2019 4CCs: Pairs FS | Golden Skate

2019 4CCs: Pairs FS

gsk8

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Country
United-States
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China’s Wenjing Sui and Cong Han overtook Canada’s Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro to capture the gold medal in the Pairs event at the 2019 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships on Saturday afternoon. The win makes it their fifth title after six appearances at this event. Teammates Cheng Peng and Yang Jin maintained third for the bronze.

“We were only showing what we have completed during our training, but actually we are not familiar with our program yet,” said Han. “Like the number of time we skated with music is really insufficient. We were a little stressed on ice today. It was a bit tough because we weren’t familiar enough.”

Sui agreed, add: “We did four or five, maybe even less (full run throughs), two or three times? The third time (complete run through) was actually this very time. I feel like overall we were less prepared and needed more systematic training.”


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What are your thoughts on the Pairs event?
 
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CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
MT/M deserved gold even with the lift issue. Sui and Han were not on for several elements and had a fall in each program whereas MT/M were close to clean. And that's not even me saying it because they're Canadian, and I loves me some Sui/Han too - but in this competition, MT/M were better on the whole.
 

DSQ

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Country
United-Kingdom
Oh my god Sui and Han it was magical and her message to all the skaters to keep healthy was so sweet.

I love loved their spin positions.
 

gsk8

Record Breaker
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Jun 21, 2003
Country
United-States
I hope Sui and Han will consider keeping their FS for next season. It's a great program and would be sad to see them only use it twice.
 

gsk8

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Country
United-States
MT/M deserved gold even with the lift issue. Sui and Han were not on for several elements and had a fall in each program whereas MT/M were close to clean. And that's not even me saying it because they're Canadian, and I loves me some Sui/Han too - but in this competition, MT/M were better on the whole.

I have to agree here. I adore Sui/Han, but I was surprised. I thought they had it.
 

ssminnow

Rinkside
Joined
Nov 17, 2007
S/H looked understandably rusty. I have faith that by Worlds they can regain enough form to be competitive with the top Europeans, but the 3S is a long-term concern. Has Sui ever landed it cleanly in competition? How will they manage to stay competitive to 2022 with upcoming juniors all having much harder technical content?

That said, their LP is a very well-choreographed program, and they have such explosive speed and energy.
 

gottadance

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 27, 2009
I have to agree here. I adore Sui/Han, but I was surprised. I thought they had it.

I also agree - the GOA given on several elements to S/H were too high and those given to MT/M a bit low . However I think MT/M have set them selves up nicely for Worlds and if they can straighten out the lift issues they have a chance to do something really good. It seemed several of the pairs were fatiqued today as they had to skate back to back days , I think they have a day off between short and long programs at Worlds ?
 

Roast Toast

Medalist
Joined
Apr 13, 2017
Hope S/H skate that program better at worlds. Not their best.

I'm praying for a clean free at Worlds, this program has immense potential imo and I don't want a repeat of Bridge over troubled water... When she left the landing edge of the throw sal running right into the death spiral :drama:

Scores clearly could have gone either way but KMT/M had a deceptively messy free. A bit of a gift for S/H tbh but I'm not gonna complain :scard8:
 

Step Sequence4

JULLLIEEEEETTTT!
Final Flight
Joined
Jan 12, 2018
I hope Sui and Han will consider keeping their FS for next season. It's a great program and would be sad to see them only use it twice.

Somewhat off topic but related; I hope Zhenya will also do this with her new short! That and S/H's FS are two of my favs from this season!
 

icybear

Medalist
Joined
Mar 18, 2017
MT/M deserved gold even with the lift issue. Sui and Han were not on for several elements and had a fall in each program whereas MT/M were close to clean. And that's not even me saying it because they're Canadian, and I loves me some Sui/Han too - but in this competition, MT/M were better on the whole.

Well the difference in fs score was only 0.6 which Sui/Han won because of their higher pcs. The Canadian team program was not artistically brilliant compared to S/H. Their choreography and music was pretty bland.
 

QuadThrow

Medalist
Joined
Oct 1, 2014
S/H looked understandably rusty. I have faith that by Worlds they can regain enough form to be competitive with the top Europeans, but the 3S is a long-term concern. Has Sui ever landed it cleanly in competition? How will they manage to stay competitive to 2022 with upcoming juniors all having much harder technical content?

That said, their LP is a very well-choreographed program, and they have such explosive speed and energy.
She has landed two clean 3S at GPF 2017 and NHK Trophy 2017. Because of this element they probably have no chance to win the world title. The 3T is a problem, too. Nevertheless their lifts and overall expression are amazing.

I think the victory was deserved. The PCS gap was quite low to MT/M. So I do not see where they should have been overmarked.

Sui and Han keep on losing levels at their pair spin. They try to make it even more unique but do not receive the keypoints. The same happened at the Olympics and gave Aljona/Bruno the Gold... I think it is time to rechange this element into a normal level 4 spin.
 

ladyjane

Medalist
Joined
Jun 26, 2012
Country
Netherlands
Despite the scary and fuzzy lift, I also thought Kirstin and Michael should have won this, but I think to them this was a great achievement in itself. And it was! But Wenjing Sui and Cong Han do have better skating and a lovely programme even if the programme needs to grow and needs more ice coverage (of which they should be capable). And Sui was ever so sweet in wishing all athletes good health. As usual she was very emotional during the awarding of the medals (which is also rather moving), and I was happy for them anyway. But, to be honest, it was Kirstin and Michaels day, and they should have gotten the gold. Not that I think there was any inappropriate judging going on or something. We did all notice the big (!!!!) difference in points. And I do love watching Sui/Han, so I'm not surprised the judges do too. I was also pleased to see Cheng Peng and Yang Jin doing much better today than in their short (where they were overscored in my view) and deservedly getting the bronze. Ashley and Tim skated well too, and were truly the best of the Americans, even of it did not reach to a medal this year. A pity the first half of the event was a bit of a let down with falls and a totally botched lift (not just scary and fuzzy, truly botched).
 

GGFan

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 9, 2013
I'm biased but have no problem with the results. The judges were pretty conservative in their marks actually and they could have more blatantly given S/H the PCS lead. Some sloppiness but I really enjoyed the competition overall. Hopefully next year we have more countries represented.

S/H's free was the highlight of the entire competition for me. That was next level choreography, expression, and movement. :bow:
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Well the difference in fs score was only 0.6 which Sui/Han won because of their higher pcs. The Canadian team program was not artistically brilliant compared to S/H. Their choreography and music was pretty bland.

Agreed that in comparison it was bland and they definitely need more speed. But overall just felt they had the better competition SP+LP considered.
 

oly2018

Final Flight
Joined
Feb 13, 2018
I think Kristen and Michael lost the PCS game because they skated after S/H. I don't think the placements are wrong. S/H had more obvious mistakes, but M-T/M had quite a few dicey elements that were less obviously mistakes. I think in most match ups, S/H deserve to win PCS. The Pink Floyd program just seemed dated and cheesy after S/H's program. I think it's fair they were close, but the placements aren't wrong.
 

GGFan

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 9, 2013
S/H looked understandably rusty. I have faith that by Worlds they can regain enough form to be competitive with the top Europeans, but the 3S is a long-term concern. Has Sui ever landed it cleanly in competition? How will they manage to stay competitive to 2022 with upcoming juniors all having much harder technical content?

That said, their LP is a very well-choreographed program, and they have such explosive speed and energy.

I think they would have to bring back their quad twist and possibly their quad throw. I guess they could also plan a double axel sequence so their PCS isn't capped.

Of course I would much prefer for her to get the 3S.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Despite the scary and fuzzy lift, I also thought Kirstin and Michael should have won this, but I think to them this was a great achievement in itself. And it was! But Wenjing Sui and Cong Han do have better skating and a lovely programme even if the programme needs to grow and needs more ice coverage (of which they should be capable). And Sui was ever so sweet in wishing all athletes good health. As usual she was very emotional during the awarding of the medals (which is also rather moving), and I was happy for them anyway. But, to be honest, it was Kirstin and Michaels day, and they should have gotten the gold. I was also pleased to see Cheng Peng and Yang Jin doing much better today than in their short (where they were overscored in my view) and deservedly getting the bronze. Ashley and Tim skated well too, and were truly the best of the Americans, even of it did not reach to a medal this year. A pity the first half of the event was a bit of a let down with falls and a totally botched lift (not just scary and fuzzy, truly botched).

Oddly the lift got everything from -5 (way too harsh) to +3 (too generous), but yeah that was the decider. I also thought Sui's 3S was <<, but it was a far camera shot and the tech panel probably had the best angle for deciding that.
 

GGFan

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 9, 2013
Oddly the lift got everything from -5 (way too harsh) to +3 (too generous), but yeah that was the decider. I also thought Sui's 3S was <<, but it was a far camera shot and the tech panel probably had the best angle for deciding that.

Yes even as their fan I can admit it was <<. They probably plan it away from the tech to get the benefit of the doubt, which is smart.
 
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