2018 Worlds Mens Free Skate | Page 98 | Golden Skate

2018 Worlds Mens Free Skate

icybear

Medalist
Joined
Mar 18, 2017
I thought Nathan's PCS was fine, contrary to some people. It was sub 92 with 5 clean quads and almost 6, and I still liked his program... good intensity. And even if he were marked lower, who cares, he won by 47 points, lol.

Definite overscoring of Kolyada and Uno. Although I'd say at least Uno tried to deliver the rest of his choreo (and the PCS was far from his usual best). Kolyada was a mess, but the SP saved him gotta love 2 falls and a pop still giving 88.12 (his PB is 89.20).

Aliev, Ge and Bychenko were a bit underscored on PCS.


Max was solid but lost out on levels. His PCS was about right (sorry)... I'm just not a fan of that program, even if it's him pushing himself artistically. A top 10 would have been nice, but I think Brezina deserved it over him (and I'm way more of an Aaron fan than a Brezina fan).

The 6's on Kerry were too harsh, but I don't think he deserved a whole lot more PCS given his errors.

Jin was definitely overscored on PCS with 5 falls, but no point adding insult to injury. Just a bad day at the office and he'll bounce back. Sad for Nam too not making the FS, but it was the right call - he simply didn't deliver.

Really you call Boyang 73 pc's high but Chen 92pcs fine for a jump practice. Uno even with his falls was miles ahead of Chen in terms of ss, choreographed and interpretation.
 
Joined
Dec 9, 2017
Really you call Boyang 73 pc's high but Chen 92pcs fine for a jump practice. Uno even with his falls was miles ahead of Chen in terms of ss, choreographed and interpretation.

And Zhou somehow got 76 -- only 4 points below what he had in the Olys, I believe. After all his mistakes.

Just forget about it. No point arguing anymore. Boyang'll bounce back. :yes:
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Really you call Boyang 73 pc's high but Chen 92pcs fine for a jump practice. Uno even with his falls was miles ahead of Chen in terms of ss, choreographed and interpretation.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Chen had as many clean quads - five - as Boyang had falls, and Jin also doubled a quad.

I think Uno should have outscored Chen on SS although his falls show a lack of balance and proper foot placement. I also prefer Chen's choreography, although at their best I prefer Uno overall. Chen definitely outskated Uno though, and was way more pleasant to watch. You can call it a jump fest if you like, but at the end of the day, they still had the same number of jumping passes. And Chen wasn't simply skating from jump to jump either. If anything, Jin was because he was playing catchup practically his whole program.
 

zschultz1986

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
After this competition, I propose we change Shoma's name to "Shoma Dos" because he does seem to have the Silver medal on lockdown. /badjoke
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Fine, I'll be blunt. Go look at what I called for Vincent in PBP and then look at his protocol and then you tell me that I only call based on "agenda".

Sorry, I don't usually follow your PBPs... I'm not sure what your point is here. Your real-time assessment of Zhou marked every one of his jumping passes as getting a < call - and a << in the case of the 4Z. His one ratified clean quad (his 4T) you thought was UR, and his second 4Z you marked as << while it was <.

Kudos to you for showing some compassion towards Zhou in your comments, though.
 

Xen

Rinkside
Joined
Apr 25, 2017
I think the problem is not just about judges, is also about the scoring system. That's why they are planing to make changes.

If this trend continues, there will be less people finding figure skating enjoyable to watch. The scores are supposed to encourage skater to deliver better programs.

Hahaha...oh gods. How about the Federations (at least the more powerful ones) are actually okay with this? The judges are after all, members of the federations, and are not necessarily true neutral observers punching numbers. When things are on the line, there is more national bias; when less, judges tend to score as neutral as possible. National biases in judging is pretty well known. Under such an overview, no system can maintain neutrality.

@Metis: the scary part is that there are youtube videos about what IJS ranks as difficult transitions. See the one here: https://youtu.be/HM-jtNEnZVQ
There's actually a list that's all about IJS definitions, and it's shocking how they are not followed.
And thank you for your post and clarifying a point that people seem to ignore all the time:
- PE/CO/IN which can vary from competition to competition because they are affected by the cleanliness of the program that day
-SS/TR which actually do not vary that greatly from competition to competition, so long as the program is the same. These are the scores that even if they fluctuate, should not fluctuate much if there is not significant, noticeable difference and improvement. Something that frankly does not change easily in the span of half a season or a season, unless the skater has been bombing all season so nothing shown was correct (which I find a bit hard to believe since rockers are rockers, edge control is edge control).
- That SS/TR are quantifiable and separate from the GOE marks that already measure jumps

By the way, I hope people realize no one is disputing Nathan's win. Given what the final flight guys were doing, mathematically Nathan had the BV to secure a win, he may have even fell 2-3 times and still won since his BV was just...that high. The issue that is being argued is sadly, independent of Nathan himself- just that his PCS scores sadly are indicative of what is wrong with how PCS fluctuates and are far from measuring how a skater actually did that day.

I hope people who argue that Nathan's PCS in Milan are justified, are aware that those SS marks for the performance in Milan, are the same score as what Patrick Chan got at the Olympic Games. Are we seriously trying to make the statement that somehow, in the span of about a month, Nathan's SS just grew to match Patrick Chan's? Yes, he was cleaner at Milan, but is cleanliness enough to warrant such a jump in scores in a program component that is probably closer to "objective"?

There are 2 arguments that are being made about the PCS, both of which are faulty.

1) Nathan was the only guy who skated clean in the last group, thus the scores:
  • a. Yes, and he went last in skating order, add in the PCS scores for Shoma for a messy skate, so Nathan obviously will get more. That is probably what happened. No doubt about it.
    b. But the argument is whether or not such an effect (halo effect perhaps), is desirable, especially when it comes to SS and TR which are quantifiable scores and can be measured across a skater's competition season? Should we go with averages? No, but skaters don't usually magically jump around 0.5 points in 1 component element alone over the course of a month, and averages at least gives a bandwidth of where scores tend to lie.

    2) Nathan did more quads than the other men, and quads count for something, quads should get leeway in PCS because they are difficult, and we shouldn't expect the same type of programs:
    a. Metis already made the argument that quads/jump quality are already measured in GOEs, and should not be counted in TR and SS.
    b. This also goes down a slippery slope of how much leeway are you giving for quad-filled programs when it comes to PCs scores. For example, for each quad that a skater does, are you giving the skater a 0.1 point leeway in SS/TR/CO/PE/IN? Given the 0.25 point skips, is it 0.25 per quad? In which case, you are saying that a skater who is normally an 8.25 TR/SS skater suddenly can become a 10 SS/TR skater because he added 7 quads. Think about it for a minute: the same skater skating with triple jumps, having the same choreography, same program, same demonstration of skills, may score only a 8.25 SS/TR. Making no other changes, but just adding in 7 quads, somehow now this skater should be given more leeway, and is no longer 8.25 SS/TR, but instead higher, much higher. Not because the rockers/counters/edges have improved dramatically, but because of quads. Imagine this using not a skater you like, but a skater you dislike-and ask yourself, is this a conclusion you can live with.
    c. More to the point, if you argue and allow that slippery slope, you are not judging skaters for what they do on the ice that day, but based on potential (justified or not) or past history. This is another slippery slope, but also begs the question about averages. If a skater historically have not averaged above 8.5 in SS/TR this season, why is the skater suddenly beating that average if that day's performance is not significantly better?
 

GS Forum Staff

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 11, 2008
Some posts have been moved from the Womens FS thread to the Mens FS thread as the posts were discussing the results of the Men.
 

ice_tulip

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 22, 2007
Shoma gets the silver. That's hilarious. I'm not sure he should, given how generously he was scored, but who else?

Bychenko should have medalled.

Uno and Kolyada should NOT have medaled with those messes. This is a total embarrassment to the sport and shows how totally messed up the scoring system is. If skaters are going to continue being rewarded for splatting on quads, at the expense of the performance and musical expression, then why even bother having programs? They should just skate and jump and not bother with anything else.

Had Rippon not withdrawn and skated cleanly, he would be a world silver medalist right now. Was withdrawing really worth it?

Had Jason Brown not been doing whatever it is he is doing that prevented him from taking Rippon's spot, and had he skated cleanly, he would be a world silver medalist right now. What a pity he didn't compete.

Zhou is a complete disaster. Tom Z should never have let him go for that many quads when he clearly can't rotate them let alone land them. Maybe he can land them in isolation without pressure, but not in this kind of pressure-packed atmosphere. If only Max Aaron had a better coach, he could have maximized his potential. I am so sad he never lived up to his potential.
 

ice_tulip

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 22, 2007
Congratulations to Nathan for landing those quads and winning. He obviously deserved to win, nobody can really argue that. However, that was, in my opinion, one of the most lifeless, uninteresting performances I've seen, especially for the world champion. That was like watching a jump drill with some random music playing in the background.

^This.
 

eppen

Medalist
Joined
Mar 28, 2006
Country
Spain
I admit I secretly hoped that the first worlds in quite a few years without Fernández, Chan and/or Hanyu present would not be very impressive, but this was a bit of an exaggeration even for me...

The first two groups failed to impress despite Aliev's effort (but was glad to see him make good after the poor SP), the third group proved better with Deniss and Misha delivering very beautiful performances, especially Deniss who was really on fire (not my fave program from him, though). Seeing Brezina skate like that was also amazing, but I do hope he realizes that it might be time to move on. The past five years have been quite bad and this one good uting is perhaps not enough to redeem his career. Tomono was quite good despite the relatively horrible music cut (West Side Story is tough and would require a better skater with better choreo to really work out).

But the last group? Well, a lot has been said already obviously. I counted at least 24 planned quads and most of them were miserably failed. I counted maybe 7 with positive GOEs and 5 of them were in Nathan's program. Messing is not skilled enough and interesting to watch for 4 and a half minutes. Twofooted most of the time. The rest were just plain awful in execution, but then again the programs for the most part did not hold great promise to begin with. Zhou is slower than a snail. The more I look into Shoma's skating the less he feels like the real thing. For the most part empty and simple programs with poor quality jumps with one-sided and repetitive performances... I don't get how he gets away with those URs though. Kolyada's Elvis program's only good part was that hopefully I will never have to watch it again. He still has only maybe 4T as a quad.

And Nathan? Skating crossovers, progressives and other simple stuff from one end of the rink to another with little half-baked arm posing in between really does not make an enjoyable program. The jumps were ok at least, but I would like to see them incorporated into a proper program instead of there being 2 minutes of very little else than jumps. He still has a lot of work ahead of him before actually becoming a well-rounded skater. But at least he remained on his feet. I give him the title for that.

E
 

Cyt150

Rinkside
Joined
Mar 7, 2018
Country
Singapore
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Congratulations to Nathan for landing those quads and winning. He obviously deserved to win, nobody can really argue that. However, that was, in my opinion, one of the most lifeless, uninteresting performances I've seen, especially for the world champion. That was like watching a jump drill with some random music playing in the background. I can't say anything about the PCS that hasn't already been covered here,

That what I felt too about Nathan's FS :Jump Drill !!:rolleye::rolleye:
 

Alchamei

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2014
Hi Alchamei, I wonder if you feel the same way now knowing that Vincent got 76 - only one point lower - for his FS?

I think both Max and Vincent should have been lower, Max having more points on Vincent but Vincent should have been at best at Boyang's PCS.
 

MaiKatze

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 4, 2012
Bychenko should have medalled.

Uno and Kolyada should NOT have medaled with those messes. This is a total embarrassment to the sport and shows how totally messed up the scoring system is. If skaters are going to continue being rewarded for splatting on quads, at the expense of the performance and musical expression, then why even bother having programs? They should just skate and jump and not bother with anything else.

Had Rippon not withdrawn and skated cleanly, he would be a world silver medalist right now. Was withdrawing really worth it?

Had Jason Brown not been doing whatever it is he is doing that prevented him from taking Rippon's spot, and had he skated cleanly, he would be a world silver medalist right now. What a pity he didn't compete.

Zhou is a complete disaster. Tom Z should never have let him go for that many quads when he clearly can't rotate them let alone land them. Maybe he can land them in isolation without pressure, but not in this kind of pressure-packed atmosphere. If only Max Aaron had a better coach, he could have maximized his potential. I am so sad he never lived up to his potential.

Ah, the usual 'if so and so were here they would've medalled' post. I say it again. They are no asteriks. Get used to these guys who were here, because that's what it's going to be like from now on.

Shoma Uno was injured, well aware that three spots for his country were on the line and skated anyway. He didn't think he would get a medal and didn't withdraw. And you can really fault him for many things, his quads the falls and whatever, but he didn't let go of the program. Performance and musical wise I would say it was even the best I've seen him skate Turandot this season, because it was so passionate at the end, the crescendo into the cantilever, the emotions, the cheers that lifted him into that second half. It was amazing.

Shoma's personal best is 319.84. If he had skated his personal best he would still have lost to Nathan, whose personal best is now 321.40. It will be might hard for him in the future, because I would imagine that Nathan's scores are going to rise even more as a World Champion. I think the Olympic Free skate made a switch in Nathan. He skated that, so he knew it was possible. And he made it happen again. To be honest, everyone (yes, even Yuzuru Hanyu) will have a hard time beating that in the future, because I don't believe Nathan will stagnate at PCS, he will get higher PCS still.
 

icybear

Medalist
Joined
Mar 18, 2017
You're comparing apples and oranges. Chen had as many clean quads - five - as Boyang had falls, and Jin also doubled a quad.

I think Uno should have outscored Chen on SS although his falls show a lack of balance and proper foot placement. I also prefer Chen's choreography, although at their best I prefer Uno overall. Chen definitely outskated Uno though, and was way more pleasant to watch. You can call it a jump fest if you like, but at the end of the day, they still had the same number of jumping passes. And Chen wasn't simply skating from jump to jump either. If anything, Jin was because he was playing catchup practically his whole program.

I'm not comparing Jin and Chen pcs. Chen obviously would have gotten higher. I'm comparing the fact you have a problem with Jin measly 73 pcs but have no issue with Chen absurd 92 pcs. You can love Chen all you like, but its so dumb obvious to everybody that Uno is 10x better than him in choreography and every aspect of pcs except the performance yesterday and I'm not even an Uno fan. Chen 92pcs is a joke to the sport.
 

nekun

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 22, 2017
Emm I heard Raf said to Russian media that Nate has training 4A. Yeahh, it may be so hard to beat him next season with all those quads
 

riminin

Rinkside
Joined
May 27, 2014
Ah, the usual 'if so and so were here they would've medalled' post. I say it again. They are no asteriks. Get used to these guys who were here, because that's what it's going to be like from now on.

Shoma Uno was injured, well aware that three spots for his country were on the line and skated anyway. He didn't think he would get a medal and didn't withdraw. And you can really fault him for many things, his quads the falls and whatever, but he didn't let go of the program. Performance and musical wise I would say it was even the best I've seen him skate Turandot this season, because it was so passionate at the end, the crescendo into the cantilever, the emotions, the cheers that lifted him into that second half. It was amazing.

Shoma's personal best is 319.84. If he had skated his personal best he would still have lost to Nathan, whose personal best is now 321.40. It will be might hard for him in the future, because I would imagine that Nathan's scores are going to rise even more as a World Champion. I think the Olympic Free skate made a switch in Nathan. He skated that, so he knew it was possible. And he made it happen again. To be honest, everyone (yes, even Yuzuru Hanyu) will have a hard time beating that in the future, because I don't believe Nathan will stagnate at PCS, he will get higher PCS still.


Just for the record: Shoma himself told in the post FS interview that he wasn't feeling any pain at all since SP, it had improved drastically and he had no worry whatsoever in terms of the foot, which I think is a very good news for his long-term health. I think what happened during his FS was due more to the lack of good practice because of the boot problem.
 

MaiKatze

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 4, 2012
Just for the record: Shoma himself told in the post FS interview that he wasn't feeling any pain at all since SP, it had improved drastically and he had no worry whatsoever in terms of the foot, which I think is a very good news for his long-term health. I think what happened during his FS was due more to the lack of good practice because of the boot problem.

There have been rumours of an injury all season long. I do believe Shoma when he says that he's not, of course, but going to the hospital to have x-rays, not being able to land his flip and loop all week, I think there was more to it than boot problems.
 
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