (or other American skaters) to qualify for GPF. When Brown failed to deliver and had no chance to qualify for GPF, then judges at NHK helped the next American skater (Chen) to qualify for GPF. (Skating last also gets a bonus in PCS.) The PCS in the LP is usually twice as much as the PCS in the SP. So Chen's LP PCS would probably be around low 80 (double the SP PCS) if he didn't get any bonus. Even if Chen got 80 PCS, he would still be 2nd and qualified for GPF.

What hurt Jin the most is that he gave two bad performances in SA when his rivals gave much better performances, thus caused him to significantly drop down in the final placement at SA. If the other men didn't do so well at SA, Jin's chance of qualifying for GPF would be a lot higher.

I am talking about skate America where Jin was 0.2 below fourth place, chan was not there.

 

[gsyzf]

I am talking about skate America where Jin was 0.2 below fourth place, chan was not there.

Jin did worse than all of Voronov, Uno, Rippon and Brown in SA. Voronov isn't favored by judges either. Voronov has even less reputation (+ fed support) than Jin.

 

[eta]

Jin did worse than all of Voronov, Uno, Rippon and Brown in SA. Voronov isn't favored by judges either. Voronov has even less reputation (+ fed support) than Jin.

But he still gave a better LP (in his first GP) than Chen did at TdF (his first GP).

And I'm only talking about judges not being generous to Jin relative to Chen; if they are generous with everyone's score (including Voronov) then results everywhere may be different.


As for fed support, maybe Jin does get more support from Chinese fed, but the Chinese fed itself isn't very powerful, so.

 

[gsyzf]

But he still gave a better LP (in his first GP) than Chen did at TdF (his first GP).

And I'm only talking about judges not being generous to Jin relative to Chen; if they are generous with everyone's score (including Voronov) then results everywhere may be different.

As for fed support, maybe Jin does get more support from Chinese fed, but the Chinese fed itself isn't very powerful, so.

Chen gave a better SP at TdF than Jin did at SA. But that's not really relevant. What's relevant is whether they each did better than their rivals in the same competition to deserve their placements in that particular competition. Jin made more mistakes than Voronov in both sp and lp (Voronov was clean in the LP) and placed lower than Voronov and got 5th. It's actually not easy for Russian skaters to score well in the USA unless they have really strong Fed support and they skate clean. Kovtun bombed in SA and he got even lower PCS than Jin in both SP and LP even though he is Russian national champ. I don't think Voronov got any generosity from the judges. Jin didn't get any generosity from the judges either. If judges are equally generous or stingy to everyone in the same competition, the placements will remain the same. The placements may only change if judges are generous to one skater and more harsh to another skater.

Chen did better than Mura in the sp (Chen had a clean SP) and made more mistakes than Mura in the LP (Mura also fell in the LP and got higher PCS than Chen), so he placed higher than Mura and got 4th. The margin between Chen and Mura's total scores is not small. It's 16+ points difference.

Top skaters from big feds like USA and Russia receive more generous judging. But it's also much more difficult to become top skaters from those countries because there are too many skaters in those countries. Generally, the skater who receives the most support from the fed must consistently deliver and place ahead of his/her rivals within their country before they can be sent to international competitions. Since men are pushing the technical boundaries these days, the top male skaters from big feds often end up with injuries every season. They sacrifice a lot of their health to receive the support from their feds.

 

[eta]

Chen gave a better SP at TdF than Jin did at SA. But that's not really relevant. What's relevant is whether they each did better than their rivals in the same competition to deserve their placements in that particular competition. Jin made more mistakes than Voronov in both sp and lp (Voronov was clean in the LP) and placed lower than Voronov and got 5th. It's actually not easy for Russian skaters to score well in the USA unless they have really strong Fed support and they skate clean. Kovtun bombed in SA and he got even lower PCS than Jin in both SP and LP even though he is Russian national champ. I don't think Voronov got any generosity from the judges. Jin didn't get any generosity from the judges either. If judges are equally generous or stingy to everyone in the same competition, the placements will remain the same. The placements may only change if judges are generous to one skater and more harsh to another skater.

Chen did better than Mura in the sp (Chen had a clean SP) and made more mistakes than Mura in the LP (Mura also fell in the LP and got higher PCS than Chen), so he placed higher than Mura and got 4th. The margin between Chen and Mura's total scores is not small. It's 16+ points difference.

Top skaters from big feds like USA and Russia receive more generous judging. But it's also much more difficult to become top skaters from those countries because there are too many skaters in those countries. Generally, the skater who receives the most support from the fed must consistently deliver and place ahead of his/her rivals within their country before they can be sent to international competitions. Since men are pushing the technical boundaries these days, the top male skaters from big feds often end up with injuries every season. They sacrifice a lot of their health to receive the support from their feds.

I do agree with you on the Voronov getting not much love from judges. Not my point though, I'm only talking about Jin Boyang, and the reason I'm bringing up Nathan Chen is because to me they are kind of similar, both young, more jumps than choreography, and between the two of them Boyang has better jumps and Nathan has better SS. I am most definitely not saying that judges should be generous with younger skaters (e.g. Boyang, Nathan) relative to older skaters (e.g. Voronov). But it is curious the amount of love Nathan (e.g. TdF FS and NHK FS) and Shoma (e.g. very much pre-rotated 4F and lots of crossovers) are getting from the judges.

On the topic of top skaters from big feds getting generous scores, I'm very puzzled at the amount of love Javi gets...... so many high PCS scores even when he's not clean......

 

[gsyzf]

I do agree with you on the Voronov getting not much love from judges. Not my point though, I'm only talking about Jin Boyang, and the reason I'm bringing up Nathan Chen is because to me they are kind of similar, both young, more jumps than choreography, and between the two of them Boyang has better jumps and Nathan has better SS. I am most definitely not saying that judges should be generous with younger skaters (e.g. Boyang, Nathan) relative to older skaters (e.g. Voronov). But it is curious the amount of love Nathan (e.g. TdF FS and NHK FS) and Shoma (e.g. very much pre-rotated 4F and lots of crossovers) are getting from the judges.

On the topic of top skaters from big feds getting generous scores, I'm very puzzled at the amount of love Javi gets...... so many high PCS scores even when he's not clean......

France and Japan are both allies of USA. So Chen getting some inflation there isn't that surprising. I think that's the main reason why USFSA assigned him to TdF and NHK, so he can have a good senior debut and not be low-balled due to lack of experience. Also, Chen has better SS and more ballet training/refinement, so he should get higher PCS than Jin when both are clean or equally messy. In fact, USFSA either keeps their top skaters/most promising skaters at SA or send them to GPs in Japan and France unless they have no other choice due to the seeding requirements. E.g. Gracie Gold has only been assigned to SA, TEB/TDF and NHK since 2014. JSF also either keeps their most promising junior skaters like Wakaba Higuchi, Sota Yamamoto and Shoma Uno at NHK or send them to SA and TEB/TDF when they turn senior.

Uno and Fernandez's inflation is more puzzling. I think judges inflate their scores and judge Hanyu more harshly in order to prevent Hanyu from dominating.

 

[eta]

France and Japan are both allies of USA. So Chen getting some inflation there isn't that surprising. I think that's the main reason why USFSA assigned him to TdF and NHK, so he can have a good senior debut and not be low-balled due to lack of experience. In fact, USFSA either keeps their top skaters/most promising skaters at SA or send them to GPs in Japan and France unless they have no other choice due to the seeding requirements. E.g. Gracie Gold has only been assigned to SA, TEB/TDF and NHK since 2014. JSF also either keeps their most promising junior skaters like Wakaba Higuchi, Sota Yamamoto and Shoma Uno at NHK or send them to SA and TEB/TDF when they turn senior.

Uno and Fernandez's inflation is more puzzling. I think judges inflate their scores and judge Hanyu more harshly in order to prevent Hanyu from dominating.

So it is fed-power plus "for the good of the sport" - the former sadly cannot be prevented and the latter absolutely disgusting, imo.

 

[chairmanmao]

Or if Jin had landed one clean jump in his SP at Skate America. He lost that 4th place spot there to Voronov by a mere two tenths of a point. Even closer than his miss at Cup of China. It had nothing to do with Nathan. Jin could have defeated Adam head to head at SA, but he didn't need to. Twenty-one hundredths of a point and a finish above Voronov would have done the job.

People making it out like it was Jin's fault that he was robbed of his rightful place in SA and COC. I think the scores that Chen was able to put up without a doubt prove they were trying to hold Jin down.

 

[chairmanmao]

France and Japan are both allies of USA. So Chen getting some inflation there isn't that surprising. I think that's the main reason why USFSA assigned him to TdF and NHK, so he can have a good senior debut and not be low-balled due to lack of experience. Also, Chen has better SS and more ballet training/refinement, so he should get higher PCS than Jin when both are clean or equally messy. In fact, USFSA either keeps their top skaters/most promising skaters at SA or send them to GPs in Japan and France unless they have no other choice due to the seeding requirements. E.g. Gracie Gold has only been assigned to SA, TEB/TDF and NHK since 2014. JSF also either keeps their most promising junior skaters like Wakaba Higuchi, Sota Yamamoto and Shoma Uno at NHK or send them to SA and TEB/TDF when they turn senior.

Uno and Fernandez's inflation is more puzzling. I think judges inflate their scores and judge Hanyu more harshly in order to prevent Hanyu from dominating.

I love how you went from observing Chen's incredible PCS rise from a neutral uncritical standpoint to slamming the minute PCS increase of established senior skaters like Fernandez and Uno in one post. Never seen such hypocrisy pass off as a nonchalant commentary in my life but I thankfully I can see all through the pseudo-intellectual B S.

 

[gsyzf]

So it is fed-power plus "for the good of the sport" - the former sadly cannot be prevented and the latter absolutely disgusting, imo.

If the countries with big feds have deep fields, the skaters they support are their most all-round/most consistent skaters of their generation in their countries. I don't think they will support their less well-rounded or inconsistent skaters without creating internal conflicts.

Chen has better SS and more ballet training + more refinement than Jin. I do think he should get higher PCS than Jin when they skate equally well or equally messy. Chen's PCS may be a bit generous, but not ridiculously high.

 

[shyne]

Before this season, I always assumed that the former Soviet countries are giving Russian skaters high scores. But that's no where near the truth when I looked at the score sheets this season.
I think we should treat judges as individuals with bias instead of puppets that only represent the interest of their federation.

 

[cathlen]

Russia is clearly the strongest in Ladies and USA in Ice Dance, but while we can be almost sure it will be one of Russian Ladies who will win GPF, it seem kinda unlikely for US Ice Dance team to win GP with V/M and P/C being there. (of course, ice is slippery, I'm not saying it's set in stone), but the most interesting to mee seems battle of Candian Pairs vs Chinese Pairs, with S/M being spoiler if healthy.

 

[Tahuu]

Nathan got lucky to obtain a GPF slot. Rippon should have been 2nd in France and Boyang 1st in China, which would have kicked him out. Oh well!

Well, you are right. In any sport luck is always on the side of the winner. Nathan has to seize the opportunity and place 2nd at NHK to get in. And he did and controlled his fate! Talking about shoulda, woulda, I think Nathan must have kicked the wall backstage and mad at himself for not adding a 1T to his 2nd 4T in his FS at TdF to get full value for the repeated 4T, as coach TomZ pointed out at Nathan's Instagram. Had he tagged a 1T or 2T to the 4T(hand), his score would have been 268.64 and 269.63 respectively, good for a silver there and be the top six right now in GPs. What is encouraging is Nathan had a 2 falls advantage at TdF, not less with 2 2As.