2017 Worlds Preview: Men

I do not care about quad jumps, I just value complete skaters.
So I voted for Yuzu. I think he will finally be able to reclaim his title this time.

Where's Kovtun in the poll?!

pETEs (Sasha Fan) said:

Why no Denis Ten (KAZ) in the poll? He is not competing?

Click to expand...

puremagic said:

Where's Kovtun in the poll?!

Click to expand...

Other

pETEs (Sasha Fan) said:

Why no Denis Ten (KAZ) in the poll? He is not competing?

Click to expand...

puremagic said:

Where's Kovtun in the poll?!

Click to expand...

Well none of them have realistic chances for a gold medal. Denis Ten, so to say, is not in the best form of his life (although I really want him to do well), while it would be very hard for a relatively clean Kovtun to even finish somewhere near the podium. It's only realistic when all the above mentioned men skate one of the worst programs of their careers. Which just won't happen.

I'm really hoping for Yuzuru to regain the World title since 2014, but I'm prepared for anyone else to become World Champion like Javi winning for the last two seasons.

I want them all to win for different personal sentiments:

- for overall package and admiration of his hard work, strive and ethics - Yuzuru

- for excitement and fresh power brought - Nathan

- for entertainment and showmanship value - Javier

- for feather, easy on eyes skill and magnitude of interpretation - Patrick

- for exquisiteness of Tango FS, mystery and all craziness included - Shoma

- for a lot of promise in that cute smile and ambitious package - Boyang

- for being himself, confident in the way he does, with all he has right now - Jason

I voted for Yuzuru. He's a rock star and skating needs him to continue to be the top dog.

But I would be okay with any of them winning. My heart is with Shoma, my head is with Hanyu and my calculator is with Chen.

I am hoping Patrick skates well. When he does he's such a joy to watch. So beautiful, so elegant.

NoNameFace said:

I want them all to win for different personal sentiments:

- for overall package and admiration of his hard work, strive and ethics - Yuzuru

- for excitement and fresh power brought - Nathan

- for entertainment and showmanship value - Javier

- for feather, easy on eyes skill and magnitude of interpretation - Patrick

- for exquisiteness of Tango FS, mystery and all craziness included - Shoma

- for a lot of promise in that cute smile and ambitious package - Boyang

- for being himself, confident in the way he does, with all he has right now - Jason

Click to expand...

Ugh, and no wishes for Kovtun! How dare you!

puremagic said:

Ugh, and no wishes for Kovtun! How dare you!

Click to expand...

apologies, especially for You and for Maxim himself - I do wish Maxim will overcome his headcasing for good and show himself as strong as he can be, if he will - he will be a winner with huge personal victory for me, regardless of placement, because I do really enjoy his quirkiness he has and do not ever want him to fail

ancientpeas said:

My heart is with Shoma, my head is with Hanyu and my calculator is with Chen.

Click to expand...

SAME. This is going to be exciting and heartbreaking no matter what happens.

So far, they go off at these odds.

Chen 3 to 1
Chan 17 to 2
Fernandez 10 to 1
Jin 73 to 1
Uno 24 to 1
Hanyu 4 to 5
Other 200 to 1.

I'll put $2.00 on Jin at 73 to 1.

Those odds are...off. Uno goes into this championship with more going for him than Fernandez and certainly has a much better chance than 24-to-1 to win. He is only slightly below Hanyu's level at this point, their tech is pretty much equal now, and his overall skating is one of the best in the World. That's a really nice bet right there, were it real.

ancientpeas said:

But I would be okay with any of them winning. My heart is with Shoma, my head is with Hanyu and my calculator is with Chen.

Click to expand...

They have the puppy predictors on TV. Maybe you should let your big boy determine who the winner is going to be? You can set out dishes with the 3 names and see to which one he goes first! :clapper: (Of course there has to be food in each dish).

It sems to be a consensus that clean Yuzuru will win; but that didn't happen since 2015 gpf:sad21: I think the most likely case for him to skate clean is he being angry after seeing clean Chen lands 5 quads.

Uh... We are going to be in Europe guys!

Odds are in Javier's favour if he delivers - defending as the two times consecutive world champion.
I'd give him odds at 4 to 1. PCS mid 90s.

The odds are in everyone's favor if they deliver. Because the odds are that most of them don't deliver.

We all know a poll can't tell us who will.

Thoughts:
Hanyu gets both marks, no matter what program he skates to these days and loads of credit from the judges even when he doesn't deliver. He often doesn't deliver when everyone assumes he will. But he's coming from behind after 4CCs and that may be what he needs to finally attack a full two programs at Worlds. If he does, likely no one can stop him. Though I don't think his free skate is very good this season. The short will sell if he hits it, and he may have another seemingly unstoppable lead after it. (Though he may not. He is being outjumped, especially in the short).

Javier likes being the underdog. I don't think he trained like he can this fall or that the GP is representative of his potential. But Europeans was worrying. He could have made a strong statement there, and he didn't. Elvis is OK, and he's getting huge components even when he doesn't deliver these days. But the program doesn't feel like it matches Javi's persona as much as I expected it to, and Malaguena--if anything--feels less powerful than last season. Still, he's in Europe and the crowd will love him if he delivers. He has to deliver because he's not trying the harder quads. We haven't seen him deliver this season.

Shoma has a great free skate. Maybe the best free program of the season. It's powerful. It suits him. And the footwork sequence really works. He's added a LOT of difficulty since last year, including the loop after the GPF. He's getting to the point where he can afford mistakes and still score high. But can he eliminate the mistakes in the big pressure situations? I keep predicting him to fly in under the radar and win something over the guys favored above him--have been doing it for two years now--and am starting to wonder if the answer may be no. But he has the cards to place higher than he has thus far in his career.

Nathan is a competitor. I feel like we've been waiting ever since Plushenko's retirement for a competitor to step up in the men's field, and Nathan is it. He's young. It's his first Worlds. He's trying more difficulty than anyone else. The short program is great, the free not as strong. He won't get the PCS of the more decorated athletes regardless. But he's not relying on it. He's outjumping the field. There are all kinds of reasons to doubt he will win this; and if he doesn't deliver, it will probably be on the axel. But every time I predict him to finish somewhere, he exceeds it. I don't think this field is used to dealing with someone who delivers, and I think they will have to deliver themselves to keep him at bay.

Jin actually has a stellar short program, IMO. One with the potential to get Javi-like crowd applause if he hits it and enough difficulty to score huge. His free has more holes, and his jumps have been questionable in it all season. If he hits the lutz combo like he was last season, then his GOE will go up. But we don't know if he's going for the loop or if he can do it if he does. We know he hands over a lot of PCS points to the the field. He's been too inconsistent this season for me to pick him for the podium; but there's a lot of untapped scoring potential here that we haven't seen from him during the season. He's a dark horse that could definitely surprise if he finally delivers here. Han Yan pulling out isn't good for Jin. It adds pressure.

Patrick does know what it's like to surprise, and we have seen him perform clean free skates enough times in his life that I know better than to count him out. But there's no reason to expect him to hit the salchow; and at this point, I feel like there's good reason to expect that he needs it to win. His axel is just as unpredictable as Nathan's. I actually think Patrick's free skate holds up very well as a vehicle for him. Can't get over the tweeting birds in the short, but of course, the judges don't mind. He's a darker horse than Jin, I think, at this stage; but less pressure is always good for Patrick. And like Hanyu, it's to our advantage if Patrick's fighting spirit comes out. Can Patrick beat a clean Nathan Chen with two clean programs? No, I don't think he can. Can he beat one with a jittery first Worlds. Yes. But Nathan, Shoma, and Hanyu? That's a big ask.

My own predictions -

1. Hanyu - He is a warrior; between him and Javi, he is the one upping the tech ante by going for more quads while at the same time maintaining the highest level of artistry (PCS). If he is clean (and I know that can be a stretch), he controls his own destiny.
2. Fernandez - He is 2x World Champ and seems to peak for the event. But he is not upping the tech ante like Yuzu. Caveat: He must be clean to beat a clean Chen. If he has an error and Chen is clean, then I put him 3rd behind Chen
3. Chen - He will give the tech performance of the night, but lag enough in the PCS to finish behind Hanyu and Fernandez. See above. If he is clean and Fernandez makes a mistake, Chen could be 2d
4. Uno - He has the best LP choreographically and is also upping the tech ante w/ 4F and 4L. He is more prone to a mistake here and there, though.
5. Chan - He has the best SS and can compete w/ someone like Fernandez if he were clean in both tech and artistry, but being clean seems to be the problem. His best score of 295 dates all the way back to 2013, unlike the men I rank above him who are earning the high scores in the present day or within the past year.
6. Jin - He is more entertaining this year but his skating is still unrefined.
7. D10 - He is remarkably inconsistent lately: At best, he could either be competing w/ Jin or a sloppy Chan, or falling below Brown, the Russians, etc. I think he has it in him to be somewhere in between. He has scored 269 and 266 points this year, and I think his performances at Worlds will be in that ballpark.
8. Kovtun - I think one Russian man will deliver and Kovtun seems to improve each competition since Russian Nats. But I don't forget that he can be horribly inconsistent as well. Still, he achieved a PB at Euros and I think he will do well.
9. Brown - It is reported that he has back at full strength and if so, we might see performances similar to '16 SA which would score him between 265 - 270 points.
10.Kolyada - He has never gotten off the ground this season and was plagued last month by a back problem (?) causing him to skip a competition.

I would put Han Yan as the most likely to surprise candidate, but I think he has WD from Worlds (?)

Of the rest, Bychenko had one great competition at RC '16 and scored 255 points, but his performances since have not measured up to that. Brezina has a top score of 243 points dating all the way back to '13 Euros, so I have not seen anything from him this year that would suggest he could challenge the top 10. Tanaka doesn't have the TES or PCS to go after a top 10 finish. Hendrickx would be in this group of men.

My head is telling me to go with Chen. After delivering 3 technically amazing free skates back to back to back, I think the momentum is in his lane right now. If he's able to ride that momentum, I can see the PCS gap shrinking even more at worlds.
But my heart is whispering for Yuzuru to win. Maybe 3rd time will be the charm for Yuzuru to finally regain his world title. How many times does he need to lose before it's no longer "his to lose"
But I wouldn't be surprised if Javi got a 3-peat. He peaks at the right time and gets just as good GOE and PCS as Yuzuru.

Moria Polonius said:

Heh, think what would happen if Patrick won, only two quads and all. If I weren't such a Hanyu fan I'd actually want it to happen, just for the "quads race? what quads race?" factor.

I think Javier always flies under the radar because his performances prior to Worlds aren't as stellar as his competitiors' and he doesn't have the highest base value so we don't expect him to beat those who have higher tech and better preceding results.

Click to expand...

Good points you made. :thumbsup: I'd like to see Patrick on the podium again, but I feel it's so unlikely.

not that hyped as gut tells me this WC will turn out to be another ********, or to put it mildly, a disappointing experience as it has been for the past two years. hope i'm wrong.

Chen is having some boot problem lately but what exactly does boot mean? near the ankle? his performance might suffer

Hanyu probably gonna pop a thing or two and wins but i feel he is not 100% healthy this season all along and he is not putting it all out there for obvious reasons

Chan is struggling even more and Javier is gone baby gone, out of nowhere, they both in top form?

Shoma not consistent enough as the problem is rooted in his jumping technique so dramatic improvement is very unlikely

Jin is said to be in good shape but i'm sorry irresistible impulse to fast foward his performance everytime

there's some sort of curse surrounding regining WC champion going into OG, after all, only Lysacek won both for seven OG in the past and even that, is a hugely controversial one.