2016 Four Continents Mens SP

I'm just now seeing the men's sp. A very uninspiring competition. I have to say though that's the best I've ever seen Han Yan skate. I see that some are saying he got dinged on his spins, but I didn't notice anything egregious. He was perfect on all of his jumps to a spectacular degree and he certainly should have received high levels. Shoma does have precocious presentation skills that are superior to Han, but I thought Han was a bit low-balled for an excellent skate in comparison to the fact that Shoma had a misstep on his first jump. I would have had Shoma's and Han's scores much closer, with maybe even giving Han a slight edge in the total score.

Apparently Han Yan has been uber-inspired by his countryman Boyang's success. To me, Han Yan is a much better performer and has better skating skills than Boyang. I find it ridiculous that Boyang receives such high scores mainly for being a good jumper with quad lutz-triple weapon. Quad receives too much credit to begin with, but now they have taken it farther where they seem to want everyone to land a quad lutz-triple or you're nothing. Unbelievable the amount of PCS Boyang was handed. He's an average skater who needs to develop more speed and fine tune his presentation and skating skills. He handles the sp okay generally, but his overall weaknesses as a skater really show up in the fp. There is no way that Boyang should receive 40 for PCS -- no way! He's an excellent jumper but not a complete skater and that should be reflected with more accurate PCS in the high 6s to mid 7s range. Boyang is over-scored on skating skills, performance execution, and especially on choreography and interpretation. I'm tired of hearing that Boyang is working on improving his whole package. Where's the incentive to do so when he doesn't have to with all the points being thrown at him!

Frankly, I found a number of earlier skaters in the order who I'm not that familiar with more interesting to watch in terms of their style than Boyang, despite the fact many of the earlier skaters lack great technical consistency/ mastery. In general, with this type of ridiculous scoring and the over-importance of the quad, I'm finding the men's division internationally not as exciting to watch no matter the event these days. Men's used to be my favorite discipline not so long ago. Now, I find pairs and dance much more exciting and enjoyable to watch.

Art&Sport said:

I'm tired of hearing that Boyang is working on improving his whole package. Where's the incentive to do so when he doesn't have to with all the points being thrown at him!
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Have you never heard of the concept of simply wanting to improve for the sake of becoming better? No? I keep hearing this tired old line being parroted about both Max and Boyang (though more specifically Boyang) and it is very tiresome.

karne said:

Have you never heard of the concept of simply wanting to improve for the sake of becoming better? No? I keep hearing this tired old line being parroted about both Max and Boyang (though more specifically Boyang) and it is very tiresome.

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Come on. Leave Max out of this please. Two totally different skaters. Max was a senior for awhile before breaking through at U.S. Nationals and winning a trip to Worlds. As a former hockey player, Max has much greater speed but he has lacked good skating skills, transitions and presentation, so he most definitely has put a focus on improving in those areas. Plus Max did not break onto the international scene as some kind of superstar jumper whose lack of good skating skills didn't matter. Max has come a long way since 2013, but he still has a way to go to find consistency and to maintain confidence as well as to find the perfect balance between artistry and athleticism. The greater depth among U.S. men also makes it problematic for Max and other fine U.S. skaters to build the kind of momentum that skaters from other countries have the chance to build when they are tops among only a handful of good skaters in their countries.

Meanwhile, the international judges have loved Boyang at senior hello, simply because he's a jumping machine with a quad-lutz/ triple combo weapon. In other respects Boyang is an average skater who should be given the message that he definitely needs to improve and to work more on becoming a complete skater before having such huge scores thrown at him.

Art&Sport said:

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I think Boyang is very exciting to watch and I have definetly see him improve on his presentation during this season. His sp presentation was great, though of course he lacks the SS.

Generally I agree with you that 40 is too high, but if Voronov regularily gets at least 38, Kovtun 40, Brezina 40 and Fernandez (love him) 46, then it's not like Boyang was grossly overscored in comparison.

I think judges should learn to give out PCS more accurate generally, not just for Boyang.

I totally missed the competition, but what a rollercoaster event it was at least for me.

Boyang, Han, Mura, Grant
Patrick, Kevin, Ross

It almost seems like a different sport than it was just a couple of years ago. Boyang Jin dominated with his jumps, and his presentation wasn't bad at all, given his age and level of experience.

To me, Patrick Chan lapped the field in terms of quality of movement. The only thing that held him back (besides the mistakes on jumps) was that insipid rendition of Mack the Knife. He needs Bobby Darin or Frank Sinatra or Louis Armstrong to make the program pop.

Mathman said:

It almost seems like a different sport than it was just a couple of years ago. Boyang Jin dominated with his jumps, and his presentation wasn't bad at all, given his age and level of experience.

To me, Patrick Chan lapped the field in terms of quality of movement. The only thing that held him back (besides the mistakes on jumps) was that insipid rendition of Mack the Knife. He needs Bobby Darin or Frank Sinatra or Louis Armstrong to make the program pop.

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I think that if Patrick had not made the errors in this SP, the judges would have given him the lead. The performance seemed tense and not as easy across the ice as say, the one at nationals. Since he was saying the ice was inconsistent, I guess he's not comfortable skating on it, it showed. Patrick is miles ahead of Boyang on skating skills and all the other PCS categories. But Boyang is miles ahead of Patrick in Jumps, and didn't let his levels drop in the other areas. People will continue to critique Boyang's artistry, but he's working on it very hard as can be seen in the improvement he has in each of his competitions this year.

Interspectator said:

I think that if Patrick had not made the errors in this SP, the judges would have given him the lead. The performance seemed tense and not as easy across the ice as say, the one at nationals. Since he was saying the ice was inconsistent, I guess he's not comfortable skating on it, it showed. Patrick is miles ahead of Boyang on skating skills and all the other PCS categories. But Boyang is miles ahead of Patrick in Jumps, and didn't let his levels drop in the other areas. People will continue to critique Boyang's artistry, but he's working on it very hard as can be seen in the improvement he has in each of his competitions this year.

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Obviously, Boyang is working on improving. But while improving he gets points out the wazoo simply because of his quad combo weapon and multiple quads. Those who find that exciting, then you must be lovers of rotations in the air and not figure skating. This over-scoring phenomenon is not new. Boyang is just the poster boy/phenom of this latest quad frenzy phase. It's as if a light went off when Adam Rippon started making unsuccessful quad lutz attempts, and everyone suddenly realized that quad is just an added revolution on all the basic jumps, and that lutz and axel are the most difficult jumps. Suddenly realizing how many points could be racked up with a successfully landed quad lutz in combo with a triple, those with jumping skill began scrambling to train quad-lutz, and Boyang happens to be technically talented enough to have mastered it first. Obviously, Boyang has tremendous jumping ability, but I am simply not excited about the fact that is his main calling card and he is otherwise an average skater. It's backwards to give him such high scores at the same time claiming he is still improving. :hslap:

I came across the post in Fan Fest where Patrick actually blamed the ice quality that lead him to less control of his edges and everything. I wonder if Taipei's Zamboni produces narrow surface for skaters or is it the technology that lacks consistency? Patrick said ice is always different and it is hard to predict which trick works each time better. He basically couldn't adjust to the ice in the rink.

Art&Sport said:

It's as if a light went off when Adam Rippon started making unsuccessful quad lutz attempts, and everyone suddenly realized that quad is just an added revolution on all the basic jumps, and that lutz and axel are the most difficult jumps.

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No. Plushenko was doing the quad Lutz as early as 2001 when he attempted one in competition (rotated but fell), and it was actually Brandon Mroz who was given credit for the first landed one. Giving Rippon all the credit for Jin's surge forward is as silly as giving Jason credit for the men's spins in general improving.

Jin is clearly a happy jumper and a fast learner, and I think he would have found his way to the 4Lz anyway.

Sorrento said:

I came across the post in Fan Fest where Patrick actually blamed the ice quality that lead him to less control of his edges and everything. I wonder if Taipei's Zamboni produces narrow surface for skaters or is it the technology that lacks consistency? Patrick said ice is always different and it is hard to predict which trick works each time better. He basically couldn't adjust to the ice in the rink.

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But he said in the interview after the FS that he needed time to get used to the ice (or something like that).
But actually in the CBC broadcast, I think Weaver/Poje's FS, the commentators said that the blade of the Zamboni broke when I remember correctly.

psusanne said:

But he said in the interview after the FS that he needed time to get used to the ice (or something like that).
But actually in the CBC broadcast, I think Weaver/Poje's FS, the commentators said that the blade of the Zamboni broke when I remember correctly.

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Zamboni's blade was broken? Oh God. I haven't heard of that, thanks for the detail.

andyjo24 said:

I agree that the GOE for his jumps are way too high. His jumping technique is far, far from the best.

He's basically the "male Satoko Miyahara."

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If you mean he actually holds his landings, gets superior flow on them, while making the jump look effortless... then yeah, he is basically the male Miyahara. :sarcasm: