2019-20 GP and JGP Final: Day 1 | Golden Skate

2019-20 GP and JGP Final: Day 1

Silvia451

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 6, 2014
Country
Romania
I'm heartbroken for Yuzu and a little bit disappointed by the SP of Sui/Han.

Kevin was fun to watch, though. :agree:
 

vesperalvioletta

Medalist
Joined
Oct 20, 2017
Country
United-States
I only got the see the juniors, but I loved seeing Panfilova / Rylov again. They're just so talented and impressive. I hope they're able to get their triples, because they belong in seniors. Pepeleva / Pleshkov are also very charming. It's a shame that they always seem to have one little error or another in their program. I prefer them to Akhanteva / Kolesov.

Overall I was disappointed by the scoring in the junior ladies event. Alysa Liu is very captivating and charming on the ice, but I can't get past how tiny and tight the jumps look. I said this in the competition thread, but I wish Usacheva had the lead after the short. There's something special about her, at least in my opinion, and she gave such a sensitive and polished performance despite her angsty music. I guess I'm just more partial to the European style.

I'm glad Valieva isn't risking her health by pushing the technical content, but selfishly I'm a little bummed that the fight for gold won't be all that interesting. Liu has it in the bag I think, barring any sort of disaster. I like all of these girls, but most of all I hope Dasha has a clean skate and ends up on the podium.

That half-second flaily Ina Bauer Kamila does will never fail to irritate me though. Not her fault, but why did they let her keep doing that??
 

ladyjane

Medalist
Joined
Jun 26, 2012
Country
Netherlands
I'm sorry to say I did not watch the whole of the JGPF events although I did watch Alysa. Great combo (I've never seen a junior do a triple axel triple toe before - ever) and enjoyable. But...and that's just me, I like a bit more maturity in skating (which is why I am not as enthusiastic about the juniors even though I realise they're really very good)

The Seniors were great.

Pairs:
That was a wonderful event even though both Cheng Peng/Yang Jin and Kirsten Moore-Towers/Michael Marinaro failed to deliver. Very unusual to see Kirsten not landing a throw, she usually does. And the Chinese seemed to be a bit off. However, the Russians delivered. Daria and Denis showed what they are capable of today, and it just wowed me. I'm not even really a fan (because I love so many other pairs, it's not a deficit on their part) but today they were great. Anastasia and Alexandr also did well, but somehow I can't really connect with them. A fault on my side probably, not theirs. My favourite Russian team also did well - I continue to love Aleksandra and Dmitrii. I love their programme to My Way. So fitting to them, and yes Alexandra's smile was in place if less present than it sometimes is (nerves probably). Sui and Han were the best, but not perfect (hand necessary on the throw regrettably) so there's room for the others tomorrow. Much as I am rooting for Sui/Han to finally win a GPF, it should be the best team present who wins, and as far as I am concerned it's still open. It's going to be really exciting in the Free Skate.

Mens:
I've already commented in the competition thread but I'll repeat some of it: Kevin skated lights out despite a music problem at the beginning which could have deflected him. I've never seen him skate an SP so well, and the judges agreed. Boyang Jin showed he's more than a jumper and luckily so because his first jump went wrong. He fought though, showed grit, and also kept his head in the right place and tried to compensate for his mistake. Dmitri Aliev was lovely to watch, as always, even when his combination wasn't perfect. Still beautiful. Nathan was perfect, although his costume left quite a bit to desire (but that's just a bit shallow, I know). Alexander Samarin wasn't on with his jumps, and without them there isn't much else (although I love his lines). Yuzu had a wonderful skate - I mean, doing twizzles after an axel is so good - but he missed his combination. Still great to watch, and he got second but it was really a shame. His skating skills, choreography and performance are second to none, but he definitely was not at his best because of the lack of technical robustness. However, it was a great event in the sense of watching some good skating. And of course: Kevin, Yay!
 

1111bm

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 31, 2016
I can't believe the ISU stream had a commentator... ruined the whole event for me, literally couldn't watch it because it was so annoying and intrusive. :disapp::rolleye:

If anyone has links to non-commentary videos of the men with acceptable picture quality, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could share.
 

princessalica

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
I absolutely love watching Nathan, and I was really disappointed for Yuzu. I wanted to see them both skate beautifully done shorts and actually see a side by side of the two of the scores. They are both so fantastic. Definitely the two are in a league of their own.

I really enjoyed watching Alysa skate, but I also really enjoyed all of the other junior ladies. They were all so good!
 

Harriet

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 23, 2017
Country
Australia
KEVIN. Just, Kevin. :)

And Eurosport Chris giving good value as always. Nice to have him back!
 

icybear

Medalist
Joined
Mar 18, 2017
Its puzzling why the Eurosport commentator is now calling Boyang "Boyang YIN." He's been calling him Jin for the past 4 years until the Worlds this year and now suddenly he's calling him Yin. Aside from that, its great to have some commentary. Though Ted would have been better.
 

lariko

Medalist
Joined
Jan 31, 2019
Country
Canada
I was cheering so loud for Mozalev to win that they must have heard it in Torino. Yup. It must have been it. Just really love that program. Sad that Samsonov and Grassl faltered a little, I love their skating!

I didn’t recognize Sinitzina’s style here, but I hope she gets a great free. Alysa was awesome!

Was happy to see Mukhametzianova & Mironov have a good showing and yup, Panfilova/Rylov rock!

Darn shame about Peng & Yang, I love that SP! Boykova&Kozlovskiy totally got my heart by now so I grumbled a little that even with the downgraded lift/messed up throw Sue/Cong inched ahead, but I guess it is the speed of skating & smaller things I cannot see because I don’t know things. I was really worried about Pavlyuchenko/Khodykin going in, but they are doing great, so :thumbsup:

As for men, well I am going to pretty much repeat everyone’s sentiments about Aymoz shining & it being sad that Hanyu missed combo, and Samarin missed combo, and Aliev doubled that one... Chen is superhuman. That’s the fact.

Cannot wait for the Ladies Epic.
 

Colonel Green

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 3, 2018
Country
Canada
There's something that feels a bit weird about having just Chris from Eurosport commentating; one keeps waiting for Simon to chime in.

Kevin Aymoz was the standout for me on the first day.

Disappointed for Kirsten & Michael. Ironically, just before the fall I was thinking how impressively consistent they had been with that extremely difficult throw entrance; not to be today, unfortunately.

In junior, the ladies were a generally pretty consistent bunch, only a few minor errors here and there. Alysa Liu is such a buoyant personality on the ice, she's always fun to watch when the program plays to that (as was the case here).

Panfilova/Rylov are such a great pair team, I really hope the jump limitations get worked out in the near future.
 

1111bm

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 31, 2016
Though Ted would have been better.

Obviously, since he doesn't talk over the music or during the performance at all. He's also calm and talks in a normal conversational tone and not like he's commentating a football game...
 

Interspectator

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 25, 2012
I'm terribly sad that Yuzu couldn't do the combo in an otherwise flawless performance. :( I was so moved by how much Yuzu put into this performance and that made the mistake all the more heartbreaking. -But Yuzu is always a fighter. He'll turn it around and learn from it.
Happy with the over-all performances of the guys. Nathan was so cool under pressure. I really admire that.

I WAS going to go on a rant about Nathan's shirt, designed by Vera Wang...:dev2: -but that might get too negative and excessive, so why not approach it from the other side?
Who likes this shirt? Tell me what you like about it and make it cool, make it worthy of Nathan. :pray:
 

MRani

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 20, 2017
I'm terribly sad that Yuzu couldn't do the combo in an otherwise flawless performance. :( I was so moved by how much Yuzu put into this performance and that made the mistake all the more heartbreaking. -But Yuzu is always a fighter. He'll turn it around and learn from it.
Happy with the over-all performances of the guys. Nathan was so cool under pressure. I really admire that.

I WAS going to go on a rant about Nathan's shirt, designed by Vera Wang...:dev2: -but that might get too negative and excessive, so why not approach it from the other side?
Who likes this shirt? Tell me what you like about it and make it cool, make it worthy of Nathan. :pray:

The shirt is hideous, makes zero sense in relation to the actual program, and Vera Wang needs to step far away from figure skating.

Nathan skated great :)
 

sheetz

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 10, 2015
The retro sci-fi look of the shirt could go well with the "Rocketman" theme of his FS.
 

peepsquick

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 26, 2016
Am I the only one to think that the press conference with Yuzu, Nathan ans Kevin was excruciating? What an ordeal, especially for Yuzu and by association for the two other skaters. :bang:
 

Elucidus

Match Penalty
Joined
Nov 19, 2017
Operator's work was terrible.

Junior men:
Bland and boring.

Junior ladies:
Judging was bad, as always. Not as bad as it was in GP events (at least TP are not trying to invent mistakes here.. for now) but still pretty bad. I don't know why ladies are always judged so terribly comparing to other disciplines - but it is what it is.
Alysa Liu having the same PCS as Usacheva, Valieva, Sinitsina and better PCS than Lee - is a joke. Considering that she skated just after Usacheva and Valieva makes you doubt in judges eyesight or sanity. How her bland, boring and childish program (I still can't remember what it is about, tbh - despite I've seen it.. fourth time already? There were lots of smiles.. yeah..) and diligent skating without even tenth of her rivals balletic grace, sophistication and fluidity could make them give her the same scores? Is it 3A and tech advantage magic? Maybe so, but why I hear so many criticism of PCS inflation due to tech content only in Trusova's case? So many mysteries in ladies figure skating fandom nowadays :rolleye:
Also it was pretty funny to hear how worried Ted Barton was seeing Alysa's URed 3A in slo-mo in replay - and how glad he was that TP ignored that. Which still surprised me though - Ted should know better by now that usual ignoring of Alysa's URs is law of nature by now - she is pretty much invisible in eyes of any tech panel. So you should just accept that rule and don't have a speck of worry about her. All she needs is just not fall - pretty easy task with her Miyahara's level of consistency. Ah, you say it wasn't fair in relation to making Haen Lee UR call in 3Lz+3T< ? Well, from top skaters, Koreans (and sometimes Japanese) are often getting short end of a stick due to their federation having less pull in ISU.. probably :confused2: Hm, maybe KorFed should make official complain about inconsistent calling to ISU too? :scratch2: I think it's good idea :agree: Protecting their skaters should be customary for every fed given modern judging.


Senior man:
Nathan Chen having the same PCS/GOEs as Yuzuru Hanyu is a double joke.
That's said, all in all this event was MUCH better than junior ones. It had drive, it had passion and nerve, it had truly competitive atmosphere. Despite what usual local crowd whines about - QUADS makes difference. Artistic or not - quadless short programs are pretty boring to watch for casual viewers - so unless they permit quads for ladies and juniors in short - this part of competition is gonna be less popular and exciting. And it shows even in number of viewers - both online and in rink seats. Well, I admit that new commentator instead of Ted Barton - with his soccer-matches-like style of commenting - played part in that :biggrin: Nevertheless it was very fun to watch with focus mostly on jumping elements.. it added so much pure sports excitement - similar to gambling fervor - that it surprised even me. So many here loves to downplay jumps significance in contrast to other elements in performance perception that it made me question my own taste sometimes as not being very normal.. Well, now I'll just stop to pay that much attention to them :laugh: It seems here is just pretty niche (and vocal) crowd while in reality majority of fans LOVES quads. And ISU tries to makes them happy too with quadsters scores since popularity=money and it matters for them :)
 
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