2016 World Championships Mens Free Skate

Let's just retire everyone who doesn't look like they 100% believing in themselves in the public view. Let's all define a skater's competition mentality by using the maybe 10% of their life that we have observed. I mean these poor boys with all these nerves and touching down on ice. Let retire Patrick, Javi, Shoma etc. Anybody not skating a season's best at worlds? Their federations should drop them.

Never delivering? That means anybody who has not won 3 GPFs in a row and broken world records during this season. That's everyone. While we are at it, the new crop of skaters should only be allowed to perform in a narrow definition of "masculine" skating.

Yuzuru only has Japanese fans? Why do we even bother conversing about him in English then? Let's all switch to Japanese since we are all apparently Japanese :sarcasm: :sarcasm::sarcasm:

C'mon dont feed troller everyone

lyndichee said:

Let's just retire everyone who doesn't look like they 100% believing in themselves in the public view. Let's all define a skater's competition mentality by using the maybe 10% of their life that we have observed. I mean these poor boys with all these nerves and touching down on ice. Let retire Patrick, Javi, Shoma etc. Anybody not skating a season's best at worlds? Their federations should drop them.

Never delivering? That means anybody who has not won 3 GPFs in a row and broken world records during this season. That's everyone. While we are at it, the new crop of skaters should only be allowed to perform in a narrow definition of "masculine" skating.

Yuzuru only has Japanese fans? Why do we even bother conversing about him in English then? Let's all switch to Japanese since we are all apparently Japanese :sarcasm: :sarcasm::sarcasm:

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Yuzuru's fanthread is more than 2500 pages here 10 x bigger than any other skater , apparently Japanese fans enjoy sharing their opinions about Yuzu in English.

I´m a big fan of both Fernandez and Hanyu and like also Chan a lot. It is easier to be kind of general skating fan and not a blinded fan of one skater, but of course there are a couple of skaters I don´t like so much....

Despite Yuzu being a superior skater in just about any measurable area, it's increasingly clear that Javi has two advantages over him:

1. Javi isn't prone to falling apart after an early mistake like Yuzu tends to be. He just moves on like nothing happened.
3. No matter how many world titles he owns, Javi will always be the underdog who doesn't stand a chance against Yuzu. Nobody will write articles claiming him the greatest skater that ever lived. He doesn't have millions of fans who idolize him as if their life depended on it. He doesn't have countless youtube fan videos and forum threads with 2500 pages of posts. Nobody is claiming Denis Ten to be the new devil incarnate because of him. (The latter I actually saw in a Facebook post, I kid you not...)

The combination of these has just won Javi a world title. Just sayin'...

tureis said:

Despite Yuzu being a superior skater in just about any measurable area, it's increasingly clear that Javi has two advantages over him:

1. Javi isn't prone to falling apart after an early mistake like Yuzu tends to be. He just moves on like nothing happened.
3. No matter how many world titles he owns, Javi will always be the underdog who doesn't stand a chance against Yuzu. Nobody will write articles claiming him the greatest skater that ever lived. He doesn't have millions of fans who idolize him as if their life depended on it. He doesn't have countless youtube fan videos and forum threads with 2500 pages of posts. Nobody is claiming Denis Ten to be the new devil incarnate because of him. (The latter I actually saw in a Facebook post, I kid you not...)

The combination of these has just won Javi a world title. Just sayin'...

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I don't get the first point. When has Yuzuru 'tend' to fall apart after an early mistake? This Worlds FS seems to be the only time it has really happened so something was definitely different this time. He usually goes on and nails every jump even after falling at the beginning, which is why this time it was so shocking. If he was always falling apart, everyone would have expected this outcome.

I agree somewhat with the second point, in that being an underdog you'll always feel less pressure, which is why most people tend to like being an underdog (same situation with Ashley and Gracie -- Ashley was always the underdog compared to Gracie and I think Gracie felt way more pressure each time she competes). So in a sense, Javier is lucky that he is always in this position and has Yuzu to take off a lot of the pressure for him. But Yuzu has also won Gold many times despite being the clear favourite and having to undertake all the pressure that comes with it, so it is quite unfair to him to suggest that he is simply mentally weak or a poor competitor. This point is more directed to some of the previous posts and discussions that took place that he 'never delivers in competition' or has 'bad mentality'. He was only off the podium TWICE in the last 4 years and both times he was 4th. If he was a bad competitor, well, then everyone else should just retire.

lyndichee said:

Let's just retire everyone who doesn't look like they 100% believing in themselves in the public view. Let's all define a skater's competition mentality by using the maybe 10% of their life that we have observed. I mean these poor boys with all these nerves and touching down on ice. Let retire Patrick, Javi, Shoma etc. Anybody not skating a season's best at worlds? Their federations should drop them.

Never delivering? That means anybody who has not won 3 GPFs in a row and broken world records during this season. That's everyone. While we are at it, the new crop of skaters should only be allowed to perform in a narrow definition of "masculine" skating.

Yuzuru only has Japanese fans? Why do we even bother conversing about him in English then? Let's all switch to Japanese since we are all apparently Japanese :sarcasm: :sarcasm::sarcasm:

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hilarious...just awesome~

tureis said:

Despite Yuzu being a superior skater in just about any measurable area, it's increasingly clear that Javi has two advantages over him:

1. Javi isn't prone to falling apart after an early mistake like Yuzu tends to be. He just moves on like nothing happened.
3. No matter how many world titles he owns, Javi will always be the underdog who doesn't stand a chance against Yuzu. Nobody will write articles claiming him the greatest skater that ever lived. He doesn't have millions of fans who idolize him as if their life depended on it. He doesn't have countless youtube fan videos and forum threads with 2500 pages of posts. Nobody is claiming Denis Ten to be the new devil incarnate because of him. (The latter I actually saw in a Facebook post, I kid you not...)

The combination of these has just won Javi a world title. Just sayin'...

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This is true. Even after Yuzu's skate, commentators were still thinking he'd win...

I'm doing the "Judge me if you can" thing from Perdita and I have to say one of the skater that really grown on me during this competition is Max Aaron.

I love his jumps, they're great and I think he is capable to sell a more emotional program... with the adequate choreography( which is unfortunately not the case in this years program imo), but he has nice hands and arms so I think with better choreography matching the music, he could do much more.

So yeah, I think I'm going to keep an eye on Max Aaron now XD

tureis said:

Despite Yuzu being a superior skater in just about any measurable area, it's increasingly clear that Javi has two advantages over him:

1. Javi isn't prone to falling apart after an early mistake like Yuzu tends to be. He just moves on like nothing happened.
3. No matter how many world titles he owns, Javi will always be the underdog who doesn't stand a chance against Yuzu. Nobody will write articles claiming him the greatest skater that ever lived. He doesn't have millions of fans who idolize him as if their life depended on it. He doesn't have countless youtube fan videos and forum threads with 2500 pages of posts. Nobody is claiming Denis Ten to be the new devil incarnate because of him. (The latter I actually saw in a Facebook post, I kid you not...)

The combination of these has just won Javi a world title. Just sayin'...

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Um, I don't get your first point Oo. Yuzu has been renowned since even before the Olympics for his nerves of steel. This year WC was particularly disturbing BECAUSE we're used to him being able to handle the pressure and to move on after making a mistake and delivering gorgeous programs that make you forget he splatted on his first jumping pass.

Both Yuzu and Javi have good nerves and in the case of Javi he immensely improved this year in that (comparing the two GPF in front of his homecrowd is extremely telling). Plus Javi comes from a country where he is pretty much building by himself the international aspect of the sport while Yuzu comes from one of the biggest federation in single skating. This is why Javi carried the underdog mantle to this Worlds (I'm doubting he will be seen as such next season).

And about the crazy fans, unfortunately, the bigger your group of fan is, the more likely you have to have nutcases in it. That's just statistics.

melmel said:

I'm doing the "Judge me if you can" thing from Perdita and I have to say one of the skater that really grown on me during this competition is Max Aaron.

I love his jumps, they're great and I think he is capable to sell a more emotional program... with the adequate choreography( which is unfortunately not the case in this years program imo), but he has nice hands and arms so I think with better choreography matching the music, he could do much more.

So yeah, I think I'm going to keep an eye on Max Aaron now XD

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This post has the karne stamp of approval :agree:

tureis said:

Despite Yuzu being a superior skater in just about any measurable area, it's increasingly clear that Javi has two advantages over him:

1. Javi isn't prone to falling apart after an early mistake like Yuzu tends to be. He just moves on like nothing happened.
3. No matter how many world titles he owns, Javi will always be the underdog who doesn't stand a chance against Yuzu. Nobody will write articles claiming him the greatest skater that ever lived. He doesn't have millions of fans who idolize him as if their life depended on it. He doesn't have countless youtube fan videos and forum threads with 2500 pages of posts. Nobody is claiming Denis Ten to be the new devil incarnate because of him. (The latter I actually saw in a Facebook post, I kid you not...)

The combination of these has just won Javi a world title. Just sayin'...

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1. Fernandez also makes multiple mistakes after early mistakes. You can check out any of his competitions he had this season, last season or the Olympic season (except the WC this year and last year). None of the male skater is not prone to mistakes.

2. Nobody has nerves of steel. It depends on how much expectations and pressure are on the skater. Some skaters feel less nervous beause they are not the favorites to win and fans/skating community don't have much expectation of them. Some skaters feel more nervous because they are the favorites to win and everyone has high expectation of them. In general, fans have higher expectation on more talented skaters and lower expectation on less talented skaters. That's why it's harder for more talented skaters to deliver and win because they feel much more pressure than less talented skaters. It's true that the pressure on Hanyu is much, much bigger than the pressure on Fernandez. Hanyu was the overwhelming favorite at this worlds and worlds last year. At this worlds, Hanyu took on most of the pressure and expectation (maybe the biggest anyone skater has to face). He felt the most pressure because he is the most talented/skilled skater and everyone has high expectation of him after his world record performances. (If he doesn't have exceptional talent or skills, nobody would care and he wouldn't get any hype.) He was more nervous than usual and that impacted his performance. (He is usually nervous too because fans/skating commutnity has high expectation of him whenever he competes. But the bigger the competition, the higher the expectation.) Anyone who is in the same position as Hanyu, would feel the pressure too and wont' give a better performance either, maybe even give a worse performance. He certainly can improve and develop stronger nerves. But right now, I'm not sure if anyone would've done any better than Hanyu did if they have to face the same amount of pressure and attempt programs with the same level of difficulty.

The thing with Yuzu is, once he makes an early mistake that catches him off guard, often it seems like he starts burning up energy on a different level. And if another mistake comes in the next couple of jumping passes, control of his energy just starts getting away from him. It's quite interesting because most skaters just lose energy, but Yuzu keeps releasing more and more without control, and ends up totally spent and doubled over. I can't explain any better. It's easy to forget, after the mindblowing competitions he had at NHK and GPF, but it seems this is still a problem for him.

I think that practically every skater had a pressure of some special kind at Words:

- US skaters because they were performing for home crowd
- top skaters because they needed to show that they are top skaters and place well
- Hanyu because of his awesome skates during the season
- Fernandez as defending World Champion and more pressure as Hanyu did not skate as well
as expected in the freeskate
- the rest of skaters because it is the Worlds competition...

With Fernandez one must understand that Spain is not a skating country, LOL. Imagine if he were e.g. an American skater, there would be huge and huge crowds of fans for a two-time WC on skating forums. On the other hand I´m really glad to notice that live skating audiences seem to love him everywhere and in Boston they were on their feet even before he had finished his freeskate!

tureis said:

The thing with Yuzu is, once he makes an early mistake that catches him off guard, often it seems like he starts burning up energy on a different level. And if another mistake comes in the next couple of jumping passes, control of his energy just starts getting away from him. It's quite interesting because most skaters just lose energy, but Yuzu keeps releasing more and more without control, and ends up totally spent and doubled over. I can't explain any better. It's easy to forget, after the mindblowing competitions he had at NHK and GPF, but it seems this is still a problem for him.

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Would you care to name skates as examples where this apparently happened? Because I don't see it, still.
He had an early mistake in the 2015 nationals SP, a fall on the 4S. Skated the rest as if the fall never happened. At WTT 2015, he popped the 4T, but delivered the rest better than ever. At 2015 worlds, he had mistakes on all his quads, but still nailed the jumps and performances afterwards both times. At the GPF 2014, he well on the opening 4S, again delivered everything from there one like it didn't happen. And I can recall many more examples than these. When - except for this worlds LP - did he let an early mistake affect him and the rest of the performance?

And I don't mean to disagree with Javi being able to shake mistakes off now to deliver the rest. He does.

Li'Kitsu said:

Would you care to name skates as examples where this apparently happened? Because I don't see it, still.
He had an early mistake in the 2015 nationals SP, a fall on the 4S. Skated the rest as if the fall never happened. At WTT 2015, he popped the 4T, but delivered the rest better than ever. At 2015 worlds, he had mistakes on all his quads, but still nailed the jumps and performances afterwards both times. At the GPF 2014, he well on the opening 4S, again delivered everything from there one like it didn't happen. And I can recall many more examples than these. When - except for this worlds LP - did he let an early mistake affect him and the rest of the performance?

And I don't mean to disagree with Javi being able to shake mistakes off now to deliver the rest. He does.

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Well the two that come to mind from this season are his Skate Canada LP and even his Japanese Nationals LP - though I realize these are with midpoint mistakes. But to me what happens is Yuzu makes that first error, and then starts rushing things. Launches himself into movements. Jumps become too big and fast, and can't control all of them. Maybe it's just me who sees a system behind this and I see it wrong.

With Javi, it almost seems like he has learned to anticipate mistakes at any point, and so handles them differently. Brilliant Worlds LP aside, he is still prone to errors, he just moves right past them. What's changing for Javi is that he now rarely ever pops jumps.

Hanyu is a perfectionist. After skating two clean programs at NHK and GPF he put more pressure on himself to skate clean. He looked absolutely shell shocked after his FS at World this year. In the past yes he has seemed to fall apart after making a mistake. But he's been pretty consistent. Hanyu hasn't had a meltdown like the one he had at worlds in about 3 years. His meltdown at worlds shocked everyone, himself and Orser as well.

padme21 said:

Hanyu hasn't had a meltdown like the one he had at worlds in about 3 years.

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Not at Worlds . . .

But at Skate Canada this season and NHK last season.

Ice Dance said:

Not at Worlds . . .

But at Skate Canada this season and NHK last season.

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I wouldn't call SC a "meltdown". And NHK doesn't really count. Anyone would do good to skate that well after being, you know, UNCONSCIOUS on the ice two weeks before.