Your favorite worlds?

[arewhyaen]

2016 Worlds! Javi winning gold with one of my favorite programs ever (Guys and Dolls), Ashley winning silver, Gracie taking 4th (and having a SPECTACULAR 1st place short), and two of my favorite free dances from that quad - Fix You from the Shibutanis and To Build a Home from Papadakis and Cizeron

 

[ElSoteroLoco]

Also worth noting that the skaters have (comparatively) little to do with the scores they are given. The scores and results are ultimately in the judges' hands. Thus, the judges always deserve the blame for controversial results, not the skaters.

As a huge Patrick fan, I so wish his LP had gone better. It was such a letdown after his sublime SP. I was okay with the result, but it felt bizarre. Because, when I love a skater that much, my biggest wish for them is to skate clean/well. Fun fact: The first sentence I wrote in Patrick's Fan Fest after the LP was, "What a strange World Men's Event, again." (His 2012 Worlds LP was also less than desirable, so it felt like deja vu.)

Imma have to watch those Worlds again....i forgot about that

 

[TT_Fin]

After looking a little bit backwards I would say 1998. It was exiting in singles with several candidates to win.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

ISU decided to prevent such mishaps in the future, especially on Olympics. Another swipe could easily zero further interest in the niche sport. People could vote by feet and not pay for tickets/translations anymore.

2002 Olympics weren't particularly bad for Russia, yet Tarasova said in her interview the situation with the next generation of Russian skaters nears "down below".
The situation slightly improved after 2018 with the Quad Race among ladies. But only slightly.
Remember the last Olympics? 5 golds, 2 for Russia, and 3 dissipated among 3 different countries. The next Olympics will be even better, with exactly 0 golds for Russia.

You know, other countries are allowed to win without it being a conspiracy.

There are several instances where Russians were simply outskated. Irina or Maria could have won gold in 2000 Worlds (Maria won her qualification and the SP), but Kwan was superb (with a 3-3) and the Russians flubbed their salchows. Irina Slutskaya could have won Olympic gold in 2002 or 2006 but didn’t capitalize either time. The ISU didn’t make them fall or fail to do their content. They were responsible for their skates.

Ilinykh and Katsalapov were handed World gold on a platter and they were the ones who messed up, not the ISU.

The Russian men are more than welcome to learn quads to keep up with the Americans and Japanese post Yagudin/Plushenko but clearly it’s the ISU holding them back from landing their jumps consistently.

Russia isn’t entitled to win - they need to earn it, and every discipline goes in waves sometimes others are just better. The ISU has nothing to do with it. If you want to see Russians win every discipline you can go watch the stages of the Russian Cup.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

2013 Worlds. After Yuna sort of saved that event after Patrick Chan controversy.

And before Patrick Chan's fans attack me, I think he's a wonderful skater, but that was not one of his best events.

I’m a fan of Patrick but he didn’t deserve to win those Worlds. But Yu Na was superb, V/T in pairs dominated, and Ice Dance was a fun battle.

I will say while the judges got men’s wrong there were definitely things that were the skaters’ doing that led to the men’s gold and silver standings. Chan had a great SP that saved him, and high ticket/GOE quad passes to make up for the FS errors and Ten doubled both jumps in a 3-3, having one less quad, and had the misfortune of being from a lesser fed and suddenly having the skates of his career so far and the judges not knowing what to do with that.

 

[4everchan]

For what it's worth...

Denis's Base Value was 73.23... As @CanadianSkaterGuy mentioned, he only had one quad which was not in combo (a big disadvantage for GOE) and doubled both jumps in his 3f-3t combo... Nowadays, his 3rd 2t would even be invalid.

Patrick's Base Value was 76.08 with big GOE on both quads including the biggest paying element of the night with the 4t-3t combo. This is exactly what saved him, and though his 3f-Eu-3S wasn't great and received negative GOE, that meant that he had two combos with a triple jump as the last jump... instead of the double jumps Denis did. (though he had a brilliant 3a-3t).

Denis skated better in the LP and received a much better score than Patrick. Denis also received good PCS. Patrick didn't get the huge PCS he would normally get for a clean program (and appropriately so). Judges didn't favour him more than they favoured other champions in other competitions.

Patrick had a whopping 7 points lead before the LP. That's pretty much a triple axel ahead... an extra jumping pass altogether before even skating the LP. It is hard to recover from that for his competitors.

I always loved Denis's skating. I would have been fine if he had won that year, especially with the skate he had.. Judges did give him the win in the LP. But he didn't win because his base value was too low to make up the 7 points lead Patrick had. If Denis had done his 3-3 combo, then he would have won. He didn't win because he didn't manage all of his content.

If someone said, 2013 was my favourite worlds because Denis skated superbly ! YES. But anything else seems like an attempt to be dismissive of Patrick's achievements. Why can we not celebrate the champions of the sport ? Why always this desire of rewriting the history books? I certainly could list quite a few worlds and olympic champions who took advantage of a brilliant SP to win their titles despite failing in the LP.

 

[4everchan]

Let me offer another one of my worlds favvourite moments

1989.
Midori Ito being the first Japanese woman to win worlds + landing a triple axel
Kurt Browning winning his first worlds of 4 titles with the first quad toe landed at worlds.
In Dance, The Duchesnays won their first worlds medal with a bronze which would announce their following medals (silver and gold)
Klimova-Ponomarenko and Usova-Zhulin (before the repeated scandals) were also among my favourites back then... I was a child but I had just started following skating since the 1988 olympics.
Pairs : Gordeeva-Grinkov enough said.

Another favourite world moment : 1991
Though I now sort of miss what they brought to figure skaters, figures were eliminated in 1991. At that time, I remembered being very happy about that as I always felt that the competition was already started without being able to watch it... and as a still not that old human being, that was just weird.

 

[Sackie]

For me it would have to be Worlds 2008. In men's, Buttle finally laid down two great back to back programs to win by a good margin and Chan placed in the top 10 at his first worlds which set him up well for the next 5 years. In ladies Joannie also laid down two solid skates to place in the top 5 and put her name in the medalist race. In Pairs all 3 Can pairs had good skates and finished in the top 10 with Dube/Davison having the free skate of the their lives and winning an unexpected Bronze. And in Dance although Virtue/Moir did not win they came close and did win the free dance. And although Weaver/Poje did not place well they did skate well and I think it made them more hungry to improve and move up the ranks - which is what they did, coming oh so close to winning in 2014.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

For what it's worth...

Denis's Base Value was 73.23... As @CanadianSkaterGuy mentioned, he only had one quad which was not in combo (a big disadvantage for GOE) and doubled both jumps in his 3f-3t combo... Nowadays, his 3rd 2t would even be invalid.

Patrick's Base Value was 76.08 with big GOE on both quads including the biggest paying element of the night with the 4t-3t combo. This is exactly what saved him, and though his 3f-Eu-3S wasn't great and received negative GOE, that meant that he had two combos with a triple jump as the last jump... instead of the double jumps Denis did. (though he had a brilliant 3a-3t).

Denis skated better in the LP and received a much better score than Patrick. Denis also received good PCS. Patrick didn't get the huge PCS he would normally get for a clean program (and appropriately so). Judges didn't favour him more than they favoured other champions in other competitions.

Patrick had a whopping 7 points lead before the LP. That's pretty much a triple axel ahead... an extra jumping pass altogether before even skating the LP. It is hard to recover from that for his competitors.

I always loved Denis's skating. I would have been fine if he had won that year, especially with the skate he had.. Judges did give him the win in the LP. But he didn't win because his base value was too low to make up the 7 points lead Patrick had. If Denis had done his 3-3 combo, then he would have won. He didn't win because he didn't manage all of his content.

If someone said, 2013 was my favourite worlds because Denis skated superbly ! YES. But anything else seems like an attempt to be dismissive of Patrick's achievements. Why can we not celebrate the champions of the sport ? Why always this desire of rewriting the history books? I certainly could list quite a few worlds and olympic champions who took advantage of a brilliant SP to win their titles despite failing in the LP.

All the things you pointed out help justify Chan winning 2013 Worlds (it's happened in other messy competitions too - even though Hanyu had a bad FS performance in Sochi, he still deservedly won because of a superb SP and other skaters leaving points on the table in the SP/FS - like the Chan/Ten situation at 2013 Worlds), and the elements he did do got high grade of execution which alleviated some of the damage of the major errors (again, like Chan's quads at 2013 Worlds). It was a very close one... Ten didn't even need to do his 3-3 combo - a 2F+3T or 3F+2T would have gotten the win. Same if he had elected to do a second quad instead of a triple. As you showed, the BV says it all.

I mean, real talk: some of the people who were "concerned" that Ten didn't win cared more that Chan didn't lose, but I digress. As I said, the judges simply didn't know what to do with Ten... he came out of nowhere. He was 9th and 6th in his GP events and 7th at Nebelhorn that season. A month earlier at 4CC he was 12th with a total score of 197.26. His season's best up until Worlds was 204.33. But, even as a huge Patrick Chan fan, but I still personally think that Ten should have won 2013 gold though is because a) Ten's PCS was criminally low in the SP and slightly low PCS in the FS, and b) Chan's PCS in the FS was way too high from some of the judges - I mean, the 9.5's were far too much (even a 9.75 for TR from one judge!) for a program with 2 falls a doubled jump and a shaky series. That's just bad judging. That isn't to dismiss Chan's achievements either - if you win when everyone does badly or leaves points on the table, and counter major errors with very strong elements, then a win is very justifiable and even if Ten got the gold, I don't think that would have diminished Patrick's career or impact on the sport, just his medal stock. And the skaters aren't the ones doing the judging, let's always remember that.

There's no desire to re-write history but if we're looking back at past Worlds and people bring up 2013, it's bound to be part of the conversation. Also, bad judging did creep up in other 2013 Worlds disciplines too - one judge in pairs gave Volosozhar/Trankov a 10.00 for performance, and several judges gave 9.5s for IN - with a fall. Kostner's FS got a 9.75 for PE and some 9.5s/9.75 for IN in spite of a popped loop and downgraded fall at the the very end (one particularly ballsy judge even awarded Kostner's FS higher PE/IN than Kim's FS!). That Worlds was a poster child for needing to crack down on PCS judging, and caps (even though it was still soft for a while, and doesn't severely enough account for errors, and judges still don't adhere to the caps). Chan, V/T, and Kostner are all excellent skaters who I truly appreciate, but come on, judges - be fair.

 

[Walt FSHunter]

For all Ukrainians the most memorable championships are 1993. Why? It is obvious. Firstly, it was the first competition when Ukraine was represented as an independent state. Secondly, Oksana Baiul won the gold medal in ladies event. This gold medal remains the only one for Ukraine at Worlds up till now. Unfortunately, I could not follow that competition live. Ukrainian TV did not cover it. As for Eurosport, it was still unavailable. Luckily, I managed to watch it just a few years ago on Youtube.

 

[Arbitrary]

You know, other countries are allowed to win without it being a conspiracy.

There are several instances where Russians were simply outskated. Irina or Maria could have won gold in 2000 Worlds (Maria won her qualification and the SP), but Kwan was superb (with a 3-3) and the Russians flubbed their salchows. Irina Slutskaya could have won Olympic gold in 2002 or 2006 but didn’t capitalize either time. The ISU didn’t make them fall or fail to do their content. They were responsible for their skates.

Ilinykh and Katsalapov were handed World gold on a platter and they were the ones who messed up, not the ISU.

The Russian men are more than welcome to learn quads to keep up with the Americans and Japanese post Yagudin/Plushenko but clearly it’s the ISU holding them back from landing their jumps consistently.

Russia isn’t entitled to win - they need to earn it, and every discipline goes in waves sometimes others are just better. The ISU has nothing to do with it. If you want to see Russians win every discipline you can go watch the stages of the Russian Cup.

Slutzkaya and 2002 Olympics is a bad example.
As bad as Kerrigan vs Baul or Trusova vs Scherbakova (worst ever case).
Pure ISU decisions of the OGP despite the reality. Olympics are so expensive and so rare, you need to choose your winner best for the long term business.

 

[Mathman]

Slutzkaya and 2002 Olympics is a bad example.
As bad as Kerrigan vs Baul or Trusova vs Scherbakova (worst ever case).
Pure ISU decisions of the OGP despite the reality. Olympics are so expensive and so rare, you need to choose your winner best for the long term business.

I don't think that Sarah Hughes in 2002 was necessarily best for long-term business (or Tara Lipinski in 1998, for that matter,) Or Evan Lysacek in 2010.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

Slutzkaya and 2002 Olympics is a bad example.
As bad as Kerrigan vs Baul or Trusova vs Scherbakova (worst ever case).
Pure ISU decisions of the OGP despite the reality. Olympics are so expensive and so rare, you need to choose your winner best for the long term business.

Why is 2002 a bad example? Because Slutskaya made mistakes costing her the gold? You think the ISU wanted Sarah Hughes to win, if they were looking for what was best for business?

Trusova came 2nd fair and square at the Olympics (like the preceding Worlds where she lost to Anna/Liza as well) because she made several mistakes costing her lots of points (which negated the quads she did successfully execute). The ISU didn’t force Trusova to attempt the 3A in the Olympic SP or cause her to flub her SP combo at Worlds (she still got 34.48 PCS mind you). At the Olympics with a fall she tied her PCS personal best of 35.48. But unfortunately for her at the Olympics along with the 3A fall in the SP, she also stepped out of her 4T, needed to rotate her second 4Z more, and lost several points on her 2A+3T which should be easy for her. So all the points she got on her extra quads were negated by her errors. It’s also the reason Asada lost to Kim in spite of doing three triple axels and Kim didn’t attempt any. It’s a points game and if you make errors on easier jumping passes you cut into any technical advantage you get from the quad and 3A jumps.

As much as the ISU might want a marketable winner, the skater still has to skate well (unless everyone does poorly like the men in Sochi).

 

[labgoat]

For all Ukrainians the most memorable championships are 1993. Why? It is obvious. Firstly, it was the first competition when Ukraine was represented as an independent state. Secondly, Oksana Baiul won the gold medal in ladies event. This gold medal remains the only one for Ukraine at Worlds up till now. Unfortunately, I could not follow that competition live. Ukrainian TV did not cover it. As for Eurosport, it was still unavailable. Luckily, I managed to watch it just a few years ago on Youtube.

I still rewatch Oksana's Nouveau Flamenco short program. The girl had some moves and her spins and footwork were stunning.

 

[lariko]

I think after watching a bit of the first competitions of this season my fav World is now firmly set in the future. I don’t need Russians to win, let alone sweep (I hate podium sweeps with a passion) I just want them back in business.

 

[RobinA]

Looking back at all the figure skating world championships you remember, which are your favorite and why?

For me, it is definitely the 2017 worlds in Helsinki and there are two main reasons why. First, my faves actually won in all four disciplines (Yuzuru, Zhenya, Sui & Han, Virtue & Moir). The second reason is related purely to my favorite discipline. The men's event was simply breathtaking! To be more precise:

• The amount of clean quads was absolutely unprecedented.
• The were exceptionally many great and enjoyable performances.
• The top 6 skaters (Yuzuru, Shoma, Boyang, Javi, Patrick, Nathan) were just such a cool group. Three legends and three young supertalents.

Now that I'm thinking about it, it was the last worlds for Patrick, Javi and Denis Ten.

2003 Worlds in DC, Shen and Zhou.

 

[bouncy]

2014 anyone? Emotional programs from Mao and Tatsuki, both skating their hearts out in their home country, easily made it the most personal, epic worlds for me

 

[AxelLover]

2014 anyone? Emotional programs from Mao and Tatsuki, both skating their hearts out in their home country, easily made it the most personal, epic worlds for me

2014 worlds were great. For me the highlights were Yuzuru's free, Javier's free, Mao's short, Carolina's short and Anna&Luca's short.

 

[dlarry1]

1996 - Michelle won her first world's with a skate for the ages, and Chen Lu was masterful as well.

 

[Paz]

Copenhagen 1982 for a number of reasons -

My first live Worlds, in an era when the only way of seeing it all was to be there

Big Elaine Zayak fan; she won in the most incredible manner, coming from way behind in the old 6.0 ordinals system!

Other team USA skaters also did well - Scott’s 2nd consec win, Carruthers, Judi & Mike…then the other countries skaters like Katarina (just emerging) and T&D winning with “Mack & Mabel”

Copenhagen is a gorgeous city with smorgasbord spreads!