Patrick Chan deserves his scores

[Allen]

Ok, I think you get the idea most people agree Chan's skating skills are the best in the world. You don't have to agree. Tell me though who it is you feel is better?

Patrick may have the best basics and that might make you say he is better, but he's kind of skated like shite lately, amazing basics or not.

[sk9tingfan]

Exactly. I definetly think choregraphy/transitions deserve to and need to be rewarded, but execution needs to be rewarded as well. Its one thing for me when you have B/S winning over S/P with a small error and a much more complex and intricate program than S/P. For the most part B/S were able to execute that program extremely well and intricate choregraphy/transitions should be rewarded.

But its a whole different thing when you see a skater falling multiple times on their program, that program then is not well executed at all, and why should they be rewarded? And if you have a skater who is AVERAGING four falls a competition, that tells me right there that the skater is doing programs that are way to complex for them. Now the skater can pack in as much difficult as they want, and if they want to roll the dice good for them, but it doesn't mean they should be rewarded for their many falls.

In the end to me the clean jump is more important than the difficult entrance.

Amen, chapter and verse! While I can give credit where credit is due, that is that Chan is capable of amazing footwork, if the transitions are such that he can't handle jump content, then his programs are too hard for him to handle. Many have used the argument that this is not figure jumping but figure skating and that one jump does not a program make; I'm one of them. However, difficult footwork and transitions does not a progarm make, if you can't jump at all or remotely cleanly.

[umronnie]

If edgework is that much more important than the execution of the jumps, why not bring back figures and make them 50% of the total score, as they were 30 years ago?

That way Mr. Chan can be 30 points ahead of the field after figures, then someone else can "win" the SP and LP, Chan wins overall. Everybody happy.

The fans of the skaters who won the SP and LP will call them "world free skating champions" and be proud. Chan will be the ultimate king of the hill, and nobody else will understand the score. Business as usual.

[The Accordion]

People keep mentioning that Chan is not better at PE than Takahashi.

I agree with this and think the judges do too.

I would like to know examples where the judges have not. When - in the same competition - has Chan been marked higher in Performance than Takahashi? If it is different competitions - it doesn't really count - because, for one, they are different judging panels and secondly - as much as we want COP to be consistent between competitions- we have seen again and again that it is not.

So ultimately what matters is that the judging is correct at individual competitions for comparing skaters. I am not nearly as up on my stats as others here are - but my impression is that when they are competing - Takahashi's PE marks are higher than Chan's.

I am curious if there are examples where this has not been the case?

[museksk8r]

PCS (who I believe has the advantage in each component)

PE: Takahashi, Verner, Joubert
IN: Abbott, Kozuka
TR: Abbott, Chan
SS: Chan, Kozuka, Oda
CH: Abbott, Takahashi, Verner

[bek]

If edgework is that much more important than the execution of the jumps, why not bring back figures and make them 50% of the total score, as they were 30 years ago?

That way Mr. Chan can be 30 points ahead of the field after figures, then someone else can "win" the SP and LP, Chan wins overall. Everybody happy.

The fans of the skaters who won the SP and LP will call them "world free skating champions" and be proud. Chan will be the ultimate king of the hill, and nobody else will understand the score. Business as usual.

You know someone said this and I think its a point, for all of Patrick's great edges, he actually has difficulty controlling his landing edges on his jumps.

Another issue to and that comes with speed is that speed is a great thing, but if the skater is skating so fast that they are falling all freaking over the place- or popping jumps a la Kostner (or doubling like Lepsito) maybe said skaters are actually skating too fast.

Its totally possible that someone like Oda could perhaps skate faster if he wanted to, but chooses not to in order to execute the elements cleanly.

If its skating skills and skating skills only that matter, than why not bring the ice dancers into singles. After all most of the top ones have better skating skills than Patrick Chan. The problem with that is that the jumps, and spins are ACTUALLY a part of singles skating. And just as we shouldn't have skaters with poor basic skating skills winning singles competitions. We also shouldn't have skaters with poor jumps winning singles competitions either. Skaters should have to actually work on both their jumps AND skating skills, which effectively means that it might difficult to be the absolute very best on one without sacrificing the other. The idea that you can be a complete skater without the jumps is just as silly as the idea that you can be a complete skater without artistry or basic skating skills.

[marbri]

Do you not get tired listening to yourself talk about the same thing over and over and over and over again?

[dinakt]

PCS (who I believe has the advantage in each component)

PE: Takahashi, Verner, Joubert
IN: Abbott, Kozuka
TR: Abbott, Chan
SS: Chan, Kozuka, Oda
CH: Abbott, Takahashi, Verner

I very much agree with that assessment. Depending on the event, I would add Takahashi in IN, and, in case of performance like Nationals 2010, Abbott- in PE. But it has to depend on the night. Somebody like Amodio can get average acores in CH this year, but high- for PE... etc

And in terms of repeating things over and over... Ya, we are scratching an itch, but it is because of the need to get to the bottom of things. 6.0 system allowed for vagueness. This one encourages analysis and calls for precision.

[judgejudy27]

PCS (who I believe has the advantage in each component)

PE: Takahashi, Verner, Joubert
IN: Abbott, Kozuka
TR: Abbott, Chan
SS: Chan, Kozuka, Oda
CH: Abbott, Takahashi, Verner

You are overrating Abbott quite alot. And Takahashi absolutely is in there for interpretation.

[NorthernDancers]

Patrick Chan seems like an arrogant little twit which makes his overscoring that much more annoying.
And I can't believe I'm going to paraphrase Johnny Weir but once he said real sport is when you fall you have to work your way back up, not beat people who were better than you just because you have better reputation than they do.
I love figure skating to death, but continued overscoring of Chan is not going to help the sport any. it already seems like a joke to most people because of crap like this.

Patrick Chan has great skating skills, but I saw him live a couple of years ago and he is seriously not so much better than Abbott, Oda, Kozuka, Verner, etc and especially not Takahashi in the performance department. The guy knows how to sell it even when he messes up, and engages the audience.

Couple of issues with this:

How do you know he is an arragont twit? Seriously. "Seems like" is good enough for a comment like this?

Overscoring/reputation? Show me the evidence where he is not getting marked down for jumps he falls on. The GP are setup so that the higher ranked teams don't compete against each other until the GPF. Chan is not a world champion, 4CC champion, or GPF champion. Failing to see real evidence in each competition he has entered where exactly he is overscored. If there are complaints, it should be about the system, not personally about Chan. Attacking skaters personally is never in-line.

How does seeing Chan skate a couple of years ago make any sense to how he skates today? A couple of years is a long time. He's still a pretty young guy. A couple of years ago he was a kid? Can't see how he skated a couple of years ago has any bearing on how he skates today.

[Vash01]

I thought he was way overmarked in SC, particularly in the SP. He was somewhat overmarked in COR. He had around 81 in the SP with a fall on the 3A. In the LP his PCM were quite high for a program with 3 falls. One could argue that the falls were penalized in the TCS marks, but I don't see how he can get high marks for performance with that many mistakes. Way too many breaks in the program due to the falls.

[ciocio]

Chan is a gifted skater, no doubt about it. But it´s sad he can´t deliver a clean program or at least an almost clean program. He isn´t able to manage his falls very well either, sometimes after a fall you can see on his face how disappointed he is and that kills his performance. I think his programs are too busy, he is struggeling with the transitions, he looks tired. Lori Nichol should change his programs a little bit.

[luvsasha2]

Couple of issues with this:

How do you know he is an arragont twit? Seriously. "Seems like" is good enough for a comment like this?

Overscoring/reputation? Show me the evidence where he is not getting marked down for jumps he falls on. The GP are setup so that the higher ranked teams don't compete against each other until the GPF. Chan is not a world champion, 4CC champion, or GPF champion. Failing to see real evidence in each competition he has entered where exactly he is overscored. If there are complaints, it should be about the system, not personally about Chan. Attacking skaters personally is never in-line.

How does seeing Chan skate a couple of years ago make any sense to how he skates today? A couple of years is a long time. He's still a pretty young guy. A couple of years ago he was a kid? Can't see how he skated a couple of years ago has any bearing on how he skates today.

I do not know Chan personally so I cannot say for sure that he is, but from his comments in the media he seems to have a big head. I am talking about all the comments he made last year about his fellow skaters and the quad. And his attitude makes his over scoring that much more annoying to me.

Sure, he's getting marked down for the falls, but imo he should be marked down in the pcs and he is not. Generally the level of performance goes down when a skater falls three times.

Overscoring? Did you see Skate Canada? I feel there was plenty of overmarking/propping up of him there.

I am just saying that he is not that much better than everyone else. He wasn't then, and he isn't now. I'm not the only one who thinks that his scores are too high either.

[clarie]

One thing I observed about Patrick's skating is that he never looks tentative even when he's understandably nervous. He goes all out from beginning to end, and even when he does fall, he's up and into it immediately. Watching live too, he's very fast. And those edges........wow.

[NorthernDancers]

I do not know Chan personally so I cannot say for sure that he is, but from his comments in the media he seems to have a big head. I am talking about all the comments he made last year about his fellow skaters and the quad. And his attitude makes his over scoring that much more annoying to me.

Sure, he's getting marked down for the falls, but imo he should be marked down in the pcs and he is not. Generally the level of performance goes down when a skater falls three times.

Overscoring? Did you see Skate Canada? I feel there was plenty of overmarking/propping up of him there.

I am just saying that he is not that much better than everyone else. He wasn't then, and he isn't now. I'm not the only one who thinks that his scores are too high either.


I see Chan as a barely grown up kid who needs some help with media relations. He clearly isn't very good at speaking with the media, like a lot of people barely out of their teens, guys especially. I just looked in Wikipedia, and it says he is still 19. He still is a teenager. I know more than a few people, guys especially but some girls too, who are very academically smart, analytically minded, and task focused who tend to have difficulty expressing their thoughts verbally, never mind in front of the media. Hopefully he will get some help with that. To say he is a twit or has a huge attitude problem is a little harsh.

There is a lovely breakdown in the CoR men's blog in GoldenSkate that compares Chan SC to Dai Olympics on the scores. It's very enlightening. While there seems to be a lot of complaints, perhaps these are more emotionally based than rooted in reality. I come back to the question....it is fine to say he was overscored and everyone thinks so, but where is the evidence? How exactly was he overscored, given the current CoP rules? You can THINK his PCS scores should be impacted by falls, but if that is not how the rules work, how is that Chan's fault?