specialj67

That could be true for younger skaters still coming up through the junior ranks, IDK, but the only other woman I can think of who’s currently attempting them regularly in competition is Elizaveta Tuktamysheva. Over the past decade or so, there were also Mao Asada, Yukari Nakano, and Mirai Nagasu. Much like quads, it seems to be something that most female skaters who attempt it have more success with when they’re younger, and haven’t fully gone through puberty yet. It’ll be interesting to see if the new hefty penalties for falling on jumps, or strictness on underrotations, discourages more women skaters from trying it.

After having watched Alexa and Chris’ relatively better-delivered programs at NHK, I like them. Aside from the obvious and chronic jump issues, they really are a nice team to watch. I hope they find a permanent coaching situation that works for them and pushes them to address their jump issues.

Helsinki was underwhelming with a couple of exceptions. Props to Brezina for sticking it out and having his best results is years. His skating never really appealed to me, since the focus always seemed more on the jumps than the overall programs, but his crowd-please-y programs this season do a good job of highlighting his strengths. Hanyu, even with the errors in the long, was still so damn good. I don’t care for the music choice (I know it’s supposed to be a tribute to Plushenko, but still). The only redeeming aspect of the women’s competition, for me, was Kaori Sakamoto’s LP performance. I would have also ranked her above Konstantinova in the final result. Without the lopsided program construction, I tried to reevaluate my perception of Alina Zagitova’s skating to see if I view it any differently. I don’t. The choreography does her no favors. No move is given a chance to shine. She looks like she’s racing through each move to get to the next. And the worst thing about the success of the girls coached by Eteri’s group is that their style is influencing more skaters, with the more-is-more-is-better choreography. I noticed it particularly with both of the other Russian girls and Leona Hendrickx. The ice dance result was unsurprising. As much as I like watching Guignard and Fabbri, their La La Land program already feels passé. Stepanova and Bukin deserved the win, no question, though I prefer their RD to their FD. This was my first time really paying attention to the 2 U.S. teams competing, and I was impressed with both. I really hope they, and Hawayek and Baker, can earn places at the top tier of U.S. ice dancing. I don’t see them challenging Hubbell and Donohue for the top spot yet, but hopefully there will be some genuine competition soon.

One of the things I really dislike about the current GOE set-up is the reward for extra-difficult exits from jumps. Most skaters, particularly in the womens’ discipline, don’t let their jumps ride out as much anymore. I miss that.

Skate Canada: The women’ free skate was a mixed bag. It was nice to see Evgenia rally, even if I personally don’t care for her skating style. While I do not particularly like Elizaveta’s overall skating, her jumps are gorgeous, and her win well-deserved. The men’s free skate medalists also were kinda meh, performance-wise. Shoma’s jump landings always make me nervous—like, they look like he’s juuuuust going to eek out a clean landing. Piper and Paul’s free dance this season is beautiful, and I’m very excited to see how they push and refine it throughout the season. I think it was my favorite out of all of the performances I watched from this competition. I continue to like Madison and Zach’s free dance, and if they’re going to repeat as U.S. champions come January, I won’t be mad about it. it’s great to see Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres really hitting their stride. I love their commitment to the more modern aesthetic (gotta love a sport where “modern” refers to songs that were first relevant over 20 years ago.) I’m also happy to see Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro improving as a team. She is indisputably the star of that team, like Aliona Savchenko was with her partners, and deserves all of the medals. Do not mess this up for her, Michael!

That’s too bad about the Knierims. It seems like they’ve been trying to get their mojo back ever since Alexa had that serious medical situation. I want to root for them because they wouldn’t still be putting themselves through all of this if they didn’t still enjoy it on some level, but whatever they’re trying ain’t working, or they aren’t giving it enough time to see if it can work. Regarding Johnny’s comment about the womens discipline, I think he was talking about the new rule changes? It was either that or he or Tara talking about the teen girls doing quads on the Junior Grand Prix circuit, and taking the entire length of the ice to build up enough steam to do one, which takes valuable seconds away from including other program content? One of them made a comment about how much more ice/time a female skater needs to build up enough steam to execute a quad compared to a male skater.

I was so pleased to see Ashley Cain and Timothy LeDuc medal at Skate America. They seemed to have improved a lot in the performance aspect. I hope they keep it up and improve even more for the rest of the season.

On Evgenia changing coaches, I hope this means her jump technique might improve. Might she become less reliant on the arm over the head? I know it’s pointless to wonder about—the judges still give her crazy high score on the regular. How likely is it, at this point, that she can change her jump technique? Her double axles are hard to watch.

Good on Hubbell and Donohue for finally delivering at a world championship. I appreciate the power in their skating and movement, though I would like to see it in a non-sexyfaces program. Both them and Papadakis and Cizeron, I would like to see branch out artistically next season. I wonder if they are as sick of those programs as we are at this point? ? Really, everyone in the top 2 groups did well today. It was great to watch a competition that wasn’t just who makes the fewest mistakes ends up on the podium.

After watching Nathan’s performance, I’m glad he won by skating relatively well (except for the step out on one jump late in the program) and not totally by virtue of making the fewest mistakes. He seemed to grit through a few of the landings but was able to pull through.

What is happening in the final group of guys today?! It’s even worse than the last flight of women yesterday. At this point, I just hope Nathan and Vincent stay upright.

A few seasons back, they changed the point deduction for falls. It’s currently -1 for a first and second fall. If a skater falls a third time, it’s -2 (1 point for the fall and an additional -1 penalty for having so many falls). I believe every fall after the first 2 carries that additional -1 penalty. IIRC, the reason it was instituted was to discourage skaters from multiple attempts at jumps they know they probably won’t land? Also, since it came after the 10% bonus for all jumps in the back half of a program was instituted, it might have also been a way to serve as a check for backloading—or at least make it more of a high risk/high reward thing. Sure, skaters were attempting 4 and 5 jumps after the halfway point, but so many resulted in falls or stumbling that it made for ugly-to-watch programs.

More than anything this season, I’m just bored of Hubbell and Donohue’s programs. They’re both so stylistically similar, I feel like I’m just watching a longer version of the short dance when I see their free. I enjoy the music cuts they use in the free, but I wish they had used a program like this in another season with a different short dance theme.

Alina had 3 (?) falls. On her first jump combo on the opening lutz, on another solo triple, and again when she tried to make up for the first missed combo—she fell on the second jump in that one. There may have been something else, but I can’t stand to rewatch that again. Carolina doubled her planned opening triple lutz, had a fall, popped or fell out of a double axel that was supposed to be the first jump in a three jump combo (so she missed out so many points there), and had landing mistakes on another, I think.

What was HAPPENING in that final group of skaters in the women’s free?! It was like everyone but Osmond was going “no, no, YOU take the medal.” So excited for Higuchi’s second place finish! I really like all of the top Japanese women’s skaters, though, so any of them medaling is great. It was so hard to watch Alina Zagitova’s. The wheels came off the bus with that first jumping pass. I wonder how much of it is that this is the end of a very long season or this just being one of those performances even the best competitors can have. It definitely illustrated the pitfalls of backloading a program—there’s barely any time to recover before you have to get into the next jumping pass. Bradie Tennell finishing 4th in the free skate portion was a nice surprise as well. I really hope she can work on the PCS to make her a real contender next season.

I’m very much looking forward to the men’s free skate. It’s kinda shallow to hope that Kolyada doesn’t win a world medal with that gawd awful Elvis program, right? I can’t help it though! I love his SP this season though. Its kind of a bummer to think that Zhou’s PCS are what could hold him back from maintaining that bronze medal position, even if he does skate as well as his did in his Olys free skate. I hope he finds a choreographer for next season that can really help him in that arena. Keegan Messing is such a delight. I know he doesn’t have a realistic chance at a medal without everyone else ahead having meltdowns as well as skating the program of his life. With Patrick Chan now done for realsies, perhaps Keegan could be the Canadian champion next year?

ITA. I thought they were way underscored with that program at 2014 Worlds. I really appreciate their fluid movement, but there has to be a different way to showcase it other than more soft ethereal piano music.

I’ve come to enjoy them more as time goes on. For some skaters who maybe had disappointing showings at the Olympics, it can be an opportunity for personal redemption. Mao Asada’s 2014 win felt all the sweeter after what she went through in Sochi. And I kinda like the WTF nature of some of the medalists, like Kimmie Meissner?!

I’ll be curious in the pairs, if Tarasova and Morozov skate clean in their LP, will the judges reward that ill-suited program with a world medal?

In 2014, it was Belinda and a British man (I think he does/did figure skating commentary on British Eurosport). I’d love if they used them together again.

She made great points about Zagitova’s questionably high PCS and the short shelf life of top-tier Russian female figure skaters, but yeah, not an exact repeat of Tara vs. Michelle.

This Slate post had a great distillation of the Mevedeva/Zagitova result:

I just heard a feature on NPR’s Morning Edition about last night’s results. You know it’s either notably good (Zagitova) or bad (US women) when they devote an entire feature piece to it. And they used tape of Tom Z. saying that the US is still, like, years behind Russia in terms of pushing the technical envelope in the girls/women’s field. And that it could take up to a decade to catch up at this point?!

Yes. When done well, like Alina does it, it raises the difficulty of the jump because it moves the skater’s center of balance higher up than they’re used to. And it looks quite nice and balletic. However, other skaters like Evgenia, and Maria Sotskova, sort of throw their arm barely over their head in such a way that you can tell it’s not really pulling their torso up and changing their balance that much. It’s also less aesthetically pleasing (my opinion) because it looks like they’re kinda just sweeping their hand over their head. But, the way the rules are currently, an arm over the head is an arm over the head and pretty much automatically gets the skater more points, regardless of how awkward it may look.

It does seem like both Bradie and Mirai peaked at the team event. Honestly, I’m fine with seeing Mirai’s show smile instead of tears. She has been through so much in her career. I hope she can get it together and make a good showing at Worlds; it could be a good opportunity for her, depending on which Olympic medalists decide not to compete.