2025 Skate Canada Mens FS PBP - The Oh-Men

[mtnskater]

Holy cow Ilia! Loved that! A personal best score without the quad axel. He is just a machine. I like his movements in the program very much. Music is fine, though I wish he was skating to GoGo’s music (Rachmaninov). That sweeping, epic music would be great for him. Is he the Simone Biles of figure skating?

I truly enjoy Alexander Selevko’s skating. Such nice quality and commanding, sophisticated artistry. So glad to see him get the silver. Would love him on the Olympic podium.

Tough competition here with quads galore. And of course lots of splats. So happy to see GoGo looking better than he has in ages. And he wins the award for best music choice (Rachmaninov). I would skate to that music myself Sadovsky was so beautiful…just wish he could ever skate totally clean.

 

[tony]

Also Laurent Tobel was very tall for a singles skater. (Maybe before your time, but a late 90s guy.) Not sure his height, but well over 6' I'm sure

Not before my time. He was 6'2" though. Chuvilyaev was skating at the same time.

 

[cholla]

"You are something .. but not nothing"

OK ....

This is so very profound... I hope it's not too hard for him to emerge from such a deepness after each competition This being said, I love the guy and his fabulous flexibility and explosive jumps. He must eat fire works several time a day to have such a stringiness!

 

[barbk]

Not before my time. He was 6'2" though. Chuvilyaev was skating at the same time.

Tobel was the ne plus ultra of quirk in figure skating. Lara Naki Gutmann has a LONG way to go to catch up to him.

 

[SlavicaK]

My Alexa just responded to the TV that she wasn't sure how to help with that... even AI doesn't know how to fix this costume or McLeod jumps.

I feel for the guy. What were his parents thinking, giving him the old, proud Serbian name he carries? He was born in Canada. The pronunciation is Ah-leksa, stress on that starting "A"! Unlike the female name Alexa.

(It could be worse - I know a "Jerko" born in the US. The lovely Croatian name is pronounced Yerko, you can guess what he gets instead).

 

[Skate Talker]

I had no preference until I started reading stuff about how Standard is better in sync with our circadian rythms. Research is being done at University of Ottawa next door to me so I'm sold but I can see it could be different in other parts of the world.

I heard that too, and also that the light in the morning is more beneficial than the light in the evening - but I can't see getting up by 4 am to take advantage of that so no benefit to me.

Guess I just live too far north where we get double the daylight in the summer than we do in the winter, hence the 4 am. As it is the birds start up about an hour before sunrise so 3 am noise anyone?

I'm in the far east in the time zone as well, which pushes the sunrise and sunset earlier all year round compared to those at the western edge of the time zone. So basically my circadian rhythm is better served by shifting the time ahead an hour year round.

Wonder if University of Ottawa is even thinking about any of that when calling Standard time in better sync. Seems to me it all depends on exactly where you live which is better.

 

[SlavicaK]

Really not a Bolero fan. Repetitive, unappealing piece of music.

I fear he is so invested in the choreography and performance (including roaring at the judges) that he just can’t with the jumps.

I agree with you! Kevin can skate well to anything, but I don't think these two programs are right for an Olympic year. And the roar was definitely extra.

 

[tony]

Does everyone forget Kevin had this program in 2024 with very minimal changes? He can get through it [even if later that season he really fell apart]

 

[skatingguy]

I got excited for a minute and thought we might see belly. But no.

Ye Quan had a slight belly camel today.

 

[skatingguy]

Free Skate Protocols

 

[rfisher]

Malinin is so far ahead of all the other men, it really makes the men's event kind of boring. The rest of the field is skating for 2nd or 3rd and that takes away a lot of the excitement of a competition.

 

[LilJen]

I had no preference until I started reading stuff about how Standard is better in sync with our circadian rhythms. Research is being done at University of Ottawa next door to me so I'm sold but I can see it could be different in other parts of the world.

Depends on where in any given time zone you live. . . and how wide the time zones are.

 

[PRlady]

If we had Daylight time all year, it wouldn’t get light until 8:30 in the winter, far too late for school kids and morning commuters.

 

[skateboy]

If we had Daylight time all year, it wouldn’t get light until 8:30 in the winter, far too late for school kids and morning commuters.

If I were president I would set work/school hours from 10 am - 4 pm all year long. Almost no one likes getting up early anyway. Problem solved without having to change clocks.

 

[MacMadame]

If I were president I would set work/school hours from 10 am - 4 pm all year long. Almost no one likes getting up early anyway. Problem solved without having to change clocks.

I agree, except in the US, schools are controlled at the local level. You'd have to get all the school districts to agree. There are thousands.

 

[skatfan]

Seeing Malinin performance in the Free is almost an out of body experience. He’s so far ahead of the pack and still putting in the gas to improve!

It looked to me as though he decided not to do the raspberry in the spin in the moment - the fly over was a little awkward because he probably doesn’t practice it that way. Maybe he was running out of energy. Other than that, it was a commanding performance.

 

[Matryeshka]

I think it's smart of Ilia to not do the 4A all the time. I've taught A LOT of boys with the same energy Ilia gives off. His program makes me roll my eyes and say things snarky, but in a VERY affectionate way. I think a lot of the teenagers I teach will go wild for this program, and I think some of them will watch it because it's the Olympics. Either way, it deserved its massive score, and all the respect, even if his skating isn't my cup of tea. Chris really is a better announcer than we give him credit for if we're all thinking that he agrees with our opinion of Ilia cause I'm sure that's what he said about him in British.

Even with the falls, I'm a sucker for Aymoz's Bolero, and Selevko the Elder is the kind of Euro craziness I got into this sport for.

On the whole though I thought about calling out for my shift at Starbucks this morning and am glad I didn't.

 

[skatingguy]

Chris mentioned on IG that it's his last event, won't be back till Euros. Mark is only doing two events. So are we left with Ted for the other?

How do we have two commentators - yes one of them is Ted, but he & Mark are good together - for the Junior Grand Prix, and then just one commentator per event for the Grand Prix?

 

[skatfan]

How do we have two commentators - yes one of them is Ted, but he & Mark are good together - for the Junior Grand Prix, and then just one commentator per event for the Grand Prix?

JGP events are triple the length of the senior ones. Having two there is fair.

 

[skateboy]

JGP events are triple the length of the senior ones. Having two there is fair.

Absolutely.

 

[ChillSkate]

Free Skate Protocols

I noticed Judge 7 gave Tomoki a 0.5 for Presentation.

Does the lowest score get thrown out? His average still seems pretty good at a 7.36. According to my math, he should have had an average of 6.67 if all the scores counted.

It's still dumb that the Techinal Controller isn't responsible for asking judges to correct obvious errors.

 

[Kelvster]

Watched the top skaters, and just wanna say. Ilia was ... amazing (I wonder whether anyone could possibly beat him ....)

And Kazuki Tomono -- what a beautifully artistic skater he is!! The programme was just mesmerizing (it's an interesting choice to go back to this during an Olympic season, but he obviously loves the programme and really feels the music). And it's so refreshing to see someone who can skate in such differing styles. Can the skategods please send him to Milano?!!! I know it will be mega-tough ... but it's not impossible.

 

[SkateFanBerlin]

Looking again - it`s unbelievable. Ilia`s "moves-in-the-field" is a 4T/3T.

 

[skatingguy]

I noticed Judge 7 gave Tomoki a 0.5 for Presentation.

Does the lowest score get thrown out? His average still seems pretty good at a 7.36. According to my math, he should have had an average of 6.67 if all the scores counted.

Yes, lowest & highest score is dropped for each element, and each program component before the remaining scores are averaged. The technical controller doesn't have the authority to review judges marks. I think you're thinking of the referee, and they would generally encourage the judges to do so before posting their final scores, but that is at least the second egregious error of that sort that has occurred in the past two weeks.

 

[terisa]

The scream at the judge, who gave him a level look in the eye!

Again, I am not going to stan another skater that will break my heart…

I'm so glad I couldn't watch the men live... I would have cried for Kevin. I think I'll FFWD to Ilia and call it done.

 

[Aussie Willy]

Made a point of watching Ilia's FS. He is amazing and I am so impressed. Not just the technical content but the interpretation is top class. Doing those difficult jumps, not just landing but creating expression out of them and then without settling just continuing on the choreography.

What is interesting I am getting people who don't even follow skating are sending me videos or mentioning him to me. Last week I caught up with someone I haven't seen for ages and she told me she saw that skater from America who she was kind of blown away by. She didn't remember his name but she certainly remembered how good he was. He is going viral and reaching outside the usual skating fandom.

 

[peibeck]

I noticed Judge 7 gave Tomoki a 0.5 for Presentation.

Hmmmm. That judge probably got a text from @tony

 

[Bunny Hop]

Amazing skate from Malinin. I appreciate the technical prowess as much as I appreciate Aymoz' artistic prowess.

Speaking of whom, I have now just come to accept however he skates on the day (inheriting the mantle previously held by Brezina). On a couple of those jumping passes it seemed as if the transitions into them hindered the jump itself. When skated clean I think this program would be amazing in a completely different way to Malinin.

Selevko did great as well.

Canadian men still doing their best to make a case for Messing's return.

 

[annie_mg]

As a gymnastics fan, I'm getting so many Simone Biles vibes from Ilia Malinin. I'm just in awe, he is not human, just like Simone isn't. They both dominate and it doesn't even look like it's hard for them to do it. Nobody stands a chance.

It's the first time I'm enjoying his free skate choreography general style though, and I appreciate the thought and work that went behind it. He could have easily just done a very generic boring programme and he would still win with his massive TES.