U.S. Women [#2]: The Unbearable Lightness of Beijing

[honey]

I’m sure she has reasons for constantly changing her programs (if her Wikipedia is correct, then she’s had more than one sp/fp program per season 4 times in the last 5 seasons).

To me though, the problem is never the programs. She is a beautiful skater and could skate to just about anything. This cycling through programs give an impression of someone scrambling to find the answer all the time. Anyway, I’m sure she had her reasons to change this sp before nationals and more power to her if she feels it will help her skate better I guess.

 

[On My Own]

This cycling through programs give an impression of someone scrambling to find the answer all the time.

I think that is exactly what it is. She modified her Butterfly Lovers LP this season, and then went back to the previous season's music cuts, just as another example.

But personally, I'm fine with her trying to get a new vehicle if she thinks it'd suit her better (much like you seem to be).

 

[Deleted member 221]

I wish Karen Chen spent as much time changing her flip entry and some of her technique as she does changing her programs and the jump order in her programs (when she keeps them).

I do like her skating very much, but 3Fe (usually 3Fe<) means her "best case" already has one serious error built in. She'd be better off doing a double lutz with an arm variation. In addition to the flip, her salchow seems perpetually underrotated, to the point that I think she really only has two reliable triples, lutz and loop, with the ability to put an underrotated toe loop on the back of one of them. And even the lutz and loop aren't immune to underrotations....

I hope the callers at Nationals are realistic about under-rotations and edge calls. I may not like the ISU policy, but it's what we have, and we shouldn't be sending good exhibition skaters to Olympics and Worlds. I'm rooting for Karen to have a great skate, but to end up fourth or fifth (if Levito or an age-ineligible skater finishes in the top four).

 

[On My Own]

I wish Karen Chen spent as much time changing her flip entry and some of her technique as she does changing her programs and the jump order in her programs (when she keeps them).

This assumes her coach has the ability to help her change it, or that she's been healthy enough. For the first scenario, I present to you Caroline Zhang.

Her +3T is perfectly fine when done off the back of a 2A, BTW.

 

[VGThuy]

I hope people wishing for “realistic” calls want “realistic” calls for everyone because even the hyped up new faves of this thread have serious UR issues as well.

 

[Deleted member 221]

I hope people wishing for “realistic” calls want “realistic” calls for everyone because even the hyped up new faves of this thread have serious UR issues as well.

I do want realistic calls for everyone, but I think it's naive to argue that any U.S. lady has faced as many edge and underrotation calls internationally as Karen Chen.

 

[VGThuy]

I do want realistic calls for everyone, but I think it's naive to argue that any U.S. lady has faced as many edge and underrotation calls internationally as Karen Chen.

Or score as high on PCS and GOEs as Karen when she’s on even with two > and a E call in the LP. She’s shown to be able to manage a clean SP without any UR calls so we’ll see how it works. It depends on her conditioning and how tightly her jumps are on a particular competition. She’s been shown to minimize her inherent flaws to place higher than any American skater at Worlds since Ashley Wagner/Gracie Gold in 2016 and herself at 2017 Worlds. If other skaters also have UR calls as they should if we expect them for Karen then we should see it play out fairly with accurate scoring on PCS and GOE as well.

 

[kwanfan1818]

"Realistic" calls doesn't necessarily mean consistent calls, because consistent calling is not the likely scenario at international championships. Realistic calls are what skaters can expect to receive from international panels, on average if the callers aren't known, with better odds of predicting if the panel is known.

Chen has proven herself vulnerable to replays and calls that make her TES sink. If the other three or four who are left after the new selection criteria are applied are equally vulnerable, then realistic will also mean consistent.

 

[VGThuy]

Yes, and outside of Levito, they’re all capable of receiving edge calls, under calls of at least Q, so on and so forth.

 

[thvu]

I fully expect the calls to favor whomever USFS wants on the Olympic Team. There's going to be tons of "I can't see it if I don't review it."

 

[kwanfan1818]

But how likely are they to get the scrutiny that Chen does?

 

[VGThuy]

But how likely are they to get the scrutiny that Chen does?

Pretty likely considering they all received calls. Even with her strict calls, it's not like anyone who is age eligible is scoring much higher than her. Actually, in one performance where she got some pretty bad calls, she scored a 134.99 in the LP at Finlandia. At France, her latest competition, she only had one > call in the LP with a Q and a E and managed a higher base value than Mariah with all that in mind with her two !.

My point isn't that Karen doesn't receive calls, that's a stupid argument that nobody can make, but that even with calls (like she got at 2018 Nationals where the callers hammered her) she still has scoring potential to be competitive and even outscore her competitors when she's on, which she has shown in the past. I find all this talk of "hoping for realistic calls" to be a way to delegitimize her placement prematurely...in the case she does earn a top 3 spot at Nationals.

 

[On My Own]

Pretty likely considering they all received calls. Even with her strict calls, it's not like anyone who is age eligible is scoring much higher than her. Actually, in one performance where she got some pretty bad calls, she scored a 134.99 in the LP at Finlandia. At France, her latest competition, she only had one > call in the LP with a Q and a E and managed a higher base value than Mariah with all that in mind with her two !.

My point isn't that Karen doesn't receive calls, that's a stupid argument that nobody can make, but that even with calls (like she got at 2018 Nationals where the callers hammered her) she still has scoring potential to be competitive and even outscore her competitors when she's on, which she has shown in the past. I find all this talk of "hoping for realistic calls" to be a way to delegitimize her placement prematurely...in the case she does earn a top 3 spot at Nationals.

You used to be on GS, didn't you?

 

[Mayra]

But how likely are they to get the scrutiny that Chen does?

I don't expect either Bell, Liu or Chen to get the magnifying glass treatment. The USFS has shown they like her and it's just a matter of standing up on her jumps and rotating enough to not force a < call.

 

[VGThuy]

I don't expect either Bell, Liu or Chen to get the magnifying glass treatment. The USFS has shown they like her and it's just a matter of standing up on her jumps and rotating enough to not force a < call.

Not necessarily. See her calls at 2018 Nationals. They were rougher than the ones she had at the Olympics.

You used to be on GS, didn't you?

I was going to respond to you via PM but I'm not able to contact you that way. Anyway, I haven't posted there since about the 2017-18 season, but I was more-or-less a regular back in the Kwan days. What makes you say that?

 

[kwanfan1818]

I find all this talk of "hoping for realistic calls" to be a way to delegitimize her placement prematurely...in the case she does earn a top 3 spot at Nationals.

If she doesn't get the calls, and she's clearly underrotating and/or has wring entry edges, why would you consider the results legitimate, even if she deserves every last PCS point?

We have these arguments all the time going into Nationals, ie, who are the darlings of the Federation who won't get the same treatment internationally, and why that shouldn't be the case.

 

[VGThuy]

If she doesn't get the calls, and she's clearly underrotating and/or has wring entry edges, why would you consider the results legitimate, even if she deserves every last PCS point?

We have these arguments all the time going into Nationals, ie, who are the darlings of the Federation who won't get the same treatment internationally, and why that shouldn't be the case.

Why are we assuming this is going to happen before it even happens? And actually, I don't see this argument happening all the time. In this situation, I see certain posters focusing on who they think is the weakest skater to miss out on the Olympic team and who are the punching bags of the forum getting this treatment. It's very selective and not usually based on real life. And if Karen is getting generous calls, then most likely, so are other skaters, but all the attention is on her calls when other skaters have shown to be just as likely to receive edge and rotation calls themselves.

 

[Mayra]

Not necessarily. See her calls at 2018 Nationals. They were rougher than the ones she had at the Olympics.

That was four years ago.

 

[kwanfan1818]

Why are we assuming this is going to happen before it even happens? And actually, I don't see this argument happening all the time. I see focused skaters who are the punching bags of the forum getting this treatment and it's very selective because they have another skater they want to be on the team.

If you're going to make accusations about specific posters, then call them out. Throwing broad shade is cheap, and is more the behavior of an uber protecting their favorities.

I think Chen is a flawed skater who gets the benefit of the doubt too often nationally. Similarly with Zhou. And I surely don't have to pass a VGThuy test to express that.

 

[VGThuy]

If you're going to make accusations about specific posters, then call them out. Throwing broad shade is cheap, and is more the behavior of an uber protecting their favorities.

I think Chen is a flawed skater who gets the benefit of the doubt too often nationally. Similarly with Zhou. And I surely don't have to pass a VGThuy test to express that.

It's more than one poster, and I don't have to call anyone out. You make your posts, you know who you are. I don't care what you think of me, but I do care that fan perceptions and myths and preemptive strikes to delegitimize a skater without taking all the facts into account are being pushed as facts. Chen is a flawed skater, well, she can join the club. I'll wait to beat on her if she truly gets a placement she doesn't deserve at Nationals.

 

[BittyBug]

Good grief people. The ladies short is tomorrow, you can argue about it after everyone has actually skated.

 

[VGThuy]

That was four years ago.

And she competed in two Nationals since then, and at 2020, check out her calls. 2021 was generous but the calling seemed to be generous all around as a lot of talk was that Bradie got away with jumps she wouldn't have internationally as well.

 

[Sonata]

I feel like Karen suffers from cognitive bias. I see other skaters have cheated jumps, questionable edges and pre-rotations who do not get called. And Karen did get called at worlds and still placed 4th.

I am happy she changed back Butterfly Lovers to the previous music cut, I did prefer it. She also used her time off to get a better vehicle for her SP. These changes tell me she listens to feedback and she doesn't keep doing the same thing if it doesn't work.

 

[kwanfan1818]

Given the selection criteria for the Olympics, and who competed and how in Fall 2021, she'd have to fall out of the Top 5 not to make the Olympic Team, and, it would take more than < and edge calls, given her deserved scores for spins, footwork, and PCS, for that to happen.

It's the cognitive bias of the international judges and technical panels that USFS should be worried about, specifically for the Team Event. (I don't know if USFS gets any money or contract bargaining leverage if a US Woman places Top 6 in the individual event, for example, but off the podium.) Plus the advertising hype about US Women going in, which can only lead to disappointment later, because the "Dependent on others' mistakes" narrative isn't very popular.

 

[Deleted member 221]

I see parallels between Karen Chen in 2022 and Ashley Wagner in 2018. People latch on to one good result, in this case 4th at Worlds, based on a lucky short program where the caller miraculously missed a clear underrotation that would've dropped Chen way down in the standings. Similarly, Wagner won a World medal at a competition on home ice where the caller must have been wearing flutz correction glasses. The reality is Chen has been skating quite poorly for a number of years, similar to Wagner. People focus on the exception and ignore the trend.

I actually quite like Karen Chen's skating and hope she proves me wrong, but I'm not going to cry if she gets the Wagner treatment (i.e., suddenly being marked more like she has been internationally, instead of getting benefit of the doubt).

 

[tony]

To be fair to Chen, it's not like Liu doesn't have her own rotation issues that were almost completely ignored at the start of the season (and to which I WTF?? in the threads when she should've been getting full << calls and didn't get anything). Glenn isn't consistent, Bell's been inconsistent, and Thorngren hasn't really had the chance to prove anything at the senior level yet.

I do hope there is consistent calling across the board, and the always-meticulous purist in me hopes that all of the underrotations and other flaws are called. I know we had a mini-discussion about the USFS probably wanting to use psychological 'Look, they are improved!' tactics just before Beijing by being lenient, but it doesn't do the skaters any benefit by not sending the strongest team in hopes of Olympic technical panels looking the other way.

On an unrelated note, I don't know how I feel about Chen's switch in program. She's had the habit of doing this and typically she gets rid of the ones that I think suit her skating the best.. but it's her preference.

 

[On My Own]

I see parallels between Karen Chen in 2022 and Ashley Wagner in 2018. People latch on to one good result, in this case 4th at Worlds, based on a lucky short program where the caller miraculously missed a clear underrotation that would've dropped Chen way down in the standings. Similarly, Wagner won a World medal at a competition on home ice where the caller must have been wearing flutz correction glasses. The reality is Chen has been skating quite poorly for a number of years, similar to Wagner. People focus on the exception and ignore the trend.

I actually quite like Karen Chen's skating and hope she proves me wrong, but I'm not going to cry if she gets the Wagner treatment (i.e., suddenly being marked more like she has been internationally, instead of getting benefit of the doubt).

Except Karen has real skating skills and spins, at the very least. Would say one deserves the international scores more than the other.

ETA: And for that matter, she's better in some regards than every other US lady. It would be terrible if they only based it off "international" scoring (whatever that means) and politics.

 

[VGThuy]

Except Karen has real skating skills and spins, at the very least. Would say one deserves the international scores more than the other.

ETA: And for that matter, she's better in some regards than every other US lady. It would be terrible if they only based it off "international" scoring (whatever that means) and politics.

International scoring actually helps her for the most part as she scores competitively with the other ladies in contention to make the team. It's people's imaginations that tells them that she deserves to be way behind. I'd be fine with her being left off the team if she was truly outskated, but not if callers adopt this process of "inconsistently" calling the competitors and scrutinize Chen's rotations and entries but ignore the other competitors because...reasons. I want everything to be scrutinized the way it should be (accurate and consistent across the board) and let the judges judge the GOE and PCS properly, and let the chips fall where they may - and if Chen deserves to be left off the team after that, then fine by me. At least that way, the skaters were more-or-less in control.

 

[On My Own]

International scoring actually helps her for the most part as she scores competitively with the other ladies in contention to make the team. It's people's imaginations that tells them that she deserves to be way behind. I'd be fine with her being left off the team if she was truly outskated, but not if callers adopt this process of "inconsistently" calling the competitors and scrutinize Chen's rotations and entries but ignore the other competitors because...reasons. I want everything to be scrutinized the way it should be (accurate and consistent across the board) and let the judges judge the GOE and PCS properly, and let the chips fall where they may - and if Chen deserves to be left off the team after that, then fine by me. At least that way, the skaters were more-or-less in control.

Yes, I agree. In 2018, we were already supposed to pretend she was the only one with UR problems and it was "unfair" or whatever nonsense was being shamelessly sold by some. I hope they at least have it in them to apply equal standards for all, not that my expectations are too high with the USFSA.

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

Well after reading all of these pages of posts it’s clear what you’re all trying to say… This is Amber Glenn’s to lose