specialj67

Chock and Bates’ FD this season is just a miss for me. They have some cool lifts, but the music is a snooze and whatever the story is that they’re conveying isn’t hitting for me. I like their RD well enough, but even that doesn’t have the same zazz as others they’ve done in recent seasons. I was surprised and pleased for FB/S. Their FD is such a good vehicle for them! It reminds me of their Caravan FD from several seasons ago but doesn’t feel like a retread.

I do not understand why U.S. Figure Skating allowed or encouraged Bradie to compete in the GP event this past weekend. Why not send her to a lower level international competition or have her earn her spot to nationals by competing domestically??

Since I couldn’t watch any of the GP event in France live and didn’t want to adjust my schedule to watch the archived streams on Peacock for the limited times they were available, I plunked down the money for a VPN subscription so I could watch on the ISU’s YouTube channel. It was a great viewing experience, and if you have the spare money, I recommend it! Even though this was generally a lower scoring event, I really enjoyed most of the medalists performances. However, I find Guignard and Fabbri to be unmemorable as performers. They seem to be a very good team in terms of technical content, but I find that I almost never connect with their programs. I preferred the performance of the Canadian team who placed second.

Both of the free skate competitions for the men and women at Skate Canada this week were kinda unpredictable. It’s too bad Keegan was at such a points deficit from the SP, because his free skate was darn good. I can’t tell if his free skate is the same as last year or slightly reworked, but it’s gotta be the best he’s done any iteration of that program. Pairs was slightly less of a mess compared to SA, but outside of Miura/Kihara, it was still kinda rough. It was great to see Miura/Kihara again—and seeming way more prepared than Knierim/Frazier last week. Not surprised that Gilles/Poirer won, but am at how high their scores were. I love their RD, but not so much the Evita FD. It’s certainly an improvement over the snooze fest of a FD from last year, but it doesn’t grab me to the same degree as their RD.

Oh no! Will there be any Chinese teams in the Grand Prix this season? I don’t recall if there were any other senior-level competitive teams from China in the mix. And re: the absence of Russian pairs teams this season. I certainly do miss the skating skills and quality individual elements many of those teams have. I do not miss many of the programmatic choices (choreography, costumes, music).

The ice dance result was a bit surprising in that I didn’t expect it to be THAT close. I like and appreciate Madison and Evan’s free dance, but I instantly ADORE Kaitlyn and Jean Luc’s. The twizzle sequence where they hold their movements in time with the held notes in the music between each set…so good! Very happy to see the score reflect what they put out there today. The French Canadian team who did the Pink Panther program were super fun and unique in this particular competition. Look forward to seeing them again!

Wow, can you notice the absence of Russia and China in the pairs discipline. Skate America had 2 world championship-level teams with typical sorta messy early season free skates and then…everyone else. Woof. Not even close to the same level. What Ilia Malinin can do on the technical side is so impressive, and his win this week is well-deserved. I hope his coaches spend more time on the non jumping elements because those feel lacking in comparison. Reminds me of Nathan Chen around 2015/16.

Just got caught up with the womens free skate—what a podium of joyful medalists! It was so nice to watch the final group of skaters and not have half of them be from the same training center delivering the same horribly generic (and over-scored) programs. I’ll admit, I did miss seeing the Russian Federation skaters in the pairs event, but I definitely didn’t miss them in the womens event. What is the likelihood the Russian Federation will actually be punished by the ISU for their doping, and actually have to face real consequences like being banned from ISU competition for some amount of time?

I only got to see Alexa and Brandon’s performance—so happy for them. Brandon seemed like he couldn’t compute what was happening after their score was posted. I only know what happened with Ashley and Tim because of seeing the score page update and coming over here. I feel awful for both of them. I hope shed’s okay.

In the Peacock app, in the Figure Skating section of the Olympics, scroll down to Highlights. I saw a 4-5 min. video of the medal ceremony—you may need to scroll a bit to find it, Anna is in the screen grab wearing her gold medal. Kaori hopping up on the podium was so charming. And holy cow, I had no idea Alexandra’s hair was so long.

Warm up groups for pairs skating is capped at 4 teams per group. They need a lot of room to practice their elements.

IIRC, he was trying to find a coaching situation that would provide more structure…or something? But he didn’t last long with TT, I think because of their training requirements, which I think we can all now see are basically impossible to meet if you care about mental and physical health.

Regular skating viewers and fans have seen what happens to skaters who switch from Eteri to other coaches—all of a sudden, their PCS comes back down to planet Earth and they’re getting edge calls and under rotations they never got before. If Kamlia were to switch, things will be much harder for her—and not just because of the specter of doping that will hang around her. I agree she is a lovely skater, and she deserves so much better than this.

I’ve seen elsewhere the suggestion that the judging panels be split—half of the judges are judging the specific elements and awarding the GOE, and the other half are looking at the program as a whole and awarding the PCS. I like this idea, but would it ever happen? Could it even work? I’d like to think so, but I was stupid enough to think things would change more after the 6.0 system was scrapped.

Kaori should be in first. I know I should be happy she’s even in third going into the free, considering some of the BS judging. Hers was the program of the event for me. Even though Alysa doesn’t have the same PCS levels as the higher ranked skaters, I thoroughly enjoyed watching her today. She seemed like she’s was genuinely enjoying the whole experience, which is honestly all I could hope for for her.

That’s certainly what I plan to do. At least I know now I’ll be able to save myself about 20 mins. of watch time tomorrow!

Well, I can safely say I will not be watching any of the Team Tutberidze skaters in the women’s competition this week since it’s pretty obvious now that they are doping during training. Of course I don’t blame the skaters themselves in this instance, but I can’t watch knowing what I know now. If Kamilla wins, there’s always going to be an asterisk next to her name in my mind. Same with Anna or Alexandra, since it’s almost certain they’ve been given the same substance in training.

I must say, watching the On Edge series gave me a new appreciation for Madison Hubbell’s competitive mindset and how she isn’t afraid to show it. I love it when female skaters don’t hide their ambitions. I can only hope that at least half of Madison’s Olympic goal will be met.

I think they did it at Worlds last year too. Maybe because of COVID? Can’t remember.

If true, I’m glad. Since he has no real shot at a medal, having a (hopefully) clean skate with just triples could create a nice Olympic moment for him.

Finally getting to watch the third day of the team event, and I have to say that the Madisons’ reaction to Madison and Evan’s free dance score was so adorbs. Love to see that kind of team spirit. Piper and Paul’s free dance still isn’t my fave of theirs, but the last two lift elements are pretty great. I want to like Victoria and Nikita’s free dance, but their character step sequence absolutely takes me out of it—also, I can never forget how awful Nikita was to his previous partner, so there’s that. Shiyue and Xinyu were giving some great ‘tude in both of their performances in the team event; I hope they keep it up for the individual event. And Misato and Tim were just okay—sorry!

I’m just not digging Piper and Paul’s FD this season. It’s schmaltzy and boring (to me), whereas their Vincent and Both Sides Now programs were schmaltzy but also interesting (to me).

The ISU did away with the dedicated compulsory dance ( what you’re thinking of) after the 2010 Olympics. They merged it with the original dance (everyone must skate to a program with a certain music style/theme). Now it’s called the rhythm dance. There is still a set pattern all teams must skate, but it is only one component of the program. This year, the pattern is the Midnight Blues (I think??) and the music/dance style is street dance—which can mean pretty much whatever a team wants it to mean, it seems like.

Aside from the obvious popped flip, the other 3 jumping passes in the first half of his program were all either under rotated or on the quarter turn. His jumps in the second half were clean but didn’t get much GOE bonus, plus his step sequence was a level 3, compared to Mark’s level 4.

I do give Vincent credit for doing better than he did at his nationals free skate.