2017 CS Finlandia Mens FS

[kevinVchicago]

So much for mitten-knittin' and knife-bootin'!

 

[UnChosen]

Skaters "love" Lori because having her name on their program automatically makes them seem more respectable. She has done some great work, some mediocre work, and some bad work. Lori deserves blame when she doesn't create something great, as it should be in any industry. She succeeded with Nathan Chen this season and she failed with Sui/Han and Boyang.

On the other hand, the conspiracy theory about Lori favouring Nathan is simply ridiculous. Nathan's SP with the fast vocal does not really suit his movement style either but Shae-Lynn Bourne is also a very respected choreographer.

Shoma and Yuzuru didn't even want to risk it by repeating programs, which highlights how difficult it is to create perfect programs for skaters.

 

[silverfoxes]

Unfortunately the good junior men are like the good junior ice dancers. Transferring to seniors goes so so bad.


Siberia or North America

I guess they should all just quit then because there is no hope whatsoever that they will ever go anywhere. Not now, not in the future, never again.

None of the Russian guys did great here, but they still did better than the 2 Canadians.

I am no great fan of Kolyada and I really hate this Elvis program, but even as badly as he skated, he was just over a point shy of 3rd place. I am not sure why you think going to NA would solve his problems. There are plenty of North American headcases who disprove your theory.

edit - I just looked at the protocols and at J2's marks for Kolyada. What were they watching??? I like the judge who gave 5,75 for performance (vs 9,25 from J2 )

 

[gmyers]

I guess they should all just quit then because there is no hope whatsoever that they will ever go anywhere. Not now, not in the future, never again.

None of the Russian guys did great here, but they still did better than the 2 Canadians.

I am no great fan of Kolyada and I really hate this Elvis program, but even as badly as he skated, he was just over a point shy of 3rd place. I am not sure why you think going to NA would solve his problems. There are plenty of North American headcases who disprove your theory.

edit - I just looked at the protocols and at J2's marks for Kolyada. What were they watching??? I like the judge who gave 5,75 for performance (vs 9,25 from J2 )

Of course they shouldn’t quit. They should go to figure skater finishing schools In North America and be coached by people like Orser or get choreo from Lori Nichol.

 

[viennaskater]

It's been really amusing, reading this thread. Thanks for the laughs!

I re-watched Boyang's LP and I like it overall. I missed the Darth Vader breathing sounds first time (ha ha). Holst's 'Mars' is a good dramatic opener, and, even though I like the Cantina Bar music, it does sound incongruous here, following straight on from that. But will it be changed? I doubt it.

I even watched the Cantina Bar scene from Star Wars and had forgotten how much fun it was. Those were the days ... (oops showing my age here).

Boyang needs to tidy it up and land those jumps. Then it'll work better. But please, no 'La Strada' - I can't listen to that piece any more. We already have at least two skaters using it so far this season. (Why? Because the Worlds is taking place in Italy? Who cares if it's Italian music or not??)

 

[Jaana]

This is early in the season and that is at least some kind of an explanation for the uninspiring men´s freeskate competition... If Kolyada had skated a little bit better he would have been on the podium and not Rippon. Both Rippon and Zhou have come back after an injury, it takes a while before they will be back on their normal condition. At 2016 US Nationals Zhou won the silver and I believe he will stand on the podium in 2018, too... If USFSA would have been smart, they would have sent Zhou to senior competitions to have senior experience. Now the Olympic season is his first senior season, where it is rather difficult for a new senior to gather reputation, but of course it is doable.

I hope that Rippon would not have wasted years and years with that elusive guad lutz..., some other quads might have been easier to get.

Congratulations to Jin for the gold medal!!! I think he has great programs, both sp and freeskate. The jumps will come back. I have never watched Star Wars, LOL, and I think one should not be too literale, it is the music he is interpreting!

The GP season will be exciting!!!

 

[viennaskater]

If Kolyada had skated a little bit better he would have been on the podium and not Rippon.

Kolyada was looking unhappy for the entire competition, which is not a good sign. He messed up his SP a few weeks ago at Ondrej Nepela and only managed to win overall because the competition standard was not that high. I feel sad because he always used to look like he was enjoying himself, but not any more, it seems. He is a real talent and a real asset to the Russian team. What next for him?

 

[ejnsofi]

Of course they shouldn’t quit. They should go to figure skater finishing schools In North America and be coached by people like Orser or get choreo from Lori Nichol.

It's always funny how people assume that some coaching change will work like magic and fix all the issues. Promising Russian girl? Go with her to Eteri. Promising man with bad jumps? Orser is an answer. Unfortunately it doesn't work like this. Roman Sadovsky trained under Brian and while he had some successes it wasn't like he was a favourite to win major competitions. Joshi Helgesson didn't skate well at Lombardia and she also had not so good SP in Finland. A lot of people already crowned Tursynbaeva after she moved to Toronto but so far she hasn't qualified to GPF even once. I don't say they are bad or terrible skaters with no future but they are not medallists either.

And I think we already established in this thread that Lori is either hit or huge miss. Her works with Mao and Nathan were great. But Boyang this year, Chinese pairs and Gracie? Nope.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

That's a real shame for Kolyada. He just didn't get into the performance and the final spin was a reeeaaaallly bad error to make, costing him a medal - weird because I/M also made a silly spin error to place 4th. This one's gotta sting.

 

[auser]

I thought it was a false alarm at first but when we got out of the arena you could smell smoke. It might take ages to get everything in order so we decided to go home

Glad you got out and are safe :luv17:. Thank you again for the on-site reports

 

[auser]

Apparently smoke in the kitchen triggered the fire alarm.
Source

anyone know how far the kitchen was from the ice ... just curious

 

[Tutto]

Kolyada was looking unhappy for the entire competition, which is not a good sign. He messed up his SP a few weeks ago at Ondrej Nepela and only managed to win overall because the competition standard was not that high. I feel sad because he always used to look like he was enjoying himself, but not any more, it seems. He is a real talent and a real asset to the Russian team. What next for him?

Lets not rush to the conclusions just yet, even with so many mistakes he scored better here overall than at Nepela he won. After reading this thread first before I actually watched the video I thought the LP was a total disaster but actually he landed 4T-3T in a second half (for the first time!), 3lz combination, 3A, 3Lo, another 3lz and level 4 spin all of it with positive GOE and all after the totally disastrous start of the program, it is really only his last spin that did him in - he would have been certainly on the podium if not won alltogether. So the conclusion is that his potential is enormous, all skaters can have a bad day, it is only a start of the season and we have to be patient and see how he does at CoR next week.
at the same time yes the pressure piled on him by RusFed is sky high and all will come down to how he will be able to cope with this pressure. The magic formula of 5 quads invented by RusFed 'works' every time at destroying their men but I believe Mika has more character than most

 

[viennaskater]

Lets not rush to the conclusions just yet, even with so many mistakes he scored better here overall than at Nepela he won. After reading this thread first before I actually watched the video I thought the LP was a total disaster but actually he landed 4T-3T in a second half (for the first time!), 3lz combination, 3A, 3Lo, another 3lz and level 4 spin all of it with positive GOE and all after the totally disastrous start of the program, it is really only his last spin that did him in - he would have been certainly on the podium if not won alltogether. So the conclusion is that his potential is enormous, all skaters can have a bad day it is only a start of the season and we have to be patient and see how he does at CoR next week.
at the same time yes the pressure piled in him by RusFed is sky high and all will come down to how he will be able to cope with this pressure. The magic formula of 5 quads invented by RusFed 'works' every time at destroying their men but I believe Mika has more character than most

Thanks for this - I actually re-watched his LP today and realised that there was indeed a lot of good content in it. Skaters have off days so I hope that was all it was and that he is back to his smiling self soon.