Men's discussion thread: "... in the Olympic season everyone fights for himself"

Everything about Misha's skating is exquisite, and his jump landings are sure and sharp. But as Seerek pointed out, the lack of ice coverage (and power and speed as well) is what's costing him from even higher PCS. I also feel his 3axels are a tad small.

I wish Patrick Chan the best and I am a huge fan, but to go down a quad when everyone else is going up some is just so... weird. Even if he delivers another Lalique 2013 moment at PC Olympics, I think he would really struggle to make top 5.

I have said it for over 2 years and I continue to tip Shoma Uno as the PC Olympic Champ.
 
Marco said:
Everything about Misha's skating is exquisite, and his jump landings are sure and sharp. But as Seerek pointed out, the lack of ice coverage (and power and speed as well) is what's costing him from even higher PCS. I also feel his 3axels are a tad small.

I wish Patrick Chan the best and I am a huge fan, but to go down a quad when everyone else is going up some is just so... weird. Even if he delivers another Lalique 2013 moment at PC Olympics, I think he would really struggle to make top 5.

I have said it for over 2 years and I continue to tip Shoma Uno as the PC Olympic Champ.
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Maybe Marina is counseling Patrick to remove quads to remove him from the path of Nathan Chen's dominence
 
Seerek said:
A comparable skater to eyeball component scores this weekend (Skate Canada) relative to Ge would be Jorik Hendrickx (a non quad-jumper in a field that features many quad jumpers).
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??? Jorik is nowhere close. Speedwise, perhaps, but presentation-wise, not comparable at all. Every position in Misha's programs is polished/extended/connected.
 
:lol: Someone needs to take Alexander Samarin aside and let him in on the fact that just because he can land quads doesn't make him a top of the heap skater! :duh:

Samarin wasn't happy at Junior Worlds when he won bronze, nor was he happy winning silver at JGPF either. He really needs to understand the fact that although he may be a good athlete, he is simply not a very good performer on the ice. It's one thing to be confident and believe in yourself, but quite another to be delusional about your abilities, and to pout and shake your head in the kiss 'n cry when you get scores that put you in first place in front of all those who have skated to that point in the competition. Why can't Samarin accept where he needs to work to improve his skating, and simply greet his generous scores with more grace?

In actuality, Jorik H and Brezina, and even Messing and some of the other skaters are much better performers than Samarin. If not for his quads and athleticism, Samarin would be hitting the basement in the standings due to his lack of quality presentation skills, lack of musicality, lack of rhythm, and complete lack of feel for the choreography. Just because he knows how to rotate quads and thus gets humongous tech scores piled on does not mean Samarin is a complete skater. He's one of the anomaly Russian skaters who looks like he needs to see the inside of a ballet studio PDQ.

Jun Hwan Cha sure received a lot of markdowns for URs and a downgrade on his quad salchow. French judge feels 'Showman' Shoma deserves 3 perfect scores of 10 for Performance Execution, Composition, and Interpretation! Meanwhile, Japanese judge gives Shoma the lowest score of all the judges for skating skills and the usual range of 9+ for everything else. It's time-consuming but interesting to look at the individual judges' scores and overall protocols. To put it mildly, I don't think Shoma is perfect in those categories. He's far from perfect, despite the mesmerizing way he oozes over the ice and bends his knees. This is a nice program for Shoma and he seems really determined and on a roll, but his PCS scores are slightly OTT.

I guess if Jason Brown had the quad weapon, he would be receiving 10s too for his superb presentation skills. Because he doesn't have consistent quads, the judges don't seem to want to acknowledge just how good Jason is with program composition and musical interpretation. No one has better stretch, spirals and Russian splits among the men. Jason is amazing. All things considered with the turnout on the axel, the judges were decently fair to Jason, as I thought he would get between 87 to 88, so 90 is great. Patrick was quite fortunate too on the marks with his couple of minor mistakes on jump landings. I think Shoma, Jason, and Patrick each have different styles, but they are all enjoyable to watch and clearly the cream of this crop.
 
Dobre said:
??? Jorik is nowhere close. Speedwise, perhaps, but presentation-wise, not comparable at all. Every position in Misha's programs is polished/extended/connected.
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Come on, Jorik has improved a great deal with his presentation skills. While I agree that Misha should probably score a bit higher on some components (his stretch and positions are better, and his spins are faster), I think Jorik has a wonderful feel for his music and he commits himself fully to his choreography in the same confident way that Misha does. Jorik seems to have somewhat better flow out of his jumps and better overall speed. Mostly they simply have different styles and personalities on the ice. I think @Seerek's comments were completely valid and generalized enough not to be challenged as if he wasn't making any sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P56I0pC5lQ Jorik H 2017 SC sp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h1ovADvPPM Misha G 2017 RC sp

Jorik scored 82.08 in his sp at SC for 6th place, and Misha scored 85.02 at RC for 5th place in a somewhat tougher field. At SC, Misha's sp scores would have landed him in 4th place. In any case, Misha came in 4th overall at RC after the fp (Aliev dropped in the fp). Some fans felt that Misha should have been on the podium at RC since Kolyada fell on so many quad attempts and Misha skated clean.
 
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aftershocks said:
Jun Hwan Cha sure received a lot of markdowns for URs and a downgrade on his quad salchow.
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He deserved them. The Salchow was particularly obvious and awful. I confess to being rather disappointed at first view - with the number of people going crazy over this kid I thought he was the second coming or something, but he was floppy and unconvincing and UR central. I'm chalking it down to injury comeback and hope the next time I see him he shows something better.
 
misskarne said:
He deserved them. The Salchow was particularly obvious and awful. I confess to being rather disappointed at first view - with the number of people going crazy over this kid I thought he was the second coming or something, but he was floppy and unconvincing and UR central. I'm chalking it down to injury comeback and hope the next time I see him he shows something better.
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I wasn't questioning the URs. After his performance, I could see that he obviously got a lot of deductions. And after checking the protocols it was quite clear. I just made an observation, not a complaint. It is always surprising to see a highly rated skater receive good tech scores and then the deductions that are revealed in the kiss 'n cry can be somewhat startling. Yes, Jun Hwan Cha does need to work on perfecting sharpness and precision in his technique. Everyone has something to work on. And some athletes can get away with a lot too that others can't. ;) I noticed that Brian Orser wasn't with Jun in the kiss 'n cry, which seems a sign that he's passing Jun off to ass't coach to get whipped into better shape, since his huge talent isn't panning out as smoothly as expected, apparently.

There are so many factors involved in achieving success as an athlete. Talent is not everything. Learning how to train effectively and how to apply your talent, and how to overcome obstacles mentally and physically can be daunting. Motivation can go missing and confidence can be hard to muster. Luck and timing are always important too.
 
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aftershocks said:
I wasn't questioning the URs. After his performance, I could see that he obviously got a lot of deductions. And after checking the protocols it was quite clear. I just made an observation, not a complaint. It is always surprising to see a highly rated skater receive good tech scores and then the deductions that are revealed in the kiss 'n cry can be somewhat startling. Yes, Jun Hwan Cha does need to work on perfecting sharpness and precision in his technique. Everyone has something to work on. And some athletes can get away with a lot too that others can't. ;) I noticed that Brian Orser wasn't with Jun in the kiss 'n cry, which seems a sign that he's passing Jun off to get whipped into better shape, since his huge talent isn't panning out as smoothly as expected, apparently.

There are so many factors involved in achieving success as an athlete. Talent is not everything. Learning how to train effectively and how to apply your talent, and how to overcome obstacles mentally and physically can be daunting. Motivation can go missing and confidence can be hard to muster. Luck and timing are always important too.
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Actually Brian Orser went to the event with him (and actually looked after V/M when their coaches were delayed) but he was in the hospital last night having emergency gall bladder surgery.
 
RoseRed said:
Actually Brian Orser went to the event with him (and actually looked after V/M when their coaches were delayed) but he was in the hospital last night having emergency gall bladder surgery.
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Oh, thanks for pointing that out @RoseRed. I'm sorry to hear that. Wishing Brian O a speedy recovery and that he's able to get back to work soon! I'm sure his skaters miss him. How long is Brian expected to be in hospital?
 
aftershocks said:
Oh, thanks for pointing that out @RoseRed. I'm sorry to hear that. Wishing Brian O a speedy recovery and that he's able to get back to work soon! I'm sure his skaters miss him. How long is Brian expected to be in hospital?
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No idea how long, I just know about it because the Canadian commentators told people during the men's short. Maybe they'll give more information today.
 
Shoma made way too many mistakes in the FS at SC to be receiving such high presentation scores. And the tech was also over-rated. So he and his coach are laughing in the kiss 'n cry like 'what difference does it make,' since he gets a boatload of points regardless of how poorly he skates.
 
Patrick is lacking confidence right now. It will be important for him to build that up.
 
I am most bummed for Cha Jun Hwan. He was en route to qualifying for the sole spot at the home Olympics. I think a top 6 here would have been very convincing and not something that Lee JH can match ever. But the injury and Brian Orser's sudden surgery cost him. He isn't even matching Lee JH's Nelbelhorn score yet.

Very happy for Brezina. He was supposed to be the breath of fresh air for Euro men when he started and hasn't really broken through. Hope this clean(ish) performance with quads in both programs will give him the confidence he needs to soar through. Euro men right now is very depressing with Javier only and a bunch of boring-ass Russian men.

I think Patrick Chan has accepted that he is not able to fight for an individual medal with or without 4sal, esp since his 4toe and 3axel aren't all that super-consistent. His best bet is pull a Plushenko in Sochi and focus solely on helping the team on the team gold.
 
aftershocks said:
^^ Yep definitely @Seerek, Misha's skating skills score should not be higher than some, but he should score very high in choreo, interpretation and performance execution when he skates clean, which he has been doing.
That's quite true, but Uno is over-scored in my opinion due to judges being mesmerized by the way he oozes over the ice like butter. Uno is extremely talented and magically precocious, and it seems his strengths camouflage his weaknesses.
However, over-dramatic facial expressions and smooth moves do not make one a genius in all PCS categories. And Shoma still has technique flaws that tend to be overlooked. In his first year in seniors, the judges greeted him with fairly low scores comparative to other top men. But in his subsequent senior seasons, he's suddenly got mega powerful PCS. I think he still has things to work on and maturity will help. It's always interesting when judges send the signal that skaters have nothing to work on re PCS. :rolleyes:
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Well... judges are too fast on Uno's team... I agree with you I see not big improvement in Uno's skating. The crossovers are overload and he has slow speed during the step sequence. Unlike Nathan who has shown quite a lot of improvement in his skating. And don't even mention the jump technique because...
Have you known that Uno's 4F and 3F have the same air time...
  • Quad Flip: Flying time: 0.600/0.633s
  • Triple Flip: Flying time: 0.640s
At first, I thought it's just he rotates faster in the 4F but then I talked with the guy who made this analysis... well... he just rotates the first rotation on ice very fast.
 
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Jun Y said:
I am clearly biased but I think Aliev's short program is pretty great.
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I was there at CoR and I think Aliev emoted a bit weaker than the music though. It's too bombastic for his style. I prefer his LP but he messed badly there...
 
Marco said:
Everything about Misha's skating is exquisite, and his jump landings are sure and sharp. But as Seerek pointed out, the lack of ice coverage (and power and speed as well) is what's costing him from even higher PCS. I also feel his 3axels are a tad small.
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What cost Kolyada from higher PCS is that he rarely delivers. In fact whatever he got at CoR was too high. He was the only guy whose scores came out and everyone in my corner (mind you, I sat with Russian fans) looked around with this expression: "How the hell he got that score?"

Marco said:
I have said it for over 2 years and I continue to tip Shoma Uno as the PC Olympic Champ.
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Skate Canada love is never a blessing though. Just my hunch...
 
Unfortunately for Cha, injury and significant puberty are happening in the wrong season, and it's likely going to take another season (or 2) to get used to those longer limbs (and improve the overall carriage that goes with a taller body). Even if it's got many cuts to it, I'd go back to the Chorus Line short program just for this season (he seemed to really "get" that program right off the bat in the Jr Grand Prix).
 
aftershocks said:
:lol: Someone needs to take Alexander Samarin aside and let him in on the fact that just because he can land quads doesn't make him a top of the heap skater! :duh:

Samarin wasn't happy at Junior Worlds when he won bronze, nor was he happy winning silver at JGPF either. He really needs to understand the fact that although he may be a good athlete, he is simply not a very good performer on the ice. It's one thing to be confident and believe in yourself, but quite another to be delusional about your abilities, and to pout and shake your head in the kiss 'n cry when you get scores that put you in first place in front of all those who have skated to that point in the competition. Why can't Samarin accept where he needs to work to improve his skating, and simply greet his generous scores with more grace?

In actuality, Jorik H and Brezina, and even Messing and some of the other skaters are much better performers than Samarin. If not for his quads and athleticism, Samarin would be hitting the basement in the standings due to his lack of quality presentation skills, lack of musicality, lack of rhythm, and complete lack of feel for the choreography. Just because he knows how to rotate quads and thus gets humongous tech scores piled on does not mean Samarin is a complete skater. He's one of the anomaly Russian skaters who looks like he needs to see the inside of a ballet studio PDQ.

Jun Hwan Cha sure received a lot of markdowns for URs and a downgrade on his quad salchow. French judge feels 'Showman' Shoma deserves 3 perfect scores of 10 for Performance Execution, Composition, and Interpretation! Meanwhile, Japanese judge gives Shoma the lowest score of all the judges for skating skills and the usual range of 9+ for everything else. It's time-consuming but interesting to look at the individual judges' scores and overall protocols. To put it mildly, I don't think Shoma is perfect in those categories. He's far from perfect, despite the mesmerizing way he oozes over the ice and bends his knees. This is a nice program for Shoma and he seems really determined and on a roll, but his PCS scores are slightly OTT.

I guess if Jason Brown had the quad weapon, he would be receiving 10s too for his superb presentation skills. Because he doesn't have consistent quads, the judges don't seem to want to acknowledge just how good Jason is with program composition and musical interpretation. No one has better stretch, spirals and Russian splits among the men. Jason is amazing. All things considered with the turnout on the axel, the judges were decently fair to Jason, as I thought he would get between 87 to 88, so 90 is great. Patrick was quite fortunate too on the marks with his couple of minor mistakes on jump landings. I think Shoma, Jason, and Patrick each have different styles, but they are all enjoyable to watch and clearly the cream of this crop.
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For your reference, a poster named fireovertheice from the other forums calculated these numbers (about their 1 foot skating time) and I have to say I don’t get how Uno deserves such PCS gap over Nathan.

Nathan Chen FS: Mao’s last dancer/Rite of Spring – COR 2017 >
One foot skating in step and choreo sequences + various transition elements: almost 35.30/36 sec.

Shoma Uno FS: Turandot – SC 2017 >
One foot skating in step and choreo sequences + various transition elements: almost 30.30/31 sec.
 
^^ Yeah, the judges aren't taking that into account about Shoma. But meanwhile, Nathan is nitpicked by fans. I wish that Hanyu, Shoma and Javi weren't given so much credit on PCS. If they would just be scored fairly in the areas they actually excel, their placements would still be around the same ballpark, but the results would be fairer. Shoma gets breaks for pre-rotations and some faulty jump technique (altho' he has been working to fix those issues). Still the judges ignore Shoma's flaws likely because of being mesmerized by his smooth-like-butter qualities. And they over-rate Hanyu and Javi on PCS because of their boffo suspended quads when they are in-the-zone. Kolyada definitely has better technique than Shoma, and he has much more musicality and aesthetic promise than Hanyu and Javi (both whom have limited range). Kolyada, Shoma and Nathan do have less maturity than Hanyu and Javi, and also a bit less rep status on PCS from the judges, except for Shoma who the judges have been consistently over-rewarding for his over-dramatic facial expressions and smooth skating.

At CoC, I had expected Javi to be in first and win overall. It's still possible for Javi to prevail, but probably not if Kolyada manages to skate as well or better in the fp with 3 to 4 quads. I generally agree with the placements in the sp, but I quibble with some of the overall scores, and especially with some of the components. There's room for a lot of movement in the fp. If Kolyada continues to skate the way he did in the sp at CoC, he will be one of the handful of contenders for the Olympics podium. With all skating well, Hanyu, Kolyada, and Chan have the best skating skills. If Han Yan could ever skate his absolute best, he has the potential to score well too, but he's lacked consistency and confidence. Lori has helped Boyang tremendously this season (after pulling some ideas from her work with Nathan Chen, IMO). Still, 41 seems a bit high for Boyang on components. I don't think his abilities are that close to Kolyada who got 2+ pts higher on PCS in the sp.

Chan has issues with his tech consistency on jumps right now so its looking like he won't be much of a factor for the Olympic podium unless he regroups in a big way. Surely SC wants him as fit and motivated as possible to lend his stature, rep and SS to the team event.

I think it's a good thing though that the young guns like Nathan, Kolyada, and Boyang are giving the 'untouchables' at the top something to think about. No more mistakes galore followed by record-setting scores please for the usual suspects. Things appear to be shaping up for a huge territorial battle at GPF and Olympics for the men. Nerves and strategy as usual will be a big part of the equation.
 
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Current standings for GPF qualification after 3 GP events: http://www.isuresults.com/events/gp2017/gpsmen.htm

1 Mikhail KOLYADA RUS 11 + 15 = 26 (550.44)

2 Shoma UNO JPN 15 (301.10) + FRA
3 Nathan CHEN USA 15 (293.79) + Skate America
4 Yuzuru HANYU JPN 13 (290.77) + NHK
5 Boyang JIN CHN 13 (264.48) + Skate America
6 Jason BROWN USA 13 (261.14) + NHK
7 Max AARON USA 11 (259.69) + FRA
8 Alexander SAMARIN RUS 11 (250.06) + FRA
9 Vincent ZHOU USA 9 (256.66) + FRA
10 Misha GE UZB 9 (255.33) + FRA

Potential spoiler in FRA?
15 Javier FERNANDEZ ESP 5 (253.06)

Entries for the remaining 3 GPs: http://www.isu.org/docman-documents...gp-6/series-files-10/entries/7516-gp-men/file
 
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Repeating my post from the Men's thread - I think Yuzu should secure a GPF spot alongside Kolyada after NHK. Brown has an excellent shot at 2nd at NHK and possibly getting a spot himself. Ironically, his teammate Rippon might play a spoiler in that strategy. But, if Rippon gets 2nd at NHK, he will need to be at his best against Chen and Jin at SA to get to the GPF. Finally, Jin, based on scoring, has a greater shot of getting to the GPF if he can just stay behind Chen at SA. He could still beat Chen, though and secure a high ranking-spot. IDK if he will beat Chen in the USA, though
 
MAXSwagg said:
His team uses this "technique" on purpose to allow him to fit all the rotations in. They won't be fixing it.
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I have my suspicions about how he "fits all the rotations in". It looks like he transfers some weight onto the right outside edge instead of exclusively using the right toe pick. #floop

https://youtu.be/qzUv5fWz16Q?t=33

https://youtu.be/qzUv5fWz16Q?t=67

If not anything else, it deserves negative GOEs since it is at least an ISU defined error.
 
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I know that I may be biased but still super happy with Kolyada's performances at CoC and the fact that he's almost guaranteed his spot in GPF :kickass:

He's the first Russian male skater since Yagudin whom I actually like a lot (the second one is Aliev but it's too early to talk about him :gallopin1), he has great jumping technique, his spins deserves high GOE. I know that a lot of users here think that he doesn't deserve high PCS but I believe that his basics aren't worse than most of the top skaters (as I said, I may be biased). He has great SS, skates with great speed and flow, shows great edges and if he is really ON he deserves to get high GOE on almost each element :respec:
His SP at CoC actually deserved that high score and I'm super glad that he finally landed all his jumps there. Hope he will do the same at Nationals and Olympics :kickass:


I was impressed with Han Yan performances in Beijing as well.
I enjoy his skating much more than Jin's, think that he deserved to be ahead of few other men at least in the free :shuffle:
 
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