2018 JGP Kaunas Ladies Free Skate

[rikaquegira]

I thought Yelim performed more than usual. She actually gave us some looks and she had soft movements. Yes, the program is bland. She is skating to Meditation after all. I thought it was a smart choice for her. Was this choreographed by David Wilson? I know how he likes to start in the comfort zone. I think this was super comfy for her.
The important thing here was to skate to the music, which she did very well. I was even surprised. If you compare this performance to her domestic event you'll see the improvement in her carriage. I think she's getting used to the choreography.
Her jumps were stunning. That 2A3T combo is HUGE, that's a +4 in my book(+5 if she had a better running edge). Even her 3Lo was big. One thing she lacks is speed out of her jumps(most of them) like the 3Lz3T combo for instance. Her 3F looked iffy to me. Probably her worst jump.
I thought her SS is not as bad as some people here are making it to be. She does simpler steps and turns, but she's fast and has nice flow.
Very well done and well deserved!
I don't understand this nonsense of "Kseniia deserved silver". I don't see it. hwell:

 

[Mawwerg]

And so here're my congratulations to Sasha for her 4T-3T combo and great recovery after the fall, to Yelim for her beautiful and clean today performance and to Anastasia for two good programs.

 

[largeman]

@METIS The ISU judges seem to have this thing where you perform clean jumps or with high TES difficulty your PCS scores go up, you mess up and your PCS might take a hit even if you gave a beautiful performance so even tho i enjoyed MOA's performance the most i don't think they would have given her higher than what she got because of her jumps.

Agree...when jumps aren’t landed it can really affect the program cohesiveness and when they are they can add to a program. People can get worked up about it all they like but at the end of the day judges can be charmed and impressed into giving higher scores than you may like. They may also be less charmed than you were. That’s just them being people

Yes yes yes... except when the skater's name is Carolina Kostner

 

[sunnystars]

I thought Yelim performed more than usual. She actually gave us some looks and she had soft movements. Yes, the program is bland. She is skating to Meditation after all. I thought it was a smart choice for her. Was this choreographed by David Wilson? I know how he likes to start in the comfort zone. I think this was super comfy for her.
The important thing here was to skate to the music, which she did very well. I was even surprised. If you compare this performance to her domestic event you'll see the improvement in her carriage. I think she's getting used to the choreography.
Her jumps were stunning. That 2A3T combo is HUGE, that's a +4 in my book(+5 if she had a better running edge). Even her 3Lo was big. One thing she lacks is speed out of her jumps(most of them) like the 3Lz3T combo for instance. Her 3F looked iffy to me. Probably her worst jump.
I thought her SS is not as bad as some people here are making it to be. She does simpler steps and turns, but she's fast and has nice flow.
Very well done and well deserved!
I don't understand this nonsense of "Kseniia deserved silver". I don't see it. hwell:

Drew Meekins choreographed Yelim's LP

 

[rikaquegira]

Drew Meekins choreographed Yelim's LP

Thanks for the info! It is a good choreo for her.

 

[Metis]

@METIS The ISU judges seem to have this thing where you perform clean jumps or with high TES difficulty your PCS scores go up, you mess up and your PCS might take a hit even if you gave a beautiful performance so even tho i enjoyed MOA's performance the most i don't think they would have given her higher than what she got because of her jumps.

I’m pretty sure I broke last season’s judging anomalies thread with walls of text. Trust me, I’m familiar with ISU’s work — I have the loss of sanity to prove it. [emoji48]

I’m not actually arguing for Moa to have the highest PCS — she did fall, and there’s that correlation between TES and PCS. I do think she had a PCS edge over Yelim and Kseniia, though. The six point gap between Yelim and Moa is ... definitely not a reflection of actual components as defined.

@rikaquegira I don’t really disagree with you. I’m not super-familiar with Yelim (as I don’t typically follow juniors), so I can’t speak to her performance relative to baseline/expectations. I thought the programme was strategically smart, as it rather noticeably checks various PCS boxes, but I thought Yelim had some issues fully committing to her arm movements (again, the fingers — she leaves the position a bit unfinished and/or awkward, but it’s clear she’s attentive to her choreo). In my opinion, she isn’t as naturally graceful as Moa, but I don’t think she’s hopeless or anything. Rewatching her performance, I’m probably just being nitpicky.

She seemed relatively tall to me, but it could also just be proportions (it seems her legs are the source of her height), but she’s also quite thin, which is another factour in presentation and deportment — when puberty hits and which effects come into play first. That’s part of why I don’t follow juniors super-closely, as today’s awkward is tomorrow’s epitome of elegance (and let’s not even get into jump retention). I hit puberty extremely early and was five feet tall at nine years old, which kicked off an awkward phase that lasted another eight years or so, as I went from 5’5 to 5’8 late in my teens. So, yeah, I’m always amazed by the poise the junior ladies have, as I was sliding into snowbanks head-first at Yelim’s age. (I wish I were kidding... I spent a day in wet clothes after that tumble, and some poor soul had to help fish me out of the pile.) Heck, I tripped over the air on the pavement and did a lovely bouncing skid into traffic. Those years of ballet really paid off. [emoji23]

I just want all the juniors to leave happy, stay healthy, and enjoy their skates. Not trying to knock Yelim, I swear. She could be quite special with a bit more time, and that’s part of what the JGP is here for — getting used to competing. But having been a teenage girl, I have no interest in being mean to one, as life is hard enough at that age.

 

[sunnystars]

Deleted because its an incomplete comment

 

[rikaquegira]

I mentioned that too! Moa’s dress reminded me of Yuna’s! And that ending pose! I think it’s somehow inspired by SITC... I think.

 

[sunnystars]

-I think Moa ordered the green version of Yuna's SITC dress. I hope she continues to work on her jumps. She continues to surprise me with her outstanding performing ability.
-Radionova's Fifth Element > Trusova's. Sasha has the jumps but Elena outperformed her with charisma and sass.
-Sinitsina is lovely and I hope she gets another JGP. Yay for more non-Eteri skater appearances! Bwahhahaahha #teamotherskaters.
-An amazing LP performance from Yelim. I still think she's the weakest of the trifecta in terms of performing but she's improving well. I do hope she continues to works with dance teachers. Some of her arm positions look flaccid and she needs to work in finishing her moves. I'm pretty sure she grew a couple more centimetres after the JGP trials. The quality of her jumps do give me hope that she'll retain them after puberty and that they would get even better. She may even top Eunsoo's jumping quality if she continues to improve.

 

[Spirals for Miles]

I'm still unsure about how Trusova got a whole point lower in transitions than Yelim from one judge. I don't know if I'm missing something, but I much the skating skills of Sinitsyna and Trusova to anyone else, and same with transitions. They are in a whole other league.

 

[chuckm]

Yelim was so overscored that it’s not even funny. Ksenia’s season is done because of this. She deserved silver and now she’ll never see another JGP because she didn’t get what she deserved.

Yelim's FS was squeaky clean and skated with full-out feeling. Ksenia had a fall and a time violation and her presentation skills aren't nearly as well developed as Yelim's. As for overscoring, here's the ladies FS panel: ISR EST FIN AUT UKR POL NED AZE RSA Don't see much pro-Asian bias there......

Yelim is 15 and will probably move on to the GP next season. Ksenia is a JGP newbie who just turned 14 in August---there's always next year. IMO, her plan to put all three combinations at the end of her program backfired, as she couldn't sustain either her energy or her performance skills.

 

[Mawwerg]

So, here are some things regarding Sasha's programs I really like

1.Quads(Yeah, quads are cool)
2. 3Lz-3Lo. This combo is now very impressive.
3. Cantielever enter into layback spin. Just cool.
4. 2A looking as a transition out from the quad(or quad combo, how it happened today)
5. That miming performance in front of judges:agree:

 

[Ziotic]

I just realized that Yelim’s score puts her ahead of all the other second place finishers in a tie breaker situation at the moment!! Good luck on getting to that final Yelim!

 

[Spirals for Miles]

She... still has a second assignment to skate and isn't exactly a Tarusina or Medvedeva (no one is really )
Both Nana and Shiika, in addition to Alena and Viktoria are contenders. It's a competitive event in Ostrava.

 

[cohen-esque]

Yelim was so overscored that it’s not even funny. Ksenia’s season is done because of this. She deserved silver and now she’ll never see another JGP because she didn’t get what she deserved.

Ksenia got the medal she deserved IMO, and if she wanted silver she should have skated a better free, not fallen, and stayed within the allotted time. She even had the luxury of knowing the scores she needed for silver in advance. (And probably the misfortune of knowing what she needed for gold.) She didn’t do it and that’s on her. Frankly, I think Ksenia was scored generously in both programs anyway— why do you think she deserved to stay ahead?

If she does very well at Junior Nats her season isn’t necessarily done. I suppose if one doesn’t think she’s capable of placing highly enough there, then it’s unfortunate she didn’t get a second JGP, since her second half of the season wouldn’t be going anywhere in the first place.

 

[Spirals for Miles]

?? I guess I'll just tell Trusova next time that she should just not fall, as if skaters just decide to fall like that. Ksenia didn't wake up and say "oh I'll fall on my 3Lz-3Lo today" or "oh I'll get a time violation today".

Why did she deserve silver? on PCS. Because her skating skills and transitions are phenomenal, her musicality is innate and refined, and her composition and flow were superb. I guess all of that amounts to just 55 PCS, though, well below what Kanysheva had at Linz for a similar program with similar skills.

And no, she is pretty much done for the season internationally unless they trust her with Armenia. At junior nationals, she faces Trusova, Shcherbakova, Kostornaya, Kanysheva, Tarusina, Tarakanova, Kostyuk, Vasilieva, and probably Gubanova, plus the 2006 girls, Valieva, Usacheva, Kromykh, and Shabotova and more of Panova's students, like Frolova, Tsibinova, and Starodubtseva. That's a tough field for anyone, let alone one that the Fed has decided can't be trusted, and you can bet that that's what they've decided watching her skate.

 

[cohen-esque]

I just realized that Yelim’s score puts her ahead of all the other second place finishers in a tie breaker situation at the moment!! Good luck on getting to that final Yelim!

I’m not sure whether 2+2 is a good enough placement this year even on a tiebreaker but she’ll need at least that for the JGPF; a bronze won’t cut it. Her FS score here shows she could be easily competitive with all but maybe Alena if she went clean, but she rarely does, so good luck to her.

 

[frida80]

I'm still unsure about how Trusova got a whole point lower in skating skills than Yelim from one judge. I don't know if I'm missing something, but I much the skating skills of Sinitsyna and Trusova to anyone else, and same with transitions. They are in a whole other league.

It wasn’t for SS it was transitions. It’s because of the quads.

 

[Spirals for Miles]

It wasn’t for SS it was transitions. It’s because of the quads.

Could've sworn I typed transitions but I just changed it
I'm not sure what I think of this: it raises the question: is it better to have some jumps with an insane number of well-executed transitions, or all jumps with normal / not unexpected / "simple" transitions?

 

[cohen-esque]

?? I guess I'll just tell Trusova next time that she should just not fall, as if skaters just decide to fall like that. Ksenia didn't wake up and say "oh I'll fall on my 3Lz-3Lo today" or "oh I'll get a time violation today".

Why did she deserve silver? on PCS. Because her skating skills and transitions are phenomenal, her musicality is innate and refined, and her composition and flow were superb. I guess all of that amounts to just 55 PCS, though, well below what Kanysheva had at Linz for a similar program with similar skills.

And no, she is pretty much done for the season internationally unless they trust her with Armenia. At junior nationals, she faces Trusova, Shcherbakova, Kostornaya, Kanysheva, Tarusina, Tarakanova, Kostyuk, Vasilieva, and probably Gubanova. That's a tough field for anyone, let alone one that the Fed has decided can't be trusted, and you can bet that that's what they've decided watching her skate.

1) Sometimes a freak unavoidable fall happens; usually it’s the skater’s fault. God himself did not come to the ice and ordain that Synitsina would fall on her 3Lz+3Lo. Most overwhelmingly likely, she just made an error that resulted in her fall, and that’s her own fault. It doesn’t matter whether or not she planned to skate clean; everyone does. It’s their responsibility to go out and execute a clean layout and she didn’t, and that’s her own fault. And the time violation was completely within her own control to avoid and it’s absurd and ridiculous to suggest otherwise. She’s the one who controls how much time she spends moving on the ice; the judges did not attach marionette strings to jerk her around from the bench past the time limit and ensure a deduction.

Anyways, on the more general level, that’s why I also said she should have simply skated better, first and foremost. Trusova would have liked not to fall, but no one is suggesting she didn’t do enough anyway, and skate well enough anyway, to win by miles. You’re the only one I’ve seen so far suggesting Ksenia did well enough to get silver, though.

2) Any particular reasons you find her skating skills to be phenomenal, or her transitions? How and when does she demonstrate innate and refined musicality, and in what specific way(s) was the composition of the program superb? I don’t need a second-by-second analysis, but I could say much the same things about a junior-level skate by Surya Bonaly on an off day, if I don’t have to support it at all.

And on the same areas, why do you feel that Yelim was worse, and how much worse, or just the same to the point her stronger technical showing shouldn’t have been able to overcome her SP gap? As you say she was overscored, does that include in TES? Both programs or just the FS?

I am pleased to see someone embracing score comparisons across different events; if the IJS worked like it was supposed to and produced more objectively correct results, then that’s eminently reasonable as an attitude, and insisting it can’t be done has always struck me as a way to handwave away incompetent and inconsistent judging.

3) If she’s not good enough to get international assignments that’s her own problem. The judges don’t owe her a pity silver just because Ksenia can’t show her Fed that she can skate well enough to deserve assignments otherwise. She knew what was on the line and then she went out and effed up anyway (in both programs, but especially the free) and that’s entirely her own fault.