There is something fundamentally wrong with ladies skating right now and we saw a glimpse of it during the SP - the winner was someone who landed a Triple Toe + Double Toe combo and the 2nd place finisher merely did a single loop and one Triple, a Flip. Both skaters scored 60+ for such performance. Heck, in 1982, ladies could do better than that, if CoP was implemented back then.
Fastforward to the LP, Mao Asada eventually won the LP with 4 clean triples, not counting the Lutz because it received overall negative GOE and most likely a wrong edge take off. So a lady who merely landed 4 clean Triples not only won but with a score of 130+? Whereas the men went the complete different direction, the ladies are not stagnant, they are regressing and downright depressing to watch. For this sport to grow, the ladies cannot afford to produce champions who can be beaten by women 3 generations before them, even prior to the time of Midori Ito, that's just insane to think about in 2012.
The sad truth is, this Japanese Nationals is merely a reflection of the ill in ladies skating given the same phenomenon is observed elsewhere as well.
I pray that this situation will change soon.
Fastforward to the LP, Mao Asada eventually won the LP with 4 clean triples, not counting the Lutz because it received overall negative GOE and most likely a wrong edge take off. So a lady who merely landed 4 clean Triples not only won but with a score of 130+? Whereas the men went the complete different direction, the ladies are not stagnant, they are regressing and downright depressing to watch. For this sport to grow, the ladies cannot afford to produce champions who can be beaten by women 3 generations before them, even prior to the time of Midori Ito, that's just insane to think about in 2012.
The sad truth is, this Japanese Nationals is merely a reflection of the ill in ladies skating given the same phenomenon is observed elsewhere as well.
I pray that this situation will change soon.