Christine Brennan USA Today launches war on Zagitova!

[becca]

You don't see the difference between two jumps in the first half vs. no jumps in the first half?

ETA: Totally agree about Kaetlyn and Bradie

I don't think I would call it balanced. Slightly more but not much

 

[StasiyaGalustyanLove]

If she was American they would be hyping her as the godamn queen/GOAT of figure skating just like they did with Nathan

I do not know what a goat means here but Nathan is not a woman so I think it is very confusing to say that the media would call him a queen!

But my wife and I both agree that Sarah Hughes was awful awful awful! I remember some one who used to call her Scarah instead of Sarah, I still find that absolutely hilarious!

I am still confused about how a newspaper can start a war with a Russian teenager. The small lady with tutus probably does not care, I expect her to win tonight and if she does it will be a night of exceptional happiness for my wife and me. We might even made a beefy stroganoff in the slow cooker!

 

[IceAlisa]

I don't think I would call it balanced. Slightly more but not much

And yet, no one has mentioned it as such to my knowledge. She has other problems but this isn't one.

 

[sk9tingfan]

I do not know what a goat means here but Nathan is not a woman so I think it is very confusing to say that the media would call him a queen!

But my wife and I both agree that Sarah Hughes was awful awful awful! I remember some one who used to call her Scarah instead of Sarah, I still find that absolutely hilarious!

I am still confused about how a newspaper can start a war with a Russian teenager. The small lady with tutus probably does not care, I expect her to win tonight and if she does it will be a night of exceptional happiness for my wife and me. We might even made a beefy stroganoff in the slow cooker!

Greatest of All Time

 

[sk9tingfan]

BTW, another thing to point out, the music cuts that were selected for the first half progress at glacial speed, allowing Zagitova to skate at a much slower pace and conserve energy during footwork sequences.

 

[Ohyes]

Here's a clip:
https://twitter.com/rockerskating/status/966560375029170178

That might get her perfect PCS score.

Brava alina!

 

[asdf334]

FALZE OLYMPIK CHAMPION

 

[NAOTMAA]

I do not know what a goat means here but Nathan is not a woman so I think it is very confusing to say that the media would call him a queen!

But my wife and I both agree that Sarah Hughes was awful awful awful! I remember some one who used to call her Scarah instead of Sarah, I still find that absolutely hilarious!

I am still confused about how a newspaper can start a war with a Russian teenager. The small lady with tutus probably does not care, I expect her to win tonight and if she does it will be a night of exceptional happiness for my wife and me. We might even made a beefy stroganoff in the slow cooker!

worst Olympic champion ever (and I hate terms like that). Her chances of winning should have been dead after that dreadful SP. She had no business being in the final group. But the placements for like 4-10 were all over the place. Funny thing is the only judge who had her placement right was the Russian judge who had her like 10th

 

[SamuraiK]

The war was lost. Time to close this thread.

 

[Ohyes]

#byefelicia I look forward to her tweets of rage and jealousy over her win~

 

[love_skate2011]

Brennan must be furious !!!

 

[NAOTMAA]

Brennan must be furious !!!

Oh you know she is!

Anybody want to take a stab at what tomorrow's article will be like? Her bitterness ran way deep before the LP, I can't begin to imagine what it will be like now. It won't be pretty

 

[Bellanca]

The war was lost. Time to close this thread.

Indeed.

Yes, poor, poor Chrissy trying, yet again, to somehow manipulate the outcome via her articles. I think psychological counseling might be in order for this one. She is still not over Shizuka's win. Aaawww, poor Chris...

 

[ToFarAwayTimes]

Brennan is a vile woman. Just about everyone knows that.

 

[ToFarAwayTimes]

What is Brennan saying that hasn't been said and why exactly is this controversial? Most fans agree that Alina should be rewarded in TES to the full extent. The problem people are having are the PCS marks. The ridiculous IN, CH, and SS. She is sloppy, rushed, hunched over and has perpetually flexed feet. What ballet? The program IS unbalanced and that should be reflected in the CH score, while all the bonuses and GOEs given in TES for the jumps in the second half. She is slow, per multiple sources who have seen her live and whose opinions I respect. Yet the TES bleeds into the PCS on a ridiculous scale. THAT's the problem and it has been voiced many times over. Why the shock and confusion?

And no one directs any of the criticism directly at Alina. She is a 15 year old child. But her handlers are definitely responsible.

Now Kostornaia, as @dinakt said, is an entirely different story. Gorgeous everything.

Preach!

Alina takes advantage of the points, good for her. The problem is the ISU and scoring nonsense. They don't even judge the competitions anymore, giving someone like her 9s and 10s in components is ridiculous. Just reward her for the brilliant technical content she puts out. Reward and artistic skater like Miyahara with a clear advantage in components, and reward someone like Kaetlyn or Sakamoto with GOE for their exquisite jumps. This inflation placeholder garbage is nonsense.

 

[KimGOAT]

I disagree on one thing. Zagitova does not fully merit her TES. Saying she does is akin to saying Sotnikova in Sochi fully merited her TES that day, which I think 99% of people wouldnt agree on. I dont know where this new consensus myth that Zagitova earns every single technical point she gets is coming from. Her GOE are way jacked up and inflated, granted she isnt the only one, Medvedeva's are probably the 2nd most after Zagitova, but it doesnt change that it is stupid to say she isnt being overscored technically. Just because she doesnt flutz and does a triple lutz-triple loop doesnt mean she is the ultimate master jump who deserves straight +3s on every jump she stands up as some of you seem ready to concede. All her elements are overscored in GOE, her jumps most of all.

Of course her PCS are even more outrageously bloated than her TES. I hate Brennan but once in awhile she does make a valid point and this is one of those times. Zagitova with 4 points higher PCS than Miyahara in the LP, ROTFL, the ultimate joke to anyone with even an inkling of knowledge on the sport and no that is not hating. As for hating this result, I doubt that. Christine loves controversy, even if it involves a skater she dislikes (and there isnt even any evidence she dislikes Zagitova as she merely wrote an objective and accurate analysis of her, and has exhibited no bias against her of any sort of yet) beating one she likes. It fuels her. Why else does she still talk about Kerrigan and Harding all these years later, it sure isnt since she is a Harding fan.

 

[KimGOAT]

I disagree on one thing. Zagitova does not fully merit her TES. Saying she does is akin to saying Sotnikova in Sochi fully merited her TES that day, which I think 99% of people wouldnt agree on. I dont know where this new consensus myth that Zagitova earns every single technical point she gets is coming from. Her GOE are way jacked up and inflated, granted she isnt the only one, Medvedeva's are probably the 2nd most after Zagitova, but it doesnt change that it is stupid to say she isnt being overscored technically. Just because she doesnt flutz and does a triple lutz-triple loop doesnt mean she is the ultimate master jump who deserves straight +3s on every jump she stands up as some of you seem ready to concede. All her elements are overscored in GOE, her jumps most of all.

Of course her PCS are even more outrageously bloated than her TES. I hate Brennan but once in awhile she does make a valid point and this is one of those times. Zagitova with 4 points higher PCS than Miyahara in the LP, ROTFL, the ultimate joke to anyone with even an inkling of knowledge on the sport and no that is not hating. As for hating this result, I doubt that. Christine loves controversy, even if it involves a skater she dislikes (and there isnt even any evidence she dislikes Zagitova as she merely wrote an objective and accurate analysis of her, and has exhibited no bias against her of any sort of yet) beating one she likes. It fuels her. Why else does she still talk about Kerrigan and Harding all these years later, it sure isnt since she is a Harding fan.

 

[elka_sk8]

Again, I disagree. The Zayak rule is about repeating a jump. A skater has to do different jumps. That shows athletic superiority. Talking about 20 jumps or unlimited axels is ridiculous, because a FS program is not a jumping contest. That's why there are rules in place limiting the number of jumps. Backloading is rewarded because skaters were frontloading, and not doing jumps late in the program, on tired legs, so they wanted to reward those who could do it. I think the rule makers never suspected that some skaters would do all the jumps in the second half (but only a few can do it). I think there will be rule changes coming to fix the problem of unbalanced programs.

I don’t know that there needs to be a new rule, but I wish that when a skater has an unbalanced program (front loading OR backloading), that this was reflected negatively in the PCS score (composition and transitions maybe?).

I think Zagitova is a fine skater, but getting 9+ across the board on PCS is a bit crazy to me. Those kind of scores should be given to a skater that is fully developed (and has choreography), and IMO she’s not. This isn’t to take anything away from her, because for a 15 yo she’s pretty amazing already- if she can keep up with the other young Russians, I’d love to see how she matures as a skater. I understand that Medvedeva is probably over scored too, but I still think she’s more than a couple points ahead of Zagitova. With the scores Zagitova has been getting, there was no way she would lose if she skated clean.

Of course, I prefer Medvedeva’s skating and wanted her to win, so I don’t deny that this may be clouding my judgement.

 

[Vash01]

I don’t know that there needs to be a new rule, but I wish that when a skater has an unbalanced program (front loading OR backloading), that this was reflected negatively in the PCS score (composition and transitions maybe?).

I think Zagitova is a fine skater, but getting 9+ across the board on PCS is a bit crazy to me. Those kind of scores should be given to a skater that is fully developed (and has choreography), and IMO she’s not. This isn’t to take anything away from her, because for a 15 yo she’s pretty amazing already- if she can keep up with the other young Russians, I’d love to see how she matures as a skater. I understand that Medvedeva is probably over scored too, but I still think she’s more than a couple points ahead of Zagitova. With the scores Zagitova has been getting, there was no way she would lose if she skated clean.

Of course, I prefer Medvedeva’s skating and wanted her to win, so I don’t deny that this may be clouding my judgement.

As a Medvedeva fan, i am very disappointed with the result. I do believe Zagitova's PCS were too high, particularly in the SP. I don't know if the current rules PCS require a balanced program. If they don't, we cannot criticize the composition of her unbalanced LP. My main problem is with the pcs in the sp. Arms flailing and sloppily moving simply does not express music like Swan Lake. Alina didnt have anything but jumps in the SP. Her PCS should have been significantly lower in some of the PCS categories. She deserved high marks for performance execution, but not in others. It would have placed Med (and possibly a couple others) higher in the SP. I thought Alina was a very talented young skater with a great future, but ignoring her flaws and giving her huge marks before she has developed certain skills was not right, IMO. It seems in the Olympics the judges go for excitement rather than better overall skating. That applies to mostly ladies though. I don't see it in the men's competition to this extent.

Don Q was much more suitable to Alina and her arm swinging and posture were less of a distraction. That music hid her flaws well. She fully deserved the bonus in both because those are the rules, but overall, with correct pcs i don't believe she would have won. I became concerned when i saw her SP score. It was like the judges are determined to crown her, and it was already over for Med. I was hoping against hope that skating last would somehow help her. It didn't because again the judges gave very high PCS to Alina ( I had less of a probkem with her LP PCS, but Med's should have been higher). Med should have received much higher PCS than Alina, for that performance. Alina was quite tight initially, and she barely landed her first 3Lz. relaxed after she started jumping. Med's performance seemed good throughout. She told a story using body movements (notice how she made subtle changes to her posture- it showed control) and skating.

The sad thing is Med rebounded from a serious injury, and skated her heart out, only to discover that the judges had dumped her in favor of her younger teammate. When Med skipped the GPF and RN, those were wise decisions on her part, to avoid further injury, because her goal was to win the OGM. Unfortunately that gave Alina momentum going into the Euros and finally the Olympics. It is almost like fate was against Zhenya.

 

[jenniferlyon]

Christine Brennan's latest:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...igure-skating-2018-winter-olympics/366111002/

The wrong woman won the Olympic figure skating gold medal Friday afternoon.

Y'all can read the rest of it and take it from there...

 

[Perky Shae Lynn]

The sad thing is Med rebounded from a serious injury, and skated her heart out, only to discover that the judges had dumped her in favor of her younger teammate. When Med skipped the GPF and RN, those were wise decisions on her part, to avoid further injury, because her goal was to win the OGM. Unfortunately that gave Alina momentum going into the Euros and finally the Olympics. It is almost like fate was against Zhenya.

I said this in a different thread. As disappointing as the result is for Medvedeva and her fans, this may be the best thing for her, in a long run. Gold medalists come and go. Medvedeva entered the legend territory because of a) how she skated under huge pressure, b) how raw and emotional the moment was (my mother cried; and my mother never cries) and c) how she handled the situation afterwards. This was special. And she'll see with time how special.