healthnut

Nope, that’s about it.

A nice quad lutz will do that. Ask Trusova.

I’ve been watching the whole press conference on YouTube and they’ve given no time frame, no details, no confirmation or denial, just asks that everyone have patience and asks the reporters not to ask anymore questions. Meanwhile, Valieva just showed up at practice.

IOC briefing totally worthless, they said the same thing as yesterday. “It’s a legal issue, I won’t comment further.” He won’t even say who is handling the issue. Calls everything speculation. Super frustrating.

Only after this group. They resurface every two groups so just once during the free skates.

In their defense, Jackie says they have a press conference at this time everyday. Still seems stupid though.

Press conference at 10pm ET (11am local time). In the middle of the men’s free skate. Unbelievable.

I really hope IOC gets this resolved first thing in the morning in Beijing so it doesn’t hang over the mens event.

Zero points for double, too, it must be a triple or quad. Take Kevin Amoyz, he popped his quad salchow to a triple. No problem, because he still did a triple. He just lost base value. eta: I see @Good Queen Jane beat me to it 😉

From the article: “The exact nature of Valieva’s problem is unclear but the situation is complicated because, under the rules of the World Anti-Doping Code, she is a "Protected Person". That means as "an athlete who at the time of the anti-doping rule violation: has not reached the age of sixteen" Valieva cannot officially be identified if she is guilty of an anti-doping violation. insidethegames understands that several legal teams are currently involved working on the complex case which is expected to stretch into tomorrow before a conclusion is reached. If Valieva is sanctioned then any penalties are likely to be much less severe than if she was over the age of 16 and the role her entourage played will come under scrutiny.”

I’m sure this is the legal issue that is in question as there isn’t anything in the rule book to address disqualification. There is a rule allowing only three entries though and the ice skating events are separate unlike track or even gymnastics. You can imagine that Canada is lobbying hard for total disqualification and Japan is hoping for point reallocation.

CBC Canada was reporting Canada would get bronze if ROC was disqualified but not sure that was based in any fact as they didn’t even know what the issue was, the doping issue was broke by Michael Pavitt of Inside the Games after CBC’s story came out. Because the rules allow for a team to compete with three members, I thinks it’s possible to only drop the tainted athlete (or team) scores from the team, which would put them at Bronze over Canada. Jackie has now clarified that it was planned day off from practice for M/G, B/K, and Mark. No word on Valieva, she could’ve gotten a day off post team event, too but that’s also very un-Eteri.

So according to Jackie Wong, Valieva, Mark, and M/G were all missing from practice today, only S/K were present of those at team event and B/K were missing, too. Could be unrelated but certainly seems suspect…

There is some legal issue that has delayed the medal ceremony for the team event, now there is speculation that one of the teams (not sure which one) could have an athlete disqualified and have to forfeit their medal. https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/winter/figure-skating/olympics-figure-skating-team-event-medal-ceremony-delayed-1.6344572 ETA: Christine Brennan is saying it possibly involves one of the Russians. ETA #2: Word is a drug test for a Russian skater.

No, he’s not been even close to underrotating the jump, they are all full downgrades with poor execution. I’ve long since been of the opinion he should abort the 4A and focus on his quad loop, because that was a better winning strategy. And then the Fanyus all attacked me.

A few people used it last year including Cain-Gribble & Leduc who skated their short program to the Bishop Briggs version.

I’m still in shock over Hanyu. Overall, a fantastic men’s short program. Men’s skating has been really volatile all year, I’m so glad most everyone pulled it together when it counted. I missed Vincent. He might’ve bombed the long but he usually kills his Vincent short program. At least Jason made the final group, so happy for him. Per usual, he was criminally underscored in PCS and I thought Yuma’s PCS was too high.

I had forgotten about this but Plushenko skated in the team event in Sochi and withdrew from the men’s event. I thought he was replaced but he wasn’t and there was no Russian man in the individual event. I didn’t realize it was an actual rule.

Heartbroken for Vincent, if you get a chance, show him some love https://www.instagram.com/tv/CZrh0jbgDYU/?utm_medium=copy_link

Alternates were not allowed to come and Men’s short program is tomorrow so there is no way to get Ilia to Beijing in time with all the necessary negative tests.

Vincent has tested positive for COVID.

OMG. I’m still so excited for Chock/Bates. I had totally lost all excitement after yesterday and pairs today but they brought me back. I’m so stoked for the individual ice dance event now.

It was a long shot for gold but it would’ve been nice to have gone into the free skate tied or with a slim lead. I’m so bummed for Karen but I’m still glad she was picked and I hope she has a better free skate. Russia is just so strong in three disciplines, it would’ve taken a Herculean effort plus a rough short from Mark for the US to have a real chance. Here’s hoping Vincent has a good skate tonight.

US does have a real shot at Gold, it requires everyone to skate their best. Karen did beat Kaori at worlds so in a out of this world scenario, she could be second which would have the US in first going into the free skate. She could also finish middle of the pack but Karen is pretty clutch so I think she’ll skate well. We have lots of wild cards: Vincent in the free, can Knierim/Frazier beat the Japanese again? At least it’s exciting right now. My usual complaint about the team event is there is no drama but we’ve got lots of drama right now. The battle for the free skate between Canada, China, and Georgia should be pretty good tomorrow. It’s crazy that some of those guys won’t even know if they’re skating until like thirty minutes before…the scheduling seems a bit weird.