2006 Olympics ladies and mens if everyone skated cleanly

sonsofanarchy

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I included the mens since I think at this event it is even more intriguing than the ladies.

The ladies would have been very interesting if not only the 3 favorites Arakawa, Cohen, Slutskaya had all skated cleanly, but perhaps the home girl favorite Kostner who would have probably gotten a big home boost in scoring and as a world medalist from 2005 where she didn't even skate well and still got the bronze, could have been surprisingly in the mix with those others. And perhaps Ando who had a triple lutz-triple loop, although I am not sure her PCS would have ever been enough to contend in this scenario, especialy if Arakawa and Slutskaya also opted to do their triple- triples.

There are also the women who weren't there. I personally can't see either Kwan or a very young raw Yu Na Kim (her PCS in fall 2006 were super duper low remember, she only won World Juniors since Asada skated very badly there) even skating cleanly contending in this actual hypothetical of everyone skating cleanly, in the actual 2006 event as it was skated possibly but not in this hypothetical. There might be some who feel differently though, I am guessing there are going to be some dissenters on Kim imparticular, hence why I put the reminder of how low her PCS were when she first started senior. However Asada I definitely could see strongly contending even in this scenario, and I suspect most agree on that. Remember she was a combined 5-1 vs Cohen, Slutskaya, Arakawa that season, even if they weren't always skating cleanly, she wasn't either in all of those events and it was her superior jump content combined with unlike Kim very high senior PCS that seemed to give her the edge.

The mens it seems obvious the judges were going to gift Plushenko the gold if he were even 70% clean no matter what anyone else did. However the other medal spots are interesting. Lambiel had the quad and high PCS, but no triple axel, and while people say his spins are great Lysacek and some others scored higher on spins in Turin. Lysacek had no quad but won the Olympics in 2010 with no quad too. Buttle tried a quad in the long program, but had almost no chance of ever landing it so I don't know what one even counts as a clean skate for him, but huge PCS, very high GOE, and good points for spins and footwork. Weir could be competitive in the short even if it weren't the splatfest of Turin, but probably would never skate a long program properly with the right construction using the system properly to max out technical scores to medal even with a clean skate, despite similar content and PCS to most of the other contenders. There is also Joubert who can outjump everyone but Plushenko probably but suffers from lower spin, footwork and PCS marks. And probably 1 or 2 other possible contenders. The silver and bronze for mens in this scenario would be super interesting, and I have a harder time figuring that out than my picks for the gold, silver, and bronze in the womens.

I think I would guess it going.

Womens

Gold- Slutskaya. By clean I mean doing a triple-triple and not having the shaky landings she had on most of the jumps she landed in her Turin long program.

Silver- Asada (if there and clean); Cohen if Asada is not there. I don't see Arakawa attempting a 3-3 even if the others had skated better, since she was always called for URs by then. That is why I have Cohen over her. If Arakawa actually does a 3-3 then she comes over Cohen, but probably not over Slutskaya.

Bronze- Arakawa (if Asada is not there, and she does not try a 3-3).


Mens

Silver- Lambiel. This was tough but this is still my guess.

Bronze- Joubert. I think his TES would push him over Buttle if we assume clean Buttle means trying a quad and falling on it but everything else clean. Since I don't think Buttle is even capable of doing a quad, I have never seen him land one ever.
 

Aerobicidal

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I'm curious as to what the results would have been if not only everyone had skated cleanly, but if the event took place in Azerbaijan, the skating was seven hours earlier in the day than it actually was, the ice temperature was 2.5 degrees Celsius lower than it actually was, North Korea sent a group of anti-Canadian fans, Tonya Harding hadn't been permanently banned from competitive skating, Paul Alster was the sole commentator for all English-language speaking coverage, and the technical controller for all relevant events was Judge Judith Sheindlin.
 

Vagabond

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Graffiti on the wall of the History Faculty library restroom in Oxford: "What if counterfactual history were the accepted norm?"

Men: By 2006, Evgeni Plushenko was able to intimidate his rivals out of skating two clean programs just by showing up. Evan Lysacek in 2010 is the only exception.

Ladies: IINM, Sasha Cohen never had a clean Free Skate with a triple-triple outside of a cheesefest.

Enough said.
 

Marco

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What I think should happen if all went clean

1. Cohen GOEs will pile up and it was the perfect program for her.
2. Arakawa She did have 7 triples planned and a heavily code-whored program. I would have given her the PCS she deserved.
3. Rochette Complete and more refined than most, but lacking difficulty. I would have given her the PCS she deserved.
4. Kostner 4th and 5th were both extremely sloppy for me that I am quite indifferent to placements. I liked her free more than Slutskaya's.
5. Slutskaya Equally heavily code-whored program but aesthetically very unpleasant elements, very weak program.
6. Ando Another sloppy skater but strong elements. Liked the short but hated the free.
7. Suguri Slightly less sloppy than some but much weaker elements than the rest and very simplistic program.

What I think would happen

1. Cohen She heat Slutskaya with a weak axel in the short. Would definitely win if she finally got it together.
2. Slutskaya Would love lost out to Chen on GOEs.
3. Kostner Probably would receive some home advantage.
4. Arakawa Her 3/3s were always getting DG that season so I don't know. 4th was probably the highest she could place if the top 3 went clean.
5. Ando Stronger elements and program content than Suguri but she had no momentum that season.
6. Suguri Not a better skater than those above her.
 

miffy

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Men:
Gold: Plushy :blah: If he was clean no way he wasn’t winning no matter how much that pains me to write! ;)
Silver: Lambiel, from high PCS and spins.
Bronze: Joubert, for his jumps, I don’t think he was in the best shape at the Olympics but he was still :swoon: and the jumps totally let him down, I am still :fragile: he never medalled at an Olympics.
4th - 6th: Buttle, Weir, Takahashi.

Ladiezzzz:
Gold: Slutskaya, she had the amazing comeback from illness and was so strong most of the time. Her FS was totally dull though.
Silver: I also can’t imagine Cohen skating clean but if she really did surely she would place highly.
Bronze: Kostner - she was the poster girl for the olympics, if she skated clean and didn’t medal then crowd would have been pretty mad!
4th - 6th: Arakawa, Ando, Suguri.

If Kwan was there injury free and skated cleanly and with decent content I think she might have won. But was she capable of a CoP high level FS at that stage? Did we even see her planned FS - if so I have completely blanked it. So it is hard to know what she was capable of scoring.

Hard to know about Asada, I know she scored well on the GP.
 

MsZem

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Whoever could do two Salchows and a triple Lutz while wearing a blindfold.

More seriously: Plushenko, Lambiel, Joubert (who should have listened to Maman and switched back to The Matrix).

No idea about the ladies.
 

sonsofanarchy

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While I didn't mention him I am pretty surprised not even one person has mentioned Sandhu. Wasn't the perception of many people always that if he went clean he would be almost unbeatable.
 

overedge

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While I didn't mention him I am pretty surprised not even one person has mentioned Sandhu. Wasn't the perception of many people always that if he went clean he would be almost unbeatable.

But that was balanced against the reality that he almost never "went clean".
 

sonsofanarchy

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We’re not all Canadian.

I don't neccessarily agree but I can see where the logic comes from. He has many amazing qualities in his skating- line, ballet training, big jumps when he lands them, spins, footwork. However even skating perfectly he has some drawbacks, very slow going into jumps, does not work COP the best, so I am still not sure he does as great as some think. Plus because he was so inconsistent he had almost no rep value, I don't see him magically rewarded out of the blue if he just has a great competition out of nowhere unless it was a pretty crummy competition, which fortunately for him Turin mens was but he couldn't take advantage.
 

Colonel Green

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Ladies
  • I was going to say that in a world where Sasha Cohen does what she never once did in reality and skates a clean free at an ISU competition, she wins the gold easily. The judges were always ready, even eager, to give it to Sasha, she just never let them. But then I remembered:
  • if we're talking about a world where everybody delivers their planned program content, then that means Miki Ando landed the quad Salchow that she attempted in the free skate. I can't recall exactly what the rest of her planned content was (versus what she actually delivered with all those falls and pops), but one imagines it was competitive with the rest, and the quad would have made her TES very difficult to beat. Unless the judges assessed Miki's PCS accurately rather than going nuts because she landed a quad, she'd probably have been hard to beat for gold.
  • so I'd say Cohen and Ando for top two, in some order; probably Slutsakaya in third, just going by the judges' track record with her.
 

sonsofanarchy

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Wow I didn't know Ando tried a quad salchow in the free. That could give her a chance. The key would be for her to land the triple lutz-triple loop in the short since she would need that to even score about the same as what Slutskaya, Cohen, Arakawa all scored with just a triple-double. A quad combined with a triple lutz-triple loop could give her a chance if she landed everything, but she would need to hit good levels on her spins and do them reasonably well which was hit and miss for her, and hope she got a PCS boost from the quad since normally her PCS lag behind.
 

overedge

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However even skating perfectly he has some drawbacks, very slow going into jumps, does not work COP the best, so I am still not sure he does as great as some think.

"Some think"? A few posts earlier you were expressing surprise that no one had mentioned him. If "some think" he was great, they would have said that. If you're going to post these trollish wild speculations, at least have a consistent troll storyline.
 

Colonel Green

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Men
  • in real life, Plushenko benefited from the fact that he seemed to be the only man in this era of men's skating who could skate clean-ish. So reassessing this era under these parameters is a bit difficult. That said, unless the judges spontaneously started judging his PCS accurately, he'd probably still win due to having both a quad and a triple Axel in the short program, whereas Lambiel lacked the latter and Buttle the former.
  • I think Buttle would have been the silver medalist and maybe would even have won the free skate, if we're imagining a world where he actually landed that quad he YOLO'd, since that being the case his tech would be virtually identical to Plushenko's.
  • Lambiel's lack of a triple Axel might have bumped him off the podium entirely in this hypothetical clean competition, depending on how Joubert's PCS was judged.
 

skateboy

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Also, these posts remind me that as much as people like to complain about the 2014 men's event, 2006 was by far the worst Olympics in recent memory.
2006 may have been the worst overall but, for me, the 2014 men's event was by far the worst skated event in Olympic history. 2006 men weren't exactly stellar but at least they didn't completely tank, as they did in 2014 (other than Denis Ten).
 

sonsofanarchy

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"Some think"? A few posts earlier you were expressing surprise that no one had mentioned him. If "some think" he was great, they would have said that. If you're going to post these trollish wild speculations, at least have a consistent troll storyline.

I am referring to commentators, probably some fans too, but obviously skating commentators in Canada and most of the writers of that era. Tracy Wilson, Rod Black, Barb Underhill, Steve Milton, Beverly Smith, Debbie Wilkes all said often if he were more consistent he would be nearly unbeatable.
 

Foolhardy Ham Lint

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dWhile I didn't mention him I am pretty surprised not even one person has mentioned Sandhu. Wasn't the perception of many people always that if he went clean he would be almost unbeatable.

Sandhu was such a nervous diva, you simply couldn't predict how he would do on a day to day basis.

The talent was there, but his questionable dedication to training, often made me run for my standby bottle of Tylenol.

There is a fascinating documentary floating around on the internet about five Canadian skaters in their lead up to Torino. Sandhu was one of those profiled, and he wasn't shy about his own greatness, that's for sure. At the time he was dabbling in modelling, and his coach was worried that was pulling away his focus. He assured her that for the time being, it was all about 'this skating thing'.
 
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overedge

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I am referring to commentators, probably some fans too, but obviously skating commentators in Canada and most of the writers of that era. Tracy Wilson, Rod Black, Barb Underhill, Steve Milton, Beverly Smith, Debbie Wilkes all said often if he were more consistent he would be nearly unbeatable.

Um, no, they did not "all" say that. Troll.
 

tony

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Um, no, they did not "all" say that. Troll.

Actually, watch Canadian coverage. They basically did. Other commentators around the world, including Button, also said as much in not as direct words. They were all waiting for him to keep it all together throughout the course of a competition.

I also don’t know why you’re bent out of shape over the potential that commentators were constantly gushing over Emanuel. Everyone knew it. Plushenko and Mishin even knew it.
 
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Colonel Green

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2006 may have been the worst overall but, for me, the 2014 men's event was by far the worst skated event in Olympic history. 2006 men weren't exactly stellar but at least they didn't completely tank, as they did in 2014 (other than Denis Ten).
I’d personally rather watch Hanyu’s short program in Sochi than any of the programs from Torino.
 

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