The "bests" of the best

[judgejudy27]

I don't believe it was preplanned. Things just turned out that way. Maria skated a beautiful SP and deserved her marks. Michelle skated great in the LP, and she was the first skater, so her marks were appropriately 'good but not great'. Had either Irina or Maria skated clean, Michelle would not have won, but not because the judges planned anything. There is no way they could predict how everyone would skate.

The thing that bothered me the most was the two 5.6s for technical merit. The rest of the marks were 5.7, 5.8 technical and 5.8, 5.9 artistic which still left plenty of room for BOTH Maria and Irina to potentially beat them. There was no justification for any judge giving a 5.6 for one of the best ladies performances ever though. Really it was a performance worthy of 5.9 technical and 6.0 artistic, putting aside the skating order and the situation. Anyway who really thought Maria and Irina were going to both skate cleanly (Maria probably has a 5% likelihood given her history).

I agree Maria was the clear winner of the short. Both her elements and performance were the strongest of the ladies that round, except some of Irina's spins and Michelle's spiral sequence were better, but that is it.

[Vash01]

The thing that bothered me the most was the two 5.6s for technical merit. The rest of the marks were 5.7, 5.8 technical and 5.8, 5.9 artistic which still left plenty of room for BOTH Maria and Irina to potentially beat them. There was no justification for any judge giving a 5.6 for one of the best ladies performances ever though. Really it was a performance worthy of 5.9 technical and 6.0 artistic, putting aside the skating order and the situation. Anyway who really thought Maria and Irina were going to both skate cleanly (Maria probably has a 5% likelihood given her history).

I agree Maria was the clear winner of the short. Both her elements and performance were the strongest of the ladies that round, except some of Irina's spins and Michelle's spiral sequence were better, but that is it.

I don't see how the judges would have given 5.9 for that performance, as good it was, when Irina had planned a 3L3R and 3S3R in her LP. Then they would have to give Irina 6.0 for tech. Also giving Michelle, the first skater, 6.0 artistically would have made it impossible to give fair marks to the rest of the ladies. I agree that the 5.6 were too low for tech, but 5.7 and 5.8 for tech were quite understandable. The judges always left room for later skaters in the 6.0 system, and everything was relative.

[judgejudy27]

If Irina did the content she had planned successfullly she would probably deserve 6.0s for technical merit.

[bartek]

If Irina did the content she had planned successfullly she would probably deserve 6.0s for technical merit.

She succeeded with this content at 2000 GPF and got one 6 for technical merit even though she wasn't a favourite back then so she surely would've got a few sixes at Worlds where she already was a favourite thanks to her GPF performance.

[briancoogaert]

Thanks for posting! While I love Kwan's Red Violin performance, my marginal favorite of all time for her would be her SOTBS at Worlds the following year.

My thought, too.

[Vash01]

IMO Michelle's best ever performance was at the 2001 worlds (Song of the black swan), although The Red Violin is awfully close. I saw the former live, and may be that was the difference maker for me.