Grand Prix Final Analysis | Page 11 | Golden Skate

Grand Prix Final Analysis

lariko

Medalist
Joined
Jan 31, 2019
Country
Canada
To switch back to the ladies for a minute, I think the order will very likely be

Trusova
Kostornaia
Shcherbakova
Zagitova
Tennell

That leaves Kihira who could place anywhere from 2 to 5.

To me Trusova is a wilder card than Kihira due to the inherent volatility of her exceptionally difficult free skate. That is not to say that Kostornaya’s 3As built is not volatile. We see that particular jump go wrong time and again in skaters of marvellous competence. It’s going to be an interesting competition, but it is just the dawn, and I think its significance is that it is the dawn. :)
 

TallyT

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 23, 2018
Country
Australia
On a more pleasant note, it has occurred to me that the GPF is now the first time in over two years that Yuzuru and Nathan have competed where both (skating gods willing) have been in full health and strength and hopefully peaking in performance.

And it's the first senior competition for the full 3A as the shakeout really starts (the evil twin in my head keeps quoting Highlander... "There Can Be Only One." Don't let the girls anywhere near swords or Khakaturian's Sabre Dance, folks :laugh:)
 

Batsuchan

Medalist
Joined
Mar 8, 2014
Interesting tidbit courtesy of Max Ambesi:

The four winners of NHK Trophy ALL became the TOP qualifiers for the Grand Prix Final and were unbeaten across every segment of their GP events. :agree:
https://www.facebook.com/massimiliano.ambesi/posts/1397740990388675?__tn__=-R

However, qualifying first doesn't generally correlate with actually winning the GPF, except in ice dance, where the top qualifiers have gone on to win the GPF 82% of the time. (See his post for the other percentages.)
 

Skater Boy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 24, 2012
If Boyang can keep it together, he can get Bronze more so than others. However, he is not the best during the beginning of the season usually.

I think that is the issue. Who will keep it together after Hanyu and Chen. Aymoz is perhaps the most consistent which doesn't say a lotthen Boyang. The Russians are such a hot mess it is like getting up in the morning and looking out the window and deciding what shoes to wear. It just depends on the day.
 

TallyT

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 23, 2018
Country
Australia
In a way, you have to laugh.... this big, exciting, fiercely followed rivalry, the main one in the entire discipline, is between two guys who will meet up a whole twice this entire season/year :laugh:
 

Makemi

Rinkside
Joined
Nov 4, 2019
On a more pleasant note, it has occurred to me that the GPF is now the first time in over two years that Yuzuru and Nathan have competed where both (skating gods willing) have been in full health and strength and hopefully peaking in performance.

@TallyT Thanks for this reminder! That was Rostelecom 2017 wasn't it? I went back to watch it since you mentioned it. Yes I think they were both fully healthy although since it was the first GP of the season I wouldn't say they were peaking. Neither of them were clean but they sure both fought for everything. That was the first time Yuzu landed a 4Lz I think? Nathan only eked out a win because he made slightly less mistakes than Yuzu in the SP which gave him enough of a lead (Yuzu beat him in the FS).

I'm definitely looking forward to see what happens at GPF. Both going clean might be too much to ask but I'm at least hoping for a good battle. I also think the fact that they meet only twice this season makes the head-to-head all the more exciting! :)
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
On a more pleasant note, it has occurred to me that the GPF is now the first time in over two years that Yuzuru and Nathan have competed where both (skating gods willing) have been in full health and strength and hopefully peaking in performance.

And it's the first senior competition for the full 3A as the shakeout really starts (the evil twin in my head keeps quoting Highlander... "There Can Be Only One." Don't let the girls anywhere near swords or Khakaturian's Sabre Dance, folks :laugh:)

Is this for certain-for certain? Because I was bracing myself for the inevitable “he lost so he must have been dealing with injury” comments from those whose fave ends up losing. :rolleye:

I would love perfect performances from these and the other guys so we can truly see how they stack up against each other.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
@TallyT Thanks for this reminder! That was Rostelecom 2017 wasn't it? I went back to watch it since you mentioned it. Yes I think they were both fully healthy although since it was the first GP of the season I wouldn't say they were peaking. Neither of them were clean but they sure both fought for everything. That was the first time Yuzu landed a 4Lz I think? Nathan only eked out a win because he made slightly less mistakes than Yuzu in the SP which gave him enough of a lead (Yuzu beat him in the FS).

I'm definitely looking forward to see what happens at GPF. Both going clean might be too much to ask but I'm at least hoping for a good battle. I also think the fact that they meet only twice this season makes the head-to-head all the more exciting! :)

That was a dramatic competition. Chen pulled out all the stops to stay ahead of Hanyu. Hanyu’s quad lutz was his first clean one (even got a +3!) and his FS was very strong, but Chen’s four quads and two axels and harder SP content edged him out. Misha Ge was sensational. Raf’s reaction when Chen won. Omg and that was also the one with the Seimei fan girl which the Eurosport commentators pointed out! :biggrin:

I think it will be a good battle - you can tell Hanyu is looking to even the score after Worlds. I’m curious if Nathan is going to upgrade his content for the final (whatever is reported obviously isn’t what he will necessarily go with). He’s clearly able to go a 4Z and 4F although the 4T+3T is effortless for him.

Is Hanyu bringing back said 4Z? And what about the 4A he was talking about (or is he saving that for another season)?
 

khtmyzr

Final Flight
Joined
Apr 5, 2018
Is Hanyu bringing back said 4Z? And what about the 4A he was talking about (or is he saving that for another season)?

Yuzuru said he’s being careful and is trying to stay injury-free to be able to attend both GPF and nationals - so I guess no 4A for now. As for the 4Lz, I believe he said he’s been practicing the jump - so a maybe for that one.

Wow now that I mentioned it, how many 4Lz jumpers would that make across the two singles disciplines? 😮
 

lzxnl

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 8, 2018
That was a dramatic competition. Chen pulled out all the stops to stay ahead of Hanyu. Hanyu’s quad lutz was his first clean one (even got a +3!) and his FS was very strong, but Chen’s four quads and two axels and harder SP content edged him out. Misha Ge was sensational. Raf’s reaction when Chen won. Omg and that was also the one with the Seimei fan girl which the Eurosport commentators pointed out! :biggrin:

I think it will be a good battle - you can tell Hanyu is looking to even the score after Worlds. I’m curious if Nathan is going to upgrade his content for the final (whatever is reported obviously isn’t what he will necessarily go with). He’s clearly able to go a 4Z and 4F although the 4T+3T is effortless for him.

Is Hanyu bringing back said 4Z? And what about the 4A he was talking about (or is he saving that for another season)?

Yuzuru says that the most 'upgraded' form of Otonal has a 4A in it...so perhaps he'll aim for a 4A at Worlds? Gives him time to recover for the next season too if he hurts himself during practice (which might sound unpleasant, but let's be real, that could certainly happen with a 4A given his track record). I'd like to think that he wants to win GPF and will aim to put a 4Lz in. Similarly, I'm expecting Nathan to want to put a 4S and a 4Lz into his programs. Ultimately, it might well be 4Lz + 2x4F + 4S + 3x4T vs 4Lz + 4Lo + 2x4S + 3x4T across both programs.
 

Atlantis

Rinkside
Joined
Apr 7, 2018
Is this for certain-for certain? Because I was bracing myself for the inevitable “he lost so he must have been dealing with injury” comments from those whose fave ends up losing. :rolleye:

He didn't lose because he was injured but he did lose his chance at winning because he was injured, was in a "survival mode" (as said by Orser) and didn't perform anywhere near his best because of that, yeah. Considering his leg was hurting up until summer and he still used pain killers at wc.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
He didn't lose because he was injured but he did lose his chance at winning because he was injured, was in a "survival mode" (as said by Orser) and didn't perform anywhere near his best because of that, yeah. Considering his leg was hurting up until summer and he still used pain killers at wc.

He still performed near his best. He doubled the Salchow in his SP and underrotated it in the FS. Those were costly errors in terms of points but everything else was landed. And he had the highest PCS in both segments. I guess he could have landed his jumps in his FS better and he could have upgraded his jump content but same goes for Chen.

I don’t expect Chen to upgrade his content to the fullest at this point. He’s playing the long game to win Worlds and the 2022 Olympics and producing 5 or 6 quads that he’s capable of at the 2019 GPF is peaking way too early. Same goes for Hanyu - a quad lutz would improve his chances of beating Chen at the final. But seasons are about building and I would imagine either would prefer to get his 3rd World title instead of another GPF title.
 
Joined
Mar 7, 2015
It's just my guts feeling but I think Yuzu and Nathan both will play safe for SP. I mean none of them will upgrade the SP content but wait to see how the SP results work out. Then, based on those results they will proceed to FS with a strategy that maximizes the chance of winning. I think none of them want to risk injury or destroying their winning image in front of judges with obvious mistakes in SP. Just my feeling.
 

lzxnl

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 8, 2018
It's just my guts feeling but I think Yuzu and Nathan both will play safe for SP. I mean none of them will upgrade the SP content but wait to see how the SP results work out. Then, based on those results they will proceed to FS with a strategy that maximizes the chance of winning. I think none of them want to risk injury or destroying their winning image in front of judges with obvious mistakes in SP. Just my feeling.

There's no real point in taking risks in the short. You don't stand to gain many more points for a perfect 4Lz vs a perfect 4S (+3?), but a fall sets you back at least 8 points, and a UR possibly similarly as much. In the long, the tradeoff is between a 4Lz and a 3Lz, for instance, which is a much more worthwhile proposition. Hence why you might see Yuzuru try a 4Lz in the free, but why I'd be shocked if he changes his SP layout. I don't expect Nathan to change from his current SP layout too much.
 

Makemi

Rinkside
Joined
Nov 4, 2019
Wow now that I mentioned it, how many 4Lz jumpers would that make across the two singles disciplines? ��

If we include Alysa Liu and the junior guys we have 7 senior 4Lz jumpers in the GPF and 4 junior 4Lz jumpers in the JGPF (for a total of 11 4Lz jumpers). Based on what was executed in the GPs/JGPs, we could see:

Trusova - 1
Scherbakova - 2
Chen - 1 (maybe 2)
Hanyu - (maybe 1)
Aliev - 2 (if he doesn't pop them)
Samarin - 2
Jin - 2
Liu - 1 (wouldn't be surprised if it became 2)
Samsonov - 1
Grassl - 1
Gumennik - 1
-------------------
So 14-17 4Lutzs :eeking:
 
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CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Obviously, he didn't. You can see at SCI how he scores when he doesn't double and underrotate anything.

Yes but that’s just two elements (the same one at that). Everything else was cleanly executed and pretty wellperformed. Those errors are costly in terms of points and compared to his personal best but it still cleared 300.

I mean one judge gave him a 10.00 for PE so clearly they thought he couldn’t perform any better!
 
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