I love Amber's new SP. I can see why every one is excited about the program and I will be rooting for Amber this season (as always) but as far as making predictions...has Amber ever skated two clean programs (short & long) back to back? Until I see that from her, I will remain guarded in my optimism.
U.S. Women [#8]: Meet Me in St. Louis
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AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)
Get it Amber ?
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As far as the back to back, last year she was the GP final champion, she won Japanese nationals and won the USA nationals. Totally undefeated going into worlds having swept the house at all her events. I think that speaks volumes.
I do consider you to be part of the moral standard of this group along with @On My Own
toddlj
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Her personal best is from last years Cup of China. She had a q and unclear edge calls in both programs, but no pops and no falls.
SidelineSkater
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Coughs. @AngieNikodinovLove (ANL) Don’t forget your bestie!
I think the previous poster was talking back to back clean programs. I don’t think she has had one clean comp. But she’s been close. I don’t recall if anyone this past season had one clean comp - other than Alysa at Worlds?
I’ve said Amber has solid spins but not best in class. She doesn’t get quite the higher GOE. I think if she had faster spins a la Bradie or others, she’d squeeze out a few more tenths/points.
Amber also has the complete set of triples. Let me say that again - complete set of triples. Even the top favorites of yore didn’t compete them all, especially in later years. Mao was mentioned earlier. Yes she had both artistry and tech with the 3A. But never the full set without the lutz from 09 on. Yuna didn’t do the 3 loop. Carolina struggled with Lutz into her prime. She won worlds doing only five triples in the FS. Mirai had the full set her last year but only went cleanish once.
Amber most always has clean technique. No lip or flutz. The salchow is her doubled/popped jump - if she’s going to do so. Sometimes unclear edge. Last season proved she no longer completely melts down after one mistake.
My point is - Amber doesn’t have to have two back to back clean programs. If she lands the 3A, she just has to be cleaner than everyone else. Which usually isn’t a hard ask.
I think the previous poster was talking back to back clean programs. I don’t think she has had one clean comp. But she’s been close. I don’t recall if anyone this past season had one clean comp - other than Alysa at Worlds?
I’ve said Amber has solid spins but not best in class. She doesn’t get quite the higher GOE. I think if she had faster spins a la Bradie or others, she’d squeeze out a few more tenths/points.
Amber also has the complete set of triples. Let me say that again - complete set of triples. Even the top favorites of yore didn’t compete them all, especially in later years. Mao was mentioned earlier. Yes she had both artistry and tech with the 3A. But never the full set without the lutz from 09 on. Yuna didn’t do the 3 loop. Carolina struggled with Lutz into her prime. She won worlds doing only five triples in the FS. Mirai had the full set her last year but only went cleanish once.
Amber most always has clean technique. No lip or flutz. The salchow is her doubled/popped jump - if she’s going to do so. Sometimes unclear edge. Last season proved she no longer completely melts down after one mistake.
My point is - Amber doesn’t have to have two back to back clean programs. If she lands the 3A, she just has to be cleaner than everyone else. Which usually isn’t a hard ask.
Vagabond
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@SidelineSkater He says it to everyone with whom he agrees. He probably even says it to those members of his imaginary harem that he meets in real life. So please don't get jealous. 
peibeck
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Amber is not as scary thin as Isabeau or Bradie. She's still tiny, but not a toothpick, which makes her spins a bit less effective if not less difficult. I'm definitely looking forward to her new SP. If she keeps the free... eh, not her best, not her worst. But maybe coughing up the $$$ for the Madonna rights kept her purse too empty for a new FS too.
Kaori is amazing live. The speed, the deep edges, the flight and distance on her jumps. I think she's been hampered by some dreadful music choices these past three seasons. Hopefully this retirement year brings her (and us) something far better.
Kaori is amazing live. The speed, the deep edges, the flight and distance on her jumps. I think she's been hampered by some dreadful music choices these past three seasons. Hopefully this retirement year brings her (and us) something far better.
Vagabond
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A judge is supposed to give a jump with a long preparation a deduction of between one and three points in GOE, so a jump with "super glaring" telegraphing should get marked down three points and not receive any mark higher than +2, no matter how good it may otherwise be. Not that this necessarily happens.
I'm no
, but I think judges are supposed to consider telegraphing when they evaluate connections between elements and choreography. Not that they do. 
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I feel like judges care about telegraphing for all the jumps but the 3A. There are a lot of men/women that telegraph the 3A but it doesn't seem to hurt their scores as much as it should.
That being said, Amber telegraphs it less and less every season. Mirai's degree of telegraphing was painful to watch - but she also had fewer seasons with the jump and Tom Z at the helm.
That being said, Amber telegraphs it less and less every season. Mirai's degree of telegraphing was painful to watch - but she also had fewer seasons with the jump and Tom Z at the helm.
AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)
Get it Amber ?
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Yes, honey bunches I mentioned that in my very first line of the first paragraph but to me it doesn’t really matter for an Olympic gold. If she was able to win the Japanese national and the US nationals and the Grand Prix final without having back-to-back what else do people want? She won all of that without having clean back to back programs. It’s not needed if you have higher technical base that can afford some leniency
And luckily, she’s not getting dinged for under rotations as much as some others.
We got into this discussion of the 3A telegraphing at some point last season, probably during the Grand Prix and Brown holding that back edge for 10 seconds before finally going up-- and for some people, that meant a drastic drop in PCS. I think I actually was the person who made the Glenn comparison, and I can almost swear a few of the responses were geared around 'yeah but this is a newer consistent jump", "but she's in the women's field where it's not as common", etc. But then Jason came back for Worlds with a new, much faster entrance anyways.
As it pertains to Glenn, it doesn't bother me so much; however, the similarity in pattern of her free skates over the years and the relative openness of the choreography stands out. I love what I see of the short program choreography, and I've been into quite a few of her exhibition programs as well. But anyways, as I've said earlier in the summer, the judges will give her the marks to be at or near the top if she delivers. She will have a cushion with the 3A in the short, even if the judges go above and beyond with a +3 or whatever (which they usually don't). So does adding a bunch of intricacy really benefit her in the long run of getting through a program cleanly or almost-clean?
As it pertains to Glenn, it doesn't bother me so much; however, the similarity in pattern of her free skates over the years and the relative openness of the choreography stands out. I love what I see of the short program choreography, and I've been into quite a few of her exhibition programs as well. But anyways, as I've said earlier in the summer, the judges will give her the marks to be at or near the top if she delivers. She will have a cushion with the 3A in the short, even if the judges go above and beyond with a +3 or whatever (which they usually don't). So does adding a bunch of intricacy really benefit her in the long run of getting through a program cleanly or almost-clean?
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URs are as much about reputation as anything, I’ve decided. The inconsistency of calling is ridiculous. The folks with good eyes here can argue q vs < as much as they like, but to me that focus distracts from holistic appreciation of the program.
It also comes down to specific panels. Some of them will stay consistent throughout either for the better or worse, some will get more lenient as the day goes on, and some will do whatever they want. Nationals panels can just be thrown out the window because aside from an unlucky skater or two every Olympic cycle, most seem to completely avoid calls. But yeah, no consistency at all and there never will be until technology is involved in every call.
As I've mentioned during Worlds, @thvu and I spoke to a technical panel member about calls being inconsistent and this panelist straight-up said sometimes they feel like as a group, they need to get more lenient later in the day if they feel they've been marking levels low up to that point. That irks me to no end. Those higher-ranked skaters already get boosts for sometimes shit elements just 'because' they are high-ranked.
But anyways, everyone has things they fixate on for their enjoyment of the sport-- for some that includes outfits, makeup, hair styling, whatever else. Some think a program PCS should be trash because they don't personally like the music, such as 'banging rock music' or whatever it was referred to for a certain program. For some, it's the perks (or annoyances) that USFS or ISU offers during competitions. As it is, skating combines both technical precision with this whole idea of theater and performance (if you can even call it that for the majority of the programs these days as skaters plow through elements with no intent on listening to the music), so we will all have different things that get us going.
That's absolutely ridiculous. Either be Shin Amano and smoke everyone or be easy on everyone. Don't punish skaters then feel bad later so you get more lenient on the skaters that need it least.
In fact, one wonders how much a boost small fed skaters (or even less known skaters in the US) would get if this attitude went away and everyone was called the same.
I'd rather have Shin Amano on every single panel for the rest of time than the panels being all lovey dovey and "but the camera angle was bad for all 163 instances of dodgy jumps today!"
SkateFanBerlin
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And what am I, chopped liver?
Private Citizen
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I’m not the biggest fan of a “Shin Amano” approach simply because underrotations and lutz/flip entries are already scrutinized and penalized out of proportion to everything else.
I’d go back to the old way of “e” and < only. No ! and no q for sure.
Someone brought up Glenn’s death drop. That’s a good example of an element that warrants “equivalent to ‘e’” treatment — i.e., 30% reduction in base value for a significant “cheat.”
I’d go back to the old way of “e” and < only. No ! and no q for sure.
Someone brought up Glenn’s death drop. That’s a good example of an element that warrants “equivalent to ‘e’” treatment — i.e., 30% reduction in base value for a significant “cheat.”
Karen-W
YMCA is such a catchy tune!
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The Amber love is getting a little too excessive in this thread at the moment, so I'm here to toss a damp towel on it. Her SP music choice is fine, but the program itself isn't her best work of this Olympic cycle. The first half is pretty decent and the jumps seem well-matched to the musical highlights. However, the step sequence is clunky and doesn't really fit the music. I think the program would work better if she switched the placement of the step sequence and the 2nd spin.
In general, while she's improved her consistency, I still don't fully trust her to get through a competition clean.
Also, she did not win both the GPF and J-Nats. She won the mini J-Nats that was the GPF with the top 5 Japanese women and herself in the competition. I know ANL likes to embellish Amber's record, but it's late and I'm a little cranky, so I'm calling it out & setting the record straight.
In general, while she's improved her consistency, I still don't fully trust her to get through a competition clean.
Also, she did not win both the GPF and J-Nats. She won the mini J-Nats that was the GPF with the top 5 Japanese women and herself in the competition. I know ANL likes to embellish Amber's record, but it's late and I'm a little cranky, so I'm calling it out & setting the record straight.
No one in this thread actually thinks she went to and won Japanese Nationals. Including the people who haven’t watched skating since the 90s but are still here on the board.
Karen-W
YMCA is such a catchy tune!
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Yeah, well, it's my right to call out ANL for his ridiculous hyperbole not once but twice in the past 12 hours by being completely pedantic about the nonsensical statements below.
Amber is a woman who happens to be one of the only skaters in her field doing a 3A or a big tech element at all. Fair or not people won't bother too much with her set-up. It's not as bad as Tuktamysheva's to begin - it seems flowier, and she does some transitions out to compensate.
Even beyond that, I don't bother with fan opinions on judging. I still remember the "Carolina Kostner is a textbook jumper!" stuff, when she had an actually telegraphed set-up to her 3Lz and a less than ideal 2A, while Kim Yuna was hammered by some quarters for having "long set-ups" on her 3Lz - when she did it with much better speed and tended to get more distance as result, too.
Or another more recent example, Jin Boyang's "long set-up" 4Lz, which someone even showed on twitter at some point isn't even any longer than most others (I think only Malinin had a shorter set-up of the ones who did proper take-offs especially, but even the ones with bad take-offs didn't particularly manage shorter set-ups), and then he had a proper take-off with speed in and out, and stats indicated he had by far the best combination of distance and height of the lot.
The Jason/Cha versus Glenn comparison is flawed, because they're men. There are many men who go in with better flow and speed (some even do transitions in), land better and do transitions out, and compared to Jason, even have better height and/or distance (Cha at least gets decent height). So their scoring ends up looking more egregious.
They are, but it's also true TPs get worse camera angles than us many times. So it almost ends up making sense why they'd not give benefit of the doubt to someone who had a "UR reputation" and give it to someone who didn't have that reputation.
Shin Amano, IIRC, was the one at 2019 4CCs, right? He let go of obvious URs from Uno. He's not some ideal caller to begin. If anything, people like him exacerbate rep calling.
Ah, here, @misskarne complaining he let Zhou's go too, after that entire "ballerina ankles" bs.
ETA: https://www.reddit.com/r/FigureSkating/comments/sdc75s/comment/hubpwot/
I remember this discussion before the previous Olympics, too. In general, these 'strict callers' are rather selectively blind. Which is not at all the definition of fairness and 'strictness'. They'll end up giving advantages to the skaters they're blind towards.
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Right. It's not the Japanese women's thread, but this is what I mean. She has fantastic technical qualities that really project an aura of confidence. That in and of itself isn't the whole of performance/choreography.
That No Roots SP she did in the 2019-20 season was especially dire, because she showed she simply cannot do sharp movement. The recent Chicago LP too - very sloppy. Her best skating comes with those long, deep edges in programs like The Piano.
The scoring now pretty much focuses on having deep edges, but it's really let go of variety of movement - Kaori would never be able to do some of Kwan's best. Or even Mao's best, who did come up under the IJS, but it was when the rules were different from now.
