2025 Cup of China Men's Free PBP - The Biffed Element

[Lizziebeth]

Coach is so much more excited than his student lol

 

[Wyliefan]

Someone meme the coach going crazy while Shun puts the towel over his head.

 

[Lilia A]

I think all of Twitter had the same reaction Sato's coach had to his score
I did too. Ok maybe not like that, it was more like "phew, thank you"

 

[PRlady]

Sato is so low key but his coach is hysterical. At least the best guy won.

 

[Former Lurve Goddess]

I wonder what kind of smoke is coming out the Vatican now.

 

[LilJen]

Is the universe gunning for an Italian men’s medal in Italy? Gawd.

 

[Sally1214]

Is the universe gunning for an Italian men’s medal in Italy? Gawd.

I would be okay with that. Don't think there's a ghost of a chance of it happening .... but I guess you never know.

 

[LilJen]

1 point higher PCS but more than enough to win overall.

Shaidorov might be getting a wake-up call even without the jump calls, because the judges really trashed his PCS for being a World medalist

How does Shaidorov get a wake up call and Grassland doesn’t?

 

[tony]

Someone meme the coach going crazy while Shun puts the towel over his head.

https://imgur.com/a/gir1zFv

 

[PRlady]

I guess the Italian Fed is putting all its clout behind Grassl, leaving little for dance and pairs.

 

[kwanette]

Shun was picture perfect and thank God that he won..but..I missed the "fire" in that bird..

 

[Sally1214]

Well, that was a fun start to my Saturday morning. The men put on a good show.

Personally, I think they should give Sato's coach a medal for his reaction in the K/C. That might have been the highlight of the whole competition for me.

 

[cholla]

There are hunters roaming into the forest around my house and hearing loud bangs each time Sato landed a jump was quite funny Like he was doing his best to dodge the bullets.

 

[skatingguy]

Maybe it's because you live in Coastal Florida, but in inland Florida, the heat makes people insane.

That looks better.

 

[Jammers]

With the way Tomoki is skating Andrew and the others hoping to win the 3rd spot for the Olympics better start putting some good skates out on the ice because he's skating like he hasn't in years. We always wondered which of these US men were finally going to get it together like they wanted to go Milan and Tomoki is showing he wants to go.

 

[Former Lurve Goddess]

Shun was picture perfect and thank God that he won..but..I missed the "fire" in that bird..

The fire was happening in the Vatican.

 

[skatingguy]

Free Skate Protocols

 

[peibeck]

Thank goodness for Sato, and his solid "Firebird," which had more choreography than Grassl and Shaidorov's programs combined in the first 15 seconds.

Truly WTF is Grassl thinking with this "Conclave" peek-a-boo Pope program? Embarrassing.

Shaidorov's "Fifth Element" is only modestly better. He's crawling about the ice as the music picks up at the end.

Poor Boyang, you know it's time to go when his spins are better than his jumps.

Decent results for Tomoki and Jacob, so good for them. (Hiwatashi even better than I certainly expected, to be honest.)

Poor Deniss, hope he can find some money for his training expenses.

 

[Evgeniafan]

Considering the emotional and training upheaval, I thought Deniss did well. His two issues were not adding a 2T to the combo in short and 3lo2t in the free. His axel landings were rough, but rotation was fine. Not having a coach and having your first event be Cup of China, I thought he did great. He was tired and stressed. I think if his first event was in France, it would have been easier. I do hope he gets a coach soon.

 

[peibeck]

Considering the emotional and training upheaval, I thought Deniss did well. His two issues were not adding a 2T to the combo in short and 3lo2t in the free. His axel landings were rough, but rotation was fine. Not having a coach and having your first event be Cup of China, I thought he did great. He was tired and stressed. I think if his first event was in France, it would have been easier. I do hope he gets a coach soon.

Yes, I wasn't meaning to be dogging him. I really am concerned for his situation, it's not how his amateur career should come to a close.

 

[4rkidz]

Okay, I know a lot of you don't like Grassl but that was a very good skate. I liked most everything about it. The music and, of course, the tech elements. And, a bit surprisingly for me, I thought his presentation was up a level or 2 from what I've seen in the past. Very happy for him.

Yes me too and I think we are in the minority. He has an excellent port de bras, although his actual jump technique does come across as a bit klunky he has obviously had some ballet training. I think he is still improving with his second mark and his artistry but it’s really a step up from previous years. He’s no less artistic than Shaidorov or several of the men in this group. If I was the Italian fed I would put my money on him for most potential for Milan Cortino. Sato the class of the field but honorable mention to Tomoki.

 

[zigzig]

Shun was DA BOMB and echoing the love for his incredibly excited coach. Def entering the chat as a O medal contender if he keeps this skating up.

Grassl stayed on his feet in a messy event so I guess that's silver for you. His skating, jumps and packaging are nails on a chalkboard to me but I guess TPTB feel differently.

Shaidorov - if I were him I'd go back to his old program. It was goofy and fun and who doesn't like a little TAKE ON ME, especially for the big audience that won't realize it's a repeat program. Fifth Element program goes nowhere and though there are some nice choreographic flourishes, it really does not capture your attention. Big exciting elements and wished he nailed more of them to edge Grassl out of silver.

Tomoki - so proud of him. I always thought he had a lot of potential and just always seemed to have failure to launch syndrome. I hope he can keep this momentum up for the rest of the season a be a dork horse for that third spot. Love this program!!

Boyang - didn't know there was an audience for cheesy pop-opera covers of Sam Smith but guess I was wrong. Love that he's a journeyman and he had a solid top 5 skate at home in China.

 

[skateycat]

.

Tomoki - so proud of him. I always thought he had a lot of potential and just always seemed to have failure to launch syndrome. I hope he can keep this momentum up for the rest of the season a be a dork horse for that third spot. Love this program!!

I know you mean dark horse, but I am snickering at the idea of a dork horse

 

[Bunny Hop]

Caught up on everything now.

Litvintsev - I was very confused by the contrast between the costume and the music chosen. Big assumption that everyone watching will have seen the film and understand the reference (it's not like it's some classic film most people have at least seen clips from).

The Moulin Rouge butchery of The Show Must Go On is bringing death to my soul. Are skaters under the impression that this is better than the original?

Agreed I'd somehow blocked this verson of The Show Must Go On from my memory even though I've seen Moulin Rouge more than once. It almost makes me prefer Roxanne.

Boyang Jin - I've said it before, but for the love of god can somebody give this man another quirky program like Spiderman. In fact I would endorse a reworking of Spiderman as a free program at this point.

Shaidorov - It's very jump, skate, jump and not much else, but there's something about him that keeps you watching. If he can get the blend of storytelling and technical right he'd be very good indeed.

Sato - Absolutely awesome. Loved every second of it. Very amused at how excited his coach was at the score in contrast to the skater.

 

[Karen-W]

Okay, finally getting around to watching the Men’s FS…

Dai – sorry, Chris, but errors on 3 of the first 4 jumping passes is NOT “a great start” for any skater; he may not have fallen but this program was seriously underwhelming.

Vasiljevs – so, no coach means not only no quads but the 3A is more questionable than ever – and he’s not nearly as good on the PCS as Jason, so he can’t get away with the watered down tech content and still expect to place well in any competition.

Peng – looking at the FS scores, I’m just gonna FFW right past this program.

Sanchez – well, given the tech content he had, he did almost as well as he could – without the popped Salchow, he would have beat Litvintsev overall, but it still wouldn’t have been enough, I don’t think, to earn the SkAm host TBD spot. Lovely skating, though the program is rather boring.

Litvintsev – omg – did we know he’d kept/gone back to the “Joker” program? SHAMELESS judge-whoring to start; given how well this has started, I’m guessing it goes significantly downhill in the 2nd half, probably right as soon as we get that stupid Joker laughing, right? Well, no, it wasn’t terrible, just appreciably lower quality of skating compared to Jacob; I’d be more put out at him beating Jacob overall here had Jacob not screwed up his SP.

Cha – netting whickety-whack on his shirt – trust Mama Cha to find new textile materials for her whickety-whack; great opening combo! Oooof! That fall was a bruiser. And the less said about the entrance into that 3A which almost guaranteed a fall the better. LOL – these lyrics and his over-emoting. This shirt is way too baggy and the beige-black combo really doesn’t do Cha any favors. Mama Cha needs to rethink this costume. This program is terrible in all the great ways that most of Cha’s programs are terrible. Skated clean, it’ll be a banger and he’ll have us eating out of the palms of his over-emoting hands, but when he’s having a bad day, woof – it’s a stinker.

Hiwatashi – wow – first three jumping passes all gorgeous; eek – keep it together, Tomoki; hmmm – the program isn’t as entertaining as some of his past programs, but really good nonetheless and he’s making a STRONG case for that 3rd Oly spot.

Jin – so, sappy romantic ballads… Ew, what is this travesty of a perfectly good Ed Sheeran song? Pandering to a potential Olympic audience could work, if the skating wasn’t a complete mess. Jeez, I’m sorry, Chinese fans, but this guy does NOT and never has deserved Fanyu levels of stuffies on the ice. Between this and the ICBM plushie in ice dance earlier, I really question Chinese tastes.

Yamamoto – what is this music? At first I was thinking it must be a Pentatonix cover but the ISU bio says no, it’s the Canadian Tenors – and figuring this out is a far better distraction than watching the mess that is this program so far – and he just skated through a jump setup, but maybe he can try to fit the jump in later? He looks completely gassed… And the TES tracker just disappeared before he even finished his last spin, it was that much of a disaster. Well, he’s got 4 weeks to get healed & hope he can do better at Finlandia.

Shaidorov – hmmm – jumps seem a bit off today; spoke too soon – the 4f was nice; gah – I really hate this music change; hmmm – yeah, these jumps are just feeling very muscled for the most part today – and then a fall on the last quad; this program isn’t nearly as brilliantly WTF batshit as last season’s and does nothing to mask his lower PCS. Chris is making excuses because of the arena temperature, but I’m not buying it because I already saw this terrible program at DTM and it isn’t any better now than it was 3 weeks ago. I’ve seen FSTW raging about the tech panel going to town on him, but it all feels very warranted, TBH.

Grassl – well, the first two quads looked good to me, but that 4s definitely needs review; same with the 3z+3t, but honestly, I can’t criticize the judges who put him ahead of Shaidorov, even if I hate his hunched back and gangly arms. Both guys have terrible programs, so it’s really a matter of who stays more upright and, at least today, Grassl was the victor in that battle.

Sato – is this a new costume from what he had in the summer? I still think it could use more “fire”, but that was a nice 4lz; 3a+1eu+3s bit sketchy and small but the rest of the jumps were nice; and yes, the program still lacks much “firebird” character and is much more just nice skating to grand music; but he was the undeniable winner today and with the way the rest of the Japanese men have been skating, hard to argue with putting him on the Japanese Oly team – they’ll need him for the TE FS.

 

[kwanfan1818]

Machida set the bar with this Phillip Mills Firebird:
https://youtu.be/F5SivSExnTE?si=A3CSp-IoF-Y1LEmb

 

[kwanette]

Machida set the bar with this Phillip Mills Firebird:
https://youtu.be/F5SivSExnTE?si=A3CSp-IoF-Y1LEmb

You are so right! I loved Machida!