U.S. Men 2021-22 season news & updates

[Karen-W]

Yeah I was wrong.

He’ll make Grand Prix Final

But…..consistency is still a concern imho. His “guaranteed” Olympic spot is not a hard lock imho

You do realize that Vincent's worst score this season would still have won him silver at Skate Canada, right? Ahead of Brown. When Brown (or any other US man not named Nathan) can score 284+ twice or more in the season like Vincent has done so far this season, then we can discuss kicking Vincent off the Olympic Team. As it stands, there are only 4 US men who have even qualified into ANY of the USFS' Olympic selection criteria groups and Vincent is pretty secure in his #2 position behind Nathan.

 

[Sylvia]

Not the official senior international debut Ilia Malinin was hoping for in Graz earlier today - in 13th place (67.58) of 28 men and his jumps were called 4Lz< fall, 4T<+3T & 3Aq (step out). Two L4 spins but L2 on steps & final spin.
33.78 TES means he got the SP minimum for 4CC/Olys but just missed the 34 SP minimum for Worlds.
He will skate last #16 in group 3 (of 5 FS groups) tomorrow.

Today Ilia pulled up from 13th to win the BRONZE! He scored 222.55 total in his ISU Challenger debut, 154.97 2nd in FS (85.77 TES/70.20 PCS).

I can't access the protocols yet but his jumps were: 4Lz, 4T fall, 3A, 4S off-balance, 4T+1Eu+3S, 3Lz+3T, 3Lz+3Lo.

 

[Karen-W]

Today Ilia pulled up from 13th to win the BRONZE! He scored 222.55 total in his ISU Challenger debut, 154.97 2nd in FS (85.77 TES/70.20 PCS).

I can't access the protocols yet but his jumps were: 4Lz, 4T fall, 3A, 4S off-balance, 4T+1Eu+3S, 3Lz+3T, 3Lz+3Lo.

He's still learning how to compete but this was a great result for him and a good effort! I won't be at all surprised to see him sent to 4CCs if he finishes top 5 at Nats and I expect that he will demonstrate similar improvement from one competition to the next as he did between his first JGP assignment and his 2nd JGP event.

 

[ЭPiKUilyam]

Vincent still seems a sure bet for the Olympic team, IMO. Based on the USFS Olympic team selection criteria he's satisfied the Group 2 single score criterion, so as long he makes top 5 at Nats I can't see 3 other guys pushing him off the team.

I think he has done more than enough to be on the Team. And I am really happy for him, because I was about to write him off after Worlds. He really worked hard over the summer, improved his weaknesses, has more "PCS", and his mind seems to be on the right track. Let's just hope he AND EVERYONE ELSE stays injury free!!!

 

[misskarne]

I think a legitimate concern to come out of last night is that as soon as something went wrong - as soon as he popped that first Lutz - Zhou immediately started losing rotation. Every jumping pass after that had a problem. The tech panel was generous - his TES plummeted to 76 and it could and probably should have gone lower.

Of course, Camden and Tomoki also spent the weekend showing why there are really only three skaters in the Olympic spot discussion.

 

[kre56]

I think Vincent is safe for the Olympic spot. That is a no brainer. I just worry that his jumps seem to be getting more cheated instead of getting more clean.

 

[LeafOnTheWind]

One bad event does not mean that Vincent is regressing. One bad event doesn't mean Nathan is regressing. I think people are reading into things that aren't there. You can't determine a trend off of one data point. Let's wait for the doom and gloom and trend seeking until Nationals.

 

[kre56]

I agree. I just worry that more of his jumps seem to be more cheated this year than last year….

 

[Lacey]

I think Vincent is safe for the Olympic spot. That is a no brainer. I just worry that his jumps seem to be getting more cheated instead of getting more clean.

It wasn't so much that his jumps seemed cheated after he popped the lutz, it was that he seemed to be going through brain drain, he lost his focus and concentration and just went through the mechanics of the rest of the jumps with no style and flourish, seemed to be stumbling through just to make sure he landed something for some amount of points and heaven forbid didn't bomb totally out. So the rest of that program was not pretty. If he's that up & down, I might consider looking around at others--new senior men...

 

[misskarne]

It wasn't so much that his jumps seemed cheated after he popped the lutz, it was that he seemed to be going through brain drain, he lost his focus and concentration and just went through the mechanics of the rest of the jumps with no style and flourish, seemed to be stumbling through just to make sure he landed something for some amount of points and heaven forbid didn't bomb totally out. So the rest of that program was not pretty. If he's that up & down, I might consider looking around at others--new senior men...

Yes, this. There seemed to be a lack of resilience. Some skaters can pop the first jump but you know they can absolutely nail the rest of the program and so the popped first jump won't be a major issue. Not Vincent. The moment he popped that first jump last night I knew it was going to go straight downhill. The only positive was that he managed to stay on his feet.

 

[Karen-W]

I'm really glad that Vincent has Warsaw Cup next week. Hopefully he can bounce back and all the piling on will only last this week.

 

[canbelto]

Yes, this. There seemed to be a lack of resilience. Some skaters can pop the first jump but you know they can absolutely nail the rest of the program and so the popped first jump won't be a major issue. Not Vincent. The moment he popped that first jump last night I knew it was going to go straight downhill. The only positive was that he managed to stay on his feet.

Sasha Cohen was like that too.

 

[misskarne]

I'm really glad that Vincent has Warsaw Cup next week. Hopefully he can bounce back and all the piling on will only last this week.

Jason also has IdF next week, and I'm sure you're disappointed that Ilia Malinin didn't score more than 222 and back up your "toss Jason on the garbage heap" campaign.

 

[Wyliefan]

I know the Uber Matrix is powerful, but wow.

 

[Karen-W]

Jason also has IdF next week, and I'm sure you're disappointed that Ilia Malinin didn't score more than 222 and back up your "toss Jason on the garbage heap" campaign.

LOLOLOL. I'm hardly the only person around here who thinks that there are a couple of dark horse guys who could upset the current hierarchy of US men at Nationals. The fact is that none of us know exactly how the selection committee will view Malinin's JGP results versus his one CS result and we don't know how the rest of the season will play out, especially Nationals.

Frankly, your constant harping on Vincent (for years now) because of the threat he poses to your favorite is a pretty big turn off and, let's be real... We're bickering over the #3 US man, who is not going to medal, in either the team or individual events in Beijing. #3 US man is along for the Olympic experience.

 

[Dobre]

Vincent has looked great all season. I think this felt like the typical oh-my-god-I-finally-beat-so-and-so-and-accomplished-this-huge-goal---now-there-are-new-expectations-and-yikes! follow-up event. (Green & Parsons had one like it last week). Better now than in the last event; and for goodness sake, better now than at Nationals.

Anyway, congratulations to him on, I assume, making the Final.

Seems like Ilia had a pretty typical experience for top young junior guys at their first senior event. There's a lot of pressure on those guys trying to earn their senior TES in one go. (I do think it's a case of where dialing back the difficulty in the SP is a wise strategy. They don't have to win those initial CS events. They need the TES. Once again, maybe an example of how the move to emphasize BOW all season long in order to win an Olympic or Worlds berth is not helping athletes develop).

I was proud of Tomoki this weekend. Got the sal in the short (which is the newer quadruple jump), and did the three quads in the free for the first time, I think. Not all clean, but since the strategy they are going for is clearly to put those jumps out there now, I'm at least glad to see him making progress.

I agree. I just worry that more of his jumps seem to be more cheated this year than last year….

With the exception of this one event, I've seen no evidence of this.

 

[Tavi]

LOLOLOL. I'm hardly the only person around here who thinks that there are a couple of dark horse guys who could upset the current hierarchy of US men at Nationals. The fact is that none of us know exactly how the selection committee will view Malinin's JGP results versus his one CS result and we don't know how the rest of the season will play out, especially Nationals.

Frankly, your constant harping on Vincent (for years now) because of the threat he poses to your favorite is a pretty big turn off and, let's be real... We're bickering over the #3 US man, who is not going to medal, in either the team or individual events in Beijing. #3 US man is along for the Olympic experience.

I don’t think Vincent’s a threat to Jason. Jason will make the team or not make the team based on how he performs.

But I do think you’ve made a lot of comments about “Brown” that could be perceived as negative. For example, post #481, above, as well as your post in the NHK men’s FS thread today, in which you seemed to be arguing that Vincent’s score of 260 there was far preferable to Jason’s 259 at Skate Canada because Nathan won with a score that was 20 points higher than Shoma’s. Or something like that.

 

[Karen-W]

I don’t think Vincent’s a threat to Jason. Jason will make the team or not make the team based on how he performs.

But I do think you’ve made a lot of comments about “Brown” that could be perceived as negative. For example, post #481, above, as well as your post in the NHK men’s FS thread today, in which you seemed to be arguing that Vincent’s score of 260 there was far preferable to Jason’s 259 at Skate Canada because Nathan won with a score that was 20 points higher than Shoma’s. Or something like that.

Gosh, so everyone can take pot shots at Zhou, in defense of Brown, but heaven forbid anyone take similar pot shots at Brown in defense of Zhou? The "OMG! Vincent lost by 30 points to Shoma!" because the reality is that Shoma's win at NHK this weekend isn't a reason to press the panic button about how Vincent will fare in Beijing or for the rest of the season. Three weeks ago, Vincent beat Shoma by a similarly huge margin, and two weeks ago Nathan crushed the competition and Vincent's score at NHK still would have been good enough for silver. And all three US guys should be thanking their lucky stars they weren't at GP Italia, since each of their season's worst scores so far would have kept them off of that podium. It's all a matter of looking at ALL of the data points.

I appreciate that Brown's scores seem pretty steady and he definitely has a higher scoring potential if he can go clean. I'd love nothing more than for him to put it all together next week and pull off a surprise win at IdF - and I've been thinking, since last week's messy GP Italia event where a lot of the same guys who will be at IdF competed, that there's an outside chance he could win there. I'm not sure he has enough BV to pull himself up into Group 2, but going clean and besting his Finlandia & 2021 Worlds scores by 10 points is doable both next week and at the GPF (should he qualify, fingers crossed) and that would probably be enough in the selection committee's eyes to do so.

 

[VGThuy]

People are funny. Vincent had three hit events this season so far and had a totally hit SP here. He had one bad performance like Jason did at Skate Canada (and it wasn’t like that was Jason’s only bad performance) but people are acting like Vincent’s career is over. His score would have still scored silver at Skate Canada. He has had bad performances in the past but he has also shown he can do well. Look at his hardware. It’s the Men, so many of them are up and down. Even Nathan Chen scores 26 points less than Vincent at Skate America and his LP was in the low 180s. People need to chill.

And let me see these magical Americans that all of a sudden are going to overtake Nathan and Vincent’s resume going into Nationals. Nathan and Vincent are going to have to totally bomb both sections for one of the supposed amazing young men to overtake them for the Olympic spot.

 

[livetoskate]

Here's Ilia Malinin's FS from Cup of Austria. Pretty impressive!

Cup of Austria by IceChallenge 2021 / Ilia MALININ FS

https://www.icechallenge.at/

youtu.be

 

[mtnskater]

I think Vincent was putting pressure on himself to make the GPF and skated too tight in the free. Even with a mask on the relief on his face when he still was ahead before Shoma was so apparent. He really wanted to make that final. Hopefully lesson learned. Overall he really looks great this year. Can’t wait for the men’s GPF!!!

 

[angi]

I think people are ignoring that Vincent is just prone to UR or 'q' regardless if he is on or not, it simply becomes a way bigger issue when he is off. In the SP at NHK, where I think we can all agree he was on, 2/3 of his jumping passes weren't clean - he did 4Sq and 3Aq (only the 4Lz3T was called clean). So a 'q' is less of a disaster because the GOE is lost but not the BV, but it's definitely a recurring issue - at Skate America in the SP he also got a 4Sq and in the FS he got 4Sq, 4Tq, 4Sq3T. He is very lucky that the 'q' method was introduced because even with so many calls he manages to get full BV and that keeps his scores high. He is just not a clean jumper I'm afraid.

 

[honey]

Per Tom Z’s Instagram, Vincent had “a series of setbacks” leading up to NHK.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CWP3orAvoGO/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

[angi]

Per Tom Z’s Instagram, Vincent had “a series of setbacks” leading up to NHK.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CWP3orAvoGO/?utm_medium=copy_link

They always do this when he underperforms, try to come up with some obscure explanation to excuse it but honestly, I don't even get why, Vincent is human, so he had a not so great outing after a series of strong outings, it happens even to the best of them. I think it's counterproductive and only leads to rumors and speculations as to what those setbacks are.

 

[ЭPiKUilyam]

Per Tom Z’s Instagram, Vincent had “a series of setbacks” leading up to NHK.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CWP3orAvoGO/?utm_medium=copy_link

Did anyone else see that picture of Tom and think he looks like a younger version of Biden? It took me by surprise!

 

[honey]

They always do this when he underperforms, try to come up with some obscure explanation to excuse it but honestly, I don't even get why, Vincent is human, so he had a not so great outing after a series of strong outings, it happens even to the best of them. I think it's counterproductive and only leads to rumors and speculations as to what those setbacks are.

I was going to say, when I saw the caption, I thought “we’ve seen this movie before”. Tom Z always seems quick to explain a bad skate. Not that he is in any way the only one to do this, but there is a bit of a history there for sure.

 

[Flowerz]

We're bickering over the #3 US man, who is not going to medal, in either the team or individual events in Beijing. #3 US man is along for the Olympic experience.

No, the "third man" is not there for the Olympic experience, they all are. 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Whoever the 3rd man will be after Nationals he will go to be as high as possible in the top 10 at the Olympics. Everything can happen, it's not set in stone. The third man will also be there to skate in the team event in case one of the other two will, God forbid, be injured, or have other things going on (to allow them the flexibility to say no to the team event and focus on the main event if they so see fit). So it's not something like, "It's the third man, the one with no medals"-type of stuff you're implying. All three are very important, that's why they go by highest scores BOW and not like, "We'll send the ones who can medal and another one for the experience." People are calling you out because of your obvious fixation on portraying Jason as this possible third man who might not make it and your indignation every time people say he's a lock (if he is or not is not relevant for this post).

 

[Tavi]

Gosh, so everyone can take pot shots at Zhou, in defense of Brown, but heaven forbid anyone take similar pot shots at Brown in defense of Zhou? The "OMG! Vincent lost by 30 points to Shoma!" because the reality is that Shoma's win at NHK this weekend isn't a reason to press the panic button about how Vincent will fare in Beijing or for the rest of the season. Three weeks ago, Vincent beat Shoma by a similarly huge margin, and two weeks ago Nathan crushed the competition and Vincent's score at NHK still would have been good enough for silver. And all three US guys should be thanking their lucky stars they weren't at GP Italia, since each of their season's worst scores so far would have kept them off of that podium. It's all a matter of looking at ALL of the data points.

I appreciate that Brown's scores seem pretty steady and he definitely has a higher scoring potential if he can go clean. I'd love nothing more than for him to put it all together next week and pull off a surprise win at IdF - and I've been thinking, since last week's messy GP Italia event where a lot of the same guys who will be at IdF competed, that there's an outside chance he could win there. I'm not sure he has enough BV to pull himself up into Group 2, but going clean and besting his Finlandia & 2021 Worlds scores by 10 points is doable both next week and at the GPF (should he qualify, fingers crossed) and that would probably be enough in the selection committee's eyes to do so.

Thanks for your response. To be clear, I find it disturbing when anyone takes potshots at any skater (or any person, really), including Vincent. I personally prefer reading posts which contain thoughtful analysis-like yours does here. And I don’t necessarily think analytical posts need to be all positive.

@VGThuy, I’ve noticed that a lot of people are reactionary, in that if Vincent or another skater has had a less than stellar skate, they immediately start predicting doom and gloom, and as soon as the skater bounces back, it’s back to “he is an Olympic medal contender.” I don’t know where it comes from, but it is kind of silly.

@livetoskate, thanks for posting that clip. His 4Z was great!

 

[VGThuy]

I think people are ignoring that Vincent is just prone to UR or 'q' regardless if he is on or not, it simply becomes a way bigger issue when he is off. In the SP at NHK, where I think we can all agree he was on, 2/3 of his jumping passes weren't clean - he did 4Sq and 3Aq (only the 4Lz3T was called clean). So a 'q' is less of a disaster because the GOE is lost but not the BV, but it's definitely a recurring issue - at Skate America in the SP he also got a 4Sq and in the FS he got 4Sq, 4Tq, 4Sq3T. He is very lucky that the 'q' method was introduced because even with so many calls he manages to get full BV and that keeps his scores high. He is just not a clean jumper I'm afraid.

Nobody is forgetting that. It’s what his detractors keep bringing over and over again. We all know that. But guess what? Vincent won a junior world title before the “q” was implemented. And you know what? He won a World Bronze medal before the “q” was implemented again and when they introduced a post-2018 rule that made it harsher to receive a clean rotation call (at a quarter was now under).

Look around the mens competition. Qs and >s are not uncommon. It happens to many skaters and if prerotation calls had been adopted with the q, Uno’s TES would have fallen by thirty or so points as well.

After Nathan, who else is out there that can compete with his best? Even at his worst he’s scoring better than most of other US men can. He scored a 162 in the LP for this horrible skate. Look at what most of the Olympic team contenders are capable of scoring at their worst. In fact, look at what their typical range of scores are.

People are forgetting to look at the facts and are pushing myths and perceptions off as facts.

They always do this when he underperforms, try to come up with some obscure explanation to excuse it but honestly, I don't even get why, Vincent is human, so he had a not so great outing after a series of strong outings, it happens even to the best of them. I think it's counterproductive and only leads to rumors and speculations as to what those setbacks are.

I was going to say, when I saw the caption, I thought “we’ve seen this movie before”. Tom Z always seems quick to explain a bad skate. Not that he is in any way the only one to do this, but there is a bit of a history there for sure.

Actually, Vincent also mentioned having some set backs and difficulty at Skate America as well, and he won there. Listen to some of his interviews.

 

[olympic]

Anyone think that Zhou should skip Warsaw? It's so soon after a shaky performance, plus he is in the GPF where he will compete his programs again before Nationals and the Olympics.