2015 Freezer Aerial FS Challenge, Jun25-26, new $30K jump comp

[Interspectator]

It has been fun to see bits of this jumping contest, but I feel bad that Brendan was not allowed in. :disapp:
Wouldn't it have made it so much more competitive and exciting? Not to mention Brendan is a crowd pleaser and would certainly have done some extra performing to go with his jumps.
Next year perhaps?

 

[burntBREAD]

it is, but looking at the report seems like he landed many, and its still very impressive !
i didnt know about vivian before but she is interesting skater, has different style on her jumps, its like she is pausing time for like miliseconds and continues if that makes sense and her tano variation is also very interesting, pulling her arm down as she starts going down instead of keeping it up all the way through, juniors will be excitiing next year, wont it

I totally understand what you're saying! She has a big delay in her jumps, which really is only possible if you have huge height AND you can snap yourself into quick, quick rotation afterwards. It's very difficult and helps with GOE and impression!

 

[gkelly]

The ONLY place a jump should be ratified is at an ISU Senior competition.

The first ratified quad salchow was Tim Goebel's at the 1998 JGP Final. Would you take that away from him?

 

[ice coverage]

BTW, the Freezer attendance was approx. 800, according to the Gazette article.

Does anyone have an idea whether 800 is more than the usual crowd size at the Broadmoor Open? Or not?

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Vivian is the defending National Juniors champion, has a HUGE lutz, and I believe will be debuting on the JGP this year. Her new SP is somewhere on YouTube.

Going back thru the thread, and just want to underline that Vivian is "only" the 2015 junior bronze medalist from U.S. Nats -- not the champion.

http://www.usfigureskating.org/leaderboard/results/2015/2015_us_fs_champs/CAT003SEG020.html​

I love Mirai and Mariah, but very cool that Vivian was the Freezer winner.

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ETA:

Mirai Nagasu's 3A attempt, << though. https://instagram.com/p/4aapiIHI1B/

Thank you for the Mirai vid.​

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More Freezer videos:

Jason -- a different vid than on Facebook, I think:

https://instagram.com/p/4a-JC4HpVx/​

Philip Warren backflips:

https://instagram.com/p/4aoDdHHI64/
https://instagram.com/p/4apdofHI9g/​

Jordan, Mariah, Jason -- not jumping, intros only

https://instagram.com/p/4a3qe1h7n-/​

---

Tom Zakrajsek ‏@CoachTomZ

Philip Warren wins $500 prize for highest jump @AerialChallenge 28.676 in/.770833 sec @icenetwork @USFigureSkating
9:21 AM - 27 Jun 2015
https://twitter.com/CoachTomZ/status/614830984303783936 (attached photo has chart with data for many Freezer skaters)​

ETA:

The top portion of the chart is more readable in the photo later tweeted by Courtney Hicks:

https://twitter.com/courtneynhicks/status/615207353151983616 (Jun 28)​

---

@SarahandDrew

Top 3 @AerialChallenge unofficial scores Max 96.96, Aleksei 95.13, Nathan 90.31; Vivian 66.90, Mirai 57.34, Mariah 51.26
8:58 AM - 27 Jun 2015
https://twitter.com/SarahandDrew/status/614825236832329728​

 

[burntBREAD]

Oops -- corrected -- I must've mixed it up with two years ago when Vivian was Novice champ. My bad! I remember her National Juniors now, she came back from a very very low placement in the SP to scrape out third!

 

[karne]

It has been fun to see bits of this jumping contest, but I feel bad that Brendan was not allowed in. :disapp:
Wouldn't it have made it so much more competitive and exciting? Not to mention Brendan is a crowd pleaser and would certainly have done some extra performing to go with his jumps.
Next year perhaps?

It certainly didn't help their backflip competition, where they only had three competitors, and Ricky was the easy winner; if Brendan had been there, there would at least have been another to challenge him. And Brendan can do the 4S-1Lo-3S also, which would have been fun.

As you say, next year, I hope.

 

[ice coverage]

Official results for Freezer Challenge (only top three placements -- without any scores listed):

http://www.broadmoorskatingclub.com/FREEZER AERIAL CHALLENGE RESULTS.pdf (one-page PDF)​

Link above from:

http://www.broadmoorskatingclub.com/BOpen1.html​

 

[ice coverage]

Re the ISU and Krasnozhon's quad loops:

FWIW, today the official ISU Figure Skating page on Facebook shared the IFS video of Aleksei's quad loop.

https://www.facebook.com/isufigures...total_comments=2&comment_tracking={"tn":"R9"}​

Below the post is someone's comment that it was underrotated.

The ISU's reply (complete with smiley): "good effort nonetheless "

Nice that the ISU showed its interest -- both in Aleksei's jump and in the Aerial Challenge. .​

---

United States Figure Skating going vertical

Aaron Matas, KUSA
3:31 p.m. MDT, June 28, 2015
http://www.9news.com/story/sports/2...re-skating-freezer-aerial-challenge/29435631/​

Pre-event quotes from TZ, Max, Kimmie.​

 

[Tavi...]

TSL has a great recap of the Aerial Challenge by Alokya Perera, the person who so kindly tweeted during the comp! A follow up re Broadmoor Open Sr Men & Ladies is promised.

http://www.theskatinglesson.com/freezer-aerial-challenge-recap-by-alokya-p-perera/

 

[apgold]

Thanks for posting, that was a good recap. As she notes, she probably did a better job than IN would, since their live blogging apparently didn't happen.

I was surprised by her report about Angela Wang and Polina Edmunds not doing very well. I'm glad Mirai seemed to be on the attack - I really think she has a fire in her belly this season to show everyone that she can rotate her jumps. I hope her knee injury is not too bad - I wonder if it's the same one from Nationals that is bothering her?

 

[ice coverage]

TSL has a great recap of the Aerial Challenge by Alokya Perera, the person who so kindly tweeted during the comp! A follow up re Broadmoor Open Sr Men & Ladies is promised.

http://www.theskatinglesson.com/freezer-aerial-challenge-recap-by-alokya-p-perera/

Thanks, papagena .

Very glad that TSL asked Alokya to write about the Freezer (and about the Senior free skates).

Small comments:

The Freezer byes for Vivian and Polina were not earned from the qualifying segments at the Broadmoor Open the day before.
Vivian and Polina did not compete in Thursday's qualifying. (Nor did Max and Jason.)

http://www.broadmoorskatingclub.com/2015bo6_0s.pdf (qualifying results for junior/senior ladies/men are on pages 14, 16, 81, 82)​

And per the rules, triple axels were the required jump for the ladies in the bonus round. They had no choice.
In the bonus round, the men were required to perform two quads (one was allowed to be in combination).

Not picking on the tweeter, whose reporting I really appreciate. Just making note in case the event returns next year with the same rules (some of which remain mysterious this year ).​

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... I was surprised by her report about Angela Wang and Polina Edmunds not doing very well. ...

Small comment re Angela Wang:

On Thursday, she had sheepishly tweeted (in a lighthearted way) about getting stung on her rear end by a wasp.

https://twitter.com/AngelaWangster/status/614224022985768960​

Just my speculation, but I wonder whether the effects of the sting were distracting her (physically or mentally) to any extent.​

---

Also happy to see that TSL links now are allowed on GS.

 

[ice coverage]

IN's post-comp article:

Skaters push limits at Freezer Aerial Challenge
Aaron edges out quad-happy men; Le dominates to win ladies competition

Posted 6/29/15
by Sarah. S Brannen, special to icenetwork
http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2015/06/29/133564606​

 

[Tavi...]

Oops didn't realize there was an issue posting links to TSL so glad it went up and hope it wasn't a no no!

Also hope the following link is okay, because it looks like we will get some video soon:

https://twitter.com/sarahanddrew/status/615579278982430720

 

[StitchMonkey]

Well I am back and ready to post with uploaded videos.

The videos show the full round for each skater.

Jason Brown first round/final round

Jason Brown second round/champion round

Max Aaron first round/final round

Max Aaron second round/champion round

Max Aaron bonus round/final round

Nathan Chen Bonus round

Alexei Krasnozhon Bonus round

Caleigh Newberry backflip



So we got down there with just enough time to head over to the event, it was better attended than the rest of the open. It was fun but it needs some ironing. Most of the reports that have come back are accurate but a few other things of note.

The scoring was not explained and was weird. They made some comment about sale of one to ten, and Michael Buckley did make a note of when 10s were handed out, but it was weirder. As best I can tell the jumps still had a base value like in COP, but then five judges (yes two more than the celebrities) rated them 1-10. The scores then showed up like a normal score sheet with BV and and GOE, but rather than +/-3 for GOE it was a scale of 10. And then it was factored somehow into a final score. I have no idea where the final scores came from, it seemed like they may have been trying to aim for a perfect score of three jumps being a 30 point score but who knows. It took me a while to figure out what was going on. Also, as you can see in the videos, they don't announce the scores, more just indicated to look at the jumbotron.

It was not explained where the skaters came from or who qualified for what and how. I actually did not notice Polina missing from the first round because I noticed Tyler Pierce missing first, and figured something happened the night before. Then i noticed both Jason and Max missing and started to wonder. Buckley did make a point of saying the skaters who qualified by winning the day before, but that is about it. We had a semi final round where five survive. Then a final round with two more skaters and again 5 survive. Then a Champion round where three survive. Then a bonus round that the skaters don't have to do, but gave no indication of what possible advantage not going would be. The naming of rounds was bad. They should have likely skipped the semi final round and just done one round of elimination down to five then on to 3 and call it good.

Mariah Bell was the only skater in a skater dress at the start. No idea how much of that was choice or lack of communication. She changed into work out stuff the first chance she got. I do think she was a bit shell shocked that she was getting the most cheers, though it can be hard to tell the difference between Mirai and Mariah in an arena. She got more in the zone as the evening went on. However, something was wrong with her first jump. But we don't really know what. She jumped (I think it was a 2A+3T) then everyone seemed confused, then she was told to talk to the judges, she looked confused and concerned then said something to Kori about "wrong element" talked to her for a bit and then things just went on with no explanation. I think she may not have been supposed to do a combination or a 2 jump (rather than 3) combo, or an axel in combo, but have no idea. I also think that this counted as her redo, but again, was not really clear.

Others have commented on the "arm position does not help" renouncement for Courtney, but that is not really telling the full story. Courtney was not the first to do an arm variation. In fact I was starting to expect it to be a celebration of arm positions it was getting so common so fast. I think the announcement was more of a nip it in the bud thing then an attack on Courtney. That being said, Tom Z and the judges table still likely have not been in so much communication. He flat out walked over more than once, but there were also nonverbal hand signs. I caught Tom Z doing a "ok" hand sign to the judges with an emphatic expression of that was good after one skater, then on the next skater someone at the judges table was holding 6 or 7 fingers up trying to get Tom Z's attention/confirmation of it. I was less than impressed with that aspect.

Another aspect of odd planning was when Buckley started announcing "a pop is a One and a fall is a three" but not with much more explanation to it. I think it was more of the judges than the audience, but just served to confuse more. Later he had a chance to win a free lesson each with Mirai, and Jason and the way to win "ummm I don't know come talk to me and I'll figure something out" which to me is a bit lazy. At least make the kids mug for the audience and let them vote if it is just going to be a game of favorites. It would not have been hard to figure something out first.

Overall I did enjoy Michael Buckley though. He very much did seem like he viewed himself there to work, and there to help further the event/sport and wanted to be useful. He did give off a treat me as a celebrity vibe, in fact he was the one removing and replacing the cones at times.

A few random thoughts in general.

Polina, I think just sorta phoned it in and did not take it very serious. She only skated the one round and did not say much. I don't think she wanted to be there at that point. She is however transforming into a very beautiful young lady on us.

Max got thrown something and made a point of coming back to hug the thrower. This led to the row of little ones in front of us to keep trying to get high fives from the skaters as they came off the ice. Nathan, Courtney and Max are the only ones i can remember complying - it started to seem odd how they would skate right by them and ignore them. Richard Dornbush did end up giving a much older audience (read legal to flirt with) member his shirt so he did some fan services. Jason... well have you ever seen a dog used to wearing a shock collar being coaxed to cross the line when the power is off? That was pretty much Jason as soon as he saw the fans wanted attention. I think he was so focused earlier that he did not notice till it was to a point he felt like he was stepping on the other skaters territory.

Vivian Le does something strange with her arms when she jumps. She would always look like she was going for a tano, but then changed her mind. The pink gloves made it more noticeable, but it is something to look for.

Someone was doing the Arsenio Hall whooping dog barking cheer whenever team Koro would skate, i wonder if it was Arsenio himself or just someone being cute and funny.

They did show slow mo replays on the jumbotron during the judging, but it still felt a bit slow. They did not announce the scores which would have been nice.

Mirai wants the 3A. She had a lot of fire in her eyes and I don't think she is being pushed by Tom Z to go for it. It very much looked like it was something she wanted. Buckley called one of her jumps a good attempt (he called all of them good attempts it seemed) and she had a look that would have killed him if she were facing him. Good attempt was clearly not good enough for her.

I really wish they would have filled the time a bit more with content while the judges were scoring people. It would not be that hard to have the skater say what their next jump was going to be for instance. That way people would know what they were looking for. It was all a bit chaotic. Had I know Mariah Bell was going for the 3A for instance I likely would have filmed it but it was not clear if all were doing 3As or just Mirai. They had a good emcee, they should have used him to keep the pace going and give more information.

The backflip part was fun, but poorly entered. I was surprised to see only one lady, Caleigh Newberry, in the event. I actually thought there would be quite a few young ladies with a gymnastics background that entered. Or put another way, I thought some gymnasts and cheerleaders with a little bit of a skating background would have shown up, but alas it was not meant to be. I figured i would at least do my part and film Caleigh to at least push the idea that yes ladies can do the backflip too!

Courtney Hicks and Amber Glenn were the two random skaters that stood out to my better half's untrained eye. Courtney has stood out in the past and it did not take him long for him to recognize her again.

I think that is most of my thoughts that have been floating around.

 

[ice coverage]

IceNetwork's highlights video has been posted. An underwhelming 3:11 in length.

http://web.icenetwork.com/video/v216788383/​

Viewable without a paid IN subscription.

At least half of the video (by my approximation) does not show jumping.

Instead, lots of interview snippets of skaters/judges and backstage b-roll -- all of which are enjoyable in their own right, IMO.

But weird that the jumping itself is "covered" only in music-video style and with such brevity.

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Well I am back and ready to post with uploaded videos.

The videos show the full round for each skater. ...

I think that is most of my thoughts that have been floating around.

Stitch, many thanks for your extensive videos and notes!!!

(And thx again to your BH [better half]. Glad that he is being well-trained as your partner in crime for skating events.)

 

[StitchMonkey]

IceNetwork's highlights video has been posted. An underwhelming 3:11 in length.

http://web.icenetwork.com/video/v216788383/​

Viewable without a paid IN subscription.

At least half of the video (by my approximation) does not show jumping.

Instead, lots of interview snippets of skaters/judges and backstage b-roll -- all of which are enjoyable in their own right, IMO.

But weird that the jumping itself is "covered" only in music-video style and with such brevity.

---

Stitch, many thanks for your extensive videos and notes!!!

(And thx again to your BH [better half]. Glad that he is being well-trained as your partner in crime for skating events.)

Underwhelming is an understatement. I would have had him filming more if i had known it was going to be so lightly covered. I thought the backflip portion would have been well covered but even that does not seem well covered. Phillip Warren managed to fall one of his flips in a dramatic manner, even that did not make the cut to show. (they let him redo that one, the second attempt was better). I know i had some criticisms of the event, but it could have been covered more/better than this.

Did they even show Jason's quad attempt? I assumed that would be shown off. It is not like he does them often.

 

[sabinfire]

IceNetwork's highlights video has been posted. An underwhelming 3:11 in length.

http://web.icenetwork.com/video/v216788383/​

Really? Really?! Well, at least they prominently advertised that this 'content' would be free -- just in case anyone was seriously debating buying an IN season pass for this, which will expire next month.

Surprised it took them this long to produce a 3 minute video. (I'm not at home right now so I haven't watched the clip yet.)

 

[ice coverage]

Tom Z posted photos of Results sheets on Facebook.

Scores for Mens and Ladies -- Final, Championship, and Bonus Rounds:

Men:

https://www.facebook.com/4244534076...3407653386/768057139959676/?type=1&permPage=1​

Ladies

https://www.facebook.com/4244534076...3407653386/768057206626336/?type=1&permPage=1​

Back Flip Scores:

https://www.facebook.com/4244534076...3407653386/768057169959673/?type=1&permPage=1​

 

[sabinfire]

Thanks for posting the IN link, golden411. Finally got home and watched the clip -- seems to play more like a preview rather than a... what were they calling it? A "fully produced presentation" in a "highlights package" to "help create even more interest" in this event?

Your observations were correct... not much in the way of actual jumping in this video. Most of the 3-minute clip seems to be a collection of interviews with skaters and the 'Celebrity Judges' pre-event. Somewhat interesting in parts, yes, but I'd rather see the actual event footage over Michael Buckley telling me how awesome it's going to be.

Unfortunately, the video quality is rather poor. Many of the fancams of this event are actually higher resolution (thanks for posting yours, Stitch).

And I know they posted this up as free content, but for the amount of effort put into this event by so many people, it deserved a better fate than this. :disapp:

 

[ice coverage]

Today IN posted one more Freezer video snippet:

Vivian Le's triple-triple-triple

07/08/15
00:25
Vivian Le's triple lutz-triple toe-triple toe from the Freezer Aerial Figure Skating Challenge at the Colorado Springs World Arena.
http://web.icenetwork.com/video/v240975383​