Figure Skating, 2017/18 season - Part II

somebody in the last thread asked about Jenny Kirk. she went to law school in San Diego then quit after a semester. it must've been a 4th tier lousy private school anyway. last I read, she got into Columbia's social work master's program. The Skating Lesson is so boring and unprofessional now without her. I started watching a recent TSL video and was so bored with the gossipy, catty guys that I stopped watching after a few minutes. anyway, max aaron is looking good at cup of China and even though Vincent Zhou is far behind after the SP, he landed a great quad lutz, triple toe. I expect him to move up in the free. Grant is unimpressive and messing up all over the place this season. I doubt he'll make it to the Olympics or Worlds.

I like Sui/Han's SP--they're musically expressive--just these nice touches to their choreography that makes a connection between the music and what they're doing. Though it's not a great program and, yeesh, Leonard Cohen--but they make it work.

Can't believe we hit 600 on figure skating this early.

Last thread, someone said they didn't like Marin Honda--I'd much rather watch her than Zagitova--Honda has flow and line. Zagitova's too busy piling elements to ever complete an extension. Medved's got a bit of the same issue. It may be difficult, but it makes for ugly skating.

Much as I like Papadakis and Cizeron, I'm now in the not-good-enough programs camp. They need choreography that's expressive--they're not going to win on sheer technical skills.

Chock & Bates were clean, but a bit slow at parts. He can skate and she can perform, but not vice versa. However, their unison looked good.

Sui (or it is Han) need a new haircut; her current hair makes her look like an old maid. Who thought that was a great idea?

R1 I thought she went to UCLA? I remember hearing about it in a TSL episode. Anyway happy to hear that she dodged law school.

[quote]Much as I like Papadakis and Cizeron, I'm now in the not-good-enough programs camp.

Same here. Look, I love them, I still think they're the best team out there, but I've been extremely disappointed by their programs the past 2 seasons.

For the second year in a row, their SD sucks balls. C'mon, Ed Sheeran for a Latin dance? What were they thinking--for an Olympic program, no less?!? They could've hit this out of the park with an amazingly sexy number, full of passion and tension...but instead we get campy upbeat pop.

Even their FD, while gorgeous to look at, leaves me cold. It's too pristine. If they were going to return to Classical, it should've been more romantic and visceral, like Rachmaninoff.

And I think that's where these programs fail them, I think. They don't invoke any deep emotion or story the way their Mozart, Build a Home and Charms program did. That is P/C biggest strength--tapping directly into emotion. And their team is squandering that strength by giving them programs that don't showcase that strength to the hilt.

I'm rather disappointed Chris Dean gave them this program to such an overused piece of music in skating . What happened to the creative genius who gave us the (at the time) unconventional Bolero? I know skating is more technical now and not as open for artistic experimentation, but there are so many other amazing Classical pieces that aren't so overdone in skating that could've been a fresh vehicle for P/C. But we get Moonlight Sonata...beautiful music, but done to death at this point.

I honestly think if they had better programs, all this technical talk about levels, would be moot. So long as they hit, the emotion is all that matters. Not your twizzle level.

I can't believe they set a new WR -- because honestly it didn't feel like it at all. I almost fell asleep watching their program and I'm usually a fan of what they do.

I am surprised by the 200 score too

The protocols in the men SP were all over the place. The GOE for Kolyada's 4Lz went from 0 to +3. The thing is the step before the solo jump. Some judges apply the rule, others ignore it. They need some consistency.

Mihara has skated very well in the FS. She will gain back many positions.

Honda behind Mihara. 206.07 vs 198.32

LaTukt 196.68

Zagitova clean. I guess one UR. 68 PCS? Overall 213.88

But Higuchi is very close. They gave her a puppy larger than her. 141.99 FS. Overall 212.52.

Daleman...decent but not up with those seen so far here. A couple of costly step outs. She will lose many positions. 196.83

Radionova. Clean.

1) Zagitova 2) Higuchi 3) Radionova 4) Mihara 5) Honda 6) Daleman 7) Tukt 8) Li 9) Choi 10) Glenn 11) Zhao

[quote]I'm rather disappointed Chris Dean gave them this program to such an overused piece of music in skating .

I may be wrong but I think the FS is done by Marie-France and Dean only did their SD.

I'm afraid Dean is losing his touch, but I am glad Chock and Bates beat Brobova and partner. This should guaranteed at least two US teams make it to the GPF.

Hubell and Donohue square off with Cappellini/Lanotte for that silver medal in Japan.

Chock/Bates vs. Weaver Poje in France

Shibutanis have Skate America and should win and qualify easily to the GPF.

V/M,P/C, S/S, W/P should all make the final.

I assume H/D beat C/L in Japan and C/L get second place at Skate America

So B/S, H/D and C/L will all be with 5 (2+3). One between W/P and C/B will be in the same situation. So a tie of 4 for the last 2 spots.

and Max Aaron beats Vincent Zhou

poor Tanaka. He fell on a transition and therefore he missed a jumping pass at the end.

He was pretty soldi on the rest. Much better than Mura last week.

Han Yan was convincing too even if he fell behind Zhou because of too few quads

Fernandez...lots of triples instead of quads. TES is very low. It's worse than Tanaka . PCS will prop him up. But he risk to lose positions. Overall behind Aaron, Zhou and Yan Han. He's likely out of Grand Prix final as Boyang and Kolyada need to try hard not to finish in top 4

Boyang messy on almost every jump. Very few landed cleanly . A bit splat now in a planned combo and so lost element because he went into repetition.. Program seems not much developed.

What will they give him for PCS? He should get less than Han....and yes, 78 for PCS

264.48 goes into the lead. FS lower than Aaron, Zhou and Han.

Now Kolyada....fall on 4Lz (but rotated)....pop.....got the 3A+3T combo...4T landed...1A....3Lz+1Lo+3S done...3R...3Lz+3T.....it's enough to win this mess.

Max Aaron has won the FS (basically a tie between him, Kolyada and Boyang)

1) Kolyada 279.38

2) Boyang 264.48

3) Aaron 259.69

4) Zhou 256..66

5) Han 254.61

6) Fernandez 253.06

7) Tanaka 247.17

8) Reynolds 226.50

9) Hochstein 216.44

10) Majorv 186.04

11) Petrov 186.02

12) Zhang 167.58

Ugh I can't stand Higuchi. She's the Courtney Hicks of Japanese ladies (except with the jumps). Hope Honda gets to the Olympics but I'm not sure what Japan will base on for the selection.

Oh please, Higuchi is actually a great skater, don't you dare compare her to Hicks who can't perform to save her life.

R14 I read Japanese Federation Olympic selection criteria using google translate...so I am not 100% sure I understood them correctly. What I've understood is that winner of Nationals will be selected. Second woman will be decided by Federation among those who have at least one of those requirements: finished second or third at Nationals, those who finished top 2 at Grand Prix Final and those in top 3 of World Ranking or World Season Best Ranking.

For men it's the National Champion plus Federation deciding the other 2 between those who have at least one of these requirements asked for second woman.

It's done to protect Hanyu or Uno in the case they miss for whatever reason the National Championships.

I think Higuchi's less annoying than Courtney Hicks, but I'm not a fan of her muscle-girl skating. I don't think Honda will get to go with just two spots. Japan could really use one more spot, whereas the U.S. and Canada both have one more spot than they need.

I honestly don't know why Karen Chen, the U.S. champ and 4th place at Worlds was left to flounder on her programs this year. Her last-minute swap to self-choreography pretty much guaranteed that she'd be out of the grand prix final. I assume that unless Ashley Wagner crashes and burns, she'll be home-cooked into the GP final at Skate America.

Loathe Zagitova's programs--they're frantic and disconnected to the music since the emphasis is so much on elements and backloading. The ISU needs to do something about current standards unless they want ugly, frantic skating programs as a future norm.

R17 agree with you re: Zagitova. Watching her programs gave me a headache. Plus her costumes are so tacky.

Higuchi has no lines. It's painful watching her trying to emote with her wooden arms.

[quote] I honestly don't know why Karen Chen, the U.S. champ and 4th place at Worlds was left to flounder on her programs this year.

yes, it smacks of lack of supervision by USFSA.

[quote] Loathe Zagitova's programs--they're frantic and disconnected to the music since the emphasis is so much on elements and backloading.

also her landings aren't soft. Sometimes I fear she would break the ice surface.

[quote] Japan could really use one more spot, whereas the U.S. and Canada both have one more spot than they need.

or the second spot for Kazakhstan and the second spot of Italy and South Korea.

Weht to that Korean girl from Sochi? Not Yuna Kim, the other one.

R20 Which one? There were two. Haejin Kim isn't doing much now, and Soyoun Park broke her ankle earlier this year. She withdrew from Rostelecom and is supposed to be in NHK next week.

Park was 6th and Haejin Kim 10th in the first internal Olympic qualification event this summer.

Kim was 50 points behind second place. So without any serious chance.

Park was 20 points behind second girl. Not impossible to gain it back given there are 2 other qualification events whose scores are to be summed together with the one already done. But she needs to be healthy.

Javi got some stomach bug in China which was why he bombed so badly. It seems like one or two skaters always get sick at every CoC. I thought skaters knew they have to be super vigilant over there and bring their own food, but I guess you can never be 100% safe.Oh well. At least there will be a couple of less predictable faces at the GPF without him & Patrick there.

So Misha Ge wasn't actually gay as fu*k or his new girlfriend is his beard? He's too flamboyant to trick anyone.

Natalia Zabiiako is actually his girlfriend? I never would have guessed.

I'm glad to see Max Aaron finally landing quads and skating well, but I'd still bet that Vincent Zhou will wind up placing higher than Max at nationals. Vincent just blew the short program. Max has been inconsistent for years. Good bye to Grant... sorry. He skates with heart but can't land most of his jumps.

Amber Glenn is also fading from being an up and comer to being someone who should find another career. She was a mess in both the short and free skates. big wild jumps, can't hold onto landings, and an odd costume with mismatched orangey tights & gloves that made her hands look like paws. I wonder if it was awkward to be around Mai, for whom I assume Nathan dumped her?

So who would you say, at this point, are the top contenders for the upcoming Olympics.

Sorry, tried to end that with a question mark.

?

In men I see Hanyu, Fernandez, Uno, and Chen. The gold is definitely between them.

Agree with the men.

Medvedeva for the Ladies--strong favorite. Osmond, Zagitova and whichever Japanese women get there as challengers.

Dance--Virtue/Moir have the edge, but they're fighting for gold with Papadakis/Cizeron. Shibutanis, Chock/Bates, Hubbell/Donahue and Weaver/Poje duke it out for bronze. Russian couple and Cappelling/LaNotte could also end up in the mix. I think the Shibs have the edge, they are very, very clean--but it could be any of them.

"At least there will be a couple of less predictable faces at the GPF without him & Patrick there. "

I suppose GPF can be Hanyu, Uno, Chen, Kolyada, Jason Brown and Boyang.

Without Chan, Jason should finish second at NHK too.

[quote] Osmond, Zagitova and whichever Japanese women get there as challengers.

Carolina Kostner will land all her jumps from the reprise of her junior program from 1999 season and will then get all 10s in the components.

What is the actual criteria for US olympics team? I'm still blurry on how they chose Ashley instead of Mirai.

I didn't expect Misha to look like that. Still have a hard time buying him as a couple with Zabijako though.

he already has the face of an old Russian man though.

R35, he is not Russian.

Misha's mother is Russian and his dad is Chinese/Korean. He looks just like his dad.

Any update on Gracie? Has anyone been sneaking her cupcakes?

How old is Carolina now?

R39 Carolina is 30.

I'm 99% sure Gracie won't make it to Nationals this year, but given how lousy the US field is, maybe she might want to come back. Hell even Michelle Kwan could come back.

BTW when does a skater receive a bye to US nationals? Gracie doesn't skate in any international event this year, so does that mean she has to skate in sectionals/regionals? If so that's kinda humiliating for her.

Well I don't see why Gracie should be exempt from the rules. She's not that special. But I also think it would be completely insane for her to try to come back this season at all. Not only was she not in shape to begin with, but you don't just check out of rehab after a couple months and go right back to the high level training regime that led to those problems in the first place.

Without looking it up, i think the medalists or top 5 from the previous year's nationals get an automatic bye to nationals, so Gracie wouldn't have to qualify through regionals and sectionals. and skaters competing in international competitions that conflict with regionals/sectionals also get byes to nationals. Gracie is done. What bad timing for her to lose her jumps, gain weight and have psych issues during the Olympic season. at most maybe she can get back a triple toe (heck maybe a double axel is asking too much) and perform in shows, but it looks like her heart isn't in skating. time for her to hit the books and try to make money another way to support her family, since her dad either lost his med license or had it suspended.

R33, Nationals are not the Olympic trials, and they never were. The Powers That Be are free to choose any skater to the Olympic or world team. That year Ashley Wagner has 2 terrible skates at Nationals, and Mirai did as well as she usually does. Ashley's numbers put her in 4th in that competition, but her numbers before and after Nationals were much higher, while Mirai stayed the same. Mirai would not have been competitive at the Olympics with the numbers she had been getting.

But I'm no expert, so other may have more insight.

R33, the rules have changed--but, traditionally, the top two or three at Nationals have gone to the Olympics, but it's always at the discretion of the US skating federation. So back in 2014, the top three were Gracie Gold, Polina Edmunds and Mirai Nagasu. Ashley Wagner, who'd done well internationally, but had bombed one of her programs (the long, I think) was fourth. So Gracie and Polina were picked because they were top two--Polina was new to seniors, but had done well as a junior. Mirai had been U.S. champion some years earlier, but had gone into a slump. So Wagner, who'd been the previous year's national champion was given the third slot--in part because it had been her performance at Worlds that had gotten the U.S. a third spot in the first place.

This year the skating fed just made it clear that the Nationals wouldn't be the big decider, though given the crap skates by the women so far, it probably will be.

Nationals was the Olympic qualification (unless extraordinary circumstances arose like Nancy's attack) so the top placers were always sent to the Olympics. However, sometime before Sochi new rules were implemented in order to allow more flexibility in team selection.

should we discuss

a) Yan Han's hair color?

b) Zagitova's catsuit in the EX?

Hey every 15-year-old girl needs a Frederick's of Hollywood-inspired catsuit.

Just browsed Jenny Kirk's Instagram and she's indeed enrolling in a MSW in Columbia; wonder where she went for undergrad. Also wonder what she was working as after retirement until now (more than a decade, wow).

It's a bit late to get a MSW though, given the salaries of social workers and the high price tag of a Columbia masters. Is her family loaded?

Zijun Li withdrawn also from French GP

Castelli/Tran get the French GP spot left vacant by injured Czech pair.

Read online that Jenny went to Santa Monica College. I guess her family's rich because they were able to send her off to train with the Scotvolds and then Frank Carroll in southern Cal. Her mom died of cancer when she was a teen. Her dad did something in the television or news industry. anyway, TSL is awful now without her.

NHK is going on later this week. I'm bored by Medvedeva but looking forward to seeing how Mirai does. If Kostner medals with her watered down jump content, zooming around and bungling landings with a doofy look, I'll scream.

I expect Yuzuru to win men's by a landslide with Jason Brown getting silver or bronze with much lesser jump content.

Yeah, you'll notice there are no more exclusive interviews with skaters on TSL anymore after Jenny left. She brought in the skating connections. Without her, Dave is just another gossipy tabloid blogger in their eyes. They all seemed to run for the hills after Jenny left. They even lost their sponsor.

It's just as well, I suppose. Jenny's skating cred elevated the show, but Dave was never going to be able to elevate with it. That's just not him. He's too snarky and opinionated to sugarcoat his honest thoughts, which you can tell he was doing a lot of when he had access to the skaters themselves. That just was never going to work long-term. You can't network with skaters and coaches, interview them, make them your friends, then trash them or their programs publicly on the podcast--whether it's the objective truth or not.

I actually prefer his commentary now--now that he's not beholden to sugarcoat his thoughts for the sake of keeping his connections with the skating world. It's gossipy, yes, but there's a lot of interesting points he does make about skating, which aren't necessarily PC to say, but are totally true.

I'd rather have interesting debate and discussion rather than the canned interviews and commentary we always get.

Does anyone find Kostner good-looking? She looks really weird to me, but I'm not a het so what do I know.

Kostner has always looked horsey to me. I know she has nice lines and skating quality but I just find her terribly boring. Respect to her for being able to compete in the ladies' discipline at 30 though.

Years & years ago Stephane "dated" her for a short time - this is hilarious.

[quote]I actually prefer his commentary now--now that he's not beholden to sugarcoat his thoughts for the sake of keeping his connections with the skating world. It's gossipy, yes, but there's a lot of interesting points he does make about skating, which aren't necessarily PC to say, but are totally true. I'd rather have interesting debate and discussion rather than the canned interviews and commentary we always get.

My main problem with him is he's often full of shit, biased to the extreme and just pushing whatever narrative he thinks will get him the most attention. I don't find him half as clever as he thinks he is either. It's one thing to be bitchy on an anonymous board like this, but I am not impressed by a 30-something(?) man acting catty on social media about a bunch of mostly very young and mostly female skaters. They are not celebrities, they don't have publicists or any real way to defend themselves. There must be a way to be entertaining and non-pc without being such a raging douchebag.

In a recent video, Dave was making fun of Rika Hongo and her hunchy posture. that kind of junior high schoolish attitude in the form of a middle aged gay man is ridiculous and off putting. I got better things to do than listen to the guy's self absorbed, infantile ravings.

Kostner looks borderline retarded. Good for her still being sort of competitive at age 30, but I've never been impressed by her skating. all she's got going for her is her being a skinny, long limbed, blondish white woman with speed.

Kettle: [quote]Dave was making fun of Rika Hongo and her hunchy posture. that kind of junior high schoolish attitude in the form of a middle aged gay man is ridiculous and off putting.

Meet

Pot: [quote]Kostner looks borderline retarded.

Dave also said Satoko Miyahara should stop skating and become a housewife instead. Yikes.

I'm just an anonymous person on a forum. Dave is a wannabe journalist who has had or tried to get media credentials and interviewed skaters and others. they also had sponsors for the show. He should at least make an effort to be professional like that other guy Ted Flett.

lol TSL reuploaded an old video with Jenny and I thought she was back

Haha, I thought the same, R60. He must be desperate for more views.

Daleman is not improving ber photoshop techniques

R62 Come on, let her get some endorsements.

2 events tomorrow:

NHK start

Bruno Massot is taking German language test again in order to get citizenship

Coomes/Buckland are a last minute replacement for Tobias/Tkachenko at NHK

Hanyu had a Pogo-splat fall during practices today. He's doing medical check. He may not skate tomorrow

Australian Olympic Team announced

Men: Brandan Kerry

Ladies: Kailani Craine

Pairs: Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya / Harley Windsor

Men and Pairs didn't have a valid alternative. In Ladies Brooklee Han is also decent (SB 167 for Craine and 161 for Han).

It's second Olympic games for Kerry (29th in Sochi) and the debut for the other 3.

Hanyu's fall in practice. Ouch.

At this rate Jason Brown Will eni NHK

R67 Yikes. He really should not be attempting the quad lutz. His Lutz has always had that sketchy forwards lean, he's only been able to land the triple about half the time in the last 3 or 4 years. He's gonna blow his knee out trying to land the quad.

I agree...Hanyu's technique lends itself better to edge jumps. His lutz has always been iffy.

awful fall. looks like Jason's going to win his first grand prix? the men's competition looks so weak compared to the ladies. I hope Yuzuru doesn't get injured again. then again, injury can easily happen to any of those guys practicing quads.

I read that Yuzuru didn't show up for practice this morning but he hasn't decided to withdraw yet. I'm getting kind of tired of the drama that follows him everywhere. Just withdraw if it's that bad, for god's sake. I know the Japanese audience will be upset but the Olympics are a lot more important than the GP.

Remember Branden Kerry from Worlds. Cute guy. Not great skating technique, but has a very friendly air about him so he's enjoyable to watch on ice. Hope he's improved since Sochi.

Yuzuru withdrew from the competition. This GPF is going to be so weird -- no Yuzuru or Patrick or Javier?

Nice to see he's actually putting his health first, at least this won't be a repeat of Boston 2016.

[quote]This GPF is going to be so weird -- no Yuzuru or Patrick or Javier?

I'm happy to see some different faces for a change. Yuzuru & Javi had rotten luck, but Patrick only has himself to blame.

NHK so far

Pairs SP: 1) Sui/Han 79.43 2) Stolbova/Klimov 75.05 3) Astakhova/Rogonov 70.47 4) Knierims 65.86 5) Seguin/Bilodeau 63.98 6) Ziegler/Kiefer 62.61 7) Suto/Boudreau/Audet 51.69 8) Suzaki/Kihara 44.83

S/H are the favorite of the season at this point. Stolbova/Klimov can count on PCS especially when they are clean like today. A/R solid, in the fight for third Russian spot. Knierims are the frontrunner for US spot. Z/K solid for their standards. S/B are stagnating.

Ladies SP: 1) Medvedeva 79.99 2) Kostner 74.57 3) Tsurkaya 70.04 4) Hongo 65.83 5) Nagasu 65.17 6) Myahara 65.06 7) Leonova 63.61 etc 9) Bell 57..25 etc 12) Chartrand 49.6

As expected at the top...Med in the lead. Kostner in second. Nagasu got the 3A and URs the other jumps. Bell had an invalid element (the solo triple not done). Another mess by Chartrand...is Canadian Olympic Committee strict or will they send the third girl regardless of the performances during the seasons?

what is left of the men field.......back to a decade ago...Voronov in the lead...

1. Voronov 90.06

2. Bychecnko 85.52

3. Brown 85.36

4. Rippon 84.95

5. Messing 80.13

6. Tomono 79.88

7. Aliev 77.51

8. Vasiljevs 76.51

9. Brezina 76.24

10. Sato 75.95

11. Nguyen 65.82

Jesus Christ, those were some beautiful jumps by Voronov. That 3axel was so high!

How the fuck did Bychenko get the same score as Brown when the latter has a step out on the axel and doubled the toe in the 3-3 combo? Ugh. Bynchenko is perpetually underscored in the PCS, poor guy.

Yeah, Brown just coasts on reputation scoring. That was really lame today. And Adam's program still looks as empty as last season.

Sergei is proof that you can improve late in the game. He should go back to the sexy pleather costumes though. I don't understand this one.

Bychenko can not even glide properly across the ice. I have seen intermediate skaters skate with more command.

I like the new Eteri girl (Polina). Her skating is more mature, has great lines and interpretation, and is not in your face as Med or Zagitova. Still don't know wtf the miming was in the program though. BTW Adam, you need to lay off the makeup hon.

Petrov withdraws from Skate America. Besseghier withdraws from Internationaux de France.

There are 2 Senios Z events (Graz and Riga) this week.

In Riga Muller/Dieck won Ice Dance wiyth 152.96. Score doesn't count for German internal Olympic ranking (only GPs, Challengers and Nationals). A score like that would put them at the same level of Lorenz/Polizioakis (who have a 152 and a 146 score so far) but they need to repeat it in Warsaw and/or Zagreb.

Righini won Men with 238.97. Italy count all International events for internal ranking (top 3 International scores + Nationals). So Righini is back in the race: I think the situation is now Rizzo 673.97 Righini 670.19 points.

Hmm. I hope Matteo gets the Olys spot. For one thing he's genuinely Italian and he's been pretty consistent this season, not to mention he's the only reason Italy has a spot.

Looks like Javier is dating some dancer now.

R87 I believe Italian Fed want Rizzo. They will find a way to select him. Like sending him to some obscure competitions known for overscoring like Open of Andorra. And they have a provision in the rules saying that if the score used for the ranking is within X points (15 IIRC), they can pick the one they prefer.

Wow, last place for Nam Nguyen. Is this rock bottom for him?

Looks like the puberty monster got him. He's not a skinny waif anymore and with his sloppy technique, no wonder the quads have left him. Vincent Zhou better take note.

how the fuck has Voronov not gone to the Olympics yet?! Well I hope he's able to qualify for this year's Olympic then.

So GP--looking at Chen v. Uno v. the comeback of the Russian men?

Mirai Nagasu isn't going to happen--she's like an uber-talented junior, but 10 years too old.

Prefer Polina T to Zagitova--though not sure what she's miming so carefully.

Mirai needs to retire already. Bitch landed a triple axel and still sits in 5th place...over 10 points behind the leader.

SD

Virtue/Moir 80.92

Hubbell/Donohoe 76.31

Cappellini/Lanotte 75.87 (PB). PCS slightly higher than H/D

Sinistina/Katsalapov 72.49 (PB, surprised by such high performance)

Coomes/Buckland 65.64

Fournier/Sorensen 65.64

Nazarova/Nikitin 63.33

Lauriault/LeGac 62.79 (pB)

Muramoto/Reed 61.82

Komastubara/Koleto 53.83 (PB)

234.53 for Sui/Han. Second highest score in history

222.74 for Stolbova/Klimov

203.64 for Asthakova/Rogonov

V/D overscored.

H/D underscored.

Ouch, Park.

Leonova skated her PB in FS. Almost her PB overall.

Bell....two hard falls. And her landings are often not smooth even when she gets the jumps.

Anyone else find Ryan Bradley's commentary on the Olympic Channel grating as all hell? He talks throughout the performances and over-enunciates his words with a voice so nasally lipsy it's like scratches on a chalk board. I'll take even Tonia Kwaikowski over this shit.

Kostner ahead of Polina?

Kostner beats Med in PCS today.

Ridiculous reputation scoring for Kostner. Can't wait for her to retire and gallop off into the sunset.

The Canadian judge didn't even give her -3 GOE for the fall.

The presentation of judges at the beginning. LOL at the Italian judge (judge 4)'s outfit

Mariah Bell's FP to West Side Story is a hot mess. Choreography was clunky, the costume had nothing to do with the musical--it looked like it came off a Vegas showgirl rack--and Mariah looked so awkward trying to be all spicy Latina.

Same goes for her SP. Put Roxy to rest. Mariah does not do sexy well, and she looks so miserable and out of her element when she tries.

All made even worse with the bad jumps.

Why not give her some twinkly piano music or some uplifting fluff to skate to?

Sato literally didn't land any jump as he was supposed to do. So Nguyen won't be last

Mariah Bell isn't going to happen. She looks like she should, but she's 22 and still doesn't know what she needs as a performer. If she were Karen Chen's age, I'd say she had a bright future, but she doesn't even have Ashley's knack for picking programs that make her look good.

Sui gave serious bitch face at the beginning of the Turandot program. It's refreshing to see a pairs skater get into character with conviction.

If you're Virtue/Moir you can stumble around and not complete your twizzles and still outscore everybody.

First group of Men all over the place

Vasiljevs is leading with a 1A and a 1F. But he blew a kiss to the crowd in the middle of the choreo sequence. 234.80 score. Then Aliev, Brezina, Nam and Sato.

Oh fuck. Adam finally landed that 4Lutz. He went all clean. : o

4Lz for Adam is UR. If the panel was strict, it could have also been downgraded to a triple

Are you sure it was not one of his triples that got downgraded? His score only went down 3 points.

R107 I think he got the Quad UR rather than downgraded. But we must wait for protocols.

Voronov clean. Maybe a two steps on the first quad but he got everything else smoothly

*second quad

181 FS. 271 overall.

PB by a landslide

Jesus Chris this might be the most exciting competition in a while. With Yuzuru gone everyone is bringing their A game because they have a chance.

come on, I want Voronov to win, not Brown

Bychenko 252, behind Adam

Ok, not even Carolina's PCS would save this program for Brown

1) Voronov 271.12

2) Rippon 261.99

3) Bychenko 252.07

4) Brown 245.98

5) Messing 235.80

6) Vasiljievs 234.80

7) Tomono 231.93

8) Aliev 223.45

9) Brezina 220.45

10) Nguyen 214.51

11) Sato 199.20

Podium

Voronov born in 1987

Rippon 1989

Bychenko 1988

woa Jason really imploded there in the free. Congrats to Voronov.

Can someone explain the appeal of Keegan Messing? I mean, he has nice skating skills but he looks like a stubby-legged gremlin to me. I can't stand watching him.

Voronov debuted in the Grand Prix at 2006 Skate America. Should I feel bad I can't remember some of those skaters:

1tNobunari ODAt JPNt231.39t1t2 2tEvan LYSACEKt USAt221.09t3t1 3tAlban PREAUBERTt FRAt212.67t2t3 4tKevin VAN DER PERRENt BELt178.52t5t5 5tSergei DAVYDOVt BLRt175.72t6t7 6tScott SMITHt USAt173.08t8t6 7tSergei VORONOVt RUSt173.03t9t4 8tRyan BRADLEYt USAt172.29t4t9 9tChristopher MABEEt CANt163.16t7t10 10tKarel ZELENKAt ITAt161.95t10t8 11tYasuharu NANRIt JPNt150.36t12t11 WDtNicholas YOUNGt CANt t11t

Today's winning ceremony

Interview was cute with Voronov desperately trying to speak in English somehow

"this season... my ..I think step by step....competition, step, competition, next, next...not like a long trip...step by step"

Voronov is a cutie. I hope he makes the Russian Olympic team and wins a medal in the team competition. Russia has lots of hunks, including Nikita Katsalopov and Fedor Klimov.

what a surprise podium. never even heard of Alexei before, and voronov didn't ever do anything remarkable in the past. I thought for sure Jason would win in this field. the medallists looked overjoyed in the victory ceremony. congrats to Adam. I still don't like his weird bird choreography at the beginning, but he did great.

Voronov is a 2-time European medalist and he won bronze at the Grand Prix Final in 2014. So he has had his moments.

Bychenko also has an European medal. I think it was a silver. 2 seasons ago. It was the edition with the last skate of the career for Amodio

What a cool men's skate--the winners looked so delighted. Great to see Adam Rippon rise up to the occasion. The Olympics team calculus just changed with this one. He's back in the mix.

Jason has never really been the same after his injury. I wouldn't be surprised if he's skating through pain even now.

His triple axel has always been iffy, but he's now struggling sometimes on his other triples--and that never used to be the case. He could do triple lutzes and flips in his sleep.

And it doesn't help that his programs are pretty blah this season.

I actually think it'll be Chen, Rippon and Max who make the Olympic team this year.

I wonder if Jason has considered switching to ice dance. He's tall and lean, with nice edges and great flexibility...he's expressive and loves to perform. I think he could be a viable ice dancer if he wanted. He's a little asexual so projecting the sex appeal necessary might take some time, but if the judges can crown the asexual incest twins national champion, then I'm sure he could do well despite that.

sorry but I just can't picture Jason in ice dance, unless he's the "girl" with another guy (which I would totally watch, serious). On that note, will we ever have gay ice dance pairs instead of watching countless gay guys feigning chemistry with another girl?

And is Kostner back with bear daddy coach Michal Huth again? WHET Mishin?

R122 we've lots of chemistry. Latin SD 1998

Ice Dance field is pretty deep and crowded as it is. How about pairs? Is Jason strong enough to throw a girl?

R124...wow, 19 years later, and they still dance exactly the same.

Jason could do pairs, but I think his strengths would be better utilized and rewarded in dance. He has the body type and flexibility to rival Cizeron, has a flare for performing and musical interpretation, and he can move his body well.

I'm sure with the right packaging and coaching, he could fake sexy with a girl. He's a performer, after all. Lord knows there are tons of gay ice dancers who can give him tips. Granted, he's not an attractive fella (gotta keep it real), which might hurt the overall "look," but witch-nose Scott Moir with his stumpy body is an Olympic champion, so obviously looks isn't everything.

As for same-sex pairings on ice...I don't think I'll see it in my lifetime to be honest. Sex is so intrinsically woven into our perception of pairs and dance, I just don't think audiences are ready to see love, passion, and sexual attraction physically expressed between two men/women on the ice. I hope I'm wrong (never thought I'd see a Black president in my lifetime)...but this would entail a gigantic leap of progress in terms of how we think about men, women, love and sex.

Yeah I've been wondering too if Jason could be considering a switch to pairs or dance. His tech content is light as it is and his jumps are deteriorating, so this will likely be the last year he can hang on in singles, and he'd probably make the transition to pairs/dance pretty easily, better than most singles skaters anyway.. But he'll be what, 23 or 24 at the end of this season? He might be ready to just retire.

Pairs have jumps and jumping passes including triples! Why would that work? Because he wouldn't have to perform a quad? Nor is it a good reason to change to pairs in order to prolong a competitive career when he has a lot of value as a show performer. After he retires from competition he may require a lot of rest and rehab and even modifications to his schedule but I certainly hope he would be able to have long ice show career. Ideally strong and pain-free (normal manageable soreness) with good recovery.

I have a hard time picturing Jason in dance & even moreso pairs. I think what he really needs is a coaching change, but he probably won't ever do it because of his attachment to Kori.

[quote]I actually think it'll be Chen, Rippon and Max who make the Olympic team this year.

Not if the USFSA and Vincent Zhou have a say.

There is no way Vincent is left off the team even if he tanks at nationals.

If Max medals in his next event, that 3rd Olympic spot might be decided between Rippon and Aaron.

Hubbell/Donahue were on fire. I much preferred their FD to V/M's tired, hokey Moulin Rouge.

Wasn't Jason's injury a back issue? if so, I can't imagine him trying pairs with all the lifting required. it's so disappointing to see him falter on what used to be easy for him. Men's tech content has gotten worse other than the top few guys. Adam didn't even attempt a quad in the short. The jumps have disappeared for Nam Nguyen, Denis Ten, brezina, Chan, Fernandez (although someone said he caught a stomach bug at the last competition).

I really can't with the vocals in V/M program, and the over-emoting etc.

Oh please let H/D beat the Shib-bots at Nationals. Please, please, pleeeeease. They are so much better--even their twizzles.

R123 Speaking of same-sex ice dancing, here is Christian Erwin and Joel Dear at Ice Theater of New York's fall gala.

Thanks R135, Dave from The Skating Lesson podcast made a reference that the Russian audience, that had come out to see Plushenko, didn't dig the same sex couple. Well too bad for them because they had to sit and watch the two gays first lol

[quote] There are 2 Senios Z events (Graz and Riga) this week.

I watched a bit of the live streaming from Graz. I know the organizers should be praised because they offer a livestream but I couldn't stop laughing when the scores were announced. They didn't have graphics, the commentator was writing the scores with a pen on piece of paper and then put it in front of the camera. The final ranking was also shown in this way. Skaters were called by first name (men results was 1) Daniel 2) Javier 3) Adrien and so on) with some designed "funny" faces next to each name.

And yes, Javier Raya managed to get crushed by a 15 year old Italian boy. He's lucky Spanish third man is as weak. Maybe he would do better if he doesn't spend the day before SP doing touristic stuffs in Venice. He's classic example that this way of allocating spots to countries doesn't work well when you've a champion and basically nothing after him/her.

Doesn't the Olympics have a minimum score to qualify?

R138. yes, they have a minimum TES. However, the minimum TES required is the same of Euros/4 Continents rather than the one required for Worlds.

So

Men: 25 SP and 45 FS

Ladies: 20/36

Pairs: 20/36

Ice Dance: 19/29

Raya today got 56 as TES (so well above the minimum required) with following jump content:

3A+1Lo (negative GOE)

3F

3A (all -2/-3)

3Lz

3T

2F

3S

3T+REP (negative GOE)

And the minimum TES doesn't have to achieved in ISU events (World, Euro, 4CCs, GP and Challengers) but all events in the ISU International list are valid as long as there are at least 2 competitors from 2 different countries and the judges meet some requirements (minimum 5 judges and they are in the ISU or International list) . For ex in Graz they had only 5 judges rather than 9 as in GP/Challengers.

How do you get all this information R139, R140? I'd like to know more about the details of the ISU.

Adam Rippon’s ex at NHK... wow. Bold move to not skate at all and instead sing along to yourself singing Rihanna.

R143 Info on minium TES, competitions details and judges are usually found in documents present in "ISU communications" section on ISU website.

All info about scoring are in protocols uploaded at the end of each segment. it's a pdf file with all elements, GOE received, components marks by all judges. For GP, Worlds, etc the results and protocols are on ISU website. For Senior B (aka international competitions of lower levels) they are on some link usually found on the event website.

Since last season scores are not anonymous anymore and you can know how each judge voted. It's a small world. Some judges, coaches and skaters are often strongly tied. I don't like when you've some coaches/choreographers being on a panel. Obviously they don't judge competitions with their own skaters taking part. But it's a bit strange seeing them judging other competitors, maybe with some rivals of their skaters taking part.

It's Cizeron's birthday anniversary. In wishing him a bon anniversaire Madison Chock managed to find a pic of him where he can almost out-diva her.

Looking through Madison's instagram, I gotta say she is one beautiful woman. Probably the most beautiful of the top teams competing.

Is Madison dating Evan? Their last interview entitled "20 Questions" for Chock and Bates (on Youtube) give me the impression that they are more than friends.

yes, as far as I know, Madison and Evan are still a couple.

Replacement for Petrov at Skate Canada is Roman Sadovsky.

I mean, Skate America

That will be why he missed sectionals then...

Misha Ge is having problems getting his visa for France again -- he tweeted that his plane leaves tomorrow but he still doesn't have a visa.

Ok, I'm starting to think Gabby has some kind of body dysmorphic disorder. Yikes! I've been 2 feet away from her and she's a cute girl in real life.

That photo looks dreadful! why would she need to photoshop herself into an alien?! girl, spend that time working on your skating instead.

he wants a caption

R151 He got the VISA now

Some coaching changes: Brendan Kerry just dumped Tammy Gambill and switched to Morozov.

R152 Yeah she's totally ripped, which isn't even necessary for figure skating, so I would think she just does it because she enjoys bodybuilding? But then she tries to photoshop her muscles to oblivion in all her pictures. What is the point of putting in all that effort to build up a body like that just to be ashamed of it??

Jun Hwan Cha withdrew from Skate America due to hip and knee problems -- he also cites that he wants to get ready for Korean selections for the Olympics.

Han Yan is rumoured to replace him (at least according to his weibo).

IIRC second stage of Korean selectionals are the week after Skate America.

Choice of Han by USFSA is interesting because he is possibly the only one in the reserves list that can beat Rippon.

Next weekend is also the Shanghai Trophy which has some interesting entries. I guess it's a commercial event kind of like Japan Open, but it has all 4 disciplines plus synchro and speed skating. 6 entries per category and everyone gets some pretty good reward money, even the 6th place finishers.

yes, the prize money in Shangai is higher than at Skate America. Winners get 25,000 $. Last place get 3,000$.

It is an invitentional event

Ice Dance Tech Panel at Internationaux de France

Technical ControllertMs. Christine HURTH (France)t t Technical SpecialisttMs. Marie BOWNESSt(Canada) tt Assistant Technical SpecialisttMs. Francesca FERMI (Italy)

wow who funded that shit?

is Lambiel massaging Deniss Vasilijevs's hand?

I finally settled on opinion of P/C FD and that's... it's better than meh, but they deserve better. They have some remarkable skating in it, and while there's plenty of flash the best part of it is it doesn't seem to rely on tricks interspersed with over-emotive nothing like every V/M program.

But at the same time... there's not a whole lot of there there. It's certainly no Bolero and it doesn't even reach Scheherazade levels of memorable. There's no story, no triumph, and that spin that takes up an entire minute is impressive but the second half of it is more boring than the first. We get it. You can go in circles many many times, now do something else.

Yeah, I don't get why P/C who are so capable of telling a story and creating a mood didn't do that for the Olympic year. Bolero changed ice dance (I'm old enough to have watched it pre Torvill & Dean and, man, was it dreary.). I find the narrative of Scheherezade easy to follow--D/W don't play it as real, but as two American kids play-acting a fairy tale but with insane levels of speed and skill. P/C can get away with more abstract choreography than a lot of skaters, but they're getting too far away from narrative at this point IMO to be at their most effective.

I hope Javi has recovered and beats the sparkly little troll in France. So sick of him and his annoying fans.

Polina Edmunds at French GP....somehow decent but she's not in the fight with top US girls. 56.31

Short Dance at Warsaw Challanger:

1. Betina POPOVA / Sergey MOZGOV 64.38 PB

2. Lorraine MCNAMARA / Quinn CARPENTER 62.53

3. Alexandra NAZAROVA / Maxim NIKITIN 61.82

4. Lilah FEAR / Lewis GIBSON 60.40 PB

5. Alisa AGAFONOVA / Alper UCAR 60.34

6. Katharina MÜLLER / Tim DIECK 59.65 PB (close to L/P, so fight for German Olympic spot is still open. The two teams will go head to head at Golden Bear)

Zagitova falls again (also UR). Step out in the combo too (3F+3R...and probably UR). Eteri is stone faced.

62.46. Behind Shiraiwa (66.05)

Lecavalier ok. Problem with the second jump of the combo (hand down and I guess UR). 60.68. Ahead of her internal rival Maite (58.96).

Tukta flops hard. Last place so far (and I guess also at the end because the remaining skaters shouldn't go below 53).

Mihara ends the combo literally on the boards. 64.57

Elizabet whatever from Kazakhstan as an implausible Carmen. She starts with a pop. Rest ok. Her mum is still out of her depth. 62.29.

Sotskova. Cleanish. 67.79

Osmond. Some problems for her too. Into the lead anyway. 69.05

So

1 Osmond 69.05

2 Sotskova 67.79

3 Shirawa 66.05

4 Mihara 64.57

5 Zagitova 62.46

6 Tursynbaeva 62.29

7 Lecavlier

8 Maite

9 Edmunds

10 Schott

11 Tuktamysheva

jesus christ that Pepto Bismo pink dress of Sotskova is headache-inducing

in Warsaw

1 Serafima SAKHANOVICH 61.23

2 Stanislava KONSTANTINOV 59.84

3 Courtney Hicks 58.43

Short Dance just started in France.

Sakhanovich is still skating?

Stepanova/Bukin back down at Guignard/Fabbri's levels: 70.02 vs 69.73

Even if I misremember the S/B's score in SD at Rostelecom. They were 2.3 ahead of the Italians. I thought the gap was bigger.

Big mistake by Poje in the twizzles. 68.94. Behind Russians and Italians. They will pass them in the FD but big occasion for Chock/Bates

81.40 for Guillaume/Gabriela.

Chock/Bates 73.55

1) Fernandez 106.87

2) Troll 93.92 (still high on PCS)

3) Samarin 91.51 PB by 7 points

4) Moris 86.89 PB by 6 points

5) Bychenko 86.79

6) Ge 95.41 PB

7) Ten 83.70

8) Aaron 78.64

9) Aymoz 70.0

10) Zhou 66.12 (2 falls on quads UR, no combo, axel with negative GOE)

11) Ponsart 63.81 (I am not sure he would beat Mariah Bell)

PAIRS

1) Tarasova/Morozov 77.84

2) James/Cypres 73.18

3) Della Monica/Guarine 70.65

4) Liubov/Dylan 66.36

5) Peng/Yin 62.4

6) Castelli/Tran 58.99

7) Esbrat/Novoselov 51.90

8) Jones/Boyadji 44.59

W/P had a nasty fall and crashed into the boards during warm-up -- apparently she hurt her ribs and he hit his head.

Also Gracie Gold WD from the nationals.

wow Javier's ass!

Not to be rude, but can you withdraw from an event you didn't even qualify for? I guess Gracie has to make some kind of statement to explain her absence since she has sponsors & stuff, but I didn't think she had a bye & I certainly never expected her to make it to nationals.

Javier still looks great. Not that he's old by any stretch of the imagination, but by this point in a professional competitive skating career most men look worn down. Wish he would pick a more flattering facial hair pattern or go clean shaven, but dang, he's still beautiful.

it hurts looking at him

Gracie's fall from grace is just nuts. That girl had it all going for her.

Just watched Vincent's program. Got to say I'm not impressed, especially with the cheesy music (why do Americans -- and Canadians -- always pick such terrible music). It looks like he's growing quite quickly, which might have affected his jumps. I remember being taken by his fluidity last year (or maybe a year before), but he looks so awkward now all grown up.

Yeah, Vincent looks gangly--not ideal for quads.

Javier's skate was sensational, insane that he won't be at the Grand Prix.

Zagitova's program's insanely over-choreographed--Eteri's ego got the better of her. She's going to destroy that girl if she doesn't pull back.

Polina Edmunds isn't in contention, but she's actually jumping now and staying upright--so it's an improvement. Given how crappy the American Ladies have been, she may have a respectable showing at Nationals.

Weaver/Poje's twizzle flop was sure a gift to Chock/Bates. They just got a much better shot at the Grand Prix.

Guillaume decided to perform during the SD--looked a lot better. Maybe Moonlight Sonata will get less blah as well.

Warsaw (Challenger Series) SP:

1) Matteo Rizzo 75.64

2) Stephane Walker 68.92

3) Liam Firus 66.58

Group 1 Ladies in France

Nicole Schott 172.39 PB (I guess she's basically unreachable by other German girls in the Olympic spot race)

Maite 171.40 (solid, wins internal battle vs Laurine)

Tuktamysheva 114.62 (poor again)

Edmunds (full of URs and splats) 157.77

Lecavalier 154.35 (full of step outs, pops, URs, hands down and a fall)

* Tukt 167.65

Miahara clean 202.12

But Zagitova clean too with higher base value. 151 Free skating. 213.80 overall.

In K&C Daniil passed a toy to Alina. She was playing with it and doing so covering her sponsor on the jacket. So Eteri took it away from her to show the sponsor with her classic bitchy expression. Priceless.

Second group is delivering today. Tursynbaeva also clean. 200.98 PB. Higher PCS than Miahara...is Japanese Fed investing all money to inflate Shoma's PCS?

Shiraiwa was doing well but she falls on last jump and almost hit boards earlier. 193.18 PB.

Sotskova fighting for GPF qualification. She landed all jumps. If they don't call her UR, she going for PB. Yes, 208.78

Osmond..a fall and a pop. Third. So Sotskova qualifies to GPF.

Med, Zagitova, Kostner, Sotskova, Osmond are qualified

Warsaw Ice Dance

1 Betina POPOVA / Sergey MOZGOV 164.07 PB

2 Lorraine MCNAMARA / Quinn CARPENTER 160.51

3 Alexandra NAZAROVA / Maxim NIKITIN 151.30

4 Lilah FEAR / Lewis GIBSON 150.46 PB

5 Katharina MÜLLER / Tim DIECK 150.14 PB

6 Alisa AGAFONOVA / Alper UCAR 149.53

Now last group at Grenoble.

1) Papadakis/Cizeron 201.98 WR (120.58 for FD, 59.06 for PCS)

2) Chock/Bates 181.85

3) Stepanova/Bukin 177.24

4) Weaver/Poje 176.97

5) Guignard/Fabbri 171.01

6) Abachkina/Thauron 155.55 PB

7) Pogrebinski/Benoit 154.14

8) Kaliszek/Spodyriev 147.77

9) Loboda/Drodz 145.85

10) Alessandrini/Souquet 134.28 PB

Interpetation: 10s by everybody except by Ms. Ingrid Charlotte WOLTER from Germany

10s in 3 components and 9.75 for the other 2 by:

Mr. Igor DOLGUSHIN from Russia

Mr. Richard DALLEY from USA

Mr. David MOLINA from France

Mr. Albert ZAYDMAN from Israel

Ms. Malgorzata SOBKOW from Poland

Mr Molina and Mr Zaydam had a full orgasm on the GOE and they marked +3 in every element

Did you see those cheesy lucite stars they gave out instead of medals? France is the worst Grand Prix, those cheapskates.

Arena also looks half empty.

Here's the "stars" for those who missed them. What did they have last year? The plastic medals?

The silver podium is also trash. Papadakis almost destroyed it. Cizeron out-queened himself while stepping on it. The business like handshake between Bukin and Bates.

I'm definitely coming more around to loving P/C's FD on an emotional level.

From the very beginning, the choreography was gorgeous and beautiful to look at, but left me a little cold. But the more I've watched it over the season, and linger with it, you really start to pick up on the emotional nuances that are so seamlessly woven in. Even the way Cizeron just [italic]looks[/italic] at Gabby is so beautifully acted.

I also wonder if it just seems so much better simply by virtue of comparison to V/M's FD, which looks so tacky and melodramatic next to P/C. I mean, Moulin Rogue can never compete with Beethoven in terms of quality of music--especially when you have skaters like P/C as its vehicle to express it. Add to that V/M's over-acting, their ugly crotch lift, Scott's gray track-suit...and it's like comparing Kinkade to Monet.

James/Cipres win FD. But Tarasova/Morozov stay ahead overall by 4 points. Della Monica/Guarise get third place.

T/M are qualified for GPF. J/C aren't mathematically certain. Likely to go to tiebreaker with Yu/Zhang (I assume Duhamel/Radford and Aliona/Massot will be top 2 at Skate America) but their scores are very high.

1. Fernandez (messy FS. TES lower than Misha today) 283.71

2. Uno (nice earrings for the coach. Anyway, wins the FS with 2 big splats) 273.32

3. Misha 258.34 PB

4. Samarin 253.13

5. Bychenko 247.44

6. Kvitelashvili 240.50 (Eteri half-smiled even after falls and pops)

7. Aaron 237.20

8. Ten 228.57

9. Zhou 222.21 (he tried not to cry)

10. Aymoz 220.43 PB (he almost cried of joy)

11. Ponsart 198.12 PB

So the French battle (at the bottom) is won by Aymoz in both segments. Waiting to understand Besseghier's conditions. Chafik plans to skate next week at Cup of Tyrol.

I'm no expert on this stuff but have been watching some of the coverage from France on the Olympic channel.

But the crashes on quad attempts by the men are so ugly and distracting. I get that they apparently can get more points by failing a quad than completing a gorgeous triple, in some cases. But why is that okay?

Divers who attemp a dive above their ability might win if they finish well, but won't win if they flop on their back.

Here's the protocols for tonight's FS with all scores element by element.

The judges were:

Judge No.1tMr. Daniel DELFA (Spain) tt Judge No.2tMs. Elisabeth LOUESDONt(France) t Judge No.3tMr. Albert ZAYDMANt(Israel) t Judge No.4tMs. Yuko OGAWAt(Japan) t Judge No.5tMs. Peggy GRAHAMt(USA) t Judge No.6tMs. Salome CHIGOGIDZEt (Georgia) t Judge No.7tMr. Yuri GUSKOVt(Kazakhstan) tt Judge No.8tMr. Igor DOLGUSHINt(Russia)

Judge No.9tMs. Saodat NUMANOVAt(Uzbekistan)

Technical controller: Mr. Pekka LESKINEN (Finland)

Technical specialist: Ms. Anett PÖTZSCH (Germany)

Assistant technical specialist: Mr. Terry KUBICKA (USA)

Referee: Ms. Alice WALDER (Switzerland)

TS call the jumps and levels. TC and ATS can over-rule the original call if they both disagree with TS. t

that bloody cut and paste from ISU formatted tables

I hope Anett Poetsch is still rubbing that 1980 gold medal every night.

I've noticed the half-empty arenas lately, too. Any ideas as to why skating is no longer such a draw?

Have they announced where it will be next year? The French Gran Prix, I mean. Whatever they'll be calling it.

I think P/C are getting better at their performances--Gabby's pretty consistent about performing, but Guillaume has just clicked into gear--so now there's an emotional aspect to the his performance. This time, Moonlight Sonata seemed to be portrarying some sort of angsty love affair, but not in a trite way, but in a way that's connected to the music.

Poor Weaver/Poje. They more than anyone else were slammed by the reappearance of Virtue/Moir.

I'm now thinking that P/C might have a slight edge over V/M as far as judging preferences go. V/M are looking a little hackneyed.

The men's competition was depressing, but it was cool that Misha got his first major medal...err...plastic star. I was the one rooting for Javi to beat the sparkletroll and so I was glad for that, but neither one of them were any good today. The sparkletroll was a damn mess out there in both programs and still they prop him up in the most absurd way. I can't stand him. At least Javi had a brilliant SP.

What's your beef with Shoma, R202?

This sport is DEAD. Stick a fork in it. Boring skaters, boring routines. No charismatic stars. Gracie Gold I blame YOU!!!!!

Zagitova's programs gave me headaches. Stop doing so many damn ugly transitions!

Warsaw Pairs

1) Valentina MARCHEI / Ondrej HOTAREK 193.14

2) Aleksandra BOIKOVA / Dmitrii KOZLOVSKII 180.84

3) Minerva Fabienne HASE / Nolan SEEGERT 167.72 PB

4) Annika HOCKE / Ruben BLOMMAERT 161.95

5) Jessica PFUND / Joshua SANTILLAN 148.86

6) Chelsea LIU / Brian JOHNSON 145.14

7) Laura BARQUERO / Aritz MAESTU 143.26

8) Rebecca GHILARDI / Filippo AMBROSINI 137.56

Hase/Seegart achieve the minimum score asked by German Fed to be considered for Olympics (157) and beat Hocke/Blommaert here. However, overall, they are too far behind H/B.

H/B: 180.37 (Nebelhorn)+172.64 (Minsk)+161.95 (Warsaw)=514.96

H/S: 167.72 (Warsaw)+153.16 (Minsk)+135.38 (Finlandia)=456.26

The only valid competition left for both of them is Nationals (they are not assigned to Tallin and Zagreb). Only top 3 scores would be used, so H/S are likely to throw the 135 score away but they would need 194.08 at Nationals to reach 514.96 and beat H/B by 33 points. Impossible.

Ah, result of Bruno Massot's latest German test should be known by the end of November. There will be no time to repeat it again and have citizenship process completed by Olympic deadline.

If google translate works well, his coach sounds annoyed as hell: "It was really annoying that time has come so close now, and I made that clear to Bruno in a conversation.There is a lot of work in our project - also from Aljona and myself. I can already learn by myself, I can speak German"

I guess they will find a way to give him the passport somehow. Special government intervention? Aljona got it at last minute before Turin 2006. Pre Sochi for Zhiganschina and Caruso it was already done well in advance (2011 and 2013). Tests were possibly less strict at the time, before the big immigration waves.

I was reading the TSL thread over at FSU and apparently Kori and Rohene made Jonathan cry in a bathroom in Grenoble...LOL! Jonathan and the bully of all bullies, Dave Lease, have a lot of nerve getting upset when skaters & coaches give them a taste of their own medicine. I'm dying to know what was said now. Granted, they are attention whores who are probably blowing it way of proportion, but it's good to see their high school level bitchy ways bite them in the ass.

Misha Ge doing 50 Shades of Gray. With a blindfolded Madison Chock

Merano Cup.

Ladies: 1) Giada Russo 149.30 2) Natasha McKay 142.41 3) Chloe Ing 138.37

Men: 1) Graham Newberry 201.47 2) Javier Raya 190.91 3) Daniel Grassl 188.37

Warsaw (Challenger Series) Men: 1) Matteo Rizzo 232.98 2) Stephane Walker 204.48 3) Liam Firus 200.71 (3 splats in FS)

New PB for Matteo. He will now eliminate the 223 score from Nebelhorn and use this one for internal ranking along with Lombardia and Egna.

Italian internal ranking

1. Matteo 683.92

2. Ivan 666.65

Rest too far

Ladies (2 Olympic spots, 3 spots at Euros)

1 Carolina 615.78

2 Lucrezia Beccari 431.27

3 Micol Cristini 430

4 Giada Russo 421.14

If Rodeghiero doesn't come back healthy, the second spot is really open. Beccari was born in December 2003, so it's not age eligible for Olympics. Cristini has a good score from Denkova-Staviski Cup. Her other results are at Russo's level. Russo has good artistic skills but she can't jump even to save her life.

R207 Any updates on what was going on in Grenoble bathrooms?

what the hell happened in Grenoble? what did Jonathan say? I saw it on TSL but I still don't know what the altercation is.

ugh I can smell the frau-ness wafting from FSUniverse. and why the fuck do I have to pay for some BS premium membership?

[quote]what the hell happened in Grenoble? what did Jonathan say? I saw it on TSL but I still don't know what the altercation is.

Nothing was really revealed, but it appears Jonathan was confronted by Kori Ade and Rohene Ward on Facebook, who called him out on something he said on TSL, I would assume.

It probably had to do with what he and Dave said in their NHK recap show (see link below).

When they got to talking about Mariah Bell and Jason Brown, there were some pretty sketchy insinuations made about Kori's coaching, as well as criticism of Rohene's choreography.

In particular, when talking about Mariah Bell's "Chicago" program, Jonathan criticized the choreography, to which Dave implied that Rohene had no class. Dave also talked about how, when he visited Kori's rink (when Mariah was still training there), she couldn't land a jump--thus insinuating why Mariah left Kori for Rafael, and also implying Kori is not a good technical coach (which isn't news, really).

When they got to Jason, they critiqued his looks a little, but probably the final straw was when Jonathan, in talking about Jason's disappointing skate, insinuated that Kori was deliberately holding Jason back from getting the technical help he needed to improve his jumps, either for political reasons or fear of losing him to another coach, to which Dave followed up with some anecdotal info of Jason's time spent learning from Frank Carroll and how misguided the focus of the training was. The word "sabotage" was used by Jonathan, which made it seem like Kori is keeping Jason from progressing for selfish reasons.

These are all pretty heavy insinuations, so it's not surprising Kori and Rohen went off, especially when they've been very gracious and open to talking with TSL in the past.

This is what frustrates me about TSL...I love that it's the only place that really cuts through the PR bullshit of skating and actually critiques the skaters skills, programs and choreography honestly without all the sugarcoating. If they think X's costume is ugly, or Y's choreography sucks, they will say it, and give good analysis as to why. They will call out the Shibs for being boring, or Adam for skating empty programs, or the Russian girls for their tacky choreography--cause it's fucking true.

But they lose me when they veer into the gossip and start making insinuations about the skater's family or personal life. They too often cross those lines that have nothing to do with the actual skating.

Pogosplat withdraws from Skate America. Serafima Sakhanovich replaces her.

After some withdrawals the entry list for Shangai is even more ridiculous given the amount of money given (and they only skate the Free).

Ladies: Kailane Craine, Micol Cristini, Elizabet Tursynbaeva, Hanul Kim, Elena Rodionova, Maria Sotskova

Men: Brendan Kerry, He Zhang, Moris, Denis Ten, Samarin

Pairs: Sui/Han, Peng/Jin, Marchei/Hotarek, Astakhova/Rogonov

Ice Dance: Bobrova/Soloviev, Guignard/Fabbri, Lauriault/Legac, Loboda/Drodz, Chen/Zhao

Prize Money:

1sttUS$25,000

2ndtUS$18,000

3rdtUS$12,000

4thtUS$6,000

5thtUS$4,000

6thtUS$3,000

I certainly don't think Kori is all that as a coach, but I can't figure out why she would want to sabotage her only star student if she plans on continuing her coaching career. Huh? I am sure she would hate to lose Jason, but holding him back is supposed to make him more willing to stay with her? Ok...that's some straight up fanfiction.

Those two queens really take the cake with their hypocrisy and ego.

Pogorilaya's coach is an absolute imbecile - I read the Russian article on her injury and subsequent WD from Skate America and apparently they only just NOW sent her to have her back checked even though she had to WD from a Russian summer competition a while ago due to back pain. But at that time they sent her only to a psychologist. Wtf? Also she might have a part of her spine fractured.

Not surprised by Pogosplat's withdrawal--that last skate looked extremely painful. She falls a lot and without any control. Crazy that she's gotten to this level without someone correcting this. The Russians have an amazingly careless attitude regarding their girl skaters.

I was at Skate Canada, and Pogorilaya seemed distracted and unhappy to be there. She appeared to me to be making the major fall she had worse, and was in no hurry to get up and finish. How a skater who has so little interest or self-confidence got to her level in the sport is a mystery.

Mischa Ge's exhibition performance (A la 50 Shades) was sexy as hell. He is a cutie, too.

[quote]I was at Skate Canada, and Pogorilaya seemed distracted and unhappy to be there. She appeared to me to be making the major fall she had worse, and was in no hurry to get up and finish. How a skater who has so little interest or self-confidence got to her level in the sport is a mystery.

Did you miss the part about her having a back injury and possible spinal fraction? What kind of mood would you be in if you were in excruciating pain and your bitchy coach did nothing to address it or express any empathy whatsoever? This is like Eteri and Adian 2.0.

This whole Kori, Rohene, TSL drama is pretty hilarious to me. hypocritical for Dave and Jonathan to get so upset about it considering some of the shit they like to say. Don't dish it if ya can't take it! But otoh, really Kori? your skater is the middle of bombing her Grand Prix and jeprodizing her Olympic team assignment, but harassing Jonathan Byer on Facebook is your priority right now? Lmao yeah, Not A Good Look for professional coaches to be doing this kind of thing. Really wish TSL would've gone Full Petty and given us some screenshots tho

There's still time, R221.... Re. Pogosplat and the lack of medical treatment, Coach Tsareva is also based at Sambo 70. I wonder how much influence the martial arts school has on the overall ethos - it's very much a do or die attitude...

R221...I know, right? She needs to get a clue like the rest of the skating world and stop engaging with them. It does her no good, least of all professionally. I would not send my kid to be coached by someone so easily wrapped up by what two online gossip vloggers are saying. It just makes you look unprofessional and immature.

See, I like TSL for what it is, but if I were a coach or skater, I would avoid it like the plague. Dave can't be trusted, and in the end it's just a glorified version of his old "Aunt Joyce" gossip blog. Expecting it to be fair and nice is pointless.

Pogosplat got her nickname well before this season.

WHET Daisuke Murakami? Has he retired? I find Tanaka and Mura's skating very boring, and wow did the other Japenese men (couldn't bother to remember their names) suck. I bet the Japanese fed is desperate for Yuzu and Uno to continue past this Olympics.

Murakami had to drop out of NHK due to pneumonia. He's had bad luck & a lot of injuries. I guess he will probably retire soon.

The kid who replaced him at NHK, Kazuki Tomono, is pretty promising but he just got out of juniors. He reminds me of a mix of Takahashi & Tatsuki Machida. Obviously he needs more experience though. Also Stephane is coaching Koshiro Shimada, another interesting junior.

Murakami was at Autumn Classic in September. He scored 200.59. Then as said by R226 he dropped out of NHK. He is not in the entry list of Tallin and Zagreb (the 2 Challenger remaining). I guess he will directly go to Nationals.

Mura is skating at Skate America this week. At Skate Canada he was awful. Tanaka was pretty good at Cup of China. But I believe the third spot will be decided by Nationals.

Other than Skate America this week there are

Tallin (Challenger Series)

Cup of Tyrol (Besseghier, Vasiljevs, Rizzo are competing there)

Open of Andorra

Shangai cheesefest

Is Skate America being televised?

R229 yes NBC this weekend and Olympic Channel Friday night.

Medvedeva has a stress fracture in her foot and currently has to wear a cast. It's unclear whether or not she'll participate in the GPF but apparently it's been bothering her since Rostelecom cup and at NHK she was on painkillers.

bless her heart

Wonder how long her foot's been an issue--she's been slightly less invincible this season. This could explain it. Gives the Japanese and Osmond a foot up.

It's a gift from baby Jesus.

I'd love for Alina to snatch the Olympic gold from her. Imagine the bitchslaps! BTW anyone watched I, Tonya?

Jorik Hendrickx has withdrawns from Skate America. Liam Firus will replace him

Tobias/Tkachenko also withdrawn. They have not competed yet this season. And apparently Tkachenko hasn't obtained Israeli citizenship. Adel TANKOVA / Ronald ZILBERBERG have won the jackpot and are reported to be selected for Olympics instead. They have an ISU PB of 112 points done last month at Minsk Challenger (last place). They would have never qualified by themselves. That highlights the problem of allowing not eligible teams qualifying spots for a country.

[quote] 6. Katharina MÜLLER / Tim DIECK 59.65 PB (close to L/P, so fight for German Olympic spot is still open. The two teams will go head to head at Golden Bear)

it looks like Joti Polizoakis and girl are actually losing the Olympic spot. In Tallin Trophy SD they just scored more than 3 points less than Muller/Dieck last week. And they are regressing competition after competition: they started the season with 61 for SD in September and today they scored 56. Next week the 2 teams will go head to head but momentum is now with M/D who started the season with two competitions at 139 and now they have done two 150 in a row. And L/P are not good under pressure. In K&C they looked dead.

So maybe the number of out gay skaters at Olympics may fail to break the 2 mark (Redford and Raya)....ok, Rippon's chances are now a better than at the beginning of the season if Zhou doesn't find his quads back by January.

Bruno Massot finally passed his German citizenship test.

Glad for Aljona. Murder on the Ice with Bruno as the victim would have otherwise been her next FS theme.

TALLIN SPs

Men: 1) Paniot 81.25 PB 2) Aliev 80.88 3) Krsnozhon 80.20 4) Liebers 74.14 5) Selevsko 70.26 PB

Ladies: 1) Kostantinova 64.41 2) Fedichkina 63.42 3) Angela Wang 62.40 4) Lindfors 59.03 5) Schott 57.68 6) Caroline Zhang 56.53

Pairs: 1) Aleksandrovskaya/Windsor 66.40 PB 2) Efimova/Korovin 64.58 PB 3) Esbrat/Novoselov 59.66 PB

Ice Dance: 1) Natalia KALISZEK / Maksym SPODYRIEV 67.94 PB 2) tAlisa AGAFONOVA / Alper UCAR 64.50 3) tSofia EVDOKIMOVA / Egor BAZIN 59.88 PB 4) Elliana POGREBINSKY / Alex BENOIT 58.42 5) Kavita LORENZ / Joti POLIZOAKIS 56.04

I don't know anything about the current crop of skaters.... boring and bleh!

Because I recently discovered I get the Olympic Channel, I started catching up on the French Grand Prix last night, starting with the pairs FD. Although I didn't see Tarasova/Morozov's SD, James/Cipres were robbed.

Is that Tracy Wilson on the mic, because, jaysis, lady shut up already. And her partner, Steve Someone, is just bland and vaguely ignorant. I'd turn the sound off, but then I'd lose the music -- which is dialed down so low I can only half hear it

Andrzej Dostatni is the technical specialist at Skate America for Ice Dance.

But Shibutanis can't lose Skate America even with him calling the levels.

Speaking of the Shib-bots...Dave Lease's prediction of the impending Shib NBC fluff pieces is coming to be.

Let's see...we had:

- Home video clips of baby Shibs dancing together.....check

- Banal banter about being siblings....check

- Maia talking like she's reciting off a cue card....check

- Self plug about their boring Youtube channel....check

- Canned statements about how special/wonderful/fun it is to skate together as brother and sister....check

- Pre-rehearsed statements about it being an honor to represent the US, be an Olympian, blah, blah, blah....check

- And the kicker...more PR statements about how much they've grown, matured and (ahem) improved since Sochi....double check

Funny thing is I wrote out this list before I even watched the video. How fucking sad is that. It's like watching paint dry.

I can't wait until these two retire.

And Karen Chen is switching her program once again--going back to last year's FS. Chen kind of stumbled into U.S. Champion last year because of Gracie Gold's melt-down, Polina Edmund's injury and Ashley Wagner doing her usual back-and-forth, but she clearly wasn't ready to be America's next big hope--she needs to fix her skating instead of changing her programs all the time.

Really like James/Cipres. I don't know about their skills, but they seem less dated than everybody else.

Lambiel still looks good, and he sounds rather ~fabulous

I hope H/D beat S/S in GPF, so the USFS can get behind them more. Madison doesn't have great lines (she's kinda big-boned), and she needs to change her costume, but I prefer watching them a million times more than incest twin.

Ice Dance at Tallin Trophy Challenger

1) Natalia KALISZEK / Maksym SPODYRIEV 168.58

2) Alisa AGAFONOVA / Alper UCAR 162.48

3) Elliana POGREBINSKY / Alex BENOIT 150.74

4) Sofia EVDOKIMOVA / Egor BAZIN 150.28

5) Kavita LORENZ / Joti POLIZOAKIS 145.20

Top 2 looks quite overstored. I don't know these Russians. P/B and L/P scores are disappointing for them given what the top 2 got.

Shangai (only FS)

Ladies

1) Radionova 131.06 = $25,000

2) Tursynabaeva 128.45 = $18,000

3) Sotskova 128.18 = $12,000

4) Kim 109.85 = $6,000

5) Craine 98.33 = $4,000

6) Cristini 83.37 = $3,000

Pairs

1) Sui/Han 140.37 (problems with SBS jump for Sui) = $25,000

2) Peng/Jin 129.40 = $18,000

3) Marchei/Hotarek 1292.8 =$12,000

4) Astakhova/Rogonov 125.75 =$6,000

A US ice dance team was beaten by teams from Poland and Turkey? How embarrassing. I saw P/B last year...they weren't great, but they didn't seem terrible either.

R150 Last week at GP in France

Pogrebisnky/Benoit 154.14

Kaliszek/Spodyriev 147.77

that's the video of the Polish team today

Cup of Tyrol

Besseghier came back in decent shape after his health problems. SP: 1 Chafik Besseghier 74.14 2 Deniss Vasiljevs 74.05 (popped the axel) 3 Matteo Rizzo 73.70

Tallin Ladies:

1) Kostantinova 190.75

2) Fedichkina 180.33

3) Schott 171.53

4) Caroline Zhang 170.82

5) Angela Wang 160.04

Nathalie Weinzierl withdraws before FS. Combined with another 170 score by Schott, the race for German Olympic spot realistically ends here. Nicole Schott will get it.

Angelina Kuchvalska who finished #5 at 2016 Euros, #15 at 2016 Worlds and #21 at 2017 Words....finished #30 with a 93.02 score today...I mean 93 as sum of SP and FS! I don't know if she has suffered some injuries but puberty hit hard. She is voluptuous. She can't jump anymore, she struggles to rotate a double. I guess at this rate the Latvian Olympic spot will go to the girl coached by Lambiel who scored 48 today in Tyrol SP.

So much for Angela Wang having a break-out year.

P/B are pretty far down the list of American teams at this point, aren't they? You have the big three: S/S, H/D,C/B and then all the up-and-comers--Hayawek/Baker, the Parsons, McNamara/Carpenter. I thought P/B were below all of those teams--so, top ten US, but not top five.

yes, P/B should be 7th in the US ranking. At Cup of China P/B and M/C went head to head: M/C won157.61 to 150.47

Ucar's costume can look a bit unfortunate, especially those strips at the bottom of his pants

Um, Angela Wang was never going to ever happen. I was always a little perplexed why her name was ever thrown into the mix of hopeful potentials coming up through the ranks.

Her jumps are dinky, labored and under-rotated, she has no real stretch or flexibility in her body, she's slow, and (it has to be said), she has that short, stocky body type (short legs, big thighs and round waist) that doesn't look good on the ice.

She like a slightly better version of Carolina Zhang.

Harsh, but true. If she's happy skating, great, but let's be real: she's never going to make a world or Olympic team.

Open of Andorra giving out scores like candies also this year?

Hurtado/Khalyavin just scored 67.98 in SD (with a -1 deduction because she lost her earring)

Certain skaters get this weird blinkered loyalty from their fans--one decent skate and suddenly all their inconsistency is going to disappear--Wang, Mariah Bell, Caroline Zhang, Mirai Nagasu. Other skaters--Ashley Wagner, Polina Edmunds pre-injury, Bradie Tennell tends to be discounted or just kind of ignored. With both Wagner and Edmonds, I get the sense that Mirai fans hold their going to the Olympics instead of Mirai against them--they see Polina appearing out of nowhere to snag second place at Nationals and Wagner, of course, was fourth at Nationals that year. Tennell has one of the higher scores this season, but the fan set don't give her the love.

But fact is--Nagasu doesn't deliver as a performer at this point--the musicality is absent and she doesn't have the skating skills of pre-implosion Gold to make up for it. Gold wasn't musical, but back before she melted down, the girl could skate.

Nice VPL on Bruno

Adam Rippon is definitely making a run for one of those three spots. He's in second after the SP at Skate America.

Nathan Chen's in first. I really like that short program. Gorgeous quad combo, but he barely hung on to his triple axel. Still doesn't have his costume.

Voronov in third.

Boyang Jin popped his triple axel.

Duhamel/Radford are leading the Pairs (75.37). Yu/Grandpa are in second (73.67, highest TES). Aliona/Bruno third (72.55). Misha Ge's girlfriend is 4th (70.15). Then the American pairs and Moore Towers/Marinaro follow doing a competition on their own

Is Misha still with Natalia? They are at the same competition but he hasn't posted anything about her, seems to be spending all his time with Sergei and Max Kovtun instead. True love is dead!

Kovtun and Vornov's programs are choreographed by Ge

Glorified Exhibition called Shangai Trophy

1) Bobrova/Soloviev 113.10 =25,000 $

2) Guignard/Fabbri 102.96 = 18,000 $

3) Lauriault/Legac 95.73 = 12,000 $

4) Loboda/Drozd 95.27 = 6,000 $

5) Chen/Zhao 77.47 = 4,000 $

think that the winner of Skate America gets 18,000 and third place gets 9,000. Those below 5th in GP don't get anything.

Shangai Men FS: 1) Samarin 175.65 2) Moris 157.78 3) Ten 157.01 4) Kerry 149.15 5) Zhang 123.57

CUP of Tyrol Men: 1) Deniss 241.31 3) Matteo 223.43 3) Chafik 217.25

One of the Turkish guys finished 4th and got minimum TES for World in both segments

Why do I see the post at the top crossed out?

Kovtun hurt his ankle on a fall yesterday & withdrew. Boyang apparently has 2 sprained ankles & will not attempt 4Lz. Men's skating has turned into survival of the fittest.

Aliona/Bruno win Pairs. Yu/Zhang ahead of Duhamel/Redford. I think it means James/Cipres are out of GPF.

yes, J/C are out

Grand Prix Final for Pairs

Sui/Han 1+1 (465.60 as sum of their 2 scores)

Tarasova/Morozov 1+1 (442.45)

Savchenko/Massot 3+1 (438.79)

Duhamel/Redford 1+3 (437.90)

Stolbova/Klimov 2+2 (427.17)

Yu/Zhang 2+2 (424.74)

Alternates:

James/Cipres 3+2 (428.69)

Astakhoa/Rogonov 3+3 (402.75)

Della Monica/Guarise 4+3 (387.84)

That's a shame. I much prefer J/C to D/R. Well, I prefer all the alternates to D/R, if I'm being honest.

Damn. I wanted to see James/Cipres in the Grand Prix. Could do without Stolbova/Klimova.

Duhamel/Radford did their short to a U2 cover of With or Without You, the song emphasized, yet again, their complete lack of chemistry--I think they may have anti-chemistry. Skating to a passionate song does not create a connection guys, though, no doubt, the Canadians will pretend that it does.

Sui Wenjing, meanwhile, is showing signs of diva in the best possible way. She actually skates as ultimate ice princess Turandot-- I'm sick of Nessum Dorma as skating music--but props to Sui/Han for trying to portray the characters.

Yeah, the fact that Duhamel/Radford went back to an old FP from 2 years ago shows they (and their team) are out of creative ideas to develop a free skate that draws out what little chemistry they do have--which is obviously not easy. Their Muse program was a great vehicle for them at the time, but it feels so "been there, done that" now.

Shame about James/Cipres. Love them so much more.

Battle of Canadians at Skate America

Firus 210.83 Reynolds 204.05 Sadovsky 200.10

Last 3 places

Who is the favorite for second spot right now? Keegan Messing?

Samohin fell hard. He stops. He can't continue. Maybe dislocated shoulder?

that's painful

Rippon holding his shoulder. He put his hand down on the Quad and he may have felt pain

He takes the lead anyway. Hope he's not injured.

Vornov and Boyang also qualify for GPF

Gosh, Rippon beats Chen in the FS.

Men competitions have become a big mess

why was Rippon cleaning the ice before skating?

Rippon with an higher TES than Nathan Chen. I almost can't believe it

My god, what an awful men's competition. Time to chill the fuck out with the quad race. That's why older guys like Adam & Sergei are thriving - they know their limits. Although anyone can get injured at any time, of course (like Adam last season). But you still need to be sensible and bring back some balance. I miss the old killer step sequences they used to do...couldn't we bring those back and start punishing falls much more severely?

I forgot that it was on...that is how little I care about skating anymore. After 2014, it's totally lost its fascination for me.

Certainly they need to start penalizing falls more severely. There needs to be a better balance between the risk and reward of going for more difficult jumps. 1 point deductions aren't enough. You start taking away 5 points per fall, and I'm sure you'll start to see the men pull back on quads. All these multiple falls and inconsistency really mars the performance and it's such an empty victory to see Nathan zamboni all over the ice and still win.

Both Chen and Rippon were happily overscored in PCS today. Neither of them does much with their feets during the whole program.

Ah, Rippon's shoulder discolated after the 3.5Lz but he put it back.

Qualified for GP Final:

1 Chen

2 Shoma

3 Kolyada

4 Voronov

5 Rippon

6 Boyang (wins tiebreak against Brown by 3.5 points)

Alternates: Brown, Fernandez, Ge

What happened with Chen's FS?

Congrats to Rippon making the GP, which is going to be strange without Fernandez and Hanyu. Hope Rippon's shoulder heals in time.

Wow, I didn't realize Ashley Wagner went back to both programs she used in 2016. She's now used Moulin Rogue for 3 years now! Talk about phoning it in.

Okay--just saw the Chen FS--gorgeous quad combo and then a pop-fest/splat fest. The men's GP circuit has sure had its share of terrible skates this season.

But the other Chen (Karen) did a major splat and fell on her chest. Ashley Wagner smiled a lot and under-rotated. Bradie Tennell was the only American woman who had a decent skate--fourth place.

Just watched the Shibutanis' SD today. Had to turn it off after a minute because I couldn't take the cringiness.

PB for Shibutanis.

Both Cappellini/Lanotte (Level1 on the Rumba, no key points, level 2 on partial step sequence) and Sinistina/Katsalapov (again level 1 on the Rumba) are 4 points behind their NHK's score.

Giles/Poirier behind Zagorski/Guerreiro

Hawayer/Baker behind Muramoto/Reed

Ladies...didn't see them...what happened to Polina Tsurskaya?

R242 yes, Traci Wilson and Steve Schlanger. I've heard her many times and she is usually more even-handed and professional. That outing she was uneven and off-putting. Sounded flat, disinterested and cursory except for 1 or 2 performers when her enthusiasm was too effusive in contrast to her previous demeanor. Plus, she works with Orser. She is commentating on her/his clients and their rivals. Ryan Bradley, Ben Agosto and Charlie White are far more thoughtful and professional in their remarks. Ryan and Ben coach but I don't think they are routinely commentating on their clients or rivals of their clients at these GP events. Tara and Johnny for another post.

Israel selection for Olympics as revealed by Israeli press

Men: Alexei Bychenko, Daniel Samohin

Pairs: Paige Conners/Evgeni Krasnopolski

Ice Dance: Adel Tankova/Ronald Zilberberg

Ladies (Team even only): Aimee Buchanan

It would be second Olympics for Bychenko and Krasnopolski and debut for everybody else. They are all based in USA. Buchanan is coached by the Cains, Samohin by his father, the rest by Galit Chait (whose father is the president of Israel Skating Federation and the one putting all the money in Israeli skating)

Next week South Korea is holding their second internal Olympic selection event. It also counts as selection for 4 Continents. Kim/Kim are not in the entry list for Pairs. They won the first internal event in August. At Nebelhorn they were awful and looked potentially injured. Kim/Kam (who were 10 points behind them in August) had two pretty decent outings at Autumn Classic and Cup of Nice. Kim/Kim missing the event means Kim/Kam are going to Olympics unless they get injured and miss the Nationals. Ice Dance is also decided as they have only entry in both events so far.

Ben Agosto really is the best Ice Dance commentator. Hope they have him do the Olympics. He did a very good job during the SD of explaining different elements and how the judges were looking for different edges. I like Charlie, too, but only really when he lets his inner diva out. That boy can throw some shade when he wants.

Alex Shibutani's face continues to creep me the fuck out in the SD. I've constantly criticized them for needing to show more emotion and for her to move her upper body more...so I do give them props for working on both of those things. But Jesus...that open mouth. It's like a ventriloquist's dummy from a horror movie. (It comes to life and bores you to death!) And I continue to think that flesh/salmon color actually clashes with their skin tone.

It will be interesting to see their FD numbers. That was a good SD score, but still 2-3 points behind P/C and V/M. The Shibs are running out of time. They'll win Gold here, but their FD scored just under 112 in Russia. It will be higher here, but until they can score 118+ they're not in the Gold/Silver conversation and will just be trying to hold off H/D for Bronze.

Piper Gilles needs a good solid bitchslap. Her pathetic head-in-hands after they got their score was so unprofessional. Suck it up. You're really not that good. 64.07 in the SD. Behind not only Sinitsina/Katsalapov but also Zahorski/Guerreiro. (!!!) Sin/Kats, Stepanova/Bukin and Guignard/Fabbri have all seemingly passed them. They're falling out of the Top 10. What the hell is Skate Canada going to do for the next Quad?

I like Piper and Paul, but after Piper's reaction to CoR and Carol Lane saying "well, it's Russia," this kind of seems like karma. Who's to blame now?

6:38......Hawayek's mouth when she sees the (low) score

Open of Andorra

Ice dance: Hurtado/Khalyavin 171.87

Men: Montoya 199.43

Montoya's score should scare Javier Raya in paying more attention in training and competitons rather than partying and touristic sighting. Raya so far this season had a 180 and a 190.

It remains to be seen how much Ice Dance was overscored to understand how H/K would fare against Smart/Diaz.

Spanish selection for Olympics (ice dance and second male spot) is determined by the sum of scores at Golden Spin (in 2 weeks) and Nationals.

I remember Montoya from Euros. I like his skating more than Raya's.

From what I've seen of the 2 Spanish ice dance teams, I prefer Smart/Diaz. Adria is hot as hell.

R292

I quite like Hurtado/Khaliavin's programs this season, even if they are a bit "old style". They are doing Don Quijote as FS.

Diaz is indeed hot. Smart is quite basic though

First group done at Skate America:

Hawayek/Baker 163.53t

Muramoto/Reed 155.80

Wang/Liu 149.36

Parsons/Parsons 145.54

Gilles/Poirier lose the FS TES to Hawayek/Baker. A couple of lifts looked bad. PCS put them ahead of them.

Zagorski/Guerriero TES on screen is not competitive. It's at Muramoto/Reed's and Wang/Liu's level

And they fall behind both G/P and H/B.

Tiffany tries to keep her cool. Jonathan can't

Cappellini/Lanotte 181.63 Sinistina/Katslapov 176.53

Cappellini/Lanotte in the GPF. They win the tiebreak for final spot by 0.6 over Bobrova/Soloviev .

Incest Twin 194.25, new PB

Tennel 204.10 (137 FS)

Tsurskaya 195.56

Leonova 185.93

Chen 182.80

Rajocova 167.61

Li 164.32

Wagner stops mid program. She goes to Artwhatever and now to the jury table. She withdraws. I don't know, the jumps were ok until that point.

The ankle seems the problem for Ashely. But probably some problems she already had rather than suddenly happening during the FS.

Wakaba Higuchi gets the 6th spot on GPF.

Med

Zagitova

Osmond

Carolina

Sotskova

Higuchi

The alternate depends on this event. Given Med is in doubt, it may be important.

Satoko Miyahara wins Skate America (214.03). Kaori Sakamato second (210.59) and Bradrie Tennell (204.10)

Wow, Japanese nationals will be a carnage. How many girls for 2 spots?

I loved how Bradie was caught backstage making a majordispleased bitch face when Sakamoto's score knocked her down (at the time) to second place. Hilarious.

Rippon is in the Gala schedule as "not skating". I guess he may sing again...

There were so many withdrawls that they had to invite Takahito Mura to the Gala

They couldn't have invited Han Yan instead? I assume Boyang is also too injured to skate in the gala. Mura is so blah.

R303 Maybe it is something to please Japanese TV where skating is big? I see they also invited Muramoto/Reed from Ice Dance who were 7th.

I didn't think it was possible to outdo France as the worst GP, but we did it somehow. Glad I wasn't tempted to go this year since I live on the west coast.

Are the medals here plastic too? They all look the same...no gold, silver, bronze...

Bradie Tennell's skating is zzz US ladies have no hopes now. Karen Chen should just retire and go to UC Irvine or wherever. It's embarrassing watching the current US champ floundering like that.

The ShibSibs have really picked up speed--they powered through those twizzles. They're never going to win at interpretive dance, but I enjoyed their skate.

Karen Chen is yet another head case--she's psyching herself out of the U.S. championship and possibly the Olympics team at this rate.

Ashley was short a jump rotation in her combo before stopping--I'm assuming her taped-up ankle and following Bradie Tennell did her in.

Wonder if Bradie Tennell will be like Polina Edmunds--a skater who isn't thrilling, but can handle pressure or Mariah Bell, who had one really good skate and hasn't managed much since despite looking like she'd be great if she had consistency.

Ladies Nationals is going to be a total crapshoot at this point. Should be entertaining.

Gracie Gold is out of rehab- she was home for Thanksgiving in California. I just wonder....having seen the lame efforts of the top ladies, Med being injured....will she accelerate training (or just resume it) and undo her withdrawal from Nats?

What's with the mini-trend of male skaters wearing tunics? They reach maybe to the top of the thigh and have split seams so the front and back panels flare out a bit (or, worse, flap in the breeze) as the skater moves. I saw three or four during the French Grand Prix and Skate America. It is... not a good look, either still or in motion. If they're not going to wear a tucked-in shirt, I always like a tshirt (or something similar) that rides up just a little when their arms go up.

I had to laugh at Paul Poirier's magic Latin sleeves, but they were ultimately silly. As was ALL the mugging going on by the men in the ice dance Latin SP. Dial it down to 5, senors. LaNotte had it just about right. (And agreed with R288 about Alex Shib.)

R309 I thought they wanted to recreate the effect of girls' skirts flying in the air when they jump. But yes, the effect is not always so nice.

For example, that thing Bessighier is wearing this season in the SP... when he jumps, the low part flies up and around...combined with low (actually they are not even that low) waist trousers, at every jump he was showcasing the band of his white underwear.

Thank you for the good tunic example, R310. Oh, and I also can't stand gloves on skaters. And I'd like to see school (or compulsory) figures again.

Next week highlight is the Latvian National Championships....very suspenseful male competition....

Coach Stephane queens out in the car

Why do the bitchy queens at TSL have to be so bitchy toward Adam? It's like they can't stand when another gay man succeed.

lol Lambiel is so gay I love it!

[quote]Why do the bitchy queens at TSL have to be so bitchy toward Adam? It's like they can't stand when another gay man succeed.

They are cunts toward everybody; it's the only consistent thing about the show. Now that Jenny is not there to keep him slightly in check, Dave is more of a hissing queen than ever. He is never going to change; he has enough obnoxious hangers-on who feed his ego, which is all he really cares about.

Whew, Golden Skate went into a meltdown over Ashley withdrawing mid free skate. Now all eyes on Bradie Tennell to save Ladies skating because she can actually skate her program.

Karen Chen's sure been a disaster this season--national champion, but only the sixth best score among American women? Gracie Gold mid-meltdown did better than that last year.

Vincent Zhou looks like he's been on a growth spurt, wonder if he'll be able to make a come-back next year. I don't think he'll be going to the Olympics unless he blows everyone away at Nationals.

Sum of 2 GP scores:

Papadakis/Cizeron 402.41

Virtue/Moir 398.5

Shibutani/Shibutani 383.49

Hubbell/Donohue 377.78

Cappellini/Lanotte 368.19

Bobrova/Soloviev 367.48

Weaver/Pojie 366.98

Chock/Bates 366.35 (it looks they have been relegated to USA #3 which means no skating at Olympic team event and therefore no medal)

Stepanova/Bukin 356.59

Sinistina/Katsalapov 353.68 (still close for Russian second spot)

Guignard/Fabbri 342.38

Gilles/Poirier 338.83

Hawayek/Baker 328.73

Zagorski/Guerriero 324.69

Muramato/Reed 313.21

Lauriault/Legac 304.81

Pogrebsky/Benoit 304.61

Loboda/Drodz 301.57

Wang/Liu 300.53

Abachkina/Thauron 300.45

Parsons/Parsons 294.29

Kaliszek/Spdyriev 292.52

Agafonova/Ucar 281.62

Besides her ankle Ashley Wagner is also a crime victim. Before and after Skate America Ashley posted Insta stories about repeated break ins (burglary and theft/larceny, too) at her home. Of course, this is awful and very frightening for anyone. She posted a photo of the criminal captured by a security camera in her home during Skate America. The photo is (not so)soft butch sous chef-ish! (I think it was a mistake to do Insta stories because the criminal is also a stalker and was probably pleased with the attention.) But, a good idea to post the photo of the burglar and thief. Commenters compared her to Kim Jong Un. The haircut! And, it looks like the thief has a "smoky eye" look going on, too. Hope the police catch her. Having trouble posting a link.

LOL, 244, that rundown of the Shibs special was hilarious.

IUnpopular opinion, but I enjoy Gilles/Poirier Free Dance. It's not cookie cutter and something different. Or do people prefer generic pop songs to jazz from the 50s?

North Korea missed the deadline to confirm their Pairs spot to ISU. The spot will now go to Japan.

lol so will NK nuke Japan now? P.S. look how much personality H/D have in this video. Hope they claw the bronze (or even silver) Olympic medals from the Shibots.

There ain't not gonna be no Feb Ols with the North Korea situation. NBC after the Lauer debacle must be losing its mind. Maybe the Ols will be re-scheduled for 2019 somewhere else. That's what is going to happen. No one should put their athletes in harm's way for a stupid sport.

Boyang has withdrawn from GP Final. Jason Brown gets in.

What's Patrick Chan's status? Zueva basically said she hasn't seen him in weeks. He has been apparently in Canada since Skate Canada hanging out with his girlfriend and popping up at local rinks. Is he seriously training or is he basically already semi-retired?

I think Patrick was embarrassed about not medaling at SC & has lost motivation. He's always such a whiny baby when he performs badly. Other skaters accept their failures gracefully and resolve to work harder.

Medvedeva officially out of GPF. Replaced by Miyahara

R325 yup, it seems Chan suddenly realized his technical content is not up with top skaters anymore and that he won't medal at Olympics and imploded mentally. Funny thing is that since then half of the top skaters got injured.

Chan has always been an insecure little cunt. Always quick to blame others or the ice for his poor skates. He's also a hypocrite. He loved ushering in the quad era when he was the only one consistently landing two quads per program. At that time he was all about pushing the sport and technical envelope forward. Now that the field has passed him technically by light years, now he's lamenting about how quads are destroying the sport and its artistry.

I think he's just phoning it in until the Olympics. He knows his chances of winning are slim and this is his last season, so it's no surprised he's chosen not to kill himself training for essentially a 6 minute performance in Korea. I bet when he gets there, he'll play the Katarina Witt tagline from 94...about how he's there just to enjoy the experience and be "present" in the moment, blah, blah, blah.

Crazy thing is, he could still win the Olympics if he gets extremely lucky. If Javi, Nathan, and Hanyu splat--which is still totally plausible (as we've seen by all three this season--and Patrick skates clean with 3 quads, he would win.

Who would have thought that Jin and Hanyu would get injured, and the other top guys with quads would also be so unpredictable. Patrick Chan had better keep up his skills or else totally end his career in embarrassment. I like his skating and find it incredibly bizarre and foolish that he'd leave his coach and training grounds (for a girlfriend in Vancouver?) right before nationals and the Olympics. He still has a chance of medalling.

Joseph Phan beats Nadeau and Nguyen at Canada Challenge (qualification event for Nationals): Phan 245 Naduea 231 Nguyen 223

What's the situation if he gets second at Nationals? He hasn't competed internationally as Senior. So he doesn't have the minimum TES for Olympics. Does Skate Canada plan to send him to some obscure competition in Europe to get it just in case? Time is running out. I don't remember when the deadline to score the minimum is but I think it's probably somewhere in early January.

Ah, Nguyen changed coach again. He's changing them at the same rate he changes underwear.

So three American men in the Grand Prix final? That's kind of bizarre. Never would have predicted that.

I don't think they would send Phan to the Olympics without more senior experience. My guess is that Keegan Messing will get the 2nd spot unless he bombs Nationals. And if that happens...probably Nic or Nam, whoever bombs the least.

Yes, the quad craze is leading to more and more severe injuries, which Mr. Magoo could have seen coming. Something will have to change soon because I don't think this is the way to attract & keep new FS fans. What's the attraction if the best skaters are injured for half of every season and people are winning medals for splatting and popping?

What am I, chopped liver?

Can't I go again to improve my 28th place?

If Chan is really in retirement mode, I guess the team event will go to Russia again. Unless they ban them (if they compete as ANA, I think they can't do the team event). They can't rely on only Virtue/Moir beating Bobrova/Soloviev and putting as many countries in between them (France, USA and Italy) given girls will lose to Med/Zagitova and Duhamel/Redford are likely to lose to Tarasova/Morozov.

I'm sure Chan will make it to the Olympics and probably be overscored. He has a bit of that Kostner thing, where he's considered to have fine skating skills, so he'll get that PCS boost.

Medvedeva's injured--so Zagitova will probably snag the Grand Prix gold.

Will Canada change Virtue/Moir with Weaver/Poje in FD of the Team Event to give W/P an Olympic medal? 2 substitutions are allowed after SPs. If Daleman is back in form, I guess Osmond/Daleman will be switched

Russia will swap Medvedeva/Zagitova because they will win Ladies regardless. But will they make another change? and who? Men, Pairs or Ice Dance?

The final result could also depend on who makes the final in 4th-5th place between Japan, China, Italy and France. And which substitutions are made by Italy and China.

South Korea internal ranking after 2 internal selection events out of 3. Nationals are the last event and their scores will be added to the following totals.

LADIES (2 SPOTS)

1 DABIN CHOI 350.16

2 HANUL KIM 333.35

3 SOHYUN AN 319.93

4 YUJIN CHOI 315.13

5 SOYOUN PARK 311.73

6 SUH HYUN SON 278.57

7 SEOYOUNG LEE 261.87

8 NAHYUN KIM 243.9

9 HAEJIN KIM 242.94

Dabin Choi is safe. 30 points lead over the third place with only competition left. She must bomb hard at Nationals to fall outside top 2. The Kim in second place isn't the one who skated at Sochi (who is 9th and out of the picture)

MEN (1 SPOT)

1 JUNE HYOUNG LEE 459.12

2 JUNHWAN CHA 431.58

3 JINSEO KIM 410.78

4 SEJONG BYUN 347.0

PAIRS:

only KIM/KAM competed this week. KIM/KIM siblings disappeared after Nebelhorn.

DANCE:

only MIN/GAMELIN left. All other dance teams they created a couple of years ago split and/or are injured. They gave Alex the passport a couple of months ago. So it's them for Peyongchang.

Lee beat Cha again this week. Cha reduced his content to only 1 Quad (Lee doesn't have quads). But Quad and one 3A were called URs even here (at GP he was an UR-fest that would make Mirai, Ashley and Karen jealous) and he fell on the rotated 3A. He's semi-injured. A 27 points gap is big. Lee must implode next time. At Nebelhorn he held on pressure pretty well (during FS warm up he was stoned faced, I feared the worst for him)

R309 a splendid example of "semi-tunic" sighted in South Korea today....pink with a sparkled belt. The top would have been adding sparkled gloves. He qualified for 4 Continents. So the pink semi-tunic will get Intenernational exposure.

lol @ Polina trying the 'I'm skating and going to college full time' card to shade the other ladies. Homegurl still needs to lose a few pounds though; those triple flips are not gonna rotate themselves.

Ashley posted on Instagram: "Exciting news and big changes coming your way soon! "

what can it be? A new hair color?

Meanwhile, this week no international competitions scheduled National Championships seasons started:

- Belgium National Championships, also known as Hendrickx's Household Championships. Jorik is ill though, so they skipped the Senior Men event.

-Latvian National Championships aka "People living at Lambiel's Championships" as they were won by Vasiljevs and Nikitina. Kuchvalska was a no show. Vasljevs tried a quad, but it got downgraded (and he fell anyway). He also popped a couple of axels.

- British National Championships.....Philip Harris beats Graham Newberry (who finished only third). Then Natacha McKay in Ladies, Jones/Boyadji in Pairs and Coomes/Buckland in Ice Dance.

Do you know when the French nationals is R341? I hope Aymoz makes it; I like his skating better than Chafik's.

Chan seems to have that same lack of accountability that Emanuel Sandhu had. Can't be a Canadian thing, cause Kurt Browning, Brian Orser and even Elvis Stojko never blamed anyone else for their bad skates!

R342

yes, Chafik's skating skills are quite basic.

Main National Championships dates:

Sweden 13-17 Dec

Italy 13-16 Dec

France 14-16 Dec

4 Nations (Czech,Slovakia, Hungary, Poland) 14-16 Dec

Germany 15-16 Dec

Spain 15-17 Dec

Russia: 19-24th Dec

Japan 20-24th Dec

USA 29 Dec-8 Jan

Canada 8-14 Jan

[quote]Chan seems to have that same lack of accountability that Emanuel Sandhu had. Can't be a Canadian thing, cause Kurt Browning, Brian Orser and even Elvis Stojko never blamed anyone else for their bad skates!

I think he got very spoiled a few years ago when "Chanflation" was at its height...everything was in his favor, life was easy. That was before other younger skaters appeared who could beat him, and then after he took that year off, it's never been the same. He is older & lacks the tech content that skaters like Yuzuru & Shoma have, and he doesn't want to do the work necessary to keep up with his rivals. Poor dat!

Ashley Wagner is going back to her La La Land program for Nationals. What the hell is with American ladies and switching programs like underwear? It makes them and the whole team look super unprofessional. At least it's not Karen Chen-level who changed her programs three times already.

they sounds out of control and out of desperation. it looks as there isn't much planning by their coaches either. it's December, not August.

I think she might have practiced with it earlier though, given it was scrapped for the Moulin Rouge. Overall a good move, with V/M (and I think another one who uses Moulin Rouge), I'll scream if I were to hear it again in competition.

Savchenko/Massot will go back to last season's SP for GPF and then they will decide which one to keep for rest of the season

Russia Olympic Committee banned from Olympics. Individual Russian athletes can be invited to compete as "Olympic Athlete from Russia". No Russian anthem, no Russian flag.

I wonder what they will do with "Meldonium" Bobrova now

and what will happen to Team Event? Are they out of it? Or can they invite an "Olympic Athletes from Russia" Team?

it looks as they can partecipate in team events

This panel will be guided in its decisions by the following principles:

It can only consider athletes who have qualified according to the qualification standards of their respective sport.

Athletes must be considered clean to the satisfaction of this panel:

Athletes must not have been disqualified or declared ineligible for any Anti-Doping Rule Violation.

Athletes must have undergone all the pre-Games targeted tests recommended by the Pre-Games Testing Task Force.

Athletes must have undergone any other testing requirements specified by the panel to ensure a level playing field.

The IOC, at its absolute discretion, will ultimately determine the athletes to be invited from the list.

These invited athletes will participate, be it in individual or TEAM COMPETITIONS, in the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 under the name “Olympic Athlete from Russia (OAR)”. They will compete with a uniform bearing this name and under the Olympic Flag. The Olympic Anthem will be played in any ceremony.

I feel really bad for Medvedeva. Poor girl was dragged to Lausanne injured to speak there in favour of Russia NOT getting banned and now this. An all around shitty situation for the young athletes who have nothing to do with this other than being Russian.

Russia will never let the athletes compete under a neutral flag. They'd most likely be shunned and lose their sponsors.

Meagan Duhamel seems all in favour of a blanket ban. Probably so she can have more chance at an Olympic medal. Heaven knows she wouldn't beat T/M as well as S/M and especially S/H.

Yeah, this way ups the medal chances of D/R, helps Sui/Han's dominate. I'm going to now hope that James/Cipres sneak in for a Bronze--highly unlikely, but I like the team.

U.S. Ladies are such a mess that even with the very dominant Russians absent, they're unlikely to snag a medal. Can't believe what a mess Karen Chen is this season. That said, I think it's a good idea for Ashley Wagner to do La La Land--her MR program is dead at this point.

Good news for Japan, though they only have two spots in Ladies.

Won't make much difference in Men's or Ice Dance, though I feel sorry for Voronov making his last run at 30.

The president of the Russian Olympic committee says the country’s athletes need time to consider whether they will take part in the Pyeongchang Games.

Alexander Zhukov says “we plan for it to be discussed” by Russian sports officials and athletes at a forthcoming meeting before a final decision on participation, but didn’t give a date.

Zhukov paints the ruling as a compromise, saying “there’s positive and negative sides,” and praising the International Olympic Committee decision to use the term “Olympic Athlete from Russia” for Russian competitors under a neutral flag.

Previously, suspended countries have used terms such as “Independent Olympic Athlete,” which was used last year for Kuwaiti competitors at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Zhukov says “they’ll be called Russian athletes and not some kind of neutrals ... that’s very important.”

Two-time reigning world champion figure skater Evgenia Medvedeva, who also appeared in front of the IOC board, won’t say if she’ll compete as a neutral.

Medvedeva says “it will be discussed more and it’s very early to ask questions like that.”

omg imagine the booing the "Russian" team will get during opening ceremony, especially from the hordes of Yuna Kim fans. Love it!

I can't stand that overrated, boring bitch Yuna...have not missed her for a second.

R359 = Mao Asada

Queen Yuna!!! Does she still sing? isn't she the Streisand/Beyonce of South Korea?

No one can deny that Yuna Kim was robbed in 2014. Where is Sotnikova now?

Skaters I can't wait to see retire after this season: PChan, Duhamel/Radford, Ashley, Carolina, Denis Ten

lol @ this Canadian frau defending V/M's 'artistry'. And since when is PChan in the 'trifecta' of top 3 men? 2012?

Oh god...PJ Kwong is such a shill for Skate Canada.

She, Kurt Browning and Carol Lane are so fucking biased. You can literally hear the pain in their voices whenever they have to positively acknowledge P/C in their commentary.

Kaetlyn Osmond is her pick for Gold at the Grand Prix? I'm sorry, has Kwong actually watched the other skaters?

V/M are more innovative than P/C? Yeah, because no one's ever done a trashy routine to Moulin Rouge before.

Canadians are so fucking provincial about this stuff.

You know if P/C were Canadian, the whole lot of them (Kwong, Browning, etc) would be going on and on about how they're the second coming of Torvill and Dean.

I remember in 2016, they actually tried to make Weaver/Poje seem like viable rivals to P/C, but they sure dropped them like a hot potato (like the rest of us) when V/M came back.

They're like Republicans. So long as you have a (R) by your name--or in this case a maple leaf--then you are golden in their eyes. Objectivity be damned.

I love listening to the Eurosport guys...you can tell they love P/C and prefer them over V/M...but they try so hard to be objective, but you can totally read between the lines of what they're saying.

GP Final started today

Junior already skated SP in Men, Pairs and Dance.

Now Senior Pairs is starting.

Duhamel's hairstyle is a fashion crime. Are Stolbova/Klimov dressed for a funeral?

Now the figures on screen also give the GOE live

Yu/Zhang...she fell on SBS. 70.15

Stolbova/Klimov....random fall for Stolbova while preparing for the throw. 73.15. PCS not as high as usual, I think

Duhamel/Redford......SBS and twist ok but not great. But throw very problematic. 72.18

Yeah, Canadians are so pathetically defensive about their skaters, it's weird. I think Americans are too nationalistic but at least you can criticize American skaters & the fans don't take it as an affront against the whole country.

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley saying US athletes likely not to compete at 2018 Winter Ols. Privately some skaters know this and the Games are possibly going to postponed for one year with increasing tensions along the North/South Korea border.

I had to fast foward through D/R because I cannot stand that whiny music, her mom hair, and their complete lack of chemistry.

Savchenko/Massot...back to old program. Very good execution, all clean. 79.43

Tarasova/Morozov....SBS saved by Tarasova. Throw very good. 78.83

Sui/Han...big splat for him in the SBS

1) Savchenko/Massot 79.43

2) Tarasova/Morozov 78.83

3) Sui/Han 75.82

4) Stolbova/Klimov 73.15

5) Duhamel/Redford 72.18

6) Yu/Zhang 70.15

R371 Don't worry, Italy is going to Korea. So at worst we will see Carolina Kostner as Olympic Gold with a 2T+1F combination because she will be the only one showing up in Peyongchang.

Jason Brown 89.02

Adam Rippon 86.19

Commentator on Italian Eurosport during Rippon's SP: "how can you interpret something with this kind of music?"

R374 lol cringe at the thought.

Kolyada 99.22 (fall on 4L but rotated, hence the score. Same PCS as Brown)

Voronov 87.77

Chen 103.32 (All jumps done even if the landings weren't elegant. It would be nice if he could do something resembling of a step before the Flip as the rules indicates....it should be a -3 GOE....but they gave him -1 GOE for the element)

Uno 101.51 (fall on the final 3A. It looked done but he slipped away). His coach laughes as a demented as always. -2 deduction. One is for the fall, I don't know the reason of the other one.

LOL Mr Anthony LeRoy for the -1 for Shoma on the Axel rather than -3. Mr LeRoy was also the only one putting Adam ahead of Jason and Nathan on PCS

Hubbell/Donohue, Chock/Bates, Cappellini/Lanotte all within a point.

Shibutani ahead of this group

And Papadakis/Cizeron win SD by 0.5 over Virtue/Moir

omg thank you for the good news R381! I was on pins and needles waiting for the result and was afraid to scroll down lest I get the bad news.

PJ Kwong is an über Canadian frau. She did a video a year or two ago with Kurt Browning where she said that what she doesn't like about the French is that they don't dance and relate to each other like traditional men and women. That is frau speak for calling Guillaume a big fag.

PCS marks by judge

Judge from Korea: P/C

Spain: P/C (because of Interpretation: 10 for French and 9.25 for Canadians). He also gave a 10 to Chock/Bates in Composition..

China: V/M

USA: tie (he tied Chock/Bates and Hubbell/Donohue giving transitions to C/B and interpretation to H/D. He scored Shibutanis ahead of both in Skating Skills, Transitions, Composition. Tie between S/S and H/D in Interpretation and between all of them in Performance)

Italy: tie

Canada: V/M

France: P/C

Japan: tie

Russia: P/C

sorry but I can't at the all the fake expressions bye Alex S at the beginning of the SD

Yeah I don't get the shapes that they make with their mouths either. Either they can't act for shit or they are truly robots who don't know how to express human emotions. It fucking creeped me out.

[quote]PJ Kwong is an über Canadian frau. She did a video a year or two ago with Kurt Browning where she said that what she doesn't like about the French is that they don't dance and relate to each other like traditional men and women. That is frau speak for calling Guillaume a big fag.

But would she ever say something like that about D/R? P/C have more chemistry in their little fingers than those two.

Golden Spin of Zagreb...

Bobrova/Soloviev are currently leading with 75 in SD

Hurtado/Khalyavin have beaten Smart Diaz: 67.14 to 63.12

Muller/Dieck scored a new PB with 61.84. Lorenz/Polizoakis are in last group and needs to be also score a PB to stay at Muller/Dieck's level.

Hawayek/Baker 63.58 and Parsons/Parsons 60.18 look lowish given what some other teams got. Parsons are behind also the Agafonova/Ucar

For Spain scores at Golden Spin are summed with scores at Nationals to decide the Olympic selection for ice dance and second men

Lorenz/Polizoaks 60.02.

Guignard/Fabbri 71.78. Second place overall.

Fenero and girl 52.98

USA sent some young girls at Golden Spin

Starr Andrews 60.80 (4th place behind the 3 Russians: Tuktamysheva, Kostantinova and Fedichkina)

Hannah Miller 51.22 (this one is already 21 and to be honest I don't have a clue on who she is)

Emmy Ma 49.63

That's promising for Starr Andrews.

Both Bradie Tennell and Karen Chen were supposed to be at the Golden Spin. Tennell pulled out because she's suddenly a favorite and doesn't need it. Chen pulled out because she doesn't need another half-assed performance before Nationals.

The not going to the Olympics is all about Trump being under Putin's thumb. As a child of the Cold War, this makes me want to puke. Only good thing is that his Deplorables will resent it.

Has Chen changed FS this week?

Kayne/O'Shea came back after her last season's injury today at Golden Spin. They scored 56.something. SP is on Phantom of the Opera (All I ask of you)....

During press conferences after SPs, Kolyada, Stolbova and Klimov suggested they will go Pyeongchang. Assuming they will be invited. Actually they didn't say "if" like they assume they will be invited. But it may have got lost in translation. Anyway, no-one would dare to tell Stolbova she can't go without being killed.

Marie-France wasn't in K&C at GPF for either V/M or P/C because she is in Zagreb with Smart/Diaz.

In Zagreb Short Dance: Adel TANKOVA / Ronald ZILBERBERG ISRt41.74

ouch, if they end up at the Olympics as indicated, will they manage to stay within 10 points of the second to last?

Wow the Skate Canada president lady is judging in the ice dance event. Shady!

Is this accurate?

I just saw something that stated that Mirai Nagasu is only the second US Woman to have landed the triple axel in competition when she did so back in September. I thought that Kimmie Meisner (however you spell it) had done it?

No other American has landed it in the 26 years since Tonya did?

Kimmie's triple axel was ratified, but it shouldn't have been. It was very under-rotated, but it was the 6.0 era and attention wasn't really paid to URs like in IJS.

I think her lack of mention was an afterthought, much like Kimmie herself.

Did Kimmie do it in international competition? Not sure.

I love how the British commentators are clearly rooting for H/D over S/S. Hope they can make up some grounds in the FD. Also, V/M's SD looks more dated by each showing.

The British commentators know how to have favorites without putting down the other teams. H/D won't be beating the Shibs this season, though--the Shibs aren't going to allow them an inch. Maia may be capable of a full Tonya Harding between anyone who gets in the way of her and her Olympic medal.

Nathan Chen's SP was flat--all his jumps were angled and there just wasn't a lot of energy--hope it was jet lag and not the skates. If Shoma Uno hadn't gone splat on his axel, he'd have beaten Chen in the short.

P/C beat V/M in the short--that's a big deal since the short is how they lost Worlds last year. You'd have to be a Canadian to think V/M look fresh. This isn't the first time Tessa has tried to be sexy femme fatale--she did it in the short in the last Olympics--and it didn't work well then either. I think the only time it's kind of worked is the Prince SD last year--but let's face it, Prince provided the oomph, not Tessa. V/M just don't have the edge to pull off this stuff. They're deeply bland.

P/C know how to put over a Eurotrash/disco vibe that actually kind of works for them--thanks , in part, to Guilliaume's willingness to go full-on slut when he dances. Also think Gabriella's improved. She's a little less stiff. The playful thing that a lot of teams do (Shibs, C/L, D/W back in the day) doesn't work for them. Their Charleston last year was kind of a fail.

USA win Junior Grand Prix among men. Alexei Krasnozhon first and Camden Pulkinen second.

R394 yeah, Leanne Caron is in the panel of judges this week.

France's judge this week is Christine Hurth who has been around for a long time. She wrote a supporting letter for Didier Gailhaguet in the investigation after Salt Lake City. She signed the petition of Drobiazko/Vanagas against the bronze to Chait/Sakhnovski in 2002. She was among those who allegedly burst in tears when the result was announced. She accused

I think USFSA president also sometimes pops up in the panels.

The technical specialist in ladies event today is the coach of Rizzo, Rodeghiero, Marchei, Hotarek. And figure skating commentator on Italian public TV.

The Short Dance protocols at Golden Spin are quite interesting in terms of shady things going on under the surface.

The American and West-European judges (including the Spanish one) went for Smart/Diaz. The East Europeans judges went for Hurtado/Khaliavin. The cynical explanation could be that they wanted to favour Zhulin. The positive one is that they're more in tune with that kind of program style.

The Turkish judge decided that Zagorski/Guerriero and Loboda/Droza are below 6.0 in every component while the other judges put them at around 7.0. And she wasn't strict all over the board. Apart from the 8.0s to Agafonova/Ucar, she also put over 6.0 the Parsons, both German couples, the third British couple and even Redford's boyfriend and random Belarus couple.

Osmond 77.04

Zagitova 76.27

Myahara 74.61

Sotskova 74.00

Higuchi 73.26

Kostner 72.82

The ladies field at GPF is so strong even without Medvedeva. US ladies are fucked.

Maybe the US should try to lure one or two of the excess Russian girls who won't make their team...they can't do it in time for this Olys, but the future is bleak anyway, so time to think about the future. Radionova would probably love to live in LA.

Voronov 266.59

Rippon 254.33

Brown 253.81

So Rippon beats Brown again

Chen 286.51

Uno 286.01

Kolyada 282.00

Voronov has been the only one not falling. Kolyada had a couple of splats and a pop. Uno looked to UR many jumps along with a fall and a couple of step outs.

The time violation on SP costed Shoma the victory

Golden Spin SP

1) Ten 80.5

2) Righini 79.68

3) Alex Johnson 78.8

4) Bychenko 77.88

5) Dmitriev 77.35

6) Kvitelashvili 76.24

7) Majorov 75.23

Felipe Montoya (65.something) leads Javier Raya (60.something) for Spanish Olympic selection.

P/C Short dance is tacky /cheesy as fuck. Guillaume being sleeveless is almost a way to score points. V/M is not particularly latin, but I much prefer it to the Ed Sheeran crap .

[quote] Maia may be capable of a full Tonya Harding between anyone who gets in the way of her and her Olympic medal.

but Maia would do surely it with a smile on her face!

NBC has a new video feature: "Twizzle into my heart: How Chock and Bates fell in love". It's geo-blocked for me, so I don't know how they fell in love. But the poor guy is such a baldn performer compared to her that they can make the abovementioned robotic siblings look sensual.

It's Figure Skating, R408. We should rightfully be awarding points for hot men revealing sexy bodies. Straight women and gay men are like 90+% of the audience. If I have to watch all those Gadbois chicks in their backless dresses...then you're goddamned right I want me some GuiGui.

Zach Donohue should be following suit. And if V/M are upset at their low scores...maybe Scott should stop dressing like Diane Keaton and show some real skin.

Can Nathan Chen's team do something about his sweaty armpit pose right at the beginning of the FS?

[R409] you should be a judge. Guillaume is hot but the program is still super tacky and looks forced. I can't believe they came up with this after all the brouhahaha about how cliche Latin is.

GOLDEN SPIN

1) Kostantinova 199.68

2) Fedichkina 178.20

3) Tuktamysheva 175.90

4) Schott 167.36

5) Emmy Ma 166.71 (117 FS, second FS, better than Tukt)

6) Starr Andrews 163.49

7) Lea Dastich 157.44

PAIRS

1) Natalia ZABIIAKO / Alexander ENBERT 202.96

2) Kristina ASTAKHOVA / Alexei ROGONOV 186.62

3) Tarah KAYNE / Danny O'SHEA 162.26

SANTA CLAUS CUP

1) Ivett Toth 161.89

2) Loena Hendrickx 160.6

3) Micol Cristini 157.11

4) Emmi Peltonen 154.39

5) Isadora Williams 149.40

Wow, Tuktamysheva 3rd even in this competition?

Yeah I wonder why hot guys like Lanotte or Donohue don't bare their bodies more often. Meanwhile we get Alex with his deep V which nobody wants to look at. A gay boy can dream.

what you were waiting for....

Alex Shibutani’s 5 Tips On Spending Lots Of Time With Your Sibling And Still Getting Along

1. Identify Something You Both Enjoy Doing, Then Do It Together

2. Stay Adequately Hydrated And Don’t Go Extended Periods Of Time Without Eating

3. Develop A Verbal Shorthand

4. Be THANKFUL

5. Only Have One Sibling

(point 2?? he wrote "Even if you have the best relationship with your sibling, spending lots of time together without scheduling regular food breaks is ill-advised. This is another reason why food is a critical component to a healthy sibling relationship."......does he know eating is critical component for everyone regardless of having siblings?

eww just stop

[quote]P/C Short dance is tacky /cheesy as fuck. V/M is not particularly latin, but I much prefer it to the Ed Sheeran crap .

[quote]Guillaume is hot but the program is still super tacky and looks forced.

Tacky, cheesy and forced? HA! Are you fucking kidding me???? Tackier than V/M's gaudy, bedazzled [bold]leopard[/bold] printed costumes? Or cheesier than V/M's hammy and overwrought acting and choreography? Or more forced than Scott's embarrassing attempt to be sexy by making gross orgasm faces?

Only a fat Canadian frau would look at the picture below and say that was less tacky than P/C's SD.

Get the fuck out of here R408 and R412...or should we say PJ Kwong, cause we all know it's you.

R418, stop clutching your pearls and get your head out of GC's ass. They are all making forced orgasm faces out there for this portion of the event. Sure V/M ham it up , but at least the music choice isn't as bad as Ed fucking Sheeran, and, yeah, I think they sell better . I love P/C FD (V/M FD music is tackier), but the SD is beyond embarrassing. Yes, more forced than V/M.

[quote]Yes, more forced than V/M.

Sure, PJ. Sure.

Rika Kihira just made Juniors history by doing a clean effortless 3A-3T - Nagasu wishes.

Savchenko/Massot wins GPF winning both SP and FS. Interestingly they've beaten Sui/Han also in PCS today. Some miles away Duhamel/Redford took third place. Tarasova/Morozov were last in the Free.

R420 if PJ is a skinny white boy, sure. :)

First group of FD done:

Hubbell/Donohue 187.40

Chock/Bates 187.15

Cappellini/Lanotte 185.23

ouch, Igor got all the levels back for C/B. I thought H/D were pulling away but again they are still there in the big group.

Shibutanis not good. Problems with the twizzles . They can lose the FD to C/B and H/D. FD behind also to Cappellini/Lanotte.

They are desperate in K&C

Virtue/Moir very good TES.

But it went down by 2-3 points compared to the first call

199.86 overall

Shot on the backstage with Shibutanis who can't even put out their fake smile today.

Papadakis/Cizeron 202.16

Virtue/Moir 199.86

Shibutani/Shibutani 188.0

Hubbell/Donohue 187.4

Chock/Bates 187.15

Cappellini/Lanotte 185.23

Interpretation all 10s for P/C

I'm not a fan of V/M but ... the judges need to stop with their obvious favouring of P/C. Do they *really* deserve perfect GOE on all elements? Yeah no. Also H/D should've beaten the Shibs

actually no. Mr. Feng HUANG gave 9.75 for Interpretation. But lowest score is discarded, so they got 10s as average

Ms. Kaoru TAKINO from Japan literally gave them +3 on all elements.

Takino and the French women gave 10 in 4 components out of 5. The 5th got a 9.75

The president of Skate Canada was the only judge giving PCS to Virtue/Moir.

In interpetation V/M got 7 10s. French woman gave them 9.5 and Russian judge gave them 9.75

At this point V/M are slated to win Olympic Silver... nothing they can do to change that really

Horseface Kostner got a 141 for a 5 triple program with 1 lutz, 1 flip , 1 loop , 2 sals (one doubled), and a fucking triple toe as a single jump. Who is she fucking.to get that high a score? Wtf!

There was no lutz in that program.

I can make 5 triples rather than 5 2 and a half jumps like you, Ashley.

1) Zagitova 223.0

2) Sotskova 216.28

3) Osmond 215.16

4) Kostner 214.65

5) Myahara 213.49

6) Higuchi 202.11

Lol I love how the English commentators were clearly favoring H/B in the free (as they should)

Golden Spin

1) Bobrova/Soloviev 186.66

2) Guignard/Fabbri 178.16

3) Hawayek/Baker 163.88

Spanish Olympic selection:

Hurtado/Khaliavin 163.58

Smart/Diaz 159.40

These scores will be summed to the results of Spanish Nationals.

German selection:

Lorenz/Polizoakis 150.42

Mueller/Dieck 149.02

Both teams looked very tense. M/D had a problems with twizzles (the girl). L/P now have a 3.76 points lead before Nationals.

Men and Ice Dance are the open spots to be decided at German National Championships. For Pairs (Aljona/Bruno and Hocke/Blommaert) and Ladies (Nicole Schott) it is basically close.

Qualification for Team Event completed. The 10 nations qualified:

1) Canada 6084 points

2) Russia 5924

3) USA 5055

4) Japan 4345

5) China 4231

6) Italy 3801

7) France 3652

8) Germany 2806

(Spain 1858 but qualified only in 2 disciplines. Minimum needed is 3)

9) Israel 1521

10) South Korea 1397

Reserves: Australia (1320), Ukraine (1124)

Grand Prix Final Gala:

Ladies: all invited

Men: top 3 + Rippon

Pairs: only top 3

Ice Dance: everybody except for Hubell/Donohue (who must have killed the organizers cat to be left out)

GOLDEN SPIN organizers are so lazy. OK, no free livestream, it may be expensive but they are not even live updading scores.

Anyway, I think Moris won over Bychenko.

Back to Ice Dance: Hawayek/Baker are #4 USA team followed by in somer order McNamara/Carpenter, Parsons and Pogrebinsky/Benoit. I thought P/B would have finished 7 and left out of 4Continents team but after a good start at Nepala (I think) Parsons are struggling recently (152 at Golden Spin). So P/P and P/B may be close. However, H/B seem not to go anywhere this season. Last year at Golden Spin they were 2 points away from Guignard/Fabbri IIRC, today they were almost15 points behind.

Standing in Spanish Olympic selection after Golden Spin (round 1 out of 2). Felipe Montoya has soundley beaten Javier Raya: 193 to 166 points. 2. Realitically the race ends here. Glad for Montoya. Raya already did Sochi. 193 would barely enough even to be for US third Lady spot though. And the white costume...

H/D got hosed on PCS. Should've been ahead of the Shibs in the SD, and beat C/B in the free. If only Zach didn't fall at that year's worlds. That was their window to put themselves solidly ahead of the Shib-bots.

Speaking of the Shib-bots, guess they've got a little human in them after all.

It's actually a shame they skate together, because I think Maia could've been a great ice dancer with another partner. She has great posture and good edges and, with the right partner, could've opened up more on the ice and developed a lot artistically, and even shown some sexiness. I think she's a follower, and needs a strong influence to draw out those performing qualities from her.

But I'm sure Mama Shib didn't want anyone touching her daughter in "that way"--ever in the fake sense--and forced her to skate with her brother. And now she's been limited her whole career to skate to one boring, uninteresting program after another.

You can tell Marina is so bored and uninspired by them, and is just sticking around for that fat paycheck from their Harvard-educated Connecticut parents. She can barely muster up a genuine compliment for their skating, other than they work hard.

Don't know about Maia being a follower--one of the B.ESP announcers said that Maia wore the "pants in that outfit." It was surprisingly blunt for the Brits.

They do have feelings though--a few years back, Alex had food poisoning during one of the Grand Prix event--they got through the program pretty well--and when they finished Maia burst into tears. Haven't seen that kind of emotion from her before or since--but it gave me a sense of how much it all meant to her.

Reports indicate that Hanyu hasn't come back to on ice training yet and he still feels pain. He may skip Japanese nationals in 2 weeks

He was really foolish to try a quad lutz.

His quad arsenal from Worlds last year would've been enough for Olympic gold. Nathan has a sliver more in tech content, but it's not like he's been consistent with it, and even if he and Hanyu hit all their quads, Hanyu is still a better skater overall and currently more artistic, so I'm sure the judges will give him the PCS edge.

Nathan isn't bad, but he's still developing.

I really hope the ISU re-evaluates the level of importance they give to quads after this season. It's really gotten out of hand. Injuries left and right, no consistency anymore and programs being gutted to set-up quads one after the other.

A kid from Italy (15 years old) becomes the 8th man to land a 4Lz in a Senior international competition. He landed it yesterday at Golden Spin.

R443 yes, Hanyu seems obsessed to have always new or more difficult things also when it's necessary. Also in the entry of jumps, he adds more things making him more error prone while others don't do them and judges ignore it anyway. The step before the single quad in the SP by Uno is quite far from the landing. In Nathan's case it's not even present. But they get positive GOE anyway by the majority of judges.

I respect Yuzu more for trying to keep up technically with the leaders of the pack. It's a shame that he's been injured, but I don't think it was foolish of him to try to keep up.

It's way more shady when those who cannot keep up technically try to win or sneak onto the podium based on reput... - ahem - PCS alone.

But Yuzuru is the leader of the pack. Nathan may be attempting the most quads but his actual skating leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. Shoma's quads are terrible quality - prerotated with messy landings. I don't agree that those who "cannot keep up technically" have no right to be on the podium if the quad guys are skating like shit, which they have been for 95% of this season. Besides, if all the top guys injure themselves trying to outdo each other, then there will nobody else left.

I'm sad for Yuzuru, honestly, he's actually the skater that has it all - the artistry, the jumps, he's pleasing to watch. And on a normal day he doesn't splat all over the ice. But I appreciate this drive to improve and sadly that's what led him to the current situation. This is ridiculous. ISU needs to punish falls severely and maybe then skaters will stop trying to add every single quad to their roster and the injuries will stop too. I'd much rather watch a program with lower technical content but without falls.

Ice Dance at Santa Claus Cup

1) Nazarova/Nikitin 166.38

2) Yanovskaya/Lukacs 159.14

3) Kaliszek/Spodyryev 158.0

4) Fear/Gibson 154.56

5) Reed/Ambrulevicius 146.82

6) Tessari/Fioretti 144.68

7) Urban/Steffan 131.58

Rest below 130 points.

I'm not sure if Nikitin's make up deserve a +1 for the effort or a -1 because it looks awful. Since NHK it's even more marked. At the beginning of the season he only had the eyeliner. Now they added a cross on the cheek.

Kaliszek/Spodyriev come down to a more normal score after the 168 in Tallin

Much improved score for Yanovskaya/Lukacs, even if they are skating FS on a Phantom of the Opera choreo by Shpilband (probably recycled by something from a decade ago). They are a new couple. She actually won a Junior World title some years ago beating McNamara/Carpenter. She's Russian. She used to skate with Mozgov (who is now with Popova). Then they split when they moved senior. He basically dumped her. Never understood the real reasons. Now she has found this Hungarian guy. They don't have competition in Hungary, so expect them to easily go to Euros (where they can make the FD) and Worlds.

Finally caught up with the GPF Ice Dance.

The Shibutanis just made things a lot harder for themselves. That dream of Gold/Silver is gone. This was their last chance. The SD got good scores...but that FD. Even without errors, it's not getting more than 115-6. That's not good enough. And now, they're going to have to really fight at Nationals and for the Bronze. I just don't get the feeling that the international community really loves the Shibs. They bore the fuck out of me. Surely they bore others.

Hubbell/Donohue did well...but yet again we have another competition that was there for them and they didn't deliver. They seem to have all this hype...but I find it hard to believe that they're going to end up on the Olympic podium. Is the Ice Dance world going to let Montreal sweep the podium for a team that has never won a World medal?

Chock/Bates are improving. Maybe they caught me at a moment of weakness, but I think their FD performance was emotional. It felt Olympic. I think that Bronze is there for the taking for any American team. Who is going to skate clean?

Meanwhile, Canada is in meltdown after P/C beat V/M. If any of you ever wondered about the petty backhanded bullshit that CBC and the Canadian commentators pull...watch the link. Say what you will about US Olympic coverage, but it is much fairer than this bullshit. Pathetic.

OMG, the Canadians are so effin' provincial about this. I showed a young actor I know V/M's and P/C's routines and her comment about V/M was that they were doing incredible stuff, but their terrible acting kept getting in the way.

Of course, the other irony of the Canadian comments is that V/M's original big calling card is that they did the big romantic stuff and it seemed genuine. P/C came along and basically do V/M's old style, but they do it way better than V/M ever did, though Tessa is more athletic than Gabrielle. Back then, of course, the Canadians sniffed about Davis & White being athletic, but not having the chemistry of V/M.

This isn't the first time that V/M have tried the big, sexy routine--and Moulin Rouge borders on crass at a couple of points.

I also like C/B's routine--they've really been up and down the top 10 ladder. I do think the Shibs will nab the Bronze, but won't be in the running for anything higher. I think they peaked with that silver at Worlds.

I think the real question is will H/D or C/B be given one of the slots for the team competition and, thus, a shot at a medal? After the Shibs awful FS, one of the other teams should get the FS while the Shibs get the SP.

Was just about to post the clip on here but you guys have already posted it. lol @ the not-so-subtle shade of the Canadians commentator. Pathetic!

Half of Europe is holding National Championships this week

France: Kevin vs Chafik (with Ponsart finding a way to bomb again?). Second place in Ice Dance also potentially interesting.

Sweden: Majorov vs the Swedish Olympic Committe and they have to pick the girl

Italy: Rizzo goes into Nationals with around 10 points lead over Righini in the internal ranking. It's a deadheat between Micol Cristini and Giada Russo for second Lady. And will Rodeghiero show up?

4 Nations Championships: It's Czech,Slovakia, Hungary and Poland all together because they have 2 athletes each and therefore a single national championship would be wasting a rink.

Germany: Liebers vs Fentz and Lorenz/Polizoakis vs Mueller/Dieck going down to the wire.

Spain: Montoya (no quad and no 3A) doubling his way to the Olympics and the epic Ice Dance battle between Diaz and Hurtado.

Don't think Lane said anything that bad re P/C other than that they are doing the same style ( which is not a new criticism) She mentioned that V/M were overselling their program.

If you want biased go watch Max Staviski' Russian commentary on eurosport

....

R454, are they fucking?

It would be cool to see a pas de deux with those two.

Latvian Olympic team announced.....what a suspense......Deniss Vasiļjev (no reserves), Diana Nikitina (reserve: Angelīna Kučvaļska)

Important Jounralism

aww poor Kuchvalska. I liked her in Euro some years ago.

R459 she tried to skate at Minsk Challenger last month but she didn't even reach 100 points as sum of SP+FS. She was under-rotating the doubles. It was hard to watch. Totally out of shape. She is apparently also semi-injured. And she became a woman.

Pogosplat withdraws from Russian Nationals

Russian Olympic Committee endorsed the decision to encourage all Russian athletes invited to take part to Olympics.

Japanese Federation will announce the Olympic team on Dec 24th, one hour after the end of men FS.

lol Pogosplat is the Gracie Gold of Russia, except bitch brings the drama

Anna managed to deliver quite a few more times than Gracie ever did, though. She has a Worlds medal, 3 Euro medals & a GPF medal while Gracie couldn't even medal at 4CC.

James/Cipres withdraws from French Nationals. She fell hard in practice today or yesterday. Apparently she's ok but they don't want to risk.

The account of Israel National Championships on FSUniverse forum is almost epic.

They hold them in a 15x30 rink. The account included the following:

(on some girl) "the coach is clapping after every jump, the rest are quite indifferent"

(on Tankova/Zilberberg) "well the twizzles were there... otherwise it's a lot of 4 foot skating."

"the rink does not look too small for them (Tobias/Tkachenko were covering it within 2 steps, Tankova/Zilberberg need more than 10"

(on Conners/Krasnapolsky) "am not sure the beaming smile is something that goes well with the Schinlder list."

(on Bychenko) "He is trying hard not to hit the borders"

(on Bychenko) "another popped jump and a russian curse judging by his lips"

(on some girl) "Rivkin fall from 2something into the border gets up and speeds up into 1lz. 1s double footed"

"Rivkin is still skating, by the way. Teh cameraman is asking for how long this torture will be going on and am not sure I disagree."

For the rest it was confirmed Bychenko is retiring at the end of this season. No surprise. Last week he wrote on IG something "last time at Golden Spin". He will be 30 in February. He's doing uninterruptedly Worlds/Euros since 2011/12 season.

Gossip is that Tobias/Tkachenko are over. They expected to get/buy citizenship and were surprised not to get it.

wow this Tobias girl is super desperate. Her father must be footing the bill for all this citizenship buying.

Dad Tobias is apparently very rich. He's this one.

I can't recall who it was but in her junior years some other skater described her as "the American girl who came to practice with the helicopter" or something on that line.

Are the citizenship dramas over? I don't know the situation of French dance girl #2 (Lauriault, she's Canadian). And Cortney Mansour of Czech Republic (she's Canadian). The rest seems resolved.

Bruno Massot got it 2 weeks ago

Danish dance girl didn't get it. And they already gave up the spot.

Both Spanish imported ice dancers got it thanks to a special decree by government.

Slovakia dance girl should get it.

Gamelin got it for South Korea who is handing passports to everyone.

American pair girl skating for Israel has it.

Idem Australian pair girl

Japanese pair boy won't get it and one of their even weaker pairs will go instead

Was the Lithuanian guy who currently dances with Alison Reed and used to dance with Taylor Tran considered too weak for Tobias? He trains in Canton, so it wouldn't have been a problem in terms of logistic. There would have not been problems with citizenship. Olympic qualification would have been harder though but not impossible. He got Lithuania as the first alternate at Nebelhorn this year but (I think) Tobias is better than Reed. Therefore, they could have squeezed in

omg I didn't know the Reeds have an even more inferior dancing sibling. And she competed for fucking Georgia! What's with the American girls and desperation to compete for every obscure country?

Zueva is basically collecting the cheques of the Shibutanis and the Reeds for all their dancing children. No wonder she's getting bored. The Muramoto/Reed programs are actually quite good this year though.

Aimee Buchanan, whoever she is, has been selected by Israel for the Team Event.

The whole Israeli Olympic team posed with the official uniforms (which were probably bought at a cheap shop next door to the rink).

Some names are totally random and have already booked the last place in Peyongchang.

Alexei Bychenko

Daniel Samohin

Aimee Buchanan

Connors/Krasnopolski

Tankova/Zilberberg

Hanyu's injury is even worse than we first thought:

""There is also inflammation in my tendon and bone so the speed of recovery will not be quick. It has not been decided when I'll be able to restart training," he said."

Re Hanyu. Will it be another Plushenko style drama like in Sochi?

I am already preparing at the horrific thought of Chen or Uno winning.

Meanwhile, Ladies SP at French Nationals: Meité 63.79 Lecavalier 63.12

I don't know if they will wait until Euros (where they have 2 spots and so both of them will take part) before deciding. Same for men.

It should be noted that Lecavalier got that score with a fall.

oh, tomorrow Carolina at Italian Nationals. How many 10s will she get?

National Championships round up

FRANCE

- Meité wins also the FS. Lecaliver was third behind Serna in FS but still second overall. 1) Meité 183.20 2) Lecavlier 178.04 3) Serna 171.39. Meité has beaten Lecavelier 3 times this season: Masters, French GP and Nationals.

- Aymoz bombed the SP. Besseghier is leading with 80.5. Ponsart sits in second (76.14). Aymoz only scored 67.57 and he's 5th.

- Papadakis fell and messed also the twizzle. They scored 79. Lauriault/Legac and Abachkina/Thauron are practically tied at 63.4/63.5

GERMANY

- Schott is leading the Ladies.

- Aljona/Bruno are way ahead in Pairs. Hase/Seegart but closely followed by Hocke/Blommaert. Anyway, not enough to catch H/B for Olympic spot

- Fentz scored 74. He left the door open for Liebers...who was a disaster. He only scored 60. So now Fentz is back in the lead for Olympic spot. Tomorrow he needs to beat Liebers by 4.something points overall and score at least 201 overall.

-Lorenz/Polizoakis won the SD with 63.65 ahead of Muller/Dieck who scored 61.29. They extended their overall lead in the Olympic internal ranking to 6.1 points.

ITALY

- Marchei/Hotarek are 1 point ahead of Della Monica/Guarise after SP

- Carolina landed 3F+3T combo. She scored 81.91. Giada Russo is currently second with 61.

- Matteo Rizzo 84.82 Ivan Righini 81.89 Maurizio Sandro 77.42 Daniel Grassl 74.28

- SD: Cappellini/Lanotte 82.08 Guignard/Fabbri 76.84 Tessari/ Fioretti 57.4 Moscheni/Fabbri 55.40

omg I love Giada Russo in Euros some years ago. Girl couldn't jump to save her life but the footwork was amazing. Hope she gets it over zzz Roberta.

Rodeghiero didn't show up today. She has not competed this season so far.

The rink was freezing. Some judges were holding blankets over their legs. LOL.

There were 10s all around for Carolina. Some got carried away with it and one judge also gave 9.50 in Composition to Giada. But as R476 said, her programs are actually good. Today she managed to stay vertical.

Are you Italian R477? Will you go to Worlds in Milan?

I don't know what Laurine was thinking when she went to Kori Ade. Kori hasn't helped anyone's career as far as I can tell, apart from Jason. And he seems to be regressing lately.

Looking forward to the results of Russian nationals next week. Does anyone know a site where we could watch it live in the USA for free?

R418 must be the P/C troll. Bitch please, their SD is indeed tacky and the only one doing all the work is him. Gabby is still a second tire skater.

Speaking of US Nats. I'm going to go to San Jose !!!!

Talk about an event where gay sex is going to be off the charts.

Careful or you might get cruised by Rudy R482!

I'd love to see Chen take the OGM if Hanyu is injured. He's not as elegant a skater as Hanyu, but I love his short program and US skating could use the boost. It sure won't be getting it from the Ladies. He needs to skate better than he did at the Grand Prix, though--the Mens was a splat fest.

N. Chen will get new costumes designed by Vera Wang.

Belgium officially announced the Olympic team....Jorik and Loena.

They probably can't afford a Vera Wang's costumes. For Sochi Jorik's costume was made by his coach to save money. He said that materials and stones costed nearly $1,000 and without having the coach doing the manual work, he should have spent another 1,000 to have it done.

There was an article about the costs of costumes in Sochi. Majorov said his costumes costed 1,500$ each. Verner's Sochi costumes costed 3,000 each because he went to a Broadway designer. Amodio spent $1,100 for the Sochi SP costume.

They didn't give examples for Ladies, they only say they are often more expensive and some of them can go up to $5,000.

R478 yes, I am. But I don't think I will go to Worlds.

R480 there are usually some free streaming online. I don't have the link now. But on FSU or GS some posters usually provide them at the beginning of the competition's threads.

Spanish, German, Italian and 4 Nations Nationals have the free live streaming this week. I didn't find the free French one but they are broadcast on TV, so that's probably why (but you could try and get the tv channel pirated streaming).

Let's hope Nathan doesn't let his new Vera Wang costume get all stained in the pits.

Anti-perspirant-get some!

There is actually one International event this week: the Bosphorus Cup in Istanbul. It's the last chance to get the minimum TES for Four Continents. Not much happening...Turkish men all got the minimum TES for Worlds. Aussie girl and Taiwan boy didn't get the minimum for 4CCs. Kazakhstan girl didn't minimum for Olympics.

Canada didn't wheel out Joseph Phan. So he can't do 4CCs regardless if he gets on the podium at Nationals.

Alisa Agafonova / Alper Ucar scored 172.80 in Ice Dance. LOL.

Germany

1) Paul Fentz 231.6 2) Peter Liebers 207.59

Fentz gets the Olympic spot. Glad for him. Liebers went to Sochi.

Italy

1) Rizzo 243.20 2) Righini 232.85 3) Zandron 221.67 4) Grassl 217.07

Nathan is only slightly more interesting than Lysacek for me. His SP is ok but his LP is empty and tedious to watch if he doesn't hit all the jumps. Even if he does, it's not one I would ever go back to watch. Especially when he is wearing clothes that look straight off the rack of JC Penney (yes, I know he is supposed to get something better by the Olys). He seems like a fundamentally boring overachiever. I like skaters with a personality.

Pairs

Germany 1) Savchenko/Massot 229.38 2) Hase/Seegart 168.99 3) Hocke/Blommaert 164.66

Olympic spots go to Aliona Savchenko/Bruno Massot and Annika Hocke/Ruben Blommaert

Italy

1) Della Monica/Guarise 200.50 2) Marchei/Hotarek (various splats, a lift totally missed) 178.79 3) Ghilardi/Ambrosini 128.92

Olympic spots to Della Monica/Guarise and Marchei/Hotarek

Those pit stains of Nathan Chen were horrific. Did the coach not notice that?

Costumes are horrifically expensive. Custom made dresses by Brad Griffies could easily set you back $1,000 cheapest. He's doing Jason Brown, Karen Chen's costumes this season. And he's not Vera Wang level

In France Besseghier won (234). Aymoz bounced back to second place (216.5). Ponsart fell to third (212)

They have 2 spots at Euro. So it will be Chafik and Kevin. Ponsart can go back to California to comfort Mariah Bell.

what's the meaning of Besseghier's SP? Is he a taxi driver in the peak hour?

German Ice Dance: 1. Kavita Lorenz/Panagiotis Polizoakis 165.07 2. Katharina Müller/Tim Dieck 158.66 3. Shari Koch/Christian Nüchtern 156.17

Lorenz/Polizoakis get the Olympic spot. So the openly gay quota at Olympics raise to 2 (I assume Redford is a lock).

Back to ITALY...Carolina did the 3Lz. She fell on 3S. Giada Russo held second place. 2 URs and 2 downgraded. 1Lo<<....LOL! And this combo 3T+1T

Ice Dance as expected in terms of ranking. Scores super inflated as usual. 200 for Cappellini/Lanotte e 190 for Guignard/Fabbri. But Luca Lanotte's baby made his appearance in the K&S.

Spain SD

1) Smart/ Diaz 69.61 2) Hurtado/Khaliavin 64.21 3) Robledo/Fenero 59.83

[quote]I don't know what Laurine was thinking when she went to Kori Ade. Kori hasn't helped anyone's career as far as I can tell, apart from Jason. And he seems to be regressing lately.

Funny how things turn out. After Jason's early success, Kori was the new "it" coach out there. She essentially packed up her life, moved to Colorado, and built her entire academy on the foundation of Jason's success--yet that success hasn't really translated to other skaters, even though she's had a few moderately talented ones come through her ranks who could've at least made some world teams. But it hasn't happened for them.

I do wonder if in a few more years, she'll prove to be another Robin Wagner--a one-hit wonder coach who was incredibly lucky to find and nurture a phenom with so much natural talent they would've succeeded to some degree no matter who their coach was. Robin had Sarah Hughes, but no accomplished skater since. Maybe Jason is that to Kori.

Although I think TSL exaggerates the politics of it, I can see why Kori wants to hold onto Jason at all costs. He is, after all, her only successful student and thus the biggest marketing tool to draw in more skaters to her academy.

Kori did not attend French nationals with Lecavlier . Laurine had Bourzat (who choreographed her programs) in the K&C with her.

Osner was in Spain with Fernandez.

Gosh Lanotte is such a hot daddy! Every Italian men in the team is so attractive. What's in the water over there?

Germany announced selection for Europeans during the Gala last night. It's the Olympic team + Peter Liebers as second Man and Lea Johanna Dastich as second Lady. It has been also said that Euros will be Liebers' last competition of the career.

I'm surprised Liebers is still competing, and even more surprised that he got a top 10 finish last Olympics. Good luck to him nevertheless.

Drama in Spain. Smart/Diaz win National Champs. But Hurtado/Khalyavin win FD. Overall (Nationals+Golden Spin) Hurtado/Khaliavin are in front by 0.97 and get Olympic spot. Kiril must now learn a couple of Spanish words!

The moment the score is announced

Backstage.....explaining to Khaliavin what's happening..

LOL....Felipe Montoya's reaction as he hears that he has qualified for second Spanish Olympic spot

Drama and more drama from Spain

Fed confirmed Hurtado/Khaliavin for Olympics and Euros and gave Worlds to Smart/Diaz.

The selection of H/K relies on Golden Spin Short Dance lead.

The Belarus judge, Mr. Alexandre Gorojdanov, disappeared from the panel between SD and FS

Gorojdanov was just back from a suspension because of things happened during Nepela Trophy 2016 (Pairs competition) where he was the referee. Basically Russian and Lithuanian judges kept talking in Russian between themselves and he did nothing even after complaints from other judges and he actually joined them in their conversation. All while skaters were skating.

Anyway, according to someone on FSU (I suppose a S/D's fan), he was removed from Golden Spin panel after complaints by Spanish Federation about rigging between him and H/K's coach (their coach is Zhulin who was not present in Zagreb but his assistant was there). Apparently various letters were sent to ISU about Golden Spin results.

Anyway, Spanish Fed in the end considered that result to decide the selection.

I guess they were also busy rigging in favour of Smart/Diaz to openly complain about those rigging for Hurtado/Khaliavin without having everything blowing in everybody's face.

And ISU don't want another Ice Dance judging scandal in the run up of Olympics or IOC will really get rid of Ice Dance this time.

Btw, Fernandez did well in SP art Nationals but the FS is still a mess (fall, step outs and pops).

Way to go Felipe, whoever he is! Jason's new costume from Brad G. looks weird. It chops his torso up high. Do not like. What's with. Jason's fetish for velvet little boy pajama looking outfits. looks silly. As for Nathan getting costumes made by Vera Wang, I hope they're not so wacky like Evan Lysacek' s snake unitard. That looked like something you'd get out of a Halloween clearance bin. I like Nathan's skating but agree he's been looking messy. at least he's not injured like Hanyu, poor guy. Who knows if he'll be healed and in shape by the Olympics. He's skipping Japanese nationals because he's not even well enough to train right now.

Ugh why can't they let Diaz and his hot ass go to the Olympics instead of the 2 uggos? Jason Brown's costume has been regressing since Sochi, so is his choreography. I'm shocked that the same choreographer who did the Prince and Riverdance programs could have choreographed such schlock like his programs this year.

Rohene has always been hit and miss with his programs. Either they're brilliant (like Jason's "Prince" or "Scent of Love" programs) or they are horrendously trite and hammy (like Jason's "Juke" or Mariah Bell's "Born on the 4th of July" programs).

I think Jason's career as an amateur is basically over. Not only is he regressing technically due to his injury, but he's also regressing artistically too. His "Hamilton" SP is such campy fluffy mess, it leaves no lasting impression, especially if you haven't seen the musical and have no idea what the story is about Then his FP is just some banal twinkly piano piece that sounds like something composed by John Tesh for a "Pure Moods" CD that you pop in to help you get to sleep.

Olvia Smart is not taking it well. She is basically tweeting that Golden Spin was rigged in favour of Hurtado/Khaliavin. And retweetting comments suggesing Didier Gailhaguer is buying Olympic Gold for Papadakis/Cizeron.

Olivia Smart‏ @olivia_smart wow, if ya’ll don’t read any of the skating forums.. you should, learn a lot about the past ice dance competition scandals. #playfair #Olympics2018

and then retweeted this one: Unfortunately it’s still happening, it’s what you get when the most corrupt person the ISU ever had in them is still out there pulling strings for his team. Let’s hope the Olympic gold medal will go to the truly deserving team. Kick ass at Worlds Olivia!

Fucking Didier just had to say that P/C would win the Olympics last season. Now P/C have that hanging over them. If they win the Olympics now, there will be endless accusations of rigging by Didier from the V/M ubers and the Canadian Fed--no matter what P/C do that night or how brilliantly they perform.

It's such a disservice to them because they [italic]are[/italic] the better team and have the better FD this season. If they skate lights-out clean in the SD and FD, they should win OGM over V/M. No debate in my opinion. But now Canada will bitch and moan about cheating and judging bias until the IOC awards their previous V/M a second gold medal like in 2002.

Oh Canada will bitch and moan no matter what. They bitched about Davis & White winning and how it was rigged, even though Davis & White had been undefeated for two years.

Hubbell (who is Diaz's girlfriend) posted a IG Story about Spanish Nationals with the pic of the podium showing only Smart/Diaz and Robledo/Fenero. It would have been even more better if she had the whole podium with a cross over Hurtado/Khalavin.

Back to Golden Spin

Short Dance PCS marks

Belarus and Russia voted heavily for Hurtado/Khaliavin over Smart/Diaz. Turkey voted for them too

Spain voted for Smart/Diaz in all components except one. Italy, Germany and USA marked them slightly higher.

Free Dance

Belarus judge is out. Former Israel ice dancer Alexei Beletski is on the panel now instead of him.

Russia and Turkey kept their preference for H/K. Beletski is in H/K's favour too.

USA and Italy switched to H/K, marginally

Spain and Germany go for S/D again

But again, let's go back to what happened last year...

Hurtado/Khaliavin win Nationals and they are sent to Euros. They finish 13th...13) H/K141.36 ...for comparisons the Germans were 14) with 141.32

Spanish Fed said that they would send to Worlds team with highest SD TES during the season. H/K had the Torun Cup score (which was indeed giving out levels like candies). Smart/Diaz were assigned to Bavarian Cup in February along with Fenero/Robledo but not H/K. At Bavarian Cup they got a huge score (171.70), for comparison Germans scored 156.64. However, their SD TES was 0.something lower than what H/K got at Torun Cup. So Spanish Fed said "it's a tie, we decide who to send" and they sent Smart/Diaz. But then at Worlds they finished one position ahead of the Germans (145.61 to 142.86) like H/K did at Euros.

S/M had Marie France with them at Golden Spin and Lauzon at Nationals. Zhulin didn't go to Golden Spin (even if Bobrova/Soloviev were competing there. He stayed in Moscow with Sinistina/Katsalapov). Petr Durnev was with H/K both at GS and Nationals Championships.

The interview is awkward....but Khaliavin can say "mui bien" and "muchas gracias"

Now this is the kind of scandal I enjoy, where I'm not really invested in anyone and can just relish the drama from afar, and they aren't big enough stars for it to become a tedious never ending controversy a la Kim/Sotnikova or V/M vs D/W. I did favor Diaz/Smart just because he's so sexy, though.

It looks like only 7 Ice Dance teams at Olympics will be Europe based.

3 in Russia: the 2 Russian teams, whoever they will be and Hurtado/Khaliavin

3 in Italy: Cappellini/Lanotte, Guignard/Fabbri and Mysliveckova/Csolley

1 in Poland: Kaliszek/Spodyriev

Nothing left at Lyon school in France.

All the other 17 will be based in US: likely 3/4 in Gadbois, 5/6 with Shpilband, 3 with Zueva, 2 with Camerlengo/Krilova, 1 with Morozov, 1 with Lane and the Z level Israeli team training in Hackensack.

[quote] and then retweeted this one: Unfortunately it’s still happening, it’s what you get when the most corrupt person the ISU ever had in them is still out there pulling strings for his team. Let’s hope the Olympic gold medal will go to the truly deserving team. Kick ass at Worlds Olivia!

I see it's not among her retweets anymore. It's still among her likes.

And there is the following reply to that quoted comment (which was a reply to her original comment about reading forums to be informed about scandals): "I hope she didn’t get bullied to delete her reply to your comment 🙁 #SpeakUp"

but I can't see a reply by Smart. So if she did it, she delated it.

- Gilles/Poirier have a new James Bond themed Free Dance

- Patrick Chan is training in Edmonton with Ravi Walia (Osmond's coach).

- Italy team for Olympics announced: Carolina Kostner, Giada Russo, Matteo Rizzo, Nicole Della Monica/Matteo Guarise, Valentina Marchei/Ondrej Hotarek, Anna Cappellini/Luca Lanotte, Charlene Guignard/Marco Fabbri.

-Medvedeva withdraws from Russian nationals

- National Championships in Russia and Japan are this week.

Schedule as follows

Japan

Thursday: Ladies SP

Friday: Men SP

Saturday: Ladies FS, Men FS

I don't know when Pairs and Ice Dance are but no-one cares about them in Japan.

Russia:

Thursday: Men SP, Pairs SP, Short Dance

Friday: Ladies SP, Men FS, Free Dance

Saturday: Ladies FS, Pairs FS

Team China all dressed up and looking good.

France first selection for Olympics:

Papadakis/Cizeron

James/Cipres

Chafik Besseghier

Lady and second Ice Dance spot to be decided later. Presumably after Euros.

R515

I see Yan Han's hair color is back to normal

Olivia Smart has delated all her tweets.

The ISU is investigating Golden Spin. Here's the video of the Belarus judge at the end of Parsons/Parsons FD. It appears he is looking at the marks of the Russian woman next to him and then changed his own ones. And he's doing something with a piece of paper.

Here's the scoring sheet from Golden Spin SD with flags to identify judges' nationality.

Sui looks as old as Hao Zhang in that photo. Anyone check out Kerstin Frank's skating at the recent Santa Claus Cup? Apparently she competed still suffering effects of a concussion, but her past dismal results indicate that this 29 year old should be retiring instead of embarrassing herself time and time again.

I'm excited about Russian nationals and Japanese national, but not enough to watch at 3am or 6am live. Medvedeva has a groin injury and withdrew. So many unexpected withdrawals and injuries this season.

Frank went competely face down at Santa Claus while trying to do a spin IIRC

When you fall to number whatever in Austria, it should ring you a bell

Japanese Pairs SP

1) Miu Suzaki / Ryuichi Kihara (Yuri on Ice) 54.53

2) Riku Miura / Shoya Ichihashi (Miss Saigon) 51.54

3) Narumi Takahashi/Ryo Shibata (A Moment to Remember) 49.29

Sumire Suto / Francis Boudreau-Audet WD

SP in Japan

Sakamoto 73.59

Miyahara 73.23

Hongo 70.48

Higuchi 68.93

Kihira 66.7 (not age eligible for Sr)

Honda 66.65

Mihara 64.27

Russian Nationals SP:

Alexander Samarin 103.11

Mikhail Kolyada 101.62

Dmitri Aliev 91.95

Sergei Voronov 90.23

Kovtun out of the picture, just 64.

I 've been rooting for Voronov to make Olympic team. Top 2 is difficult now if Samarin doesn't implode. He can still get third place and go to Euros. But I am not sure when the whole IOC procedure of vetting Russian athletes is supposed to start and finish. And therefore if the proposed names should be sent before or after the Euros.

omg does this mean Diaz have a chance to go to the Olympics? I want him and his hot ass there! Good for Honga, I'll take her over fatty Wakaba.

Wakaba's fourth is going to bug the Golden Skate crowd--if neither Wakaba or Mirai Nagasu make their Olympic teams, I expect massive meltdowns.

Some interesting results from Russia

Stolbova/Klimov are leading Tarasova/Morozv. Zabiiako/Enbert sit in a close third. Top 3 seem definite.

Stepanova/Bukin are running Bobrova/Soloviev close. The GP season seemed to sugget Sinistina/Katsalapov were not out and not too far from S/B but she messed up the twizzle and they are now far in 4th also behind Tiffany & Jonathan. They are likely to get third place back but Stepanova/Bukin are too far ahead to catch them barring major mistakes

Short Dance in Japan

1) Kana Muramoto / Chris Reed 65.71

2) Misato Komatsubara / Timothy Koleto 56.65

rest below 50.0

R524 Knowing ISU, they will probbaly take forever for their investigation and try to release the suspensions/bans when everybody is not paying attention. Last season they announced suspensions of 2 judges and referee from Nepala Trophy (that took place in late September 2016) in March 2017

lol no wonder why the obese fraus love these fatties

watching Japenese men's shorts and it's surprising how artistic these guys are compared to the ladies. You have Satoko and Marin who have great lines, but girls like Mai or Wakaba (and the numerous homely girls in the 30-odd field) are so hard to watch. Yet almost all of the guys in the second to last group that I'm watching I'd watch even without the jumps.

yes, this group 4 in Japan has been very enjoyable. No splats and good skating all around.

Tanaka 91 Mura 85 Murakami 81 with final group left

Ladies SP in Russia also starting. Tsurskaya and Radionova are in the first group. Leonova and Tukta in the second. Zagitva and Sotskova in the third.

Eh, I don't find most of the Japanese men interesting right now. I like Yuzuru, loved Takahashi, liked Nobunari Oda and Tatsuki Machida...but I don't think guys like Mura, Murakami or Tanaka are anything special. And Shoma annoys me to no end.

JAPAN SP

1. Uno Shoma 96.83

2. Tanaka Keiji 91.34

3. Mura Takahito 85.53

4. Murakami Daisuke 80.99

5. Tomono Kazuki 78.16

RUSSIA Ladies SP

1) Zagitova 78.15

2) Sotskova 76.39

3) Tsurskaya 75.33

4) Kostornaia 73.59

5) Gubanova 71.69

6) Tukta 71.07

....

13) Radionova 66.16

UKRAINE selection for Olympics

Men: Yaroslav Paniot

Ladies: Anna Khnychenkova

Ice Dance: Aleksandra Nazarova/Maksim Nikitin

Euros team is the same plus Darya Popova & Volodymyr Byelikov second ID team.

Men FS in Russia....almost embarassing...splats, pops and pops, falls....

1) Kolyada 281

2) Samarin 258

3) Aliev 248

4) Voronov 245

Katsalapov injured himself at a knee and S/K withdrew mid FD after an aborted lift

Zagorski/Guerreiro were sloppy and that FD doesn't work IMO. But they got bronze. They would have probably been beaten by S/K.

Stepanova had problems on the first set of twizzles. And so chance to upset B/S gone but ahead of the rest by a mile.

Bobrova/Soloviev actually skated well. And everyone went melodramtic by the end. Standing ovation. Zhulin started to cry mid-program. His assistant, Petr Durnev (always sporting fashionable bags), was also in tears . Big hug by Zhuling at the boards. They carried on drying tears in the K&C as we had just witnessed the performance of the decade. Bobrova was just laughing.

thank god Radionova and her hunched shoulders will not be in the Olympics! And her smile is weird.

is it bad that I often confuse Stepanova and Sinitsina? Two generically beautiful Russian girls with hardly any personality on the ice. BTW I'd love to be in a Bukin-Katsalapov sandwich!

13th for Radionova? Owww. No coming back from that. No Radionova, no Pogosplat; Medvedeva on the injured list--we may end up with Zagitova by default rather than a Russian ice queen duel at the Olympics.

Sorry about Voronov--I was rooting for him.

R535 no, it is normal. They are known as the "blonde girl he drags around". But Sinistina gets to fuck Katsalapov as a bonus. Stepanova is apparently only dragged around on ice.

____________________________________-

Miu Suzaki/Ryuichi Kihara win Pairs at Japanese Nationals. A program skated on Yuri on Ice soundtrack making its way to the Olympics.

Ladies FS has started. They are still on the first group out of 4. Streaming link here:

1) Myahara 220.39

2) Sakamoto 213.51

3) Kihira 208.03 (not age eligible)

4) Higuchi 206.96

5) Mihara 204.67

6) Hongo 197.62

7) Honda 193.37

National Champ gets the automatic Olympic ticket. Second spot will be decided by Fed and announced tomorrow after Men FS. I guess it will be down to Sakamoto or Higuchi. Mihara doesn't stand a chance anymore.

omg I hope Sakamoto gets it over thunder thighs Higuchi

what am I R536, chopped liver?

Pairs:

1) Tarasova/Morozov 223

2) Stolbova/Klimov (2 falls for Stolbova. At least she can't blame Fedor anymore) 215

3) Zabiiako/Enbert (a couple of falls also for them) 207

4) Astakhova/Rogonov 198

Ladies:

1) Zagitova 233.59

2) Sotskova 221.76

3) Kostornaia 216.57

4) Kostantinova 211.28

5) Tsurskaya 207.61

...

7) Tuktamysheva 202.06

....

10) Radionova 196.78

Allocation of spots is pretty clear for both ladies and pairs with these results. They confirm the ranking based on International stage. I am more interested in Euro spots for Men (based on GPs Voronov should be ahead of Aliev) and Ice Dance (S/K over Z/G if Katsalapov's ankle recovers fast)

what was that pose in the K&C?

I think that's her starting pose for the FS R541

You're not even the onions on my chopped liver

Russia team for European Championships

Alina Zagitova

Maria Sotskova

Evgenia Medvedeva

Mikhail Kolyada

Aleksandr Samarin

Dmitri Aliev

Evgenia Tarasova/Vladimir Morozov

Ksenia Stolbova/Fedor Klimov

Natalia Zabiyako/Alexander Enbert

Ekaterina Bobrova/Dmitry Soloviev,

Aleksandra Stepanova/Ivan Bukin

Tiffany Zahorski/Jonathan Guerreiro

______-

is the end of the career for Voronov?

________

Japan Men FS is into the second to last group......I love how Japanese can't contemplate the concept of a minimal costume. Then we will get the Olympic Team announcement.

wait they have 3 spots for Russian men? If so not including Voronov is low.

yes, for Euros they have 3 spots as both Kovtun and Kolyada were on the podium behind Fernandez. I think their rules were that top 2 at Nationals are guaranteed a spot at Euros and then Fed could chose the third one. So they had the opportunity to pick Voronov based on his International results this season but they went for Aliev anyway.

oops sorry R546 I thought you meant the Olympic team. Thank you for explaining the Euro team selection. Do you know when the Olympics team will be announced?

R547 It should have been after Euros but I don't know what's the timeline of the International Olympic Committee vetting/invitation of Neutral Athletes from Russia or whatever they will be called. I am not sure how the whole process will work. Is it that Russia choose, then send name to IOC and IOC say yes/no?

It's pretty clear who the Russian Fed would want. In Ladies and Pairs they have 3 spots. So Euro team=Olympic team. And anyway the Euro team matches the seasonal International results.

In Men and Ice Dance they only have 2 Olympic spots. In Ice Dance it's B/S and S/B now that S/K won't do Euros. I mean, they won't send Z/G out of nowhere. Given the PCS they gave to Samarin this week, it's obvious they want him as second men IMO. With Voronov out of Euros and Aliev not having an International track record, the spot is Samarin to lose now.

Meanwhile, in Japan the final battle between Tomono, Murakami, Mura and Tanaka for the third Olympic spot has started.

Oh, Tomono is doing West Side Story. Then Pagliacci for Murakami and Phantom of the Opera for Mura.

I forgot Sato...skating on The Barber of Seville ...the combination spin is timed on Figaro, Figaro, Figaro...he actually timed a splat on Figaro

Tomono 231.21

Murakami 230.95

Mura...much better than what we've seen from him in GP. Almost hit everything, almost hand down on first jump (on replay he didn't touch the ice) and a step out on the last.

He's crying now

258.41

Shot on Tanaka breathing deeply...

If the Japanese commentator mentions again "Olympic" I am going to kill him. And that's the only word I understand.

step out on the Salchow

audience clapping with the music on central step sequences

hand down on the 3A

another step out exiting a combo

he added a Quad

but I think he had a planned combo going into REP

same TES as Mura on screen and he led in SP by 6 points

267.15 for Keiji

It's interesting how muted the applause is for Shoma. Do they not like him over there?

Japan Olympic Team announced live on TV right Now. Skaters Valles one by one on the ice

Susaki/Kihara

Muramoto/Reed

Hanyu

Uno

Tanaka

Myahara

Sakamoto

thank god I won't have to see fat ass Higuchi at the Olympics

Higuchi gets World spot.

Mihara gets 4CCs

Shoma will do 4CCs. With Tanaka and Mura.

[quote]It's interesting how muted the applause is for Shoma. Do they not like him over there?

I just watched his FS and it can hardly be called one for the ages. Why would they applaud more? It's also a bit of an underwhelming competition without Yuzuru.

Video of the announcement of Japanese team

Wakaba honestly deserved to go to the Olympics given her season so far - one performance shouldn't have weighed in favor of Sakamoto.

[quote]It's interesting how muted the applause is for Shoma. Do they not like him over there?

My sense is that he's their version of Tara Lipinski to Hanyu's Michelle Kwan.

And, yep, Golden Skate is bewailing Wakaba's fate--not sure why--she got Worlds, she's young and she bombed Nationals. Grand Prix shouldn't mean more than Nationals--all sorts of factors come into play at them--Skating while Osmond in Canada; Skating while Kostner anywhere near an Italian judge.

I suppose it's evil of me to hope Mirai Nagasu blows it at Nationals--so sick of her fandom overrating her abilities.

lol I love all the fat fraus crying over Wakaba. Ditto for Mirai. I feel nothing watching these girls skate.

Wakaba blew it for herself. Others delivered and she didn't. I could see being upset if she had at least made the podium, or if there was some sketchy judging...but that's not the case here. That said, I like her far more than Satoko who creeps me out with her little doll body and rehearsed movements. She reminds me of those North Korean child performers who do everything perfectly but there's no soul or genuine emotion whatsoever.

Can someone tell Maia we have enough of her posting videos of herself and Alex when they were under 5? I think the opening Christmas presents video is also a recycle.

I can post whatever I want cunt @ R561

"Today, @alexshibutani and I are at the rink and it’s a normal day of training. It’s pretty cool and I’m really glad that we’re still together!"

Can someone remind me the schedule of US Nationals? Are they next week, right?

Snippets from an interview of Timothy Le Duc with some Texas LGTB outlet:

“I have had some homophobic interactions with other skaters,”

“I don’t sense it as much anymore, but I’ve spoken with older gay athletes in the sport who talk about times they were told to ‘butch it up.’“

I wonder who the homophobic skaters were, if they were Americans or from other countries. I mean, even if you come from US traditional/conservative families, you must know that in figure skating you will encounter some gay people....you have to handle it somehow...

I can picture some Russian skaters being homophobic given how much homophobia is the standard in these countries and that they mainly train in Russia and not in other countries where they can find openly gay people (coaches, choreographers, etc) China is another country that is not gay friendly but I guess their skaters can avoid interaction with everybody else, gay or straight. Half of them don't speak English anyway. Japanese usually don't talk about sex.

The Chinese skaters don't seem homophobic to me. Zhang is especially touchy feely with all the males. I wonder if some of the Eastern European male pair skaters is what Le Duc is talking about.

Le Duc might be talking about when he was first starting out. The 90s and early 2000s were a different era. I would go as far as saying the 90s were less homophobic (in skating) than the subsequent 00s where I found homophobia to spike in skating circles.

R563...Shut your pie hole Maia and just admit you want your brother to pound your snizz, if he isn't already doing so.

Now go back a watch your favorite "Friends" episode.

Oops, I meant shut your pie hole, R562 ^^^

Oh please, Alex is more a girl that Mia could ever be. Miss Alex was probably Scott Moir's pet boy back in the day.

I'm just happy Dmitri Aliev ended up second at Russian nationals. He seems to be more errr "sensitive" than the average Russian man. His coach holding his hand @ 8:14 in the kiss and cry was very endearing. I hope he gets sent to the Olympics. <3

He was third IIRC. They managed to keep Samarin second with atrociously inflated PCS given his program is barely a program but a series of jump-preparation-jump that make Voronov almost artistic.

Aliev is/was dating Fedichkina who is barely 15. But he doesn't mind Adam being touchy. See R154.

[quote]Aliev is/was dating Fedichkina who is barely 15. But he doesn't mind Adam being touchy. See

Yeah, no. Remember when Stephane Lambiel had Kostner as a girlfriend?

Preview of Gilles/Poirier new James Bond Free Dance:

OK...R572 wouldn't play so I had to go to her Instagram. What a fucking waste. I've given up on them...but somebody needs to be shutting this shit down. Their goal should be to appear mature and professional and yet they choose to comes across as nothing more than two high school drama nerds. Again and again with the kitsch. They just keep digging and digging and digging that hole...

Will they even be Top 10 at Olympics? I don't think so. They need new coaching and management immediately.

WHET Yavaguti/Smirnov? He gets so much hotter as he ages. I'm sure they must have fucked at some point.

R573, I agree that Gilles/Poirier need a coaching change.

They need to get away from Carol Lane.

If they want to do another Olympic cycle they should leave Carol Lane at the end of this season and start the next cycle with a new coaching team.

Agreed R575, a coach who blames ranking on the location of a competition instead of being able to clearly assess her team's limitations is doing them no favors. Leave that approach to the stage moms.

I don't remember if the new TES box used for GPFinal had the same features but at Japanese Nationals they had a TES box also showing

a) GOEs as they were coming in rather the final GOE (so going up and down if the judges entering the mark later had marked differently than those pushing the bottom first)

b) the name of the element turning pink if the panel had called a review

All interesting but they can become a distraction. Too many things to watch at the same time.

In the Japanese TV studio, before the Olympic Team announcement, they had a big board with all the skaters' skaters...and the tv host moving Higuchi's, Sakamaoto's, Tanaka's, etc faces according to the predictions....LOL!

Japan team for 4 CONTINENTS

MEN: Takahito Mura, Keiji Tanaka, Shoma Uno

LADIES: Mai Mihara, Satoko Miyahara, Kaori Sakamoto

PAIRS: Miura/Ichihashi, Suzaki/Kihara, Takahashi/Shibata

DANCE: Fukase/Tateno, Komatsubara/Koleto, Muramoto/Reed

So they are not resting Uno and the girls. It may be Mura's last competition. I thought Muramato/Reed could have sneaked into the podium as they can beat one of the young US teams (the one between Parsons or Pogrebinsky/Benoit that will finish 6th at Nationals). But now I think Gilles/Poirier are likely to go 4CCs to premiere internationally the new FD before the Olympics.

[quote]WHET Yavaguti/Smirnov? He gets so much hotter as he ages. I'm sure they must have fucked at some point.

He is coaching now & skating in shows. I agree, he's gotten super hot lately and he finally has a decent hairstyle.

Tanaka needs tips on how to express erotism. Or maybe he wants them only from Takahashi

god, takahashi is so hot

Thanks for the photo R578! Do you know why they're not competing until Olympics? Must be injury or something, given Russian has 3 teams and Z/E is not too strong.

R580: I concur, I just want to rip that suit off him and munch on his hot ass.

Gilles & Poirier interview about their new James Bond Free Dance:

R581. They retired at the beginning of the season. She got injured 2 seasons ago, they attempted to come back last year but at 2016 Russian Nationals they were behind Zabiiako/Enbert and Astakhova/Rogonov.

Japan know how to do a Gala. The US ones like Stars on Ice lately look cheap.

Shoma sometimes look retarded.

I'm glad Yavaguti and Smirnov retired. She always looked so thin and frail I was concerned for her health. He was such a big hunk, I don't see why they couldn't have performed just as well with 5 more pounds on her. I wonder if she can return to Japan after giving up her citizenship.

Entry list for European Championships published today. All main Euro names are there

37 Men

1tSlavik HAYRAPETYANtARM

2tLarry LOUPOLOVERtAZE

3tYakau ZENKOtBLR

4tJorik HENDRICKXtBEL

5tNicky OBREYKOVtBUL

6tNicholas VRDOLJAKtCRO

7tJiri BELOHRADSKYtCZE

8tMichal BREZINAtCZE

9tDaniel Albert NAURITStEST

10tValtter VIRTANENtFIN

11tKevin AYMOZtFRA

12tChafik BESSEGHIERtFRA

13tMoris KVITELASHVILItGEO

14tIrakli MAYSURADZEtGEO

15tPaul FENTZtGER

16tPeter LIEBERStGER

17tPhillip HARRIStGBR

18tAlexander MASZLJANKOtHUN

19tConor STAKELUMtIRL

20tAlexei BYCHENKOtISR

21tDaniel SAMOHINtISR

22tMatteo RIZZOtITA

23tDeniss VASILJEVStLAT

24tDavide LEWTON BRAINtMON

25tThomas KENNEStNED

26tSondre ODDVOLL BOEtNOR

27tIgor REZNICHENKOtPOL

28tDmitri ALIEVtRUS

29tMikhail KOLYADAtRUS

30tAlexander SAMARINtRUS

31tMichael NEUMANtSVK

32tJavier FERNANDEZtESP

33tFelipe MONTOYAtESP

34tAlexander MAJOROVtSWE

35tStephane WALKERtSUI

36tBurak DEMIRBOGAtTUR

37tYaroslav PANIOTtUKR

41 Ladies

1tAnastasiya GALUSTYANtARM

2tNatalie KLOTZtAUT

3tKim CHEREMSKYtAZE

4tLoena HENDRICKXtBEL

5tCharlotte VANDERSARRENtBEL

6tPresiyana DIMITROVAtBUL

7tEliska BREZINOVAtCZE

8tPernille SORENSENtDEN

9tKristina SHKULETA-GROMOVAtEST

10tViveca LINDFORStFIN

11tEmmi PELTONENtFIN

12tLaurine LECAVELIERtFRA

13tMae Berenice MEITEtFRA

14tLea Johanna DASTICHtGER

15tNicole SCHOTTtGER

16tNatasha MCKAYtGBR

17tFruzsina MEDGYESItHUN

18tIvett TOTHtHUN

19tAimee BUCHANANtISR

20tMicol CRISTINItITA

21tCarolina KOSTNERtITA

22tGiada RUSSOtITA

23tDiana NIKITINAtLAT

24tGreta MORKYTEtLTU

25tKyarha VAN TIELtNED

26tAnne Line GJERSEMtNOR

27tElzbieta GABRYSZAKtPOL

28tJulia SAUTERtROU

29tEvgenia MEDVEDEVAtRUS

30tMaria SOTSKOVAtRUS

31tAlina ZAGITOVAtRUS

32tAntonina DUBININAtSRB

33tSilvia HUGECtSVK

34tNicole RAJICOVAtSVK

35tDasa GRMtSLO

36tValentina MATOStESP

37tMatilda ALGOTSSONtSWE

38tAnita ÖSTLUNDtSWE

39tAlexia PAGANINItSUI

40tSila SAYGItTUR

41tAnna KHNYCHENKOVAtUKR

17 Pairs (only one won't make the SP cut)

1tMiriam ZIEGLER / Severin KIEFERtAUT

2tSofiya KARAGODINA / Semyon STEPANOVtAZE

3tLana PETRANOVIC / Antonio SOUZA-KORDEIRUtCRO

4tAnna DUSKOVA / Martin BIDARtCZE

5tLola ESBRAT / Andrei NOVOSELOV tFRA

6tVanessa JAMES / Morgan CIPREStFRA

7tAnnika HOCKE / Ruben BLOMMAERTtGER

8tAljona SAVCHENKO / Bruno MASSOTtGER

9tZoe JONES / Christopher BOYADJItGBR

10tPaige CONNERS / Evgeni KRASNOPOLSKItISR

11tNicole DELLA MONICA / Matteo GUARISEtITA

12tValentina MARCHEI / Ondrej HOTAREKtITA

13tKsenia STOLBOVA / Fedor KLIMOVtRUS

14tEvgenia TARASOVA / Vladimir MOROZOVtRUS

15tNatalia ZABIIAKO / Alexander ENBERTtRUS

16tLaura BARQUERO / Aritz MAESTUtESP

17tIoulia CHTCHETININA / Mikhail AKULOVtSUI

31 entries for Ice Dance

1tTina GARABEDIAN / Simon PROULX SENECALtARM

2tViktoria KAVALIOVA / Yurii BIELIAIEVtBLR

3tTeodora MARKOVA / Simon DAZEtBUL

4tCortney MANSOUROVA / Michal CESKAtCZE

5tLaurence FOURNIER BEAUDRY / Nikolaj SORENSENtDEN

6tKaterina BUNINA / German FROLOVtEST

7tCecilia TÖRN / Jussiville PARTANENtFIN

8tAngelique ABACHKINA / Louis THAURONtFRA

9tMarie-Jade LAURIAULT / Romain LE GACtFRA

10tGabriella PAPADAKIS / Guillaume CIZERONtFRA

11tKavita LORENZ / Joti POLIZOAKIStGER

12tPenny COOMES / Nicholas BUCKLANDtGBR

13tAnna YANOVSKAYA / Adam LUKACStHUN

14tAdel TANKOVA / Ronald ZILBERBERGtISR

15tAnna CAPPELLINI / Luca LANOTTEtITA

16tCharlene GUIGNARD / Marco FABBRItITA

17tJasmine TESSARI / Francesco FIORETTItITA

18tAurelija IPOLITO / Malcolm JONEStLAT

19tAllison REED / Saulius AMBRULEVICIUStLTU

20tNatalia KALISZEK / Maksym SPODYRIEVtPOL

21tJustyna PLUTOWSKA / Jeremie FLEMINtPOL

22tEkaterina BOBROVA / Dmitri SOLOVIEVtRUS

23tAlexandra STEPANOVA / Ivan BUKINtRUS

24tTiffani ZAGORSKI / Jonathan GUERREIROtRUS

25tLucie MYSLIVECKOVA / Lukas CSOLLEYtSVK

26tSara HURTADO / Kirill KHALIAVINtESP

27tMalin MALMBERG / Thomas NORDAHLtSWE

28tVictoria MANNI / Carlo RÖTHLISBERGERtSUI

29tAlisa AGAFONOVA / Alper UCARtTUR

30tAlexandra NAZAROVA / Maxim NIKITINtUKR

31tDarya POPOVA / Volodymyr BYELIKOVtUKR

Is Larry Loupolover from Azerbjian real or a made up character?

[quote] 4 Cortney MANSOUROVA / Michal CESKA CZE

Not that she's listed as Mansourova. It means she got Czech citizenship and can go to Peyongchang. She is from Canada, one of the many Canadian girls competing for other countries and not one of the best either.

Vincent Zhou discolated his shoulder last week but he says now he's ok.

Did anyone watch Rippon's teleconference yesterday? He's quoted as saying "A very confident @Adaripp just told a teleconference he will be on the Oly team “unless other skaters’ mothers are on the selection committee. I’ve proven time & time again I’m one of the most consistent skaters in the world."

I guess he was joking...

I can see him doing a Voronov: solid GP season, worst skate of the season at Nationals, 4th place and left home.

NBC is doing "A Day in the Life with.." profile with all top skaters. They all sound the same and make their lives look very boring (which is possibly an accurate description). The one for the Shibutanis ends with "they generally don't have time to nap."

Well Rippon was the most consistent American man of the season, let's be real. At least he wasn't splatting all over the ice.

R589 I kind agree in terms of US men. I still think Rippon is quite overscored in PCS (he does lots of 2 feet skating on empty programs in terms of below the waist content).

However, I hope he would make the US Olympic team. In that case, he won't be the oldest man of the field in Korea. Bychenko is one year older than him. Hhe won't be the oldest debutant either. Besseghier is one month older. The oldest men going to 2018 Olympics are:

Bychenko 1988

Besseghier 1989

Brezina 1990

Montoya 1990

Chan 1990

Fernandez 1991

Ge 1991

Majorov (if Swedish Olympic Committee let him go) 1991

Fentz 1992

Meanwhile, the Incent Twins are trolling us

Technical Panels for the Olympics

LADIES

Referee: Beatrice PFISTER (SUI)

Technical Controller: Susan LYNCH (AUS)

Technical Specialist and Assistant Technical Specialist: Jae-Eun CHUNG (KOR), Yevgeny MARTYNOV (UKR)

MEN

Referee: Chi-Hee RHEE (KOR)

Technical Controller: Raffaella LOCATELLI (ITA)

Technical Specialist and Assistant Technical Specialist: Konstantin KOSTIN (LAT), Ricardo OLAVARRIETA (MEX)

PAIRS

Referee: Rita ZONNEKEYN (BEL)

Technical Controller: Anna SIEROCKA (POL)

Technical Specialist and Assistant Technical Specialist: Simon BRIGGS (GBR), Todd SAND (USA)

ICE DANCE

Referee: Ingrid-Charlotte WOLTER (GER)

Technical Controller: Hilary SELBY (GBR)

Technical Specialist and Assistant Technical Specialist: Slavka GRINCOVA (SVK), Tae-Hwa YANG (KOR)

____

Martinov is Ukraine by passport but he has been based in USA for a long time. He used to train Tennell. Kostin from Latvia is also USA based.

Locatelli-Kostin-Mexico guy were at Cup of China this year and I think they gifted a bronze to Rodionova over Mihara with their calls.

The Ice Dance panel was the one used at Nebelhorn for the Olympic qualification. But it doesn't tell us much as top teams weren't there. I think they were quite generous IIRC.

The names of the judges submitted by ISU members have been revealed. I see:

- the Russian lady who the Belarus judge was chatting to at Golden Spin

- Walter Toigo from Italy who served a 2 years ban some years ago because he was caught on video looking at his neighbor's score before entering his marks for Romain Ponsart at a Junior event.

- Skate Canada president Leanna Caron

-the French man who gave something like three 10s to Shoma at Skate Canada

- Sharon Rodgers

- no Marie France's buddy, David Molina, for Ice Dance. He is in the assessment commission. As judge for Dance, France is sending Marie-Christine Hurth who was one of the Didier's defendant years ago.

The Olympic Panel for Ladies is quite generous. They didn't call any UR to Satoko Myahara at Skate America. But they still called URs to Karen and Ashley. I suppose Mirai wouldn't fare much better.

Zhou will present a 5 Quads FS at Nationals. He's apparently back landing jumps in practice. If it is the case, he will in top 3 and get one of the Olympic tickets. It means last spot is down to Adam vs Jason unless they give it Max Aaron but I think they will put one of the "artistic" skaters on the team.

So there will be no Russian judges in any disciplines? Is that because of the ban?

Russia has no-one in the Technical Panels but they have judges in all 4 disciplines. They nominated only 3 people:

Mayra ABASOVA (RUS)*

Elena FOMINA (RUS)

Olga KOZHEMYAKINA (RUS)

Abasova is for Ice Dance. Fomina usually does Pairs. It would mean Kozhemyakina will judge both Men and Ladies.

* assuming she is not being investigated for Golden Spin. She is the one whose scores the Belarus judge was looking at while appearing to talk to her. From the video there is no evidence she was replying to him. "Belarus judge is mad and talks to himself while marking PCS" is a valid excuse for ISU?

Anyway, Belarus judge has this week resigned as international judge

Asked about the reason given for resignation, if the investigation will carry on and what would mean for Golden Spin results, Alexander Lakernik said "I can confirm the rest only after the formal decision is taken"

Last week Spanish Federation said “from our side, everything still is as it is. We consider the results of Zagreb official and the results from our nationals official.”

And Marie France Dubreuil didn't return phone calls by Phil Hersh about this issue.

Still not known also:

- who is the judge (not on the Ice Dance panel) who started to film from the row behind the judge seats the Belaurs judge's behaviour?

- who is the coach who started to film the judge filming the Belarus judge?

Will any figure skaters come out in 2018?

As long as Jason Brown doesn't start to parade a girlfriend.

And 2018 should finally see the wedding of Grant Hochstein and Caroline Zhang.

this thread is going to be closed in less than 4 comments.

Link for the new one: