specialj67
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Posts posted by specialj67
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On the one hand, what Valieva achieved in that free skate at Rostelecom Cup was amazing and impressive. On the other hand, the program itself—the choreography and its complete disconnection from the music (which is also blech)—is hot water trash.
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There is a lot of costume happening in Anna Scherbakova’s new SP costume, that is for sure.
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11 minutes ago, annzeepark914 said:
Why do they *have* to do the unusual? Why not focus all their outstanding talent on something normal--but spectacular? S/K have. P/C and H/D have. None of the top teams, each of whom could win the O gold medal, are wasting their time working on eerie FDs...except for Chock & Bates. Now, if C/B win the gold...I'll eat my ski hat 😋
For me, I appreciate that Chock and Bates went weird this season. Many of the other top teams have a similar generically dramatic aesthetic for their free dance this season—in my completely biased and semi-informed opinion. I think Chock and Bates sell it best when they’re performing material that gives them something more specific to convey than just the vague idea that FEELINGS ARE HAPPENING.
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1 hour ago, emmawoodhouse said:
Oh God, 2010 Ice Dance. Davis/White did the much beloved Bollywood program. The Russians were Aboriginal, IIRC, and totally disrespected the culture.
Domnina and Shabalin—god, that was horrific and offensive. Makes some of the more questionable hip hop rhythm dances this seasons seem merely cringe in comparison.
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8 hours ago, honeywest said:
I loved Muramoto and Takahashi’s free dance and am so glad they’re working with Zoueva.
Madison Chock is so striking, and that alien moon makeup just makes her look sick.
Yes yes yes! I love the improvement in Muramoto and Takahashi’s program since last season. I hope they are selected for the Japanese Olympic team. Since Daisuke came from a singles skating discipline and has strong individual skating skills, they are one of those teams where both partners are equally grabbing my attention.
Also agree the alien makeup on Madison isn’t doing it for me, at least in its current iteration. If she wore, like, a dark colored lipstick instead, I think it would work better? Evan’s fall at the beginning of their program was too bad, because the rest of their program was really good. I love the arm choreography in their twizzle sequence. As I suspected at the beginning of this season, the more I see this program, the more I like it.
I wish I could say the same for Fear and Gibson’s free dance this season. It just isn’t doing it for me the way their other recent free dances did.
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I can appreciate that H/D have superior speed, power, and ice coverage, but I think I like Green and Parson’s Janet Jackson RD more.
also, I can’t pinpoint why, but Stepanova and Bukin’s RD made me cringe—same with the lower ranked French team.
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That’s a bummer about Hanyu. Though now this is a real opportunity for Vincent.
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1 hour ago, Avaleigh said:
I agree. Kamila is a full package skater. I especially like her spins.
I know that people think that Eteri's skaters are all alike but I think most of the girls are well rounded artistically and athletically. Anna, Kamila, Daria and Aliona are all polished and each has something that makes them stand out. I think some of the problem comes down to Daniil's choreography. That and the skaters being rewarded for overloading their programs so that there's no reward for holding positions and every excuse to rush elements and transitions to maximize as many points as possible. They're definitely capable of creating striking lines and positions but they rush through everything in order to cram as much into a program as possible. And since they keep being rewarded for these programs via PCS of course they're going to continue to go back to the well of predictable leg kicks, blink-and-you-miss-them spirals and bauers and rushed in general choreography. Nothing is going to change until this can somehow be addressed in the COP.
I'd like to what sort of program Misha Ge or Jason Brown could create for one of these skaters. Unfortunately I can't really see anyone in the Eteri group branching out and trying a new team of coaches and choreographers because it hasn't worked out well for the skaters who have tried to leave the group. The examples of Evgenia, Sasha and Aliona are basically cautionary tales and are probably enough to deter anyone in the current group including skaters who are junior and below from ever believing that they could do better elsewhere.
God, I would LOVE to see any of the top skaters in Eteri’s group use programs from almost any other choreographer. I know it won’t happen (why spend the money with an outsider when you can save it by keeping everything in house?)
I also hope the ISU revisits some of the PCS criteria after this season. A skater should be rewarded just as much for holding one beautiful position for 4 seconds as they would for racing through 4 hand-wavey choreographed moments in the same amount of time. And I’m not talking about the choreographic sequence, which seems to be the only point in a program right now when a position might be held longer than a second or two. I’d like to see skaters rewarded more for held positions throughout their programs.
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I do not like Valieva’s free skate this season. The choreography has absolutely no connection to the music, and it doesn’t require her to hold a position for longer than a second. It’s like Zagitova version 2.0, but with quads.
Props to Tuktamysheva for her resurgence, but her program content outside of the jumps is hilariously nonexistent. Getting 9s for sassy wrist flicks and what amounts to a choreographed smoke break in the middle of her program?!
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2 minutes ago, Lady Whistleup said:
Rough skate for all the men minus Nathan. I'm hoping Nathan ditches this program for last year's Glass program. The Mozart + techno doesn't work for me.
Even Nathan was kinda messy with some of those landings. This men’s free skate was definitely an example of medaling by making the fewest mistakes. I feel bad for the Canadian guys—Keegan had such a solid short, and Roman had such a promising start to his free skate before things got messy.
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2 hours ago, healthnut said:
There's been quite a bit of uproar about PCS the last couple of seasons between overinflated marks for Trusova and underscoring for skaters like Kevin Amoyz, Jason, Satoko, and Karen. If it continues throughout this Olympic season, I think they might finally take a look at this and make some changes. We'll see.
As long as figure skating is a judged sport with an artistic component to the score, there will be squirrelly judging.
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4 hours ago, Jeddah said:
Who are these judges who gave Jason Brown 8.75s in Skating Skills and Performance? It doesn’t get any better when it comes to Skating Skills and Performance than that short program!
For real! If anyone should be getting mid-to-high 9s in this particular field, it’s Jason. I’m sure part of it is because he’s not not even attempting a quad in the program.
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1 hour ago, emmawoodhouse said:
I checked Peacock's Skate Canada schedule, and unless there's a change, they won't be airing the competition live. WTF? It's in North America, FFS! What will they do with the European and Japanese competitions if they can't even show Skate Canada live?
That’s odd. I just looked on the Peacock app and found the Skate Canada events among the upcoming figure skating events. Seems like they’ll be live-streamed when I compare the scheduled time in the app with the competition schedule on the ISU site.
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1 hour ago, peachmangosteen said:
The competitions you can. I don't know about practices. I've never noticed them before so I'm thinking you probably can't watch them later.
I was curious, so I went on the Peacock app. It seems you can replay the practice cam streams—at least for this particular event.
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In my memory, Nathan’s never been in top form for Skate America. Even when he won, there was still some messiness.
I want to love Chock and Bates’ free dance, but I’m not sold on it yet. I lost interest about halfway through. I hope it improves, because I want to love it so much! I like it when experienced teams go for weird. This reminds me a bit of the Kerr’s alien-themed free dance from 2009.
The women’s free skate was the standout of the competition for me this weekend. Purely on personal taste, I would have had Daria in first. I admire Alexandra for her determination and gutsiness, but I don’t feel anything when I watch her skate. I hope Young You can replicate what she did here, because she was an absolute delight.
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As a skating fan, I’m intrigued but skeptical of the James/Radford team up. I guess I’m mostly curious to see if they actually could make it onto the Canadian Olympic team next year.
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55 minutes ago, ChicksDigScars said:
Is that the same TSL interview where Renee Roca comments on ice dance and the overscoring of "Vikki and Nikki?" I saw a Twitter post talking about it, but was too exhausted to listen to it, yet.
Bummed that Sui and Han didn't win. Bummed that Chock and Bates didn't podium, and that S/K won. I would have even preferred the Entitlement Twins to that result. I mean, just think. Maybe if H/D would have won, they'd have taken their Gold Medal and retired? Yeah, fat chance the year before the Olympics, but it was a dream in the back of my mind. Kaitlyn Hawayak looked upset at their scores.
I saw some speculation on Twitter that P/C, seeing the propping of S/K, and having lost to them at Europeans last year in their last match up, may see the writing on the wall and NOT go to the Olympics? That the "establishment" would punish them for not showing up this year. Now, who knows if they'd actually think that, but this year's Worlds smacked of Sochi 2014 to me. Skating While Russian bonus, indeed. Karen Chen should have gotten a Bronze. The fact that Trusova spent most of her time on her ass, and got high scores for basically skating back and forth, setting up for her next quad with little to no connecting artistry to speak of, and was rewarded with a medal, gave me that Sochi distaste in my mouth again.
And Twitter was loaded with Fanyu's Tweeting to the ISU, nitpicking Nathan's artistry scores, demanding to know why he got .5 of a point for this, and .25 of a point for that, and attaching rule sheets, spelling out the protocols for earning such scores. Eyeroll. It wouldn't have done any good with the long program Nathan threw down, but they're still at it. It's ridiculous. I find myself rooting for Hanyu to fail because his fanbase is insufferable. I was actually happy that the lack of an audience meant a lack of Pooh Bears all over the ice. He's a sweet man, and a brilliant skater, but his fans ruin him for me.
IIRC, in her appearance on TSL, Renee Roca said she thought Hawayek and Baker were held down in the scores, and I agree. Maybe it’s the difference of seeing in person instead of on a screen, but I don’t get how they were 8 points behind the Canadian team who finished in 8th?
And I agree about the Fanyus! I realized during this competition how pleasant it was to watch Hanyu skate without having to see a wave of Pooh bears cover the ice after he finished. And how nice it was to watch him skate without the loud crowd roar after every single jump. I wonder what will happen when he does stop competing—will the Fanyu forces transfer their energies to a different skater, will they stop caring about skating as much, or bemoan it’s decline with Hanyu no longer on the scene , or constantly compare every new skater to the great Hanyu? Probably a little of all of that.
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It seemed inevitable S/K would win. I guess I wish I liked their free dance more—it’s boring to me.
The highlights of the free dance for me were Gilles/Poirier medaling and Lewis/Gibson finishing in the top ten.
The overall depth of talent in ice dance now is amazing. This was the only segment In which I watched every competitor. Even the teams in the first group were thoroughly entertaining.
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5 hours ago, SeanC said:
No, the final two flights were really good overall. The final flight, especially, everybody skated well except maybe (by his standard) Hanyu.
Orser and Wilson are going to have to pull a major salvage job on Jin Boyang in the next year. What a disaster, particularly since it cost China its second men's spot (which will cut out Yan Han, who actually placed higher than Jin here).
Ecstatic that Messing got Canada that provisional second spot back.
Finally got to watch the men’s competition, and you are so right! That was one of the best final flights of skating I’ve seen in awhile. Even with Hanyu not able to deliver his best, he was still really good. Everyone fought for every jump, and no one imploded.
Of the other top ten men: glad to see Jason stayed upright on the 4 sal even if it wasn’t fully rotated; ecstatic that Kevin Aymoz held it together; and just plain appreciative of the beauty that is Mikhail Kolyada’s free program. Of course I wish he could have medaled, but it was nice to see him fully back in the mix with the other top skaters.
Of the lower ranked skaters, the skater from Belarus, Konstantin Milyukov, was a delightful surprise for me. I liked his intensity and commitment to his program—and his sparkling turtleneck top. And Hen Yan actually caused me to well up at the end of his program. I’m just happy to see him still competing at championships like this; his is just plain good skating, with or without the jumps.
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4 minutes ago, Lady Whistleup said:
Go Nathan! Yuzu had a very rough skate.
I haven’t watched yet. Based on the scoring, it seems like a lot of the higher ranked men had less than stellar skates today—similar to the ladies event yesterday?
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2 hours ago, CeeBeeGee said:
All props to Russia and I like those skaters but--how does such two such mistake-filled performances get rated that highly over two nearly perfect ones? This feels like the 2014 Games.
I was having the same thought. All of the good stuff for the top 2 skaters happened in the SP. And this time around, it’s not like Alexandra had the skate of her life, like Denis Ten did in 2014.
All of my fave performances from the ladies event today were the nonmedalists: Leona, Karen, Kaori, Olga.
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So happy to see Kolyada do well, even with the oops on his first jump. His free is my fave of this season, so I’m really rooting for him. I know if Hanyu and Chen both skate to their capabilities in the free, that Kolyada can’t beat them, but he would be my pick for bronze.
Maybe I was just distracted by the razzmatazz, but I really liked the team from Russia who won the pairs event. I’m disappointed Sui and Han couldn’t repeat as champs again, but at least they didn’t give up on the performance after the small mistakes. And color me pleasantly surprised that both U.S. pairs kept it together enough to maintain 2 spots for next year.
if you can, I recommend watching on the Peacock app. The commentator doesn’t talk much during the performances and makes efforts to say something positive about each competitor. If he has preferred faves, I can’t tell.
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What an...anticlimactic?... ending for the men’s event. I’m sure there were reasons for Jason putting in that quad attempt, but man, I wish he wouldn’t have. And it was strange to see Nathan make mistakes like that. Less strange to see that with Vincent, but still. You can tell what a difference not competing much this season did for the top 3. Still, even with the errors, Jason’s general skating was beautiful.
it was nice to see Yaroslav and Maxim do so well. I’m not super familiar with either skater, so I hope these performances are examples of what to expect in the future and not flukes.
My favorite individual moment of the men’s free skate was Jimmy Ma’s reaction to his score—it’s always nice to get a glimpse of the real person and not a rehearsed response!
My favorite discovery was Joonsoo Kim. Even though the back half of his free skate wasn’t the cleanest, the front half was really nice, and he projects a really warm and inviting vibe in this program.
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As disappointed as I am that Chock and Bates didn’t win again, I get it. Chock and Bates have better programs, that very effectively highlight what they do best, but Hubbell and Donohue are wonderful skaters and made less costly errors overall. Most of my quibbles with Hubbell and Donohue are down the aesthetics, like music and costuming choices. I was sort of distracted by Zach’s shirt in the free skate; it seemed like the design choices was “warm-up gear, but make it fashion!” And I am so over Hallelujah as a music choice.
In general, ice dance is my fave to watch from US nationals. We truly do have an embarrassment of riches in that discipline. All of the teams in the 4th-7th place range were great to watch, even if the lower ranked teams do not have the same speed or choreographed complexity of the top teams. I don’t think I’ve ever watched Cesanek and Yehorov before, so this was a wonderful introduction for me. Is this their first year at the senior level? If so, I am very impressed. Their lift where she was perched on his shoulders was my fave of the event.
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I’d also be stoked if Chock and Bates get a medal at the Olympics! Their free program is growing on me the more I see them perform it; it’s way more interesting than Hubbell and Donohue, IMO.
and really, did anyone ever think Johnny Weir would say something approaching open and honest regarding the Sambo 70 group? I’m hard pressed to think of any figure skating commentator who would speak honestly on national TV about the disordered eating and punishing training those girls and young women likely experience.