2026 Olys Mens FS PBP - Habemus Pop-am

[Karen-W]

Can anyone explain to me why in the ISU World Standings some of the skaters get to count their points for OWG, while others do not? I see at the bottom the note that says:



I've read ISU Communication No. 1629 (warning, 3rd-party site that may not be trustworthy), but I cannot figure out why some Olympians would count their points and other would not. Is this based on who has been named to the ISU World Championships by their federation? Is it basically trying to convey that these numbers are to not to be counted yet until after WC since that column takes the highest of the two scores? It's just weird though how some are counted and some are not -- thus my confusion and reason for this post.

Points only count for your two highest scoring events in each column over the course of the current season & the last two seasons. Lowest points are dropped for all skaters.

 

[Capt. DeSoto]

Points only count for your two highest scoring events in each column over the course of the current season & the last two seasons. Lowest points are dropped for all skaters.

Oh, I see, thank you. I never noticed that. It looks like the (J)GP columns and International Competition columns each do top four. I learn something new every day.

I wish the footer just came out and said that rather than referencing a hard to find and hard to parse document.

 

[Sylvia]

Oh, I see, thank you. I never noticed that. It looks like the (J)GP columns and International Competition columns each do top four. I learn something new every day.

I wish the footer just came out and said that rather than referencing a hard to find and hard to parse document.

@Capt. DeSoto - here's a relevant GSD thread with a link to the latest ISU Communication No. 2550 (April 2023) that replaced ISU Communication 1629: https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/threads/isu-world-standings-2025-26-season.113452/#post-6858261

ETA: Thanks @Ka3sha for your translation of Plushenko's comments.

 

[Capt. DeSoto]

GSD thread with a link to the relevant/latest ISU Communication No. 2550 (April 2023) that replaced ISU Communication 1629: https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/threads/isu-world-standings-2025-26-season.113452/#post-6858261

When I searched the ISU documents page for 1629, 2550 came up as the only result. That makes sense now given your post referencing No. 2550. I had no idea why my search was returning a wildly different communication. The ISU should probably update that footer. And while they're at it, it's 2026 -- you'd think they might want to utilize the newfangled technology known as a "hyperlink" when mentioning a referenced document.

 

[MacMadame]

To be fair, I wasn’t prepared for Ilia not winning either. And while that doesn’t matter to Ilia, the cumulative expectation from millions of fans would have been daunting.

I thought maybe he wouldn't win. But I expected him to at least be on the podium.

No, he won't have to deal with sexism, but he has been dealing with extremely nasty shouts of "he's just a Russian who's found a way to skirt the ban by being born in the US". Imagine what that dimension does to him and other athletes like him.

That is completely delusional.

Still, I wonder. So many career-bad skates in the last group. Ice chewed up from so many quads?

How would it be different than any other competition like 4CCs, Euros and Worlds?

I watched the entire event on the venue feed

It was there live but the replay was missing the first two groups.

It’s been interesting Olympics. The French dance team werent even a team at this time last year and Steven Gogolev of Canada if he had one less error I believe it was on the loop if it has been a triple instead of a double he would be an Olympic medalist right now.

Same with Cha. If he hadn't fallen on that one jump, he'd have a medal. (Assuming everyone else skated as they did.)

 

[Miezekatze]

How would it be different than any other competition like 4CCs, Euros and Worlds?

Yeah, the ice theory is very weird. It’s not as if this is the first competition where the men suddenly attempted that amount of quads

I think it’s just people feeling the need to have an „explanation“ for something not turning out as expected.

 

[ks1227]

Btw, I've been watching D. Grassls instagram stories and in the ones he reposted some people posted congrats to him for skating well/fighting despite not feeling that well, does anyone know if he was sick(ish) or whether/why he wasn't feeling 100%?

I read somewhere that he had something like food poisoning between the short program and the long program, and was even worried about throwing up before the LP.

 

[LilJen]

Yeah, the ice theory is very weird. It’s not as if this is the first competition where the men suddenly attempted that amount of quads

I think it’s just people feeling the need to have an „explanation“ for something not turning out as expected.

Other comps don’t have short track speed skating on the same ice. It’s very possible the ice was different for the men after two days of short track.

 

[skategal]

Btw, I've been watching D. Grassls instagram stories and in the ones he reposted some people posted congrats to him for skating well/fighting despite not feeling that well, does anyone know if he was sick(ish) or whether/why he wasn't feeling 100%?

He said food poisoning but most likely norovirus as this was rampant.

He was throwing up the day before and couldn’t keep anything down.

 

[Alilou]

cross posting from Ilia's thread

Rafael Arutyunyan: “Ilia is not to blame, and I have already told him this. The fault lies with us, the adults, who failed to protect a young athlete from making wrong decisions.”

Rafael Arutyunyan commented on Ilia Malinin’s underwhelming performance at the 2026 Winter Olympics, where Malinin fell in the free skate and finished eighth in the individual event. The gold medal went to Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov.Rafael Arutyunyan commented on Ilia Malinin’s underwhelming...

fs-gossips.com

 

[MacMadame]

Other comps don’t have short track speed skating on the same ice. It’s very possible the ice was different for the men after two days of short track.

But all the skaters would experience that.

 

[kwanfan1818]

What’s interesting about this is that, as a primary coach, he is not a jump doctor: while he would puke at this description, he is more of a life coach who asks the athlete to separate from their influences, take responsibility for themselves, and become the independent maker of their own training and career, however much a cluster happens before, like Chen’s 2018 OWG and Torgashev’s second Worlds.

Now, assuming an accurate translation, he was saying that Malinin needed to be protected, which hasn’t been his usual MO.

 

[Karen-W]

What’s interesting about this is that, as a primary coach, he is not a jump doctor: while he would puke at this description, he is more of a life coach who asks the athlete to separate from their influences, take responsibility for themselves, and become the independent maker of their own training and career, however much a cluster happens before, like Chen’s 2018 OWG and Torgashev’s second Worlds.

Now, assuming an accurate translation, he was saying that Malinin needed to be protected, which hasn’t been his usual MO.

I dunno - he got pretty peeved with Nathan for listening to his mom regarding his jump layout in 2018. I think it may be that he feels like he failed Ilia in the sense that he thought Ilia's parents would be wiser stewards of doing what was best for Ilia overall and perhaps didn't push back hard enough. It's a lesson for Ilia's parents as much as it was a lesson for Nathan's mom back in 2018, if that makes sense.

 

[beckab81]

I took it as commentary on all of them (Raf, Ilia's parents & Ari) not being firmer about saying no to some commitments while at the games, bringing in a mental coach, and possibly not having a better backup plan for if he missed the 4A. Who really knows though.

 

[kwanfan1818]

I don’t think Arutunian was at all pleased with Chen, but, from Chen’s telling, he spent the next four years getting Chen to the point where Chen didn’t make the same mistake twice.

 

[kwanfan1818]

My sister told me her friend Clay Hilley is the tenor. He and his mother were in Milan to watch it live.

Quoting again because the Met Opera just announced its 2026-27 season, and Clay Hilley is singing Samson next season. Way to go racking up the skating warhorse roles!

 

[Aussie Willy]

Posted in wrong thread

 

[Theatregirl1122]

I saw on one of The Skating Lesson FB page that Eteri was texting backstage after Adeliia skated

Anyone know more about this?

Also don't know his name but the coach beside her in the K&C was pretty emotionless.

I feel sorry for the skater but she was kind of being used as a pawn in the political game.

I think you're in the wrong thread

 

[Aussie Willy]

I think you're in the wrong thread

Thanks I am indeed.