2024 Worlds: Men's thoughts and comments | Page 5 | Golden Skate

2024 Worlds: Men's thoughts and comments

Joined
Jun 21, 2003
The only thing I find strange about skating is what the ISU does every year - changes the rules.
It just struck me as stange that a sports governing body would, out of one side of their mouths, pass a rule forbidding backflips. while simultaneously, out of the other, celebrate and applaud (*wink wink*) when someone does it.
 

Arigato

Final Flight
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Québécois media use to be quite intense back then. Albertville, 1992.

Pairs short program. Brasseur and Eisler are entering the competition with high hopes... They previously won silver at words... Isabelle fall on the 2axel. In the front page of the paper : A big photo of Isabelle sitting on the ice with this title in big letters.

LA CHUTE
They won the bronze medal nevertheless... but yeah... Thankfully, there was no social media back then. I still have this image engraved in my head because when I was a kid, I was a paper boy ;) and i delivered that photo to my entire run that morning...

There was a lot of talk back then about how too much was indeed too much. The year after, they won Worlds.
The year after in 1994, it was Lillehammer... but then, they knew they couldn't win it... Pros were reinstated and Gordeeva Grinkov were heavy favourites... and if not them, Mishkutenok/Dmitriev would also be ahead of them.

They skated quite well if I recall properly but not well enough to get higher than another bronze... It was still better than Shishkova Naumov who finished 4th... so the media were quite delighted this time around and much more respectful.

Media nowadays in Québec tends to be quite supportive of olympic athletes... a bit less when it comes to the Habs :)

Interesting fact : Josée Picard was Brasseur and Eisler's coach. So 31 years ago, Josée trained Brasseur/Eisler to WC gold... and now, Stellato-Dudek/Deschamps. Talk about excellence and longevity...

However, In 2022, Julianne Séguin, who also trained under Josée and had retired due to severe concussions, published a book....and there were a lot of complaints about Picard being too demanding, not giving them enough time to rest or to heal properly from injuries as she is a champion maker etc... Picard resigned from some board of directors related to coaches with Patinage Québec (not too sure exactly what it was)... but she is still allowed to coach, and seeing the recent successes she's had, I guess retirement will come before her controversial training methods lead her to be excluded from the sport...

Sorry for the segue into pairs... you guys can go back on topic with men.. My point was just that the media here too were very harsh (maybe it's a French cultural thing) until enough was enough... I was surprised at how tame they were this time around.

Regarding Adam : why not speak French for the crowd at the gala ? His English was approximate and there were so many local kids at the gala.. it would have been very inspirational for them to hear what he had to say about his comeback.

No worries. I read the whole thing and found it all interesting. Tell me, do you know anything about the guy Fabrice Blondel? He's a former Ice dancer, but now some type of manager for the french team?
 

Arigato

Final Flight
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It just struck me as stange that a sports governing body would, out of one side of their mouths, pass a rule forbidding backflips. while simultaneously, out of the other, celebrate and applaud (*wink wink*) when someone does it.

Flip or not, I don't trust the ISU.
 

4everchan

Record Breaker
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Mar 7, 2015
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Martinique
No worries. I read the whole thing and found it all interesting. Tell me, do you know anything about the guy Fabrice Blondel? He's a former Ice dancer, but now some type of manager for the french team?
Sorry. no. Ice dance from 6.0 era is something I wish I could forget entirely and in his case, it's thankfully already done ;)
 
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gsk8

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I spoke to Jason after men's free ( saw him on the street and approached). He confirmed he is definitely coming back next year.

Right! That was posted in the article when we spoke with him in the mixed zone. :)

Brown said the first thing he’s going to do after he leaves Montreal is start working on new programs.

“Last year, I toured all spring and didn’t take a break,” he explained. “Right now, I’m going back to create new pieces for next season, getting a jump start. I’ll see you guys next year!”
 

Skater Boy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 24, 2012
Right! That was posted in the article when we spoke with him in the mixed zone. :)
Pretty presumptuous that Jason says he will be back next year at worlds. LOL But seriously Jason can have it all. He still got fifth without a quad. He gets more love than anyone. He might as well keep on doing this and heck he might even get a team olympic medal. I thought this year at Nationals that he might get passed by Naumov, Camden, Andrew or someone but his brilliant skates at worlds suggests he would still be top 3 at US.
 

gsk8

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Pretty presumptuous that Jason says he will be back next year at worlds. LOL But seriously Jason can have it all. He still got fifth without a quad. He gets more love than anyone. He might as well keep on doing this and heck he might even get a team olympic medal. I thought this year at Nationals that he might get passed by Naumov, Camden, Andrew or someone but his brilliant skates at worlds suggests he would still be top 3 at US.
I'm sure he meant that he would be back for the season, not necessarily "worlds" :)
 

Crowdproud

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 1, 2022
Mark Hanretty addressed that very issue on air and would disagree with you. And above all else - learn about PCS.

ISU Program Components

Nowhere in the above document will you see "congratulating the ice with the butt" as grounds for wiping out ISU criteria for scoring components.
There was a bit of "reputational PCS" going on when it came to Adam's short program.

Consider GPFRA, where Adam got a PB in a pristine clean SP, and 43.37 in PCS.

At Worlds, in a program with several major errors, he earned 42.29 in PCS.
 

DancingCactus

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 17, 2022
I managed to get the VPN working and rewatched some of the free skates yesterday.

I REALLY enjoyed Deniss's new Lion King program. As I mentioned I think he should go the Jason route and ditch the quads. He managed to get to 8th with a popped jump in the free. When his jumps are clean, they are insanely high and his posture is beautiful.

Jason was sublime, this time I especially noticed the catchfoot spin. There's always some new detail you discover in his skates.

Adam was amazing in the free. I really like this program and I don't mind the backflip. I don't think it's the most creative/rebellious move or whatever, but the kind of brute-force energy of the move makes it well suited for that part of his program. It fits. And Benoit might be a tad pretentious, but at least his programs ae programs and not jump drills. Rain in your Black Eyes might have turned into a warhorese, but it's not a weepy ballad.

Shoma's short was sublime and Yuma is getting better and better.
 

macy

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 12, 2011
Ilia was UNREAL. literally no words to describe what he did. absolutely incredible.
Jason was sublime and i'm so happy to hear he'll be back next season.
it was tough watching Shoma have issues and end up off the podium, it sounds from the way he spoke he may not be around competitively much longer.
Adam's move up to the podium has to be the biggest jump in history? at least in IJS history? just insane. i hope this was a big confidence booster for him.

the men brought the chaos in some of the best ways, what an event.
 

4everchan

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Mar 7, 2015
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Adam's move up to the podium has to be the biggest jump in history? at least in IJS history? just insane. i hope this was a big confidence booster for him.
It probably is... I recall some jumps like from 8 to 2nd etc... but 19 to 3rd ? nope... BUT it would be in history because this would have been impossible before IJS anyway. In 6.0 if you ranked even just 10th in the SP, pretty much forget about a medal. pretty much impossible. I'd be curious to know what was the biggest jump in 6.0 actually :)
 

el henry

Go have some cake. And come back with jollity.
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One "fun fact" I had forgotten:

one of the technical specialists for the Men's LP this year was Terry Kubicka, USA.

Presumably the same Terry Kubicka who did this legal backflip at Worlds, 1976 :)

 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I managed to get the VPN working and rewatched some of the free skates yesterday.
I was not able to watch any of the skating live, so by the time I saw it on network TV I already knew the outcome. I think this made a difference in how I responded to the programs.

For Malinin, I already knew that he landed a bunch of quads and ran away with the competiton. He did this all on his own without my input or engagement, so for me the edge-of-my-seat drama was missing. I was more interested in the programs that I could not form any opinion about just by looking at the protocols.

On the other hand, I find nothing lacking in terms of Ilia's choreography and presentation. The choreographic theme was, like the song from Chorus Line, "I can do this! I can do THIS! Ican do this and I can do THAT!" Likewise the presentation was, well, "Look at me! Ican do this ! As much as jump, jump, jump programs face criticism, still I think that the choreographer and the performer did an admirable job of weaving the big elements together and making a program out of them. The program would not have been any better if he had done 6 quads in the character of the Nutcracker Prince or while emoting as Romeo.
 

DancingCactus

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 17, 2022
Well, this is probably my personal opinion, but I just don't like someone whose whole schtick is "look at me". Come to think of it, Plushenko also gave off these vibes sometimes, but at least he had more to be proud of than jumps. It might be cool to some degree, but it gets old soon. You can be proud of our acomplishments, but there should be something more to a program than showing off.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Well, this is probably my personal opinion, but I just don't like someone whose whole schtick is "look at me". Come to think of it, Plushenko also gave off these vibes sometimes, but at least he had more to be proud of than jumps. It might be cool to some degree, but it gets old soon. You can be proud of our acomplishments, but there should be something more to a program than showing off.
Oh, I don't know. What is sports other than showing off? Look how high I can jump. Look how fast I can run. Look how far I can put the shot. One could make a slogan out of it: Higher, faster, stronger.
 

TontoK

Hot Tonto
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I wish I could see the CBC videos of this event. Kurt Browning was commentator, wasn't he?

It would be interesting to hear his take.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
It probably is... I recall some jumps like from 8 to 2nd etc... but 19 to 3rd ? nope... BUT it would be in history because this would have been impossible before IJS anyway. In 6.0 if you ranked even just 10th in the SP, pretty much forget about a medal. pretty much impossible. I'd be curious to know what was the biggest jump in 6.0 actually :)
A famous one occurred at 1997 Europeans. Alexei Urmanov went from 6th to 1st, edging (on tie-breaker) Pjillippe Candeloro (4th and 2nd) and Vlashislav Zogorodniuk of Ukraine (2nd and 3rd), while Ilia Kulik went from 1st to 5th and took pewter overall. The ISU was so perplexed at the vagaries of the scoring system that they changed from "majority of ordinals" to "one-by-one."

This change caused some confusion at the 2002 Olympics because the United States was still using majority of ordinals, but one-by-one was used internationally. This (almost) played a role in terms of Michelle Kwan's placements vis-a-vis Sarah Hughes and Irina Slutskaya, and it brough unwelcome attention to the U.S. judge Joe Inman.

The one-by-one system was intended to eliminate the possibilty of what economists and political scientists call the principle of "independence of Irrelevant Alternatives." But it didn't.

The IJS, however, does accomplish this. If skater A gets 100 points and skater B gets 99, then skater A will always finish ahead of skater B no matter what skater C does. Under 6.0 it was possible for skater C to steal some ordinals from skater A and flip-flop the reletive ranking of A and B.
 
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gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
It probably is... I recall some jumps like from 8 to 2nd etc... but 19 to 3rd ? nope... BUT it would be in history because this would have been impossible before IJS anyway. In 6.0 if you ranked even just 10th in the SP, pretty much forget about a medal. pretty much impossible. I'd be curious to know what was the biggest jump in 6.0 actually :)
For much of 6.0 scoring history, singles skaters had three phases of competition, with the first phase (figures) using significantly different skills than the later phases.

And before that, only figures and free skating. But that was before my time.

Factors for each phase and the system for combining the results of the various phases varied across the decades.

Some notable big jumps, not necessarily biggest:

1973 World Championships: Janet Lynn 2 figures, 12 SP, 1 FS to finish 2nd

1982 World Championships: Elaine Zayak 4 figures, 10 SP, 1 FS to finish 1st

1982 World Junior Championships: Midori Ito 19 figures, 1 SP, 1 FS to finish 6th

1984 World Junior Championships: Midori Ito 13 figures, 1 SP, 1 FS to finish 3rd
 

4everchan

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Joined
Mar 7, 2015
Country
Martinique
For much of 6.0 scoring history, singles skaters had three phases of competition, with the first phase (figures) using significantly different skills than the later phases.

And before that, only figures and free skating. But that was before my time.

Factors for each phase and the system for combining the results of the various phases varied across the decades.

Some notable big jumps, not necessarily biggest:

1973 World Championships: Janet Lynn 2 figures, 12 SP, 1 FS to finish 2nd

1982 World Championships: Elaine Zayak 4 figures, 10 SP, 1 FS to finish 1st

1982 World Junior Championships: Midori Ito 19 figures, 1 SP, 1 FS to finish 6th

1984 World Junior Championships: Midori Ito 13 figures, 1 SP, 1 FS to finish 3rd
damn those figure killed Midori... In some ways, I am glad they are gone though I do miss what they brought to the skaters' skills.
Lynn and Zayak had two good events... i believe at a certain points figures counted for so much right ? Thanks for this.
 
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