Finnish skating news 2017/18

[nimi]

The JGP season is already getting underway and there's no active thread for Team Finland, so I thought I'd make one...
Sorry if I'm stepping on someone's toes or something

JGP assignments

Autumn assignments

- Team Finland in Nebelhorn: Viveca Lindfors, Valtter Virtanen, Cessiville

- the new pair Efimenko/Penasse has been assigned to Volvo Open Cup & Tallinn Trophy in November

Day tickets for Finlandia Trophy are available now!

 

[Jeschke]

The finn pair does not even try to grab a spot at nebelhorn?

 

[nimi]

^^ There's no way Matthew could get the citizenship in time for Olys and they're the only Finnish pair in existence, so...

 

[Kultakissu]

Would it be easier for Ljuba to get Canadian citizenship? Although that would be her third I guess

 

[nimi]

^^ But they have very good chance of getting to compete @ Worlds this season (and who knows, maybe even @ the 2022 Olys if they stick together & make it that far). Whereas if they represented Canada... There's a bit of a log jam there. Makes sense for them to represent Finland, methinks.

 

[Sylvia]

National Team: https://www.stll.fi/maajoukkue/maajoukkue-esittely/

ICE DANCE
Monica Lindfors - Juho Pirinen
Juulia Turkkila - Matthias Versluis
Cecilia Törn - Jussiville Partanen

LADIES
Linnea Ceder
Joanna Kallela
Laura Karhunen
Hanna Kiviniemi
Viveca Lindfors
Jenni Saarinen
Vera Stolt
Sofia Sula
Emmi Peltonen

MEN
Roman Galay
Bela Papp
Valtter Virtanen

SYNCHRONIZED
Marigold IceUnity
Rockettes
Team Unique

https://www.stll.fi/maajoukkue/kansainvalinen-kilpailutoiminta/
Korea-group
The Korea2018 team, jointly formed with the Finnish Olympic Committee, gives selected athletes the opportunity to step up their support on the way to the Winter Olympics.

In the 2017-2018 season, the group includes four talented solo players : Roman Galay South Vantaa Figure Skaters, Viveca Lindfors Espoo Icebreakers, Emmi Peltonen South Vantaa Figure Skaters and Valtter Virtanen Keravan Luistinseura and four talented ice dancers: Juulia Turkkila - Matthias Versluis Helsinki Skaters and Cecilia Törn - Jussiville Partanen Helsinki Skaters. Team composition is checked periodically.

The JGP season is already getting underway and there's no active thread for Team Finland, so I thought I'd make one...
Sorry if I'm stepping on someone's toes or something

I'm sure @Hanna won't mind that you've started a new thread.

 

[Sylvia]

@IDC a.k.a. Ritti, here's the new Finnish skating news thread! Copying over what Ritti posted on August 18 in the 2018 Olympics Qualification thread: https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/th...s-dance-team-event.100715/page-5#post-5112692

The Finnish federation announced yesterday that the Finnish skaters to compete at Nebelhorn Trophy are Viveca Lindfors, Valtter Virtanen and Törn/Partanen (alternate: Turkkila/Versluis).

No alternates were yet nominated for ladies and men. Emmi Peltonen got ill during the Finnish national team camp early August where the test skates and SP+LP monitoring took place. She may be named as an alternate later. Virtanen was the only man healthy enough to skate his programs at the test skate.

Here are articles in Swedish and Finnish (the Swedish one may make more sense with Google Translate than the Finnish one ):
https://svenska.yle.fi/artikel/2017...avling-finska-mastaren-peltonen-stannar-hemma
https://yle.fi/urheilu/3-9780856

Finland also has a senior pairs team again. Liuba Efimenko and Matthew Penasse took part in the test skate, but obviously they aren't in the national team yet, and will not compete at Nebelhorn Trophy. It would be impossible for him to get the Finnish citizenship for the Olympics anyway.

 

[Kultakissu]

^^ But they have very good chance of getting to compete @ Worlds this season (and who knows, maybe even @ the 2022 Olys if they stick together & make it that far). Whereas if they represented Canada... There's a bit of a log jam there. Makes sense for them to represent Finland, methinks.

Ahh yes of course, you're right

 

[nimi]

For those who haven't already heard... Kiira is currently in Oslo, apparently she'll be doing the skating stunts in the upcoming Sonja Henie movie (more info in that thread).

 

[nimi]

Linnea Ceder's isubio got updated

SP: Once Upon A December ("Anastasia" soundtrack) performed by Liz Callaway
FP: People Help The People (cover version of Cherry Ghost) by Simon John Aldred

 

[nimi]

Viveca Lindfors will be skating at JGP Riga this week.

Her programs (isubio):

SP: Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again by Andrew Lloyd Webber
FP: Cinderella (soundtrack) by Patrick Doyle

 

[nimi]

In case you missed it: Viveca placed 10th in JGP Riga. There were a couple of unsuccessful landings in SP and some pops (or maybe intentional doubles? dunno) in the FP, but looks like her flow might have improved a bit (I think?) and her 3Lz3T in the FP was successful.
SP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLXsehwRavI (46.47, TES 26.10, PCS 21.37)
FP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-kXO92Zqyg (90.47, TES 46.31, PCS 44.16)

In Lombardia Trophy, Emmi Peltonen is 18th after her Tango Jalousie SP. She's beautiful to watch, as always, but today she had problems with her combo (3T+2T<<), the 3Lo had a messy landing and she also lost levels in spins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gwR21aKNcg (46.09, TES 21.61, PCS 24.48)

ETA: Dr. Virtanen is similarly 18th after his Georgia On My Mind SP in Lombardia. He landed a quad, but it was called < and had a messy landing with -3GOE. Props for staying on his feet, though, and for choosing the Ray Charles version instead of an inferior cover version!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii8EBZkQtCM (57.08, TES 28.03, PCS 29.05)

ETA2: Today both Cessiville (8th) and Turkkila/Versluis (10th) had an okay SD skate @ Lombardia.
Cessiville SD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOMzoMCMcKM (50.70, TES 26.22, PCS 24.48)
Turkkila/Versluis SD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMxn8YB42Sg (49.14, TES 26.02, PCS 23.12)

Peltonen had a beautiful but rough free skate to Les Mis Papa Can You Hear Me? (I kinda detest that song but whatever, she sells it) with several popped jumps and a fall, but because the ladies' event was quite a splatfest (until the last group), she ended up in the 11th place overall.

 

[nimi]

I guess I'll do a Final Lombardia update/recap, in case somebody is interested...

The ice dancers did well! Cessiville placed 5th in the FD and overall, losing some levels but avoiding negative GOEs in all of their elements (protocol) and beating Mysliveckova/Csolley, who are also gonna be @ Nebelhorn and competing for the same Oly spots... Their new programs suit them better than last season's, IMO.
Cessiville FD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDrg2Nf-t4o

Turkkila/Versluiss skated their free to Ghost and it was better than I expected. They had some twizzle issues again, both in the actual twizzles (level 2) and in the second step sq (level 1), but overall the program looked pretty nice and all of their lifts were level 4. They placed 9th in the free and remained 10th overall.
T/V FD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwzaH88ie9c

Valtter's La Strada FP went pretty much like his SP: it wasn't clean, but it wasn't a bad skate, either. He placed 17th in the free and overall.
FP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXsGNoCSKX0

- - - -

I noticed that the latest Image mag features a story/interview with Emmi's father Ville Peltonen (the former ice hockey pro) who's coaching now. He talks about the importance of mental coaching and positive attitude a lot.

 

[nimi]

Linnea Ceder's isubio got updated

SP: Once Upon A December ("Anastasia" soundtrack) performed by Liz Callaway
FP: People Help The People (cover version of Cherry Ghost) by Simon John Aldred

Just watched Linnea's skates from JGP Minsk last weekend. She hit her 3S3T nicely in both programs but 3Lz was giving her problems: she landed cleanly 1 out of 3. Anyway, she clearly is a talented jumper (she gets a nice snap and height in her 3-3) and had a decent JGP debut (15th).

links: SP, FP, protocols

 

[nimi]

*monologue continues...*

Both Viveca and Cessiville are 5th after SP/SD in Nebelhorn and there are 6 Oly spots, so fingers crossed for tomorrow!

FD will start at 9 local time (so at 10 o'clock in Finland) and Cessiville will skate first in the last warm-up group so around 11:15 local time (FD timetable).

Ladies FS will start at 12:25 and should end at 18:10 local time and Viveca made it to the last warm-up group, so she'll be skating somewhere between 5 and 6 pm, depending on the draw.

Valtter (14th after SP) will skate tonight in warm-up group 3 (FS timetable).

 

[nimi]

...so no Oly spot for Cessiville.

The twizzles were their stumbling block.

 

[DDNatalia]

If/when Synchro makes it into the Olympics, look out. Teams from Finland will be unstoppable.

 

[eurodance2001]

Viveca just earned Finland a ladies spot!

 

[Kelvster]

sad for cessiville ... i know v. little about ice dance but I think their free dance did lack some sort of spark

happy for viveca (who had huge bombing potential to be honest) and wonder what the finnish federation will now do! to me, emmi peltonen is a better overall skater...

from facebook it seems that dr. V switched back to being ISU's doctor after his competition finished his free programme went quite well till the second half. wonder if he will try and earn the TES minimums for Worlds next year

 

[nimi]

sad for cessiville ... i know v. little about ice dance but I think their free dance did lack some sort of spark

I agree, they looked cautious (understandable!) and lacked spark, but it was in the FD TES where they got hammered, not so much in the PCS. To the casual observer, their FD twizzles (level 1) looked better than their SD twizzles (level 2) but there was probably some edge problem (or something) that's super important for the tech panel but not very apparent to lay people. Getting level 1 when other teams are getting level 3 or 4 is just way too costly...

happy for viveca (who had huge bombing potential to be honest) and wonder what the finnish federation will now do! to me, emmi peltonen is a better overall skater...

I was also very concerned for Viveca, considering what happened at Euros last season and her not-so-great competitive debut @ JGP this season, but she proved herself to be a true competitor. They interviewed Viveca in Finnish TV after her SP and she said she was so nervous her legs were literally shaking when she was skating her program! Hats off to her for fighting through!

I just wish she'd get programs that would stray away from the princessy Evita/Cinderella thing she's doing season after season. She's a powerful skater, why not highlight that?

I'd say Emmi is still the favorite for the Oly spot, but it all boils down to how they perform in competitions. Finland has two spots for Euros, so there's going to be a skate-off there...

According to the Finnish Fed's published criteria, the skater with the highest SB (combined TES from SP+FS from one comp) will get the Oly spot, although the Fed has the final say about who goes.

 

[Finnice]

I would not be surprised if Finlandia was Dr. V's last competition. I do not hope so, but we'll see.

 

[nimi]

I would not be surprised if Finlandia was Dr. V's last competition. I do not hope so, but we'll see.

I hadn't really thought about that but you might be right...

I have no idea what it's like to juggle the kind of professional responsibilities he has with high level skating and practicing quads at the age of 30 but it must be incredibly demanding both mentally & physically. So yeah, now that he's skated in front of a home crowd @ Helsinki Worlds and the chances of an Oly spot are officially gone... Maybe he'll continue 'til Milano, but it's not a given.

 

[npavel]

...
I just wish she'd get programs that would stray away from the princessy Evita/Cinderella thing she's doing season after season. She's a powerful skater, why not highlight that?

I'd say Emmi is still the favorite for the Oly spot, but it all boils down to how they perform in competitions. Finland has two spots for Euros, so there's going to be a skate-off there...

According to the Finnish Fed's published criteria, the skater with the highest SB (combined TES from SP+FS from one comp) will get the Oly spot, although the Fed has the final say about who goes.

You are right about Viveca programs. I'm cheering for Emmi, but I like both.

 

[alchemy void]

Congratulations to Viveca for securing a Finnish Olympic spot!

I was also very impressed with Sofia Sula at JGP Zagreb this weekend. She finished 7th in both segments of the competition, scoring a very respectable 96 points in the LP. She landed good loop, flip, and lutz, the jumps are high. PCS is good too, not incredible, but definitely above average for a 14 year old. She also attacked the program well, which isn't always the case with the Finnish junior girls. I'm looking forward to seeing her develop!

 

[mag]

No sure if this is really the place to post this, but I have just heard from a reliable source that Beata Papp has made the finals of the Miss Finland competition.

 

[nimi]

^ Which reminds me... Has Emmi Peltonen deleted her instagram?

It should be here, right? https://www.instagram.com/emmippeltonen/
But all I get is "page not available"

 

[sus2850]

Her account is set to "private", maybe that was the change?

 

[nimi]

Her account is set to "private", maybe that was the change?

Ah, that explains it. Thanks!

 

[nimi]

Vera Stolt skated her JGP debut in Gdansk yesterday and did well, 10th after the SP with 44 points (TES26.51/PCS17.49). If anybody's keeping tabs on all the La La Land programs this season, here you go!

The free skate is later on today, Vera will be skating around half past eight local time (schedule, stream)

ETA: And of course, we're going to have our first Viveca vs. Emmi showdown of the season today in Espoo!

 

[skatak]

Thanks for the link, the content le ambitious... and almost clean!