Figure Skating

[Jeddah]

1 hour ago, healthnut said:

Vincent will be at Nationals, he is switching to Lee Markell & Lori Nichol in Toronto and taking a break from Brown.

Vincent Zhou Coaching Change

He skipped Grand Prix for college, and now in the middle of the season/school year he’s taking a break from college for Nationals? Oh, Vincent. There’s no shame in quitting skating to go to college, and there’s no shame in being an elite skater instead of going to college. He obviously doesn’t want to (or can’t) do both at the same time. He needs to figure out what he really wants to do, and stick with it.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Jeddah

[Mellowyellow]

7 hours ago, Jeddah said:

He skipped Grand Prix for college, and now in the middle of the season/school year he’s taking a break from college for Nationals? Oh, Vincent. There’s no shame in quitting skating to go to college, and there’s no shame in being an elite skater instead of going to college. He obviously doesn’t want to (or can’t) do both at the same time. He needs to figure out what he really wants to do, and stick with it.

He had to do at least one semester at Brown so he can defer the next two years and have full time off for the Olympic year.

Apparently the policy at Brown is that as long as he does one semester it will hold his place and he can take a longer chunk off so he had no choice but to do this short stint.

It was a smart move all things given.

[Darknight]

On 12/29/2019 at 11:46 PM, Growsonwalls said:

I think it's over for Medvedeva. She never had the strongest technique and I think Brian Orser is great in taking people who already had strong technique but mentally were pretty fragile and getting them over that hump. His track record is less good for skaters who struggled with technique. See Adam Rippon and Jason Brown. 

I think what was important for Medvedeva was knowing she could skate and enjoy herself. At Camp Eteri that was never going to happen. She has a very winning personality and I could see her doing skating shows for awhile. But in terms of competition skating I think the other skaters are too strong right now.

This is why her technique should've been fixed beforehand. Instead she got away with it for years. It must suck to be on top for two seasons and never have anything called out but now you can't even make Worlds or GPF and the judges call your technique out. I think she's skating for herself at this point but I don't see her being competitive like she was before. I could be wrong but there are many other skaters who have it all. 

 

It's also noticable Russia overscores Eteri skaters. Kesiina is a lovely skater with good technique. Anna Frolova is another good skater. Liza has good technique but Russian fed doesn't reward her for it. Why not call out bad technique so they can fix it? Looking at you too USA Fed. I'm going to be extremely disappointed if Alysa wins at nationals with her technique. 

On 12/30/2019 at 4:03 PM, Growsonwalls said:

Aliona’s first coach from 2012 to 2017 was Elena Zhgun who studied under Stanislav Zhuk. All of Zhuk’s students had great basic skating skills. Maybe the most famous was Gordeeva and Grinkov. So I think Aliona’s basics are so great because for most of her life Eteri hasn’t been her coach. 

You can tell who Eteri has trained from the beginning and who she hasn't. Too bad skating skills and the basics doesn't matter much anymore. 

[Growsonwalls]

8 hours ago, Darknight said:

You can tell who Eteri has trained from the beginning and who she hasn't. Too bad skating skills and the basics doesn't matter much anymore. 

Anna Shcherbakova is another one who spent her early years training with someone else -- in this case, Oksana Bulycheva. Alina Zagitova actually only started training with Eteri in 2015. 

In Russian figure skating talk there's a lot of chatter about how Eteri is a bit like Brian Orser in that she takes the skaters who already had strong technique but her track record is less good for skaters who trained with her from the beginning.

[SeanC]

11 hours ago, Growsonwalls said:

In Russian figure skating talk there's a lot of chatter about how Eteri is a bit like Brian Orser in that she takes the skaters who already had strong technique but her track record is less good for skaters who trained with her from the beginning.

Orser mostly doesn't train skaters from the ground up.  He's a finishing coach; you go to him when you mostly have the basics and want to take the next step (though he will often make quite considerable revisions to his skaters technique, as we're seeing with Medvedeva right now; and in the past with Fernandez).

[Mellowyellow]

The coaching thing fascinates me. I used to think Hamada was great at teaching jumps but now I am more inclined to think it's just that Rika has a great ability to jump. 

She couldn't really teach Satoko and Marin Honda to jump.

Obviously she's still a great coach (although there are shady stories about her out there) but I think the person must be able to have that ability otherwise they'll never be a good jumper.

[HartofDixie]

New skating show on Netflix

 

[Jeddah]

On 1/4/2020 at 10:18 PM, SeanC said:

Orser mostly doesn't train skaters from the ground up.  He's a finishing coach; you go to him when you mostly have the basics and want to take the next step (though he will often make quite considerable revisions to his skaters technique, as we're seeing with Medvedeva right now; and in the past with Fernandez).

I would like to see Evgenia go to Raf. He seems to do a good job coaching “older” skaters like Adam, Ashley, Mariah, and Michael Brezina and taking their careers to the next level.

 

[SeanC]

23 minutes ago, Jeddah said:

I would like to see Evgenia go to Raf. He seems to do a good job coaching “older” skaters like Adam, Ashley, Mariah, and Michael Brezina and taking their careers to the next level.

I don't really see what Raf would add at this point.  She's already been retooling her jumps and doing pretty well with them, and in the other avenue she wants to continue improving in (basic skating, etc.), Tracy Wilson is superior to anybody at Raf's camp.

[selkie]

Ashley Wagner was live twittering watching Spinning Out, I think the first episode, and her snark level was quite high.

[SeanC]

The Olympic Channel’s periodic video uploads today included Mao Asada’s Sochi free skate.

 

[HartofDixie]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2020/01/17/olympics-figure-skating-struggles-sexual-abuse-allegations/4478027002/

[Jeddah]

Sasha Cohen Is a Mom! Olympic Figure Skater Welcomes First Child: 'Completely in Love'

Sasha Cohen had her baby!

[Sew Sumi]

I thought Sasha had a sex reveal, and it was a boy. 

Congrats to her 

[Avaleigh]

I watched the top five ladies at Canadian nationals plus Gabrielle Daleman. Yikes, Gabby. That long program was sad to watch. When I heard that Alaine Chartrand wasn't competing this season I figured that Gabby would step up, but she's still clearly going through a lot of issues. Two jumps into the program and she just seemed utterly defeated. When I think of bad performances it was right up there with Alissa Czisny's disastrous long at worlds 2012.

It was sweet to hear Tracy Wilson rooting for Gabby to pull it together during the commentary. Probably the best thing I can say about watching that. 

In general I'm surprised at how underwhelming the ladies were. Only a few years ago Canada had Kaetlyn, Gabby and Alaine and seemed pretty strong overall. As I watched I kept thinking, even if the A squad Russians had no quads or triple axel, there's no way that Emily Bausback, Alison Schumacher or the others would be able to come within striking distance of them in competition. People complain about the skating skills of Eteri's skaters and while I agree that there's definitely room for improvement (particularly with Trusova) they're still *way* ahead of the ladies I watched just now. I'm honestly a little shocked. 

They're also a long way behind Rika, Mariah, Bradie, etc. 

 

[Sew Sumi]

I don't have the stomach to watch the videos. I saw the PBP of Gabby's skate and was so sad for her. How awful to only score 88 points. 😢

[displayname]

Will we get TSN coverage for Worlds? I am missing some actually good commentary, but if they impose someone like Chris Howarth on the ISU stream again, I might just wait till no commentary vids come out.

OTOH, if they bag the past season's CBC panel for Worlds somehow, that would be best. Or even if they get Tracy Wilson if TSN doesn't cover it.

Edited January 19, 2020 by displayname

[Mellowyellow]

Zhenya needs to be released from her prison so she can skate for Canada. It won't ever happen but I can dream.

[displayname]

5 hours ago, Mellowyellow said:

Zhenya needs to be released from her prison so she can skate for Canada.

Why is Russia a prison?

[halopub]

Clip of Midori Ito pairs skating with Leigh Yip at the Winter World Masters. I don't imagine either has had much pairs experience but they looked like they had a blast. All that was missing was one of those huge double axels she can still do.

The same account tweeted a clip of Daisuke Takahashi ice dancing with Kana Muramoto at a show. Lots of potential there!

[displayname]

1 hour ago, halopub said:

All that was missing was one of those huge double axels she can still do.

Only she can do, in fact, when we look at the current top ladies. Only a couple of Japanese girls (who didn't make the team) come close. 

[Avaleigh]

8 hours ago, Mellowyellow said:

Zhenya needs to be released from her prison so she can skate for Canada. It won't ever happen but I can dream.

If she were interested, it would be nice if she could skate for another country that doesn't have as much of presence in the sport. Maybe give skating some additional exposure. Belarus? Knowing how deep the ladies field is in Russia, I wonder if the federation would give her a super hard time if she wanted to try skating for some place else. It doesn't seem like it would hurt them. Makes me wonder what the rules are for dual citizenship in Russia.

[halopub]

1 hour ago, displayname said:

Only she can do, in fact, when we look at the current top ladies. Only a couple of Japanese girls (who didn't make the team) come close. 

Who are you thinking of? The only current Japanese skater I've heard of outside the the top five is Hosoda.

[displayname]

10 hours ago, halopub said:

Who are you thinking of? The only current Japanese skater I've heard of outside the the top five is Hosoda.

I was really trying to find a tweet containing IceScope stats, from Japan Nats SP. It said someone did a 49 cm 2A IIRC. Wakaba and Kaori also have good 2As, but not quite that big. Possibly don't remember it correctly, and it was talking about 3As though (in which case I'd say no one does a 2A as well as Midori).

Edited January 20, 2020 by displayname

[Avaleigh]

I agree that good double axels seem to be in short supply these days. Sasha had one of the best IMO.

Mariah has a nice one. Gabby actually has a pretty good one too when she's on. 

[halopub]

17 hours ago, displayname said:

I was really trying to find a tweet containing IceScope stats, from Japan Nats SP. It said someone did a 49 cm 2A IIRC. Wakaba and Kaori also have good 2As, but not quite that big. Possibly don't remember it correctly, and it was talking about 3As though (in which case I'd say no one does a 2A as well as Midori).

I got around to searching Japanese tweets and found one that lists i-scopes for 2As. I didn’t spot a 49cm for Japanese Nationals but were you perhaps thinking of Sakura Yamada or Honoka Hirotani?

 

[SeanC]

Assorted nationals thoughts:

Men

Happy for Roman, who finally seems to be comfortable in his now over-six-foot frame, and has put out two really good free skates in a row.  I understand why they're waiting to decide who goes to Worlds, since none of the guys on the podium have had runaway success this season and it's obviously very high stakes.

Keegan really seemed to be on track to have a more consistent season before his brother's death, but things are what they are.

Ladies

...

Well, it's all up to you, Kaiya.

Pairs

KMT and Marinaro won their second consecutive title (deservedly; and what a killer new free skate dress for her), but the story of this competition was Evelyn Walsh & Trennt Michaud's unexpectedly massive improvement, courtesy of consultations with Maxim Trankov.  It was great to see a cleanish version of Eric Radford's wonderful free skate choreography.

Ice dance

Piper & Paul finally get their national title, horrifying-in-the-moment-but-hilarious-in-retrospect hair gaffe aside.

Also happy for Marjorie & Zachary getting the silver medal and the ticket to a hometown World Championships.  Marjorie, like KMT, also got herself a killer new dress, though in this case I struggle to see what it has to do with West Side Story.

 

[displayname]

7 hours ago, halopub said:

I got around to searching Japanese tweets and found one that lists i-scopes for 2As. I didn’t spot a 49cm for Japanese Nationals but were you perhaps thinking of Sakura Yamada or Honoka Hirotani?

 

Woof, apparently one of them was Higuchi!

That's Ito level height right there. I don't fully believe all the stats they have to offer and take them with a grain of salt, but this jump did look huge when I watched the LP again.  They had a whole list combining juniors and seniors, I'll have to search for it.

(as an aside, it's what needs to be seen for >=+4 raw GOE, but she got only +3.15 raw GOE for it compared to what we see thrown at others now🙄)

18 hours ago, Avaleigh said:

I agree that good double axels seem to be in short supply these days. Sasha had one of the best IMO.

Cohen? Hers was fine, better than someone like Medvedeva's used to be, and she also used to do transitions into it, but not "good" (for me). With good 2As, I start thinking of people like Yuna Kim, or for amazing 2As, I think of people like Mao Asada and Adelina Sotnikova, and for perfect 2As, we really have to consider people like Midori who did giant ones out of series of split jumps. We did used to have a lot more women who did actually proper technique 2As than we do now though. Now they usually look spinny and low, like they're an afterthought (but some at least attach difficult series of steps as a consolation?).

Edited January 21, 2020 by displayname

[Growsonwalls]

I feel like men have an even worse issue with the triple axel. Like Nathan Chen is a great jumper but his triple axel isn't that great. It's not bad but it's not the big, soaring, classic triple axel. Yuzuru Hanya has a beautiful triple axel. In the past men like Ilia Kulik and Evgeny Plushenko had really classic high-flying triple axels.

[SeanC]

5 minutes ago, Growsonwalls said:

I feel like men have an even worse issue with the triple axel. Like Nathan Chen is a great jumper but his triple axel isn't that great. It's not bad but it's not the big, soaring, classic triple axel. 

I don't see what the issue is?  The Axel is, by Nathan's own admission, his worst jump; there have been skaters where that was the case ever since it was invented.  What's different now, comparatively, is that there are so many quads that having an inconsistent triple Axel didn't doom his competitive chances.

There are plenty of men who do it better than he does, including, as you mention, Hanyu, who probably has the best, most consistent one in the history of the sport.

[Growsonwalls]

24 minutes ago, SeanC said:

I don't see what the issue is?  The Axel is, by Nathan's own admission, his worst jump; there have been skaters where that was the case ever since it was invented.  What's different now, comparatively, is that there are so many quads that having an inconsistent triple Axel didn't doom his competitive chances.

There are plenty of men who do it better than he does, including, as you mention, Hanyu, who probably has the best, most consistent one in the history of the sport.

I'm not saying it's a problem. Just that as the quads have multiplied many men are able to be competitive without a consistent triple axel although it is still a required element in both the SP and FS. But with that being said I do love the sight of a big, flying classic triple axel like Hanyu's.

[displayname]

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

I don't see what the issue is? 

They stated the issue right there, though, and hopped off what I was saying with ladies and 2A. That there aren't too many great 3As out there anymore. Which I agree with, even though Chen is only the worst example from the (top) men.

Hanyu has a great one, but I do like the aesthetic of the ones from Yagudin or Ito or Candeloro more.

In other news:

 

Edited January 21, 2020 by displayname

[Growsonwalls]

20 minutes ago, displayname said:

They stated the issue right there, though, and hopped off what I was saying with ladies and 2A. That there aren't too many great 3As out there anymore. Which I agree with, even though Chen is only the worst example from the (top) men.

Hanyu has a great one, but I do like the aesthetic like the ones of Yagudin or Ito or Candeloro more.

In other news:

 

Johnny Weir was never a consistent skater but his triple axel also had a beautiful edge takeoff, height, travel, and landing. 

Javier Fernandez is another elite skater who doesn't have a very good triple axel (although he did become much more consistent later on).

[Darknight]

1 hour ago, displayname said:

They stated the issue right there, though, and hopped off what I was saying with ladies and 2A. That there aren't too many great 3As out there anymore. Which I agree with, even though Chen is only the worst example from the (top) men.

Hanyu has a great one, but I do like the aesthetic of the ones from Yagudin or Ito or Candeloro more.

In other news:

 

I wonder what the age limit would be? How will USA respond regarding Alysa? 

Can we talk about Kaiya? She's adorable. I saw a few hate comments about her. 

 

I read an article that Liu's dad spends close to 200k on her skating. She won 11k in prize money.  Now we know why we have few kids take up skating. $200k is a house with 6 bedrooms in some states. 

[halopub]

16 hours ago, displayname said:

That's Ito level height right there. I don't fully believe all the stats they have to offer and take them with a grain of salt, but this jump did look huge when I watched the LP again.  They had a whole list combining juniors and seniors, I'll have to search for it.

Nice find!

Yeah, I do wish we had some evidence of I-Scope's accuracy, as well as maybe other statistics like skater height to jump height ratio. Ito's only 4'9" (1.45 m) so that made her outsized jumps look even more impressive.

 

6 hours ago, Darknight said:

I read an article that Liu's dad spends close to 200k on her skating. She won 11k in prize money.  Now we know why we have few kids take up skating. $200k is a house with 6 bedrooms in some states. 

Even though she's not listed on the USFS website's scholarship page, I presume Alysa at least gets a substantial amount as national champion.

[redpencil]

12 hours ago, displayname said:

In other news:

 

 

I'm surprised that they won't be discussing allowing quads for ladies in SP. Is this something that happens every year? Maybe it's because they want to wait until the end of this quad.

On the other hand, I would absolutely HAAAATE separate technical/artistic programs. I know a lot of people complain about quads or Russian jumping beans or whatever, and I've seen some people who want this, but it would potentially kill the sport for me. And I definitely don't say that lightly!

[displayname]

51 minutes ago, redpencil said:

Is this something that happens every year?

Every 2 years.

[KittenPokerCheater]

I'd like them to raise the age limit.

[Mellowyellow]

6 hours ago, redpencil said:

On the other hand, I would absolutely HAAAATE separate technical/artistic programs. I know a lot of people complain about quads or Russian jumping beans or whatever, and I've seen some people who want this, but it would potentially kill the sport for me. And I definitely don't say that lightly!

Me too! I cannot think of anything worse. Especially since I personally think the ladies with quads and triple axels are upping their game in their artistry as well.

Like nooooo. Just noooooooo

***

In other news I was a moron today. I read practice notes for Chen on Twitter and had a total freak out as to why Nathan had lost all his quads. Like every single one of them. Didn't do one at all.

And then I was ranting to my husband about how someone can lose all their quads overnight. 

Turns out they were practice notes for Karen Chen 😅

 

[displayname]

From what I saw on Twitter, "Technical" Program will mean "60% TES and 40% PCS", while "Artistic" Program will mean "40% TES and 60% PCS". Not one without the other. The utility of this might be debated, however.

Edited January 22, 2020 by displayname

[SeanC]

Wow, Aymoz with a truly spectacular flameout in the short program at Euros, missing the cut for the free skate.

And Brezina wins the short program at Euros, on the thirteenth consecutive try!

[HartofDixie]

Results link for Europeans. Not sure if this will air on NBC/NBCSN.

http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1920/ec2020/

[Mellowyellow]

4 hours ago, SeanC said:

Wow, Aymoz with a truly spectacular flameout in the short program at Euros, missing the cut for the free skate.

And Brezina wins the short program at Euros, on the thirteenth consecutive try!

Oh noes what happened?

I really enjoyed both of Kevin's programs this season. He was on track and doing so well.

[SeanC]

3 minutes ago, Mellowyellow said:

Oh noes what happened?

Fell on an underrotated quad, then did a single Lutz with no combination, then fell on an underrotated triple Axel.

Boikova/Kozlovskii clearly in the lead in pairs with that short program concluded.  Tarasova/Morozov survive a lift failure that was almost another Totmianina/Marinin-level catastrophe.

[HartofDixie]

Link for Nationals results: 

https://ijs.usfigureskating.org/leaderboard/results/2020/27988/index.asp
 

Bottom of page has tv schedule:

https://usfigureskatingfanzone.com/sports/2020/1/19/2020-toyota-us-figure-skating-championships-competition-central.aspx

[TwoBitUsherette]

Trying to watch the US pairs SP on NBC Sports Gold, but the feed is horrible. There's no TES tracker, no replays, and only one camera angle. There are challenger streams that are more professional than this one. Thankfully I've got it set to DVR so I can watch the broadcast when I get home. Hopefully it's higher quality.

[Jeddah]

The ladies short program was so much better than I was expecting! Who knew Amber Glenn had that in her?! I hope she keeps it together for the long. Mariah’s fall was too bad. That was still a badass program, even with the fluke fall. And Bradie delivered! I wonder if the judges would have placed Alysa in first if she had landed the triple axel cleanly. 

I felt bad for Gracie. Her attitude in her interview made me think she really isn’t ready to be back. I also want to tell her it’s okay to stop skating if it makes you miserable.

[CeeBeeGee]

3 minutes ago, Jeddah said:

I felt bad for Gracie. Her attitude in her interview made me think she really isn’t ready to be back. I also want to tell her it’s okay to stop skating if it makes you miserable.

Do you know where I can find the interview with Gracie? I just got home a little while ago, I started watching at the end of Amber Glenn's program so I missed it. I wonder if the USFSA YouTube feed has it.

[Chaser]

Yeah, I think they would have put Alysa first. If it were up to me: Bradie Amber Mariah Alysa. Alysa has improved a lot but quality wise she still isn’t there.

I wanted Andrea to stop talking to Gracie. I was getting concerned listening to that interview.

[MaryMitch]

29 minutes ago, Chaser said:

I wanted Andrea to stop talking to Gracie. I was getting concerned listening to that interview.

Andrea Joyce's interviews are so boring - all the same questions. I cringe.