134 replies to this topic

[Chemistry Schmemistry]

This opens the door for the Canadian. Just not that great.

They only downgraded the flip, not the axels. But I still think it was a generous score.

Edited by Chemistry Schmemistry, 25 February 2010 - 11:37 PM.

[BigMike]

Maybe Mao can pull a Plushenko, and complain that she is the only one who did a triple axl therefore she must be the champion. Then award herself a platinum medal.

It is weird to see a woman's final where all the major contenders aren't flopping around on the ice after repeated falls.

[Infield Infidel]

Asada's jumps are freaking nuts, and her footwork on the passes were really fun to watch. Too bad she's up against the Terminator

[PrometheusWakefield]

Hamilton really gets into these doesn't he??

"I'm so proud of her"?

Who the hell is he to be proud of her?

[BigMike]

"I'm so proud of her"?

Who the hell is he to be proud of her?

They want to be seen as real athletes and they are. But comments like Hamilton's treats them like they are little girls. Wow the person in front of you skated well, and you had the guts to do you best to. demeaning

[Chemistry Schmemistry]

She's running of gas, making changes to combinations. I don't think this will score well enough for silver, or even that close. Door's open for Nagasu to medal.

[shawnrbu]

"Superhuman amount of courage, determination."

[Chemistry Schmemistry]

That seemed high. Nagasu needs 138.88 for bronze, 141.74 for silver, not gonna happen for gold.

Thought it was the second-best program of the evening. But I don't see them giving up those scores. She'll get fourth.

Edited by Chemistry Schmemistry, 25 February 2010 - 11:50 PM.

[kartvelo]

That was pretty damned good.

[Bellhorn]

These last four in particular really represented their sport very well. Too bad one of them has to miss out on a medal.

[Infield Infidel]

Wow, Nagasu is going to be a force in a few years. I can watch her spiral all day.

Frat, she had a couple steps between jumps in one combo; does that make it not a combo?

[Chemistry Schmemistry]

Seems like the NBA traveling rule, but no.

With Nagasu, they hit her hard on all the non-jumping judged skills. That part is pretty much pre-ordained before the competition. They spend their time judging the jumps during the actual competition.

Edited by Chemistry Schmemistry, 25 February 2010 - 11:58 PM.

[mabrowndog]

These last four in particular really represented their sport very well. Too bad one of them has to miss out on a medal.

If Rochette hadn't lost her mother, she'd be on the outside looking in. She clearly got an emotional bump in the judging.

[kartvelo]

That was the best women's field I've ever seen.

[Fratboy]

I'd add 10 points to each category due to Olympic inflation. 130 is not going to medal tonight. 135, probably.

O RLY

[Chemistry Schmemistry]

O RLY
...
130-140 Gold medal contender

131.72 wound up second by 23 points, 131.28 third by another three, 126.39 a distant fourth. There is significant inflation in the Olympics. They basically add a point to the non-technical scores.

[Fratboy]

Wow, Nagasu is going to be a force in a few years. I can watch her spiral all day.

Frat, she had a couple steps between jumps in one combo; does that make it not a combo?

It's a sequence, which is scored at 80% of the sum of the two jumps.

[reggiecleveland]

If Rochette hadn't lost her mother, she'd be on the outside looking in. She clearly got an emotional bump in the judging.

She would have skated better if her mom was alive you motherfucker!

But factually you are correct, you heartless fuck. I thought the American girl was way better tonight.

[reggiecleveland]

If a dead mother at home can't get you a medal then figure skating isn't what it used to be.

And also Dog

Called it!

[Fratboy]

131.72 wound up second by 23 points, 131.28 third by another three, 126.39 a distant fourth. There is significant inflation in the Olympics. They basically add a point to the non-technical scores.

I'm simply going by past scoring here. Look, 134 was the previous long program record in international competition, by Yu-Na Kim herself. If you absolutely positively KNEW a record was going to be set tonight and DESTROY the previous mark, then you should be a professional commentator. God forbid I try to help people understand what's a good score and what isn't.

Shizuka Arakawa won the 2006 Olympics with a program similar in difficulty to Mirai Nagasu's, and with better presentation. Mirai got a 126, Shizuka a 125, and Shizuka smoked the competition. Were the 2006 Olympics' scores inflated? Sure don't look it to me.

Granted, I had clue early on that when a fairly pedestrian program with 6 completed triples and so-so components score 91 points - good for 15th place in 2006 and 19th this year that scores would be inflated, but not at 8:15 this morning.

[Fratboy]

That said, it was an absolutely fantastic competition. Yu-Na Kim was spectacular, and Mao Asada fell apart so much at the end I thought she might even have slipped to bronze. Joannie skated with a lot of guts, despite losing on the elements to Nagasu. I would have put Nagasu ahead of Rochette personally, but given Nagasu's difficulties over the past couple years, 4th place in this field in a HUGE victory.

Flatt still has some work to do on rotating her jumps correctly. Some presentation polish added on with her team and she'll be a worthy international competitor in a year's time.

Again, Rochette's performance in the light of personal tragedy is just astounding. An amazing performance.

And a major BOOO to NBC for not showing Lepisto's clean and beautiful program. I saw it on a EuroSport feed, and it was really quite good, if undermarked on presentation.

[sheshistory]

If Rochette hadn't lost her mother, she'd be on the outside looking in. She clearly got an emotional bump in the judging.

I totally agree. I thought Nagasu's program was better overall - she was clearly pleased with her score but I think she should've been on the podium instead of Rochette.

[Chemistry Schmemistry]

I'm simply going by past scoring here. Look, 134 was the previous long program record in international competition, by Yu-Na Kim herself. If you absolutely positively KNEW a record was going to be set tonight and DESTROY the previous mark, then you should be a professional commentator. God forbid I try to help people understand what's a good score and what isn't.

Shizuka Arakawa won the 2006 Olympics with a program similar in difficulty to Mirai Nagasu's, and with better presentation. Mirai got a 126, Shizuka a 125, and Shizuka smoked the competition. Were the 2006 Olympics' scores inflated? Sure don't look it to me.

Granted, I had clue early on that when a fairly pedestrian program with 6 completed triples and so-so components score 91 points - good for 15th place in 2006 and 19th this year that scores would be inflated, but not at 8:15 this morning.

I did think a clean program would destroy the old mark. But I'm in no way a professional commentator. I just looked at the short scores and saw they were 5% inflated from the worlds. So I figured the same would apply to the long program. Which it did. Then Yu-Na came out and blew everyone away anyway. You can't tell me Asada and Rochette would have scored 131s with those nice, but not spectacular, programs at any other competition.

You know more than I do about this, no doubt. I can tell an axel apart from the others, because it starts forward and is a heck of a lot harder with the extra half-turn. But for the life of me I can't tell a lutz from a toe-loop, and the scoring indicates the lutz is several degrees more difficult. Also had to look up that the sequencing rather than combining, which is a slight reduction in difficulty, is actually intentional in most cases.

But, yeah, the +5% did seem to apply tonight. I don't think anyone other than Nagasu and Kim skated their best. The results seem OK to me - why not give Rochette the bronze? She was close either way, and it took a lot to get out there and skate almost clean.

[gaelgirl]

Really great competition. Fantastic. Of course, I would have liked to see the Finnish girl who finished above Flatt, but that's NBC for you.

I thought Nagasu may have deserved bronze, but she was so far behind on points going into the free skate that was practically impossible even without the emotional storyline. There was just no way they could not have Rochette on the podium given those two skates. Rochette had a spectacular program given the horrible circumstances of the week, but I was pulling for her to just be a little bit stronger, pull a little bit more out of the GOE scores. Her composure on the medal stand was amazing, too. I really wish she was just a tiny bit better.

With Mao Asada's problems, she could have been surpassed, and her little sourpuss attitude on the podium kinda annoyed me. I think her presentation scores may have been a little inflated. Heck, I think her technical scores may have been a little inflated. Unless I missed it, they didn't really seem to take off much for that weird spot in the middle where her program seemed to fall apart.

Having said that, there's no way I would put Nagasu over Asada.

Yu-Na Kim is amazing. Not much more to be said there.

[SeoulSoxFan]

Really great competition. Fantastic. Of course, I would have liked to see the Finnish girl who finished above Flatt, but that's NBC for you.

I thought Nagasu may have deserved bronze, but she was so far behind on points going into the free skate that was practically impossible even without the emotional storyline. There was just no way they could not have Rochette on the podium given those two skates. Rochette had a spectacular program given the horrible circumstances of the week, but I was pulling for her to just be a little bit stronger, pull a little bit more out of the GOE scores. Her composure on the medal stand was amazing, too. I really wish she was just a tiny bit better.

With Mao Asada's problems, she could have been surpassed, and her little sourpuss attitude on the podium kinda annoyed me. I think her presentation scores may have been a little inflated. Heck, I think her technical scores may have been a little inflated. Unless I missed it, they didn't really seem to take off much for that weird spot in the middle where her program seemed to fall apart.

Having said that, there's no way I would put Nagasu over Asada.

Yu-Na Kim is amazing. Not much more to be said there.

Mao was just balling after the race in a Japanese interview. A lot of sympathy from the press and the fans over in Korea as well.

The thing was Mao used to just beat the hell out of Kim during the early juniors (up until 2008 in fact), routinely beating her by 10, 15, and 20 points. As they both came up together, with the entire nations' inevitable hopes carried on both sets of shoulders, I can say Mao had even more of a personal pressure to beat Kim.

Let it be known that Mao skated a super fantastic SP, and it is absolutely remarkable that she landed THREE triple axels all in all. She's 19 (as well as Kim), and I'd give her a bit of a slack for not showing the ideal sportsmanship after losing out to her long-time rival.

[mpjc]

"I'm so proud of her"?

Who the hell is he to be proud of her?

EXACTLY what i thought when he said it. Unless he's her father (or coach), absolutely senseless remark.

regarding Mao's demeanor afterward, i read it as disappointment in her own performance, not resentment. yeah she should have tried to look happy, but i'd cut her some slack. we've certainly seen far, far worse this olympics.

Edited by mpjc, 01 March 2010 - 07:51 AM.

[Fratboy]

I did think a clean program would destroy the old mark. But I'm in no way a professional commentator. I just looked at the short scores and saw they were 5% inflated from the worlds. So I figured the same would apply to the long program. Which it did. Then Yu-Na came out and blew everyone away anyway. You can't tell me Asada and Rochette would have scored 131s with those nice, but not spectacular, programs at any other competition.

I can't. But your larger point makes me wonder: under the "new" system, have skaters actually been undermarked for program components?

(It blows my mind we're having a figure skating discussion here, btw, and no one wanted to talk Olympics at ALL four years ago.)

Elements are what they are. The base values are fixed, and only the GOE makes the difference in the score. But the program components are completely 100% subjective. I've seen that program components scores are really high in pairs and ice dancing, and lower in singles skating. In the past, someone getting above 8.00 in a single program component merited an "OH WOWZZ" from even ardent observers.

What we've seen here at this Olympics is, frankly, without precedent. I have never seen so many skaters get such high program components scores. Let's go back to Shizuka Arakawa's 2006 Long Program:

<INSERT YOUTUBE WHEN NOT ENGAGING IN TIME THEFT>

Nothing, NOTHING comes even CLOSE to the grace and elegance with which she executed thie program. Despite the deliberately downgraded technical content - skating after a flawed Sasha Cohen she knew skating clean would deliver the gold - it was a beautiful, and moving performance. It was art on ice. Yet this performance received program components only from 7.61 to 8.04, roughly equivalent to Laura Lepisto's long program, and good enough for 4th place were that program performed at the 2010 games.

I'm going on the assumption here that judges are doing their jobs without backroom shenanigans (not that they'd EVER engage in such things), and that marks are comparable from competition to competition, but what we saw last night was unusual and extraordinary.

Edited by Fratboy, 26 February 2010 - 01:21 PM.

[mpjc]

^ allow me, Frat (your comment sent me looking for it):

wow. so graceful.

[Chemistry Schmemistry]

Elements are what they are. The base values are fixed, and only the GOE makes the difference in the score. But the program components are completely 100% subjective. I've seen that program components scores are really high in pairs and ice dancing, and lower in singles skating. In the past, someone getting above 8.00 in a single program component merited an "OH WOWZZ" from even ardent observers.

I think they've done a great job creating a system that explains what they look for in a skating performance. That said, the GOE and the component scores are entirely subjective. They can quickly make the scores add up to whatever they want them to add to.

In the old days, we knew which judge had done what and often, that became the discussion. "The Russian judge..." is part of the skating vernacular. Now, they're more clever. We have no idea what judge was responsible. Given my cynical nature, I would say nothing significant has changed other than they are a lot better at obfuscating their intent.

In fact, I'd say given the complexity of the system, the component scores indicate a clumsiness with the new system. Often, they are in lock step with each other. Transitions/footwork is always .5 or so below the other four components. And the other four are rarely very different. Since this is more than half of the score in the long program, basically they have license to do whatever they please, as those components make all the difference.

What I'd rather see is those components condensed - maybe reduced to just transitions and interpretation, each with a base value of 5. This removes most of the ability to fudge scores quickly to produce a result the judges want. Their current use of component scores indicates they don't have the bandwidth to cover five components anyway.

[Hendu's Gait]

Six Gala performances? That's it?


The Canadians were absolutely great (both Joannie and the Virtuous pair, in quite different ways), but wow, no Mao, no Chinese pairs, no Aboriginal Russians on the NBC telecast is shameful (considering the skiing/skating/bobsledding could have been shown in the afternoon/earlier and showing the Brokaw and other crap next week.

Can the Gala exhibition performances be found online?

[shawnrbu]

Found this on ESPN:

MSNBC
6 a.m.-Noon -- Figure Skating-Champions Gala; Figure Skating-The Medalists

[Hendu's Gait]

Found this on ESPN:

Good call. I DVR all the NBC family Olympic coverage, so found it this morning. Upon first look, Gala first, followed by the already aired judged programs by the top finishers.

[gaelgirl]

The Canadians were absolutely great (both Joannie and the Virtuous pair, in quite different ways), but wow, no Mao, no Chinese pairs, no Aboriginal Russians on the NBC telecast is shameful (considering the skiing/skating/bobsledding could have been shown in the afternoon/earlier and showing the Brokaw and other crap next week.

I'm all for criticizing NBC, but you want them to shift actual competition coverage to the afternoon in favor of more time for a bunch of non-challenging performance pieces? I'm not with you on that one.

[SeoulSoxFan]

News from the aftermath:

Coach Orser would like to see Kim Yuna learn the triple axel and compete in 2014. This is right after news came out of Japan that Mao's camp is contemplating going for the first women's quad at Sochi.

But the big news following Kim would be whether she'll continue to compete as an amateur. With all the opportunities to perform (she'd like to do more performance pieces and travel internationally), it's not a 100% that we'll ever see her at the Olympics stage again.

Edited by SeoulSoxFan, 01 March 2010 - 12:58 PM.

[Hendu's Gait]

I'm all for criticizing NBC, but you want them to shift actual competition coverage to the afternoon in favor of more time for a bunch of non-challenging performance pieces? I'm not with you on that one.

Yes, considering it was a Saturday. If there is any day to do this, it would be on a Saturday, given TV watching habits relative to the rest of the week.

But the main thrust of my point was fewer Brokaw puff-pieces and more actual Olympics coverage, whether competitive or in this case a pretty popular exhibition.

Edited by Hendu's Gait, 01 March 2010 - 02:29 PM.