Figure Skating 2018, Pt. XIII

Link to previous thread for reference.

Is Tonya actually going to attend the ceremony tomorrow?

I'll be she will but won't be seated up front. Subjects of biographical films are usually way in the back. When Sandra Bullock won playing Leanne Tuohy, she was way back. But since Tonya had some celebrity herself, maybe not...

Will Tonya be making her own dress????

I'll snip the straps of the other nominees.

Junior Worlds will take place next week in Bulgaria. I don't particularly care about Juniors and I can't bring myself to watch the Latin SD done by Juniors

Anyway, here's the winners in the last 10 years. Some of them went really nowhere as senior. Also in some cases, they won Junior Worlds when stronger skaters of same or lower age were already doing Senior events. The majority of those Russian ice dance couples split when at some point moved to Senior.

MEN

2007: Stephen Carriere (Chan second, Voronov third)

2008: Adam Rippon

2009: Adam Rippon

2010: Yuzuru Hanyu

2011: Andrei Rogozine

2012: Yan Han (Jason Brown third)

2013: Johsua Farris (Jason Brown second)

2014: Nam Nguyen

2015: Shoma Uno (Boyang second)

2016: Daniel Samohin

2017: Vincent Zhou

LADIES

2007: Caroline Zhang (Ashley third)

2008: Rachel Flatt (Mirai third)

2009: Alena Leonova (Ashley third)

2010:Kanako Murakami

2011:Adelina Sotnikova

2012:Yulia Lipnitskaya (Gracie second)

2013: Elena Radionova

2014:Elena Radionova

2015:Evgenia Medvedeva

2016:Marin Honda

2017:Alina Zagitova

PAIRS

2007:Keauna McLaughlin / Rockne Brubaker

2008:Ksenia Krasilnikova / Konstantin Bezmaternikh

2009:Lubov Iliushechkina / Nodari Maisuradze

2010: Sui Wenjing / Han Cong

2011: Sui Wenjing / Han Cong (Stolbova/Klimov second)

2012: Sui Wenjing / Han Cong

2013: Haven Denney / Brandon Frazier

2014: Yu Xiaoyu / Jin Yang (Tarasova/Morozov second)

2015: Yu Xiaoyu / Jin Yang

2016: Anna Dušková / Martin Bidař

2017:Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya / Harley Windsor

ICE DANCE

2006: Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir (Davis/White third)

2007: Ekaterina Bobrova / Dmitri Soloviev (Weaver/Poje third)

2008:Emily Samuelson / Evan Bates

2009:Madison Chock / Greg Zuerlein (our favorite siblings second)

2010:Elena Ilinykh / Nikita Katsalapov

2011:Ksenia Monko / Kirill Khaliavin

2012:Victoria Sinitsina / Ruslan Zhiganshin

2013:Alexandra Stepanova / Ivan Bukin (Papadakis/CIzeron second)

2014:Kaitlin Hawayek / Jean-Luc Baker

2015:Anna Yanovskaya / Sergei Mozgov

2016: Lorraine McNamara / Quinn Carpenter

2017:Rachel Parsons / Michael Parsons

Alex Shibutani @AlexShibutani

I’m having the best time.

Adam Rippon@Adaripp in reply to @AlexShibutani

Good

Shibs hanging on to Derek Hough like white on rice. They popped up on his IG story at some award show, beaming and showing off their bronze medals. Are they that desperate to be on Dancing with the Stars? The show never ends they'll get their chance eventually. Is Alex gonna be Derek's boy toy so he can break into the L.A. scene? Maia pretending to date Derek may keep everyone happy.

With Yuzuru and Javier skipping World's, the men's podium is going to be Uno, Boyang and Chen (probably in that order), right?

Shibs are going to Oscars? He-Shib tweeted to Rippon "c u l8r"

Oh, Rippon is dressed, erm, like he's ready for a bondage party (check his IG Stories. There is also Mirai in a light blue dress)

really...

So do Papadakis and Cizeron actually skate their programs on 2 feet or is that Dube loves Moir blogger full of shit? I tried to rewatch both V/M and P/C FD for comparison...

R10 he looks like a moron. And she should have worn something red... and not so matronly.

Papadakis - Cizeron were guests at Dancing on Ice on UK tv. She performed an adapted version of their SD given how they were dressed (Guillaume is back at the sleveless top

R12 Unsurprisingly. His fashion sense at closing banquets and other off ice events I've seen him left something to be desired

I hope Tonya clubs them in the knees.

R8, I'm thinking Chen either wins the whole shebang or ends up off the podium. He doesn't seem like an in-between skater.

All attention is good attention in my book! Kiss my big weirdly-shaped ass if you don't like it!

R11- It looks to be accurate to me. Lots of 2 foot skating and very little variations with a couple of simple lifts. Compare that to the program Zagorski/Guerreiro did at the European Championships - they skated to the same type of music, using the same lyrical style but their skating was far above P/C. Lots of changes in positions in their lifts, far more in tune with the music and less 2 foot skating. I can't remember how they did at the Olympics, but if they skated the same way they did at Europeans, they should have come second instead of P/C.

Zagorski/Guerreiro 2nd?!? Now THAT is serious Russian trolling, Svetlana.

Svetlana who?

Jonathan is posting on Datalounge?

Jennifer Garner's dress was chosen just for the blue troll.

Mirai actually uttered the words "BDSM Outfit"... what a time to be alive.

R22 she also offered to have a threesome with Adam and someone else.

Red is definitely Mirai's color. Maybe she's tired of it, but go with what works.

Adam's outfit is hilarious.

For the life of me I can't figure out Mirai's obsession with Rose Nylon's closet.

From what I understand, Boyang doesn't have the artistic chops - not yet anyway. I so want Shoma to beat Nathan, and I don't know why ?!? Maybe Nathan is somewhat cold?? Or his skating doesn't pull you in, at least not like Yuzuru or Shoma.

Or it could just be I've never seen him at his best. I get that his jumps are good - but I'm not interested in him when he skates. I hate to admit it, but I don't really like Javier's style either. Now maybe if he wasn't skating to Charlie Chaplin's antics or fucking Elvis Presley I might feel differently but he just seems too cheesy, like a skater out of the 1970s. But anyway, he's gone. He was a looker, I'll give him that. Hottttt. None of the others are - except Yuzu and Shoma are both cute as hell.

That's another thing - I thing Chen (and Boyang) are very ordinary looking - no sex appeal. Not as ugly as Patrick Chan (good riddance!) I could get into the Kolyada guy but he's not in the same league, skating-wise, with the rest of these guys, at least not yet -- I don't know how old he is.

Funny, Yuzu is the old guy now, at 23, right? The men's field is turning into almost as bad a situation as the girls face - the quads are wrecking their bodies and they won't have many years past 20.

Just watched a video of the little Russian 12 or 13 year old girl doing a gorgeous quad. Bye bye Alina and the other one - Medvedeva??

Here's the 13 year old girl landing the quad - but I think there's yet another one in the pipeline.

[quote] I could get into the Kolyada guy but he's not in the same league, skating-wise, with the rest of these guys, at least not yet -- I don't know how old he is.

Kolyada is already 23 years old.

I think it was Ashley or someone referred to the next generation of Russian girls as 'sonograms'. About right.

LOL to Ashley! I didn't know Narcissists had such a sense of humor.

Anyway, the video I posted of that little girl -- I know there's another one whose quad was very pretty and didn't such a blocky abrupt landing like the one posted. I 'think' it was a different girl but might have been the same.

It's gonna be crazy - you know they're gonna give those girls drugs to delay onset of puberty. I mean, they wouldn't be Russians worth their salt if they didn't! Just give it up, USA et al. Russia's got this (like they dominated pairs for decades.)

I just want can't wait until Kostornaia becomes age elgiible for seniors. Hopefully she keeps her jumps, because artistically she blows away Medvedeva and Zagitova.

She is fabulous...

Russia girls for Junior Worlds

Kostantinova

Kostornaia

Trusova

USA girls

Emmy Ma

Ting Cui

I've seen Emmy Ma...I don't have a clue on who Ting Cui is

And that's a win for me you dumb cunts.

Blue troll.

I Tessa >>>>> I Tonya

Fucking cunt.

They robbed me again. Beat me up again. When is enough ENOUGH?

[Quote] It looks to be accurate to me. Lots of 2 foot skating and very little variations with a couple of simple lifts. Compare that to the program Zagorski/Guerreiro did at the European Championships - they skated to the same type of music, using the same lyrical style but their skating was far above P/C. Lots of changes in positions in their lifts, far more in tune with the music and less 2 foot skating. I can't remember how they did at the Olympics, but if they skated the same way they did at Europeans, they should have come second instead of P/C.

Agreed!!!! I also think Min/Gamelin were vastly superior to everyone and should have won! :(

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 04: Maia Shibutani (L) and Alex Shibutani attend the 26th annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party sponsored by Bulgari, celebrating EJAF and the 90th Academy Awards at The City of West Hollywood Park on March 4, 2018 in West Hollywood, California

____

why do they go around with their medals?

new dress for Mirai at Vanity Fair party

[quote]why do they go around with their medals?

Yeah, the Shibs look ridiculous.

Frances McDormand mentioned my new best friend Chloe Kim in her speech, that's means Frances and I are basically BFFs too! Mirai, you can have Adam.

Woah! - taken from a forum on skating:

"ISU is reducing quad point value by 10% but more importantly: -5 GOE for falls (which absolutely murders risk/reward) and -3 for step outs is also pretty bad. Backhalf bonus is being targeted through PCS or outright eliminated.

Someone said they didn't want Yuzu breaking any more records but this sounds more like it's targeting Nathan Chen.

Quads will now be an enormous risk and not much better than a well-executed triple (with the change to 5 GOE points maximum for execution quality). That seems like it even might favor Hanyu whose triple axel is solid while Nathan's is his least consistent jump. Well, any artistically-oriented skater will benefit from this.

...anything less than a clean skate will have massive consequences... that’s what I meant by over-correction. -5 GOE + -1 deduction is 6 points wiped instantly... that’s going to be 50% or more of BV of almost all quads, assuming 10% BV reduction..."

Maybe a better skating fan than I will understand this part: "So if each GOE level is 10% of BV, it’s basically +10% BV per bullet/level, yes, up to 50% BV at +5? Which means the 3A, assuming BV stays, will be worth... 12.75 at +5. So still a quad, for Yuzu."

R440 she should have worn that one earlier.

And poor Shibs even with their medals they couldn't get in to the better party like Mirai and Adam... even though all they have are Team medals.

I'm surprised the Shibs didn't have all of their medals with them.

[quote] Maybe a better skating fan than I will understand this part: "So if each GOE level is 10% of BV, it’s basically +10% BV per bullet/level, yes, up to 50% BV at +5? Which means the 3A, assuming BV stays, will be worth... 12.75 at +5. So still a quad, for Yuzu."

-5 GOE is not -5 points to total score. It is applied to Base Value.

Take the 3A...8.5 points as BV. So + 5 GOE means 50% of 8.5=4.25. 8.5+4.25=12.75 points for a perfect 3A.

Quad Toeloop with neutral GOE is 10.3 points. 4S is 10.5. 4Loop is12.0. 4Flip is 12.3. 4Lz is 13.6

ISU also need to train judges better because some of them seem to apply GOEs at random. Even taking account some marks due to cheating, some of them seem just clueless.

And the -5 for the fall should be applied mandatory by the system.

in the Men FS of Team Event, both Finnish man and Austrian man gave a -2 to Kolyada 4Lz rather than -3. Finnish man did the same on one of the Tanaka's falls.

I'm happy about the changes. I'm sick of seeing messy quads and falls get rewarded...Chen, Kolyada, Uno, etc. Quality is always better than quantity.

Thanks R45. I imagine a lot of skaters will be changing their programs, but I agree, R47, rewarding a bunch of sloppy quads not only ruins the skaters' bodies but also the aesthetics of the sport.

Can't wait to see men doing women's programs again!

Good for the men, now want to see Osmond's huge, purely clean triples with a clean edge out score higher than Zagitova jumping an inch off the ground at a crawl with her hand over her head in the back half of the program.

R50 I'm interested to see what will constitute a +5 GOE on a jump. The ugly arms over the head has been getting the GOE bump. If you can get +50% point value for both arms over the head, I think everyone will start doing it.

About those stupid arms over the head (this is a tweet from someone who knows an ISU official they've been talking to about the new changes):

Chibura Hakkai @chiburahakkai 8h8 hours ago

OK my friend is back. Base value for quads is set to be down 10% (they're still debating over this but I guess this is final). GOE will be +-5 as we know. Fall get -5, step out -3. Arm over the head in jumps if ugly will get -1 to -2 (sorry Maria Sotskova then)

Hmm, let's do some math:

Triple Toe (0 GOE): 4.3 Triple Toe (+5 GOE): 6.45

Quad Toe Fall (-5 GOE and deduction): 3.65 Quad Toe Stepout (-3 GOE): 6.51 Quad Toe (0 GOE): 9.3 Quad Toe (+5 GOE): 13.95

So, a quad fall would be worth less than a clean triple. A quad stepout would still be better than the best triple. I'm not sure that this will discourage the men from quad jumps unless their quad is very inconsistent (like say Adam Rippon's quad lutz).

[quote]Arm over the head in jumps if ugly...

I've only seen it NOT ugly twice: Boitano & Rippon 3Lz

But a perfect 3A would get 12.75 - maybe that's the exception among the triples. And harder than a quad for Chen, for some reason.

Hanyu's is so good he's planning on a fucking quad axel - but I hope he changes his mind. His body's been tortured enough. I don't see why he doesn't retire and capitalize on double gold in the current ice skating capital of the world - Japan.

An old pair of Yuzuru Hanyu's old skating boots were just auctioned off for charity in Japan for $300,000, lol.

I'm tired of quads anyway. They just look like a mosquito buzzing by. Give me a beautfully done triple axel instead.

That auction isn’t even done yet, it’s only been going for about 16 hours. It has another week to go still.

R57 I'm more tired of ugly, slow spins. Everyone focuses on jumps and no one can do a decent spin these days. Lambiel is the last skater I remember who could really spin. If they raised the points for spins, maybe more skaters would work on them.

Lambiel also had a cool suggestion about spins : have the levels only in the SP and in the free let the skaters do the spins they want without having to achieve level 4 (and judge it only on GOE like the choreo sequence) so that originality comes back in the FS. This could be applied to steps too. Have the levels only in the short to see if you can do all the turns and step for a level 4 and then freedom in the free to really have an original choreo?

Hanyu's spins aren't bad at all, far from that. Also Vasiljevs' and Rippon's.

That afterparty dress is still too pale for Mirai but it's so much more flattering, and better than some of the crap A listers wore at the ceremony.

Shibs bring their medals with them so more famous celebs will pose with them and the Shibs can pretend that they're popular.

Is there any reason why Ross Miner is seemingly throwing a hissy fit and not competing at Worlds? If ever there was a time to take advantage of an opportunity to help keep 3 spots for the men, he should take it.

[quote]If ever there was a time to take advantage of an opportunity to help keep 3 spots for the men, he should take it.

He's probably pissed that they didn't even have the courtesy of naming him first alternate and so why should he care / help them out in securing 3 spots? Isn't he retiring?

I think Miner has retired. And why should he go to worlds and try to salvage 3 spots for the US men when he is not gonna benefit from those spots?

And now he can retire convincing himself he deserved that Olympic spot. If he had gone to 4 Continents and Worlds, he could have finished behind the Tanakas and Bychenkos of this world proving USFSA point.

Wow, I didn't know Ross Miner had fans. His season best score is only 233.72. That's only good enough for 10th place at 4 Continents, 21st place at the Olympics, or 17th place at last year's Worlds. There is no way he can help the US hold onto 3 spots.

This season Miner scored 71.61 at Finlandia Trophy and 71.59 at Skate America...at the Olympics the last to make the FS cut (Paul Fentz) scored 74.73

Why not Jason Brown - along with Chen and Zhou?

Jason Brown was named the Alternate... he isn't going hence they asked Miner.

R78. Jason decided to skip it. He is rumoured to have left Kori Ade and he is trying out with new coaches. So probably his decision not to take up the spot is linked to it.

If they adjust the scoring on quads that should help someone like Jason Brown quite a bit. Now they need to do something about the Ladies scoring so that it's not all backloaded half-second elements.

I'd like to see a return to artistry, theme, choreography, good music, etc.

Rumours include that arm movements will count as transitions. This would help Nathan Chen who is better with arm and upper movements more than with one feet skating).

And judges could use official practices to decide PCS marks. This would help the poor Turkish judge to make up excuses next time she is caught with the marks already scored before anyone skated.

R72, thank you for being my biggest fan.

Arm movements are already transitions. The definition of transitions: the varied and/or intricate and purposeful footwork, positions, movements and holds that link all elements. In singles, pairs and syncro it also includes the entrances and exits of technical elements

The judges also already use the practices to take notes and make up their minds about PCS scores. They have no time to judge those during the actual performance. Judges have been doing this since the dawn of time, where have people been? Even under 6.0 judges were making up their minds at practices.

Zagitova PCS as well as Papadakis/Cizeron Short Dance PCS in Olympics were big jokes

R76 that's probably why they are thinking about making it explicit rather than pretend it shouldn't happen while everyone do it.

Last month in the case about the judge who was caught with the pre-prepared marks during a Free Dance and who claimed they were notes she took during practices (she's an idiot because that paper contained a mark for a couple who was not even present), ISU suspended her for 6 months and decided the following:

[quote]The Alleged Offender concludes that there is no evidence that proves she had prepared marks and that she used such marks during the performances. The evident thing is that she accidentally forgot the " paper in question" (the paper with notes of her from the official practice) in her folder given by the organising committee. The Complainant is convinced that the explanations of the Referee in her Report as well as the Alleged Offender's own statements strongly suggest that she used her pre-prepared marks and rankings while judging. But in the opinion of Complainant this question is ultimately not decisive. By the simple fact of bringing the list of participants with pre-prepared marks and placements to the judge's stand, the Alleged Offender in any event gave the appearance of unethical behaviour and lack of fairness in the sense of Article 4f of the ISU Code of Ethics.

Article 4f is " Officials must base their marks and decisions only on the performance and not be influenced by reputation or past performance;”

Isn't this all wonderfully over the top? I would have prefered the camera on them rather than on some third rate Short Dances

And note that the Allege Offender and Ms Esen are the same person. The fact she talks about herself in third person makes it sound even better.

[quote] In her statement of reply of January 29, 2018, the Alleged Offender explained:

[quote] During Free Dance, Ms. Esen was present at the panel with "the folder' provided by ISU Organisation Committee at the very beginning of the Competition. There was no additional paper or non-lSU documents with her. She was taking out "the marking sheets of the respective couples" in order of their presence and upon her evaluation she was putting her marking sheets away and closed (upside down) as it has to be…… There are no observations under the Report which evidences or states that Ms. Esen is USING PAPERS OTHER THAN THE MARKING SHEETS, OR HER FOLDER IS OPEN…..

[quote]Then after during the ice resurfacing, the Referee, with considerably threatening approach, took the folder; reviewed the folder page by page together with Ms. Esen. Upon such review and Mrs. Keen's request, Ms. Esen also took "yellow papers" out of the folder, teared them in front of her and threw them in to trash…..

[quote]The Referee finally took her folder in full, to look at the papers within the folder in detail…

[quote]On the subject list, which was submitted as an evidence, there were notes taken by Ms. Esen during the first official practice, there is nothing to do with this paper, or has no help neither during the Free Dance nor the short dance.”

The email she sent to ISU Vice President. I love the lack of commas

[quote] “After the competition I went and ask (the referee) if I can have my file because all my marking papers are inside, and she said yes you can take your file, but I took one page from it and I want to talk to you. She took the paper without my permission or without asking me of course she is a referee she can look check but what she is trying to do is as I felt was a bit to disturb me, we go to the room she show me which page she took, that was the page list of skaters which was with me during the short dance practice that I took some notes near the names of skaters with my own hand writing, I supposed to make up my mind not to mix the skaters because there were 20 couples and its sometimes difficult for me to remember while judging its more practice to grouping them but there were only 5 or 6 skaters the first group I mean, and I told her this is for the short dance and you can check my marks for short dance you will see it they are totally same and this paper is nothing it’s just my paper and my own notes?!!”

Didn't they once try to do something where there were x amount of judges but they were unaware of whose scores were actually being used during the competition?

I think at Torino olympics the marks kept and thrown out were randomized. They were 12 judges, they took 9 marks at random and threw out highest and lowest, and averaged the 7 remaining marks. The thing was it was randomized every time, so the marks kept for the various skaters were not coming from the same judges, which is obviously unfair.

Yeah, R81 that's what I was thinking at first but then thought, no they couldn't have done it that way because they wouldn't be that stupid to not realize the inconsistency wouldn't be fair.

Yeah there are few certainties in life but when in doubt always trust the ISU to do the worst.

Couldn't they have a press conference with the judges after the skate, where the judges have to justify their marks? It might be hard to do with the PCS but at least you could hear why a judge gave a skater perfect technical marks for falling down 3 times.

Why have judges at all?

haha. A joke was made earlier about how it was surprising the Shibs didn't bring all four of their medals with them... guess what? They did.

Tara posted that she ran in to them and she's posing with them with 3 of the medals.

Yup, they carried all 4 medals with them last night. Jesus, they really have no shame.

And Jordan Peele looks like he's thinking, "WTF am I doing with these people?"

AVANTA vs. KAREN CHEN!!!

Avanta Boot Labs:

[quote]Karen, it is unfortunate that you have continued to disgrace the meaning of an Olympian with your words. It is also unfortunate and hurtful that your portrayal of the narrative you are espousing contains an inaccurate depiction of the chain of events which has led you to lay blame on others outside your circle. To this end, and after being marginalized, ridiculed, besmirched, and violated, I have an obligation to speak out. For 2 years AVANTA has been out fitting you with the worlds most technologically advanced skating boots, and the results of your skating has proved that out. Every pair of AVANTA boots for you were built identically and tested by you to your satisfaction. And to our abject horror, the work done on your Olympic boots and blades after you took possession of them was nothing short of pure alteration. Who did this work and why??? The pictures of your Olympic boots posted by you show a misrepresentation of the truth. In closing, I must say it is unfair and unethical to have proceeded the way you did in order to divert culpability away from your malfeasance and performance.

Interesting tea from one of the commenters:

[quote]This is a child who went through 21 boots in 3 months

[quote]Oh? And after she won the Nationals last year, Avanta told her not to participate in 4 continents because her boots needed adjusting.. What did you do? Go to 4 continents and did poorly. Who did she blame? The boot company! Instead of getting rid of her then, Will kept her provided she brought him a cake whenever she came to the company. I am proud of the company to realize this was not a good “fit”!

R87 Tara's frozen face makes the Shibs' smiles look almost genuine. almost.

R89 I think TSL talked about Chen and her numerous boots in one of their latest episodes. They also talked about how some shit was going down on Facebook between her and the company. Sounds like it's been brewing.

Maybe they should judge the judges. Give a competition - with prize money- for the judge with the most unbiased scoring throughout the year. It would have to be a blind vote, with skaters no longer in competition casting the votes. Highest and lowest scores get tossed.

So Chen blames her boots and then the bootmakers blame her for not taking care of her boots. The bootmaker probably should have kept his mouth shut, but Chen continues to sound like a flake.

Im honestly not sure which looks worse for the boot company. Chen's remarks or their responses. I wonder if any other skater would think twice about using them.

Also the thing about them requesting cake to keep outfitting her seems really weird.

Karen has deleted an old blog post thanking Avanta--

[quote]AVANTA Boot Labs, thank you for kindly sponsoring me.. First, I’d like to say that if it were not for AVANTA Boot Labs, I would have quit skating 2 years ago. As many of you may know, I had a series of ill-fitting boots which damaged by feet, and, AVANTA Boot Labs came to the rescue and allowed my skating to continue. Thank you very much!

How many boot companies are there left for her to try?

Boots are Karen's top accuse on why her results are crap. She always has some excuse or something to blame.

The company's response sounds way over the top though

Excuse not accuse

Oh please, skaters complain about boots all the time, it doesn't mean they mean anything by it. Avanta's response was totally over the top.

*American skaters. I've never seen any other skater complaining or blaming their boots for bad performances.

Re Chen:

[quote]The champion figure skater—who stands at 4 feet, 10 inches tall—usually pays a great deal of attention to her boots, and is said to switch her pair every six weeks because of feet problems.

WTF does she need to go through a new pair of boots every six weeks? If she has that many feet problems she probably should just quit skating.

R99 Kevin Reynolds has complained of similar boot problems, claiming that his feet are oddly shaped.

Wow, I wasn't expecting that picture to show up when I linked the article.

I'm surprised Reynolds couldn't get tailored boots specifically for him, the ones where they mold your feet and create the boots according to your shapes. I know he is not like a top top competitor but he was Canada number 2 / 3 for a long time so he is not some nobody skater at the Croatian challenger.

Same for Karen to be honest, i think that guy lost his shit on instagram because they were tailored personalized boots especially for Karen's feet and specifically for her not to have issues like she got in the past. So when she is claiming boot issues even BEFORE the competition to normalize her failure, she was putting the blame on that guy's work.

For reference : Shoma with Mao's feet lol

Gee R101, could they have come up with a less flattering picture for him?

[quote]So when she is claiming boot issues even BEFORE the competition to normalize her failure, she was putting the blame on that guy's work.

Well she did say during the practice that she was having issues and posted a photo of her boot coming apart prior to the competition so they knew it was going to be an issue (or she was getting in front of it).

But why the hell didn't she have another pair?

And I honestly don't understand why she needs to change boots that often. Maybe that's why she's having so many damn issues. How can you get any consistency if you're changing boots that often? You can't break a pair in that quickly.

R104 To be fair, imagine how difficult it must be to find a flattering picture of Kevin Reynolds.

I believe she had other pairs ready but decided to go with the broken one because she felt more comfortable in it. The boot maker was also close to calling it sabotage, saying that Karen or someone else 's altered the skates and that's why it resulted in them breaking.

Maybe she sweats a lot, that's why the blade started to collapse into the sole. I think it's mental, if Nathan goes through a new pair every 3 months (and he is a master at boot problems too) there is no way she needs to change every 6 weeks.

[quote]Maybe she sweats a lot, that's why the blade started to collapse into the sole. I think it's mental, if Nathan goes through a new pair every 3 months (and he is a master at boot problems too) there is no way she needs to change every 6 weeks.

If she sweats that much then she needs to get that injection that stops her from sweating.

Also, I saw some quote where she talked about how the boot was getting wet and causing the blade to collapse in to the sole. That was about the only thing I saw her say about it so I wasn't sure why the company took it like she was blaming them. Maybe she was but it honestly just seemed like she was saying what the issue was and it sounded more like she wasn't taking care of the boots properly rather than throwing the company under the bus.

Polina Edmund's long-standing foot injury was supposed to have been the result of jumping too much before her new boots were fully broken in, wonder how it is that Chen is even managing to switch boots that often. Or maybe that's why someone (her mom?) does weird things to the boots--to get them broken in more quickly.

I honestly know zip about skates, but my sister was a ballet dancer--and dancers do all sorts of whacky things to their toe shoes--whacking them with hammers, shutting doors on them, etc. to get the right feel.

Chen, in general, sounds a bit impatient and like she second-guesses herself a lot. Anyone who invents new choreography two weeks before a grand prix event when the issue is under-rotations isn't thinking clearly.

Sorry but I don't give a fuck about some third-rate US skater's precious boot problems. It's not like that bitch can jump with them.

Hanyu has withdrawn from Worlds. As expected. Japanese Fed say he needs two weeks of rest and rehabilitation for 3 months from now for "damanges" to lateral ligament of the right ankle and peroneal tendon.

Kazuki Tomono will replace him (first alternate was Mura). Tomono is the one with West Side Story FS

[quote]Hanyu has withdrawn from Worlds.

I wonder why they waited until today to make it official?

To minimize reselling of tickets? He always does that, at nationals he announced it like 1 week before when it was clear for a long time he wasn't gonna compete there.

[Quote] Sorry but I don't give a fuck about some third-rate US skater's precious boot problems. It's not like that bitch can jump with them. —Alexandra T.

Girl in two years max you won't be able to land any jump because your jumping technic sucks balls so don't get too cocky.

Japan can lose the third spot now. If Uno wins, Tanaka or Tomono should be at least 12th. If Uno is second, the second Japanese should finish at least 11th and if Shoma is third, T or T should be 10th.

I assume Uno couldn't go lower than third in this field.

The Tanaka seen at 4 Continents should be top 10 in this field. The Tanaka seen in PyeongChang will struggle. He ends up in 18th place. No Hanyu, no Fernandez (Raya can't outscore Tanaka), no Hendrickx, no Cha (second Korean should score less than a struggling Tanaka). He would be 14th all things being equal. No Rippon and Chan but Aaron and Nguyen can beat Tanaka if he skates like at Olympics.

Someone on twitter made me noticed that

in 2016 Tomono was first alternate for Junior Worlds. But Sōta Yamamoto fractured his ankle and Tomono skated at his first Junior Worlds

in 2017 at NHK Murakami pulled out because pneumonia. Tomono was added as his replacement and did his first Grand Prix

In 2018 Tomono is named as second alternate for Senior Worlds. Hanyu withdraws . First alternate Mura declined the spot (do we know a reason?) and so Tomono gets his first Senior Worlds assignment.

In 2019...Shoma, pay attention when you take your naps...

Hmmmmm...

Short Dance at Junior Worlds

1) Anastasia SKOPTCOVA / Kirill ALESHIN (RUSSIA) 66.44

2) Marjorie LAJOIE / Zachary LAGHA (CANADA) 62.39

3) Arina USHAKOVA / Maxim NEKRASOV (RUSSIA) 61.29

4) Sofia SHEVCHENKO / Igor EREMENKO (RUSSIA) 60.95

5) Caroline GREEN / Gordon GREEN (USA) 60.86

6) Christina CARREIRA / Anthony PONOMARENKO (USA) 60.85 (he messed up the twizzles)

7) Natacha LAGOUGE / Corentin RAHIER (FRANCE) 59.26

8) Chloe LEWIS / Logan BYE (USA) 58.07

9) Darya POPOVA / Volodymyr BYELIKOV (UKRAINE) 55.56

10) Ria SCHWENDINGER / Valentin WUNDERLICH (GERMANY) 55.02

Wow that sucks for Carreira/Ponomarenko

down in 14th position Loica DEMOUGEOT / Theo LE MERCIER.....with this gem of SD (the video below is from JGP but anyway)

Actually Loicia/Theo had a new SD that's not the same as in the GP. They killed it imo, they were some of the most enjoyable for me

R121

Thanks! I missed them today as I had to pretend to do some work during their group. The previous SD was a mess. So I am not surprised they changed it. Their costumes continue to be a mess even in the new SD though,

these in the lead

I'm disappointed that so many of the Olympic medalists won't be at the Worlds. Oh well, out with the old, in with the new crop...

I wonder if male skaters will be ageing out sooner than they used to, because of the quads? It's never been a sport for longevity but with Javi retiring at 26, Patrick Chen at 27 (and he really does seem old to me - maybe it's his looks/personality)... anyway, people even talking about Yuzuru leaving at 23 (he recently said he had no intention of a 3rd Olympic title but if he did go, he'd go to win, lol)... anyway, was it always like this and Plushenko was just an outlier? Though I guess he was only 30ish in Sochi - it just seemed like he'd been around forever.

Oldest male skaters at Pyeongchang: Bychenko 1988, Besseghier 1989, Rippon 1989

Oldest in Sochi: Plushenko 1982, Joubert 1984, Abbott 1985

Oldest in Vancouver: Lindeman 1980 Plushenko 1982 Van Der Perren 1982 Urbas 1982

for reference : Scott Hamilton retired at 25 yo Boitano 25 yo Orser 27 yo Petrenko 24 yo Urmanov 25 yo Browning 28 yo Stojko 30 yo Candeloro 25yo Kulik 21 yo Yagudin 23yo Plushenko 30 yo Evan Lysacek 25yo Weir 25yo Buttle 26yo Lambiel 25yo Takahashi 28yo Joubert 29 yo Chan 27yo Ten 25 (i would guess) Fernandez 26

So it seems it is staying the same for now. In general i would say that the guys are at their peak jumping ability in between 20 and 23 year old then they beginning to either struggle more with jumps or get overtaken by guys with new/more difficult jumps.

Junior World Championships Pairs SP

1) Daria PAVLIUCHENKO / Denis KHODYKIN (Russia) 63.12

2) Polina KOSTIUKOVICH / Dmitrii IALIN (Russia) 61.77

3) Yumeng GAO / Zhong XIE (China) 59.55

4) Anastasia MISHINA / Aleksandr GALIAMOV (Russia) 56.95

5) Evelyn WALSH / Trennt MICHAUD (Canada) 55.31

6) Audrey LU / Misha MITROFANOV (USA) 54.38

7) Sarah FENG / Tommy-Jo NYMAN(USA) 54.09

There are two American pairs in the top seven? Is there finally hope for American pairs five years from now?

Christ, the Men SP at Junior Worlds have 48 entries. I pity the judges who have to sit through all of them. They started at 11.15 AM local time and they will finish at 18.22PM

R130 Maybe I'm missing something, but that sounds shorter than a regular work day for most people. And the judges do get breaks every time they clean the ice.

The arena is almost empty

We are in the second to last group.

Alexey Erokhov is currently leading with 76.54 ahead of Mitsuki Sumoto with 72.94t and Sihyeong Lee with 70.70

Larry Loupolover is the next to skate

Men SP at Junior Worlds

1) Alexei KRASNOZHON (USA) 80.28

2) Alexey EROKHOV (Russia) 76.54

3) Mitsuki SUMOTO (Japan) 72.94

4) Ivan PAVLOV (Ukraine) 71.05

5) Sihyeong LEE (South Korea) 70.70

6) Matteo RIZZO (Italy) 70.34

11) Tomoki HIWATASHI (USA) 67.85

14) Joseph PHAN (Canada) 65.26

15) Conrad ORZEL (Canada) 64.49

17) Camden PULKINEN (USA) 62.31

Do judges get paid?

I mean, not counting bribes.

Do they get paid for their time or expertise by the ISU?

What in the world happen to Camdem Pulkinen? ? Jesus, he was a co-favorite to win Junior worlds. : o

Too bad the US didn't have a third spot in pairs. We have a good 5 pairs with a lot of promise.

Dance is definitely a disappointment because the US might not medal. The Greens are definitely too young to contend for a medal this year, but the fact that they are 5th is very encouraging. They are future world champ gold medalists.

R136 Camden saved the 3A quite well. But then only a 2+2 combo (so second jump called invalid as a triple is required). And a messy landing on the 3 Lz (called UR)

I think C/P can still get on the podium in Ice Dance. They are only a couple of points behind third place.

Sviatoslav Babenko is judge number 7 in the Pairs FS tonight . How many times has he been suspended in his judging career? He was the one caught by TV cameras toe tapping to another judge at 1999 Worlds. He was suspended last season too. IIRC He had some problems in mid 90s too.

Once you are caught doing something like that, you should be suspended for life.

I thought FENG / NYMAN (US) were a little lowballed. Their footwork is absolutely the best of the competition.

R137, yeah I realized C/P were close to 3rd place.

R135 For Worlds/Euros/4CCs Organizing Committee pay:

Technical Specialists, Technical Controllers, Data & Replay Operator: 450 Swiss Francs per event

Referees, Judges, OAC members: 400 Swiss francs per event

At Grand Prix they all take 300 francs per event.

Then I think they have accommodation and travel expenses paid.

At the end of the season

For Officials having officiated without demotion or suspension during the season

at 3 ISU Events: Additional CHF 500

at 4 ISU Events: Additional CHF 600

at 5 ISU Events: Additional CHF 700

(ISU events are Worlds, Euros, 4CCs, Grand Prix, Junior Worlds, Junior GPs)

By toe tapping, was he trying to hook up for a date?

He just has a wide stance.

Russian sweep in Junior Pairs

1) Daria PAVLIUCHENKO / Denis KHODYKIN (Russia) 180.53

2) Polina KOSTIUKOVICH / Dmitrii IALIN (Russia) 167.99

3) Anastasia MISHINA / Aleksandr GALIAMOV (Russia) 167.24

4) Yumeng GAO / Zhong XIE (China) 164.70

5) Audrey LU / Misha MITROFANOV (USA) 160.09

Can I say I find hot the Chinese young pair coach?

R138

Babenko in 1997

[quote] The judges sat close together in the cramped rink in Lausanne, and were less exposed than normal because they sat in a little well. Babenko was Judge No. 4 on the panel for the men's event. Judge No. 5 was George Iashvili of Georgia. During the men's short program, Babenko and Iashvili talked and exchanged marks, usually during the last 10 seconds or so of the performance, when the music and clapping were loud enough to muffle their voices. Both showed almost identical placements for the 30 men. They both placed Alexei Urmanov of Russia first. Urmanov won the short program. However, someone in the audience saw all the chatter and told referee Britta Lindgren of Sweden. She had talked to Babenko before the long program. Although Babenko told the ISU appeals committee that he considered her words "friendly advice," Lindgren told him that if she caught both judges communicating again during the long program, she'd haul them off the panel and replace them.

Babenko in 2016

[quote] During the Pairs FS, judge 1 (Babenko) and judge 2 began talking quite loudly after the British team missed a lift. Judges 3 - 6 looked at that direction, nearly in unison, as the distraction was so severe. After the skaters finished their program the referee walked behind us and spoke to judge 7 in Russian, making him laugh. Judges 1 and 2 continued to talk.

His defence in 2016

[quote] He explained that it was the second year that he judged the Ondrej Nepela Memorial and for the second time he faced problems with the judges’ equipment and video reply system. Several times he could not input his marks into the computer system, because the score for one element replaced the score for the previous element. Moreover, the video replay system did not work several times. That was why he as well as some other judges were forced to call on the Referee (and only him) with the request to help to fix the system. Probably his requests to the referee regarding the above-mentioned problems were interpreted by the judges No. 3 - 6 as violation of the Rules. Further the Alleged Offender pointed out that the spectators were sitting close behind the judges’ stand and that the conversation of the audience could have been mistaken as a conversation between him and Judge No. 2.

ISU at the peak of winsdom

[quote] The Alleged Offender must have learnt from his suspension in 1999 that judges are not permitted to converse with one another. Such improper behavior also causes suspicion among those viewing the performance, that the judge does not mark impartially and independently, but rather arranges the results with the immediate neighbor judge.

Avanta is the resurrection of Klingbeil Skating labs an old school custom skating boot maker. The family has been in this business for 60-70 years. National competitors and pretty much every serious skater in NYC/Long Island had their skates made there. Pretty sure they didn't screw up.

Second placed Pair at Junior Worlds

Skip the program and the awful costumes, go directly to Kiss and Cry to see her reaction to the score.

You know, in 2 years time, she will be there with the scissors to cut some other girls' dress before the FS

The boy needs some glasses.

Girl you fell 3 times tone down on the obnoxious reaction

An Italian girl just skated on a music mash up of Alien-Kyle Minogue-Visitors

Ladies SP

Trusova (Russia) 72.03

Kostornaia (Russia) 71.63

Yamashita (Japan) 66.79

Kihira (Japan) 63.74

Lim (South Korea) 62.96

Kostantinova (Russia) 62.63

Cui (USA) 62.22

Emmy Ma somewhere down the ranking with 52.78

The pairs judging was a joke. There is no way that the Russian pairs were better that the American pair which was criminally lowballed. You fall three times and still outscore pairs with similar content and cleaner programs? Girl please !

The USA judge last night gave higher PCS mark to Russian pair who fell 3 times than to Lu/Mitrofanov. He tied them in Performance (6.25) and marked the bitchy Russian girl higher in all other components.

Note than the Russian judge gave Performance to US pair (6.50 vs 6.25) and tied them in other components (except for transition)

Judge 1 is Swedish

Judge 2 is Japanese

Judge 3 is USA

Judge 4 is from South Africa

Judge 5 is French

Judge 6 is Australian

Judge 7 is Russian

Judge 8 is South Korean

Judge 9 is German

Christine Brennan: Breaking: Another U.S. Olympic sport is now dealing with sexual misconduct allegations against a top coach. On Tuesday, U.S. Figure Skating suspended Richard Callaghan, coach of Tara Lipinski and Todd Eldredge. Story up soon.

Richard Callaghan On March 6, 2018, the U.S. Center for SafeSport issued the following interim measure regarding U.S. Figure Skating member Richard Callaghan:

"SUSPENSION, beginning on March 6, 2018, Richard Callaghan is prohibited from participating, in any capacity, in any activity or competition authorized by, organized by, or under the auspices of the United States Olympic Committee, the national governing bodies recognized by the United States Olympic Committee, including U.S. Figure Skating, and/or a Local Affiliated Organization of a national governing body recognized by the United States Olympic Committee."

Pursuant to U.S. Figure Skating Bylaw Article XXV, Section 4, U.S. Figure Skating hereby suspends the membership of Richard Callaghan, beginning on March 6, 2018.

Who was he coaching recently?

Isn't this old news about Callaghan? Why are they taking action now?

A complete ban? Fuck him. That's my schtick.

And what has Tara had to say about it on IG? You know she won't be able to help herself.

Callaghan: "I have not been given any information about this so I really can't make a comment. No one's notified me, I just saw a note on a website somewhere"

DL has been saying this since Todd first came into the scene. Miss Eldredge was his bottom and was groomed by Callaghan. I still think Todd is loyal to him.

I don't follow gym so IDK how well known the Larry Nassar stuff was amongst fans/people not directly involved, but Callaghan is truly a case of EVERYBODY KNEW, right?

Can't wait to see what the self-righteous fraus at FSU (who used to joke about Todd/Richard on skating couples threads) have to say!

so there are no new allegations but is it USFAS only now acting on these of 20 years ago?

Meanwhile, Anastasia SKOPTCOVA / Kirill ALESHIN got Gold in Ice Dance at Junior Worlds (155.15). Silver to Christina CARREIRA / Anthony PONOMARENKO (147.68) and Bronze to Arina USHAKOVA / Maxim NEKRASOV (146.88).

S/A have won both SD and FD.

Canadian Marjorie LAJOIE / Zachary LAGHA fall to 4th place (146.22) and Sofia SHEVCHENKO / Igor EREMENKO are 5th (145.85)

Green siblings are 6th (141.83) and Chloe LEWIS / Logan BYE finish 7th (139.17)

Ting Cui (US) was phenomenal. I cannot believed how little GOE she was getting for her huge fully rotated jumps. She has the expression down, I imagine the level 3 spin at the end prevented her from making the last group. She'll be such a force next year.

Spanish Ice Dancers Celia Robledo/Luis Fenero have announced retirement.

They are still quite young (1994/1992), decent but not particularly good (PB of 135 set this season). There is no room in Spain with 2 couples clearly stronger than them.

Peak of their career is a 19th at Europeans in 2016, the year they also skated at Worlds (failing to make the FD).

He's Eric Radford's boyfriend.

Favorite FD was Lewis/Bye (US)

I never thought Logan was much of a skater but these two just keep improving every season. I would have put them in the top 4 because they clearly had the best performance of the day.

Lewis/Bye did badly at Junior GP earlier this season. Then they left Igor for Zueva mid season. It was only a matter of time given how close Chloe is to the other people who did the Shpilband to Zueva switch this summer and the weak result at JGP was the final push.

In pairs skating, would side-by-side triple axels be allowed?

I think the rules only say that SP must have one side by side double or triple jump without specifying which one and FS should have no more than one side by side solo jump and one side by side combo.

There is a noticeable improvement since Lewis/Bye switched to Zueva. There is an ease of movement that wasn't there before, especially in and out of lifts. Plus Marina has always known how to package a skater better than Igor.

R169 yes, Igor was stronger in getting his couples to hit the levels rather than packaging them. However, this season many of his teams struggled with their TES score going up and down depending on the competition. He had an underwhelming edition of the Olympics.

Chock/Bates couldn't be satisfied with the Olympic result. Ok, it is mainly due to the big mistake in the FD but it's twice in a row as also at 2017 Worlds they totally messed up with FD. Their GP season wasn't exciting. Then GP Final was better. US Nationals were strong for them. And then Olympics brought them down again.

Coomes/Buckland. Nebelhorn was a strong start. But NHK was disappointing. They went back to previous FD. I suppose their realistic aim was probably 5th at Euros and 10th at OG. They finished 7th and 11th.

Nazarova/Nikitin. Euros was ok but not qualifying for the FD in PyeongChang was a big set-back. I didn't have them in the group of those fighting for the last spots. IIRC their Challengers scores in the fall were also a bit up and down according depending on the panel.

Min/Gamelin. I guess the only Igor's team probably totally satisfied. Qualified for Olympics on their own merit without using the host spot. They made the FD. And she avoided to show us her nipples when the dress broke down during Team Event.

Ceska/Mansour. Frankly, the only time they got a decent score was at Nebelhorn when they qualified for the Olympics.

Pogrebinsky/Benoit. They fell behind Carpenter/McNamara and Parson boy/Parson truck driver. On GoldenSkate there are rumors they have split as he has not been seen at the rink for weeks but I guess it may only due to holidays (as their season is basically over, it's a good time to take a break).

Abachkina/Thauron. Well, they have split.

[quote]Can't wait to see what the self-righteous fraus at FSU (who used to joke about Todd/Richard on skating couples threads) have to say!

Is the Richard Callaghan story being discussed on the skating forums yet?

These bitches are now trying to use Adam's name to get continue their 3 minutes...

And why the hell do they need to carry their medals in their backpacks for the next year? ha.

The Shibs are leeches of the highest degree. No wonder they're talking about Adam, what else is there for them to talk about until they can get themselves on some type of reality show? I guess nobody took up Maia's offer as a nice ethnic PR girlfriend for hire at those Hollywood parties. Sad.

I don't think Chock/Bates are ever going to make it back to the top in the U.S. They let the Shibs overtake them with that corny manufactured "Fix You" and it's been uphill since. Being the only ICE DANCE team to splat at the Olympics won't do much for their reputation going forward.

Is skating all about becomng a celebrity now?

For those who missed the Olympics performances, you can rewatch them here.

[quote]I don't think Chock/Bates are ever going to make it back to the top in the U.S.

Maybe they will retire after Worlds.

I hope they don't stay around for another quad.

Sui/Han withdraw from Worlds. Bone fracture for her

China will likely lose the third spot unless Cheng Peng land her jumps by mistake.

[quote]Sui/Han withdraw from Worlds. Bone fracture for her

That's too bad. They were looking for redemption after losing the Gold at the Olympics.

Damn, Sui's already had surgery on both feet, hope she can stick around for another quad.

why isn't that fug tonya in jail???

It's a stress fracture. 6 to 8 weeks of rest for poor Sui

Half way through Man FS at Junior Worlds

Joseph Phan 210.91

Camden Pulkinen 207.88

rest below 200 points

GROUP 3

Savosin...landed everything but almost all of them barely. His coach looks 80 year old. Ah, bio says it's Alexei Chetverukhin who won silver in 1972....

a poor Japanese doing the Miserables. He splatted hard twice. And had troubles all over the program. Poor guy, TES on screen is less than 50. Last place in FS

Tomoki Hiwatashi from USA...Last Of The Mohicans....a couple of costly pops...206.88

young blonde German dressed like a flight attendant with a sparkle belt...ah no, it's Pearl Harbour....195 points. PB by almost 30 points. He looks happy.

Georgian guy...he was at Senior Euros last month. I am falling asleep . Second half messy. Looks disappointed. He falls down in the ranking

14 year old Artur Danielian from Russia. Notre Dame de Paris. Not clear if he is impersonating the hunchback. TES over 80. He should take the lead. Indeed, 218

Last group on ice

Standings so far

Danielian 218.76

Phan 210.91

Savosin 207.91

Krasnozhon has a hard fall on opening 4S. He has pains. He stops the music

He withdraws

Gold: Alexey Erokhov (Russia, coached by Eteri) 231.52

Silver: Artur Danielian (Russia) 218.76

Bronze: Matteo Rizzo (Italy) 211.58

4) Joseph Phan (Canada) 210.91

5) Roman Savosin (Russia) 207.91

6) Camden Pulkinen (US) 207.88

7) Tomoki Hiwatashi (US) 206.68

13) Conrad Orzel (Canada) 185.93

Camden and Tomoki's combined effort will get the USA three spots for the next season.

USA lost some guaranteed Junior GP spots. They will have 1 entry in each of the 7 events.

However, they're the first in line to get spots vacated by others. I assume Italy won't use all of his JGP spots (2x7=14) unless they start to wheel out random skaters. And by random I mean more random than Frangipane and Folini.

Rizzo is finally aging out Junior. I know by heart his programs by now. His schedule this season:

Nebelhorn Trophy

JGP Baltic Cup

Warsaw Cup

JGP Egna

Cup of Tyrol

Nationals

Euros

Olympics

Junior Worlds

and in a few weeks Senior Worlds

____

Krasnozhon's injury

Not only does Tomoki Hiwatashi, at 18, look like little bitty Yuzuru -- he looks like a little bitty Shoma! 5 ft 1. Could grow some more - hopefully - though Shoma at 5 ft 3 is tearing it up in seniors at 20.

R104, it's Kevin Reynolds! He never takes a good photo. He's hideous!

What is up with Kevin Reynolds' hair? Poor guy. I think a nose job should be on his to-do list too. His face has promise, but just... no.

I like him though - maybe it's the sympathy factor. His jumps look quite good. But he's already 23 or so I think - an old man in this business.

Oh wait - he's 27! God, ready for the stud farm...

LOL. The German girl just said to her coach that her performance was totally shit (scheisse).

Trusova just did a 4S and a 4T in the Free....

TES 92.35

Higher than Kolyada at Olympics.

[quote]And why the hell do they need to carry their medals in their backpacks for the next year?

Because no one would give a shit about them otherwise.

Do these two honestly think a Bronze medal--not even Gold, but Bronze--in Ice Dance (of all sports) is going to translate into some sort of career in entertainment? They've been so thirsty (especially Alex) on this post-Olympic media tour, it's really kinda embarrassing to watch.

It just really fascinates me that such boring, safe, cookie-cutter people chose ice dancing (arguably the most creative and expressive discipline), and yearn so desperately to be in the arts and entertainment, when they have zero personality and imagination.

It's no wonder Adam is beating them in the post-Olympic whore race.

1) Trusova 225.52

2) Kostornaia 207.39

3) Yamashita195.17

7) Ting Cui (US) 180.39

19) Emmy Ma (US) 139.98

Clearly it's only about jumping with Trusova. Everything else is pure shit. She might as well skate with no music.

When are the referees going to start policing cheated toe-loops? Both of those Junior girls shifted weight off the right foot and started turning (including that quad). That's a toe-axel and it's just as underrotated as a Karen Chen landing.

yes, the difference in PCS between Kostornaia and Trusova should be much larger than 1 point gap

Just caught up with Jr Men. Poor Alexei.

And Rizzo winning bronze despite being 6th in both Sp and Lp = LOL

Ting Cui had some beautiful jumps in the short, but damn, the U.S. Ladies are continuing to sink. We did better in *pairs*--a true sign of the apocalypse.

But the magic number for three spots is 13, right? So three spots for pairs, ice dance (our only medal) and mens. That's not terrible.

Emmy Ma, on the other hand--girl, you got beat by Austria and Hong Kong.

If you would've told me in 1996 that someday Americans would dominate Ice Dance, and Russians would dominate the ladies (with US totally out of the picture), I would've laughed in your face.

So crazy how things turn out.

Trusova didn't look winded after the FS which is a clear sign that something is fishy with this skater. Everyone gossips that the Russians are probably doping using hormones and I am starting to believe it. Otherwise, it was great to see women try quads. Ma should be reprimanded by the USFSA, no team emvelop money and no international assignments for being such a flop.

R202 yes, 13 is the magic number for 3 spots (top 2 with only one skater) and 28 for 2 spots (top 10 with only one skater)

next year:

Men: 3 for Russia and USA; 2 for Italy, Canada, Ukraine, Japan, Germany, South Korea

Ladies: 3 for Russia, Japan; 2 for South Korea, Germany, USA

Pairs: 3 for Russia, USA; 2 for China, Canada, Germany, Japan

Ice Dance: 3 for Russia, USA; 2 for Canada, France, Georgia, Germany

[Quote] Everyone gossips that the Russians are probably doping using hormones and I am starting to believe it

Starting to? They've been doing it for a loooooong time.

Irina Slutksyka's heart condition was always fishy.

I'm old enough to remember the East German swimmer doping. If it looks to good to be true . . . thing is, the Russians were caught and basically ended up with a slap on the wrists.

I hope the U.S. does not follow the Russian template with 13 year olds doing quads. Skating should still count for art - but that seems to be more and more passe. Another Olympic cycle with a Russian winning should kill the sport for the U.S.

Maia Shibutani @MaiaShibutani So I’m getting a pedicure right now and it’s the first one I’ve gotten in 4 years... My very sweet technician just said: “you needed me.”

Most of the Russian men have very poor stamina, while the US men are knocking out 5 and 6 quads. But yeah, the Russians are all dopers and cheaters and US skaters are all pure as the driven snow. Right...

One country had a state-sponsored drug doping program; the other didn't.

There are exactly two American men knocking out quads and both have their ups and downs.

[Quote] Russians are all dopers and cheaters and US skaters are all pure as the driven snow. Right...

No one said that. Just you. When a country has a long history of sponsored doping of course all eyes are going to be on them.

[quote] But yeah, the Russians are all dopers and cheaters and US skaters are all pure as the driven snow

Let me correct you:

1) two American skaters are attempting landing quads and rarely if ever have they landed all their content, because it's hard.

2) Russia is banned from Olympic competition because of a widespread state sponsored doping campaign.

3) Trusova is a 13 years old girl.

Why would anyone even try to act like Russians aren't known cheaters?

Everybody cheats

[Quote] Why would anyone even try to act like Russians aren't known cheaters?

Some people are dumb.

[quote]Some people are dumb.

Yes like us Americans, we’re too dumb to cheat in figure skating.

Wow, R218... you're certainly stupid.

Time to start roiding our girls so they can star being competitive again.

That Emmy Ma is such a dog. 19th is an embarrassment for US women skating, even in this weak era.

The Shibutanis are so embarrassing begging for free headphones on Twitter.

R221 what are they saying?

R221, why re you still obsessing over those two hasbeens? Stop your rice fetish right you big creepo.

Do you find Hanyu hot, cute or neither? I go back and forth. Not quite sure why he has so many women — and men — obsessed with him. He has a weak chin/jawline. Sometimes it looks ok from a front shot but catch a profile and it is a double chin (because of the weak jaw). Maybe the Japanese prize that in men? He does have great eyes and cheeks

[Quote] Do you find Hanyu hot, cute or neither?

He's FUG!

Hanyu looks like a turtle. His face would be much improved by a chin implant. So would Boyang Jin's for that matter.

What is the deal with Hanyu's fixation on Winnie the Pooh?

Isn't he a little old for that?

Hanyu is an interesting duck. He's got the competitive killer instinct of a Phelps or Jordan but he also seems to be in a state of arrested development, and I don't know if you can blame Japanese culture entirely for that. I try not to judge the Pooh thing too much since it seems like something his crazy fans ran with and won't let go. I noticed Hanyu seemed to be happiest when he was still the young new superstar on the scene. Then most of the old guard of Team Japan retired and now he's the wise old mentor, and I don't think that's as fun for him. He looked the happiest he's been all season at the Olympic gala and practice (notice also how Maia Shibutani kept cozying up to Yuzu and making sure she was always in frame with him? The Shibs are shameless about using Yuzuru's popularity to boost their own). I think Hanyu's going to go through some depression when the Olympic high wears off. Javi retiring is probably devastating for him. He'll be all alone.

Ferret-faced Yuzuru is a topic best left to the rice loving house fraus from FSU and Golden Skate. Whoever called him handsome needs to fall into a pit of bloodthirsty rabies-infected ferrets.

Misha Ge is retiring so he can spend more time on the phone listening to Yuzuru pour his heart out to him (what language do they even speak? Hanyu's English is very poor and AFAIK Misha does not speak Japanese).

Why is Hanyu's English so poor?

He's been training in Toronto with Brian Orser for years.

How come Javier is so much better in English?

YIKES!!!

Ha ha - so Johnny manages a sorta pretty photo of himself and explains he was simply fiddling with the settings and that's why he's posting it... Anyway, that stubble makes his nose look big. And farther down his Instagram, he says tour season is starting and there's a photo of himself in a white angel suit (and that makes his butt look big - which it is.) Someone commented on the angel pic:

anthonythree: "Meh. Everybody would rather see Adam now.

Most countries have more English than Japanese. Same reason most Americans don't have any other languages. In Japan, they have all the media and (traditionally anyway) just as many opportunities as USA or UK, so why bother? Even Brits are much less likely to be bilingual than other Europeans - which explains Javier's and the Russian skaters' English (Medvedeva did a video on anime and I was impressed by her English.)

That doesn't explain how Yuzu can live 6 years in Canada and not be more fluent -- except he's very reclusive and lives with his mother there (I don't think he goes out socially at all.) Orser said Javier was very "social" - and he also lived in other countries besides Spain and Canada before he got to Orser/Canada (and he was only 19 then!) so he was probably forced to learn English just to make it by himself. English is the default language when two people don't speak each other's language.

Interestingly, to me anyway, Javier's girlfriend Miki Ando is Japanese! (first female skater to land a quad in competition) She has a daughter. Anyway... I don't know if the romance is real or for show, but it's very interesting he's with a Japanese woman. Freudian substitute for asexual Yuzu??

I think Yuzu may be lucky to be asexual or in the closet -- a KPop guy had a girlfriend and fans freaked out and he had to apologize. The Pooh tossers don't take lightly to their idol cheating on them with another woman (not sure if it would be better or worse if he was with another man?) They probably insist he keep himself just for them. Oyyyy. But hopefully he has the right personality (reclusive) for his new career: matinee idol.

Oops I didn't mean to say Yuzu was "lucky" to be in the closet -- except the crazed Asian fans might shame him into killing himself otherwise -- so maybe I did mean lucky... They expect a lot of their idols over there so his life is not his own. He makes a million dollars to make a commercial about face creams (huger than you can imagine in Japan) or mattresses, you name it. I doubt he'd be satisfied with that but sounds good to me.

[quote] nterestingly, to me anyway, Javier's girlfriend Miki Ando is Japanese! (first female skater to land a quad in competition) She has a daughter. Anyway... I don't know if the romance is real or for show, but it's very interesting he's with a Japanese woman.

Fernandez is not with Ando anymore. He has a new girlfriend now. Judging by the name, the new one sounds Spanish.

Don't think I will ever watch figure skaters again...it lacks excitement and drama, like they had during the age of Kwan.

R237 Was there more drama back then or was it just more US skaters related?

Was there drama back then? I can't remember?

What drama was there in the age of Kwan? Aside from Daddy Kwan fucking up her career and trying to sabotage other skaters and having it backfire?

This season we had

- Adam's "body of work" impressing the selection committee

- Ashley's sour grapes after finishing 4th at Nationals

- Arutunian blaming Chen's Olympic flop on Mama Chen (even if basically no US media picked that juicy interview up)

- the Golden Spin Ice Dance judging saga presiding over 2 national Olympic selections

- Papadakis' dress and nipples deciding the Gold medal in Ice Dance.

- Stolbova and Bukin banned from Olympics by IOC

Something else I can't remember?

^You forgot Karen Chen getting publicly dragged by her boot company

Oh and I, Tessa's snip snip.

We count to get a couple of more followers tonight to catch that Adam Rippon who is everywhere lately

Don't forget my assorted meltdowns!

Whoa, in which interview did Artunian blame Mama Chen? I suspect he's right, but I'd love to see it.

Oops, never mind--I was thinking Karen Chen, not Nathan Chen. Saw Artunien blaming the Chen family for Nathan's crap choices on the short.

R245 Artunian don't even remember who Karen is...he called her "the third girl" or something like that when discussion lazy Ashley

[quote] Adam's "body of work" impressing the selection committee

Let's be real, Rafael Arutyunyan gave Adam some knee pads and sent him straight to meet the committee. As Alex Ouriashev would say "sometimes you have to be a bitch."

R245 Anyway, I think Karen Chen's mother is indeed very involved in Karen's choices and her 100 changes during the season

On describing the choice of first SP an article wrote:"Chen, her mother and coach Tammy Gambill thought “Carmen” would fit because it is a classic skating piece "

R249, Ugh, Carmen for that little waif best known for being a birdie. Maybe if Chen hired a good choreographer and a jump coach, she'd spend less money on new boots every six weeks. That girl psyched herself out of being U.S. Champion. She needs to grow up, but the whole intense skating/homeschooling/gung-ho mom business doesn't help.

I get the sense that inside the skating world, Bradie T., windmill arms and all, is the only American Lady being taken seriously at this point because she's not a headcase.

Wonder what's going to happen with Vincent Zhou--another child of Chinese immigrants, but he's such an uber-nerd that he might not have the same reaction to stress as some of the others. He's basically a gamer on skates. No grace at this point, but he can quad under pressure.

What happens at the hotel during Junior Worlds...Lim Eunsoo sounds perplexed. Maybe when she was invited to the boys' room she had something else on her mind

The South Korean skater (who has stolen a Team USA shirt) has a so fashionable smurfs pyjamas

Karen's SP and the original FS (Carmen) were done by Mark Pillay This season Pillay has worked for Canadian men (Reynolds' FS, both Liam Firus' programs, Sadovsky's FS), Ziegler/Kiefer's programs, both Paul Fentz's programs and Hocke/Blommaert's pograms (co-coreographed with Aliona Savchenko)

R250 Don't forget Vincent's meltdown by Instagram when he flopped at French GP. He wrote a letter to all of us(?)

Vincent is an emo?? I remember he was very queeny when he first started in juniors. He has toned it down.

Don't forget that Pedo Callaghan getting Harding'd!

I misread as Pedro Callaghan

Vinnie had a meltdown--oh good, he may be more entertaining than I thought.

Shouldn't have sounded like I was blaming the choreographer for Karen C.--there's a huge judgment issue in the Chen camp. So maybe hiring a good choreographer and actually paying attention.

R256 DOn't worry, you didn't sound so.

When Carmen wasn't working, her camp thought abot reworking it but Pillay told them he has not time for a massive makeover. Before Carmen, she actually had a FS on Tosca created by another choreographer but “I trashed it after a week,” said Chen".

Lack of judgement seems quite an habit there. Her coach also coaches Yaroslav Paniot from Ukraine. He went at Euros with a SP planned layout including 2 Quads. Given he's not the top skater out there, why did he need 2 quads at Euros? Skaters without quads make the top 10 at Euros even when not clean. Result: he fell on both of them, no combo, he fell on the 3A and failed to qualify for the FS. And at Euros skaters without the 3A made the FS....

Jesus, does Chen just go to Youtube and select music based on what has worked for others? So far she's covered Witt, Arakawa, Ito, Nagasu, Kwan, and Chen Lu.

And yeah, I know some of those pieces have historically lent themselves to Figure Skating but she seems the type to just want to follow someone else's blue print. Wonder why there's been no Malaguena program yet or did her idol tell her to back off?

Where did Chen end up at the Olympics, she was completely irrelevant. I know y'all are haters of Ashley but we should have sent her

[quote]Arutunian blaming Chen's Olympic flop on Mama Chen

Why doesn't Nathan Chen move to a better coach, like Brian Orser?

[quote]I know y'all are haters of Ashley but we should have sent her

We would have if she had earned it. Otherwise there was no reason to send her. It's not like she was going to place any higher for the US.

Rafael has been his coach since juniors. Chen couldn't quit him even when Marina Zueva was doing everything in her power to snatch him.

Chen seems loyal to a fault, but also because Rafael gives it to him straight up.

[quote]Chen seems loyal to a fault, but also because Rafael gives it to him straight up.

What? The performance enhancers?

[R261] Ashley did earn it. She had higher technical content than Karen "excuses" Chen. But the judges didn't give Ashley the standard Nationals inflation in PCS that Karen, Bradie and Mirai received (come on US judges, do you think that by showering Bradie with better PCS than Ashley that the international judges were going to jump on the bandwagon and agree that the juvenile Cinderella drivel was better than Ashley's programs - puleeze). If Ashley wasn't dumped on the PCS front, she would have been in Korea and yes, I would have bet on her trumping the tepid placements of the superstar team of Karen, Bradie and Mirai that the USFS propped up (not to mention being far more entertaining). Great move USFS!

hahaha, no, R264, she didn't earn it. She is lazy and did nothing all season. There was no way they could justify sending Ashley. Ashley got exactly the scores she deserved. There was no way they could send her over Karen who is the sole reason the US was able to send three skaters in the first place.

Dear R264,

Are you dreaming????

The cookie clearer at R264 is Ashley.

I'm sorry you've been replaced. Deal with it.

So let's see. A 13 year girl does 2 quads in her free program, and Adam Rippon can't even land one. So embarrassing.

So quads are all that matter any more?

Ashley made the decision herself to repeat her Hip Hip Chin Chin SP. It was fun and engaging when she first used it, but its problems--all the posing, lack of ice coverage--has been pointed out over and over again by now. It looked even worse with her deteriorating speed compared to 2016. Karen may spew more bullshit than a dump truck, but at least she does not skate like one.

I'm sure it also left a bad taste in everyone's mouth that she staked out her claim to La La Land back in April only to dump it in favor of Moulin Rouge. Karen was also changing her programs around, but with one warhorse for another, not the hottest piece of new film music. Debuting LLL at Nationals, you can't expect to get high PCS for a program that has no mileage (not unless you're an OGM or an ice dancer, anyway).

I had forgotten what a dumb move it was to unveil a new program for her long.

Adam is said to have a quad Lutz. You get points if you do the rotations, even if you splat the landing. So I don't understand why he didn't just plan to give it a go, and fall (and bank the points if he really can sometimes do a Lutz and therefore, you'd expect he'd have an even better chance of doing the rotations without landing it)

Adam's quad lutz is a downgrade at best.

At my peak I got my quad as UR instead of downgraded

Adam you were eating half a slice of bread a day back then.

We stuff ourselves with fried chicken, burgers, steak, and all sorts of greasy fried food and still get Level 4 twizzles. Check out our appearance on Rachael Ray!

A comment on Golden Skate on Callaghan's thread

"I wonder if this interest in actually doing something about abusers is going to spread to Europe. Because there is one coach in particular who has actually been convicted of abuse against his students. But, because he only got a short ban (3 years), he has been back coaching for the past 20 years.

He even has a profile on the Pyeongchang 2018 website. Although, I don't think he was actually there (the NOC of the country he is based in has a policy of not taking him to the Olympics because of his history).

As this thread is about somebody else, it would not be appropriate to name the coach I am talking about in here. But, his story has been mentioned plenty of times elsewhere on this forum."

_______

do we know who is this one?

ok, after some search, I think the post quoted at R276 refers to Karel Fajfr..he's Czech (used to coach Brezina) but coaches in Oberstdorf, Germany.

"In 1995, a top-level German coach was convicted of sexually molesting a 17-year-old female student eleven times during the previous year. He was given a two-year suspended sentence and a three-year coaching ban. The victim was a pairs skater who claimed that the coach fondled and kissed her, and propositioned her during their stay at a foreign training camp. The coach was also, at the same trial, convicted of beating a female student, who was ten at the time of the incidents. Also fined by the court were the director of the coach's home rink and a German skating federation official, for having knowledge of the coach's behavior but not stopping him.

Other skaters who were students of the coach claimed not to have experienced or seen any abuse from him, and one top French coach defended him, believing that other coaches who lined up against him were motivated by jealousy, although he said "I never saw anything wrong with [this coach's] attitude...I don't know if [the accusations] were right or wrong. I have no idea."

[quote]We stuff ourselves with fried chicken, burgers, steak, and all sorts of greasy fried food and still get Level 4 twizzles. Check out our appearance on Rachael Ray!

Which is why I'll get that Dancing with the Stars gig before either of you will... so go on and keep stuffing yourselves with fat foods while simultaneously stuffing your cock into your sister.

R229 if Hanyu is so ugly why is the whole world calling him handsome and cute and angelic? Also he is getting millions of dollars in endorsements in Japan. Ugly people usually are not selected to sell products. He is not conventionally the western ideal of handsome with a lantern jaw. But he is very easy on the eyes with a perfectly proportioned body and legs that go forever. Mmm.

Exactly r279!!! Fuglies never sell stuff!

The Worlds begin when? And will Terence, Johnny and Tara be calling them for NBC /NBCSN / Olympic Channel? Or is it back to second-string?

R281

March 21:

Ladies SP (from 10.45 to 16.45 Milan time)

Pairs SP (18.20 – 23.00)

March 22:

Men SP (10.05 - 15.45)

Pairs FS (18.55 – 21.55)

March 23:

Short Dance (11:00 – 16.15)

Ladies FS (18.30 – 22.25)

March 24:

Men FS (10:00 – 14.05)

Free Dance (15.20 – 18.35)

[quote] if Hanyu is so ugly why is the whole world calling him handsome and cute and angelic?

The fuck? Sexually repressed Japanese girls flicking their beans to ferret boy does not equate "the whole world." Jesus, they also enjoy watching squid porn ewww. They are hardly the standard for mainstream.

FF this nasty ass Japanese girl!

Why do I feel the guy or frau obsessing over Hanyu having a ferret face is a Takahashi/Uno fan ? Yuzuru is not handsome, way too feminine to use that term but he isn't bad looking. Would probably look quite good with some make-up, a wig and a Japanese sailor school uniform. Not everyone can be as hot as daddy Radford or Javier Fernandez but Hanyu has great lines on the ice which help make his skating visually pleasing.

Some other-than-Yuzuru fans are having a really bad case of envy ha ha. Your guy just doesn't measure up!

I think Radford is ugly - sort of Neanderthal looking. Now Javier is drop-dead gorgeous. And there's something weirdly sexy about Yuzuru - hard to explain - but then I think Johnny Weir is gorgeous and sexy as well. And Shoma Uno is hot, imo. But not Takahashi ewww. There really is no accounting for taste.

There’s something I read that Yuzuru said – that he thought he (himself) was ugly and that girls wouldn’t like him. He said girls like two lids on a man (and he has one) – they like strong eyebrows – and something else... long faces or something like that.

Anyway, he’s very sweet (and very rich) – I should imagine he wouldn’t have any problems getting the woman (or man) of his dreams, if he’s dreaming about either one lol. I get an asexual vibe from him. Or maybe he’s just exceedingly private (and careful, which he needs to be. Keep those bodyguards close, Yuzu!

[quote]I think Radford is ugly - sort of Neanderthal looking.

Radford isn't conventionally handsome, but calling him ugly is going too far.

He's 6'2 and has a good body.

[Quote] but Hanyu has great lines on the ice which help make his skating visually pleasing.

??? Hunched back Hanyu who can't extend his limbs to save his life or straighten the fuck up for one program has great lines ? Better read this than be blind i guess. Next we will read ZagMed are the new Zakharova. That said i don't think Hanyu is ugly but he is nowhere near hot either. Unoffensive would be my adjective for his physic.

Javi's super hot but he kinda looks like he won't age that well. Takahashi is hot and his skating makes him hotter. Uno is hot too imo and gives the vibe he could get dirty.

I'm so hot for Takahashi.

[quote]Javi's super hot but he kinda looks like he won't age that well. Takahashi is hot and his skating makes him hotter. Uno is hot too imo and gives the vibe he could get dirty.

Javi is hot, although he's a little on the short side.

I wouldn't describe Uno as hot, but I suppose he can be cute sometimes.

No indication whatsoever that Hanyu has scoliosis or is a hunchback. Where do you get this inanity?

Hanyu is not asexual. He radiates sex and sensuality on the ice. He is either horny for men or women but is not without urges.

Finally when someone has women crying over him (like the Beatles) you must have a Je ne sais quoi. He may not be Cary Grant handsome but the boy brings The pizazz for sure. And he knows what he is doing to get those extra points in the performance grading.

I watched Hanyu give a press conference in Japanese about his strategy. He sounded like a samurai warrior. Extremely masculine and with a killer instinct. I think his persona on the ice is a performance designed to get those extra points for artistry and costume etc. I think he is likely straight and knows exactly what he needs to do to win and does it. Masculine in the Jumps and some femininity in the execution. Smart guy. It’s got him two Golds.

In the end it’s showing up on game day which is what athletics is all about. Foles showed up on the Super Bowl and beat the greatest QB of all time. Nathan may be proven to be the best jumper of all time and Shoma and Vincent and Boyang all may have better jumps than Yuzu. But Yuzu perForms on game day. And that’s after just starting to practice again 6 weeks before the Olympics. And Since he didn’t win in 2014 with a clean skate — he was the best of the worst then — he wanted redemption this time. His SP was perfect and his free skate was nearly perfect save a blemish or two.

Shoma is kinda hot but is just way too short. Yuzu is normal height and just is physically perfection. Javi smolders for sure.

I’ve read through these comments and people calling Hanyu a ferret or a hunchback (and I suspect it is the same person) really have no clue.

Is hair falling in front of your face a thing in Japan?

Yes, quads area all that matter for the men. Don't even bother showing up if you don't have a consistent quad or two or three (talking about you, Adam).

I'm too busy getting hot dicks to listen to you R297

Adam, you mean Sally Field's son's dick? Did you choke on his fat cock? Oh, I forgot. You have no gag reflex.

Adam is more interested in Shawn Mendes' dick.

Yuzuru has expressed several times that the only time he can be himself and happy is when he is on the ice so I would take what he displays there as closer to his real self (hint: not straight) than this illusion of masculine straight guy he tries to sell to Japanese media during press conferences or interviews. Only his fraus fall for it. And in which world do some of you live where Radford isn't considered handsome.

Virtue/Moir will be on the Ellen Show on March 20th

WTF. Can't they say in Canada?

______________

and I even posted this on the wrong thread. So now looks like Shibutanis troll is invading the whole Datalounge

How long do you think the Russian quad girl will last in senior ladies? Growth spurts and injuries have cut a lot of girls careers short.

[quote]And in which world do some of you live where Radford isn't considered handsome.

Exactly, R301.

Most of the bitches here would love to get a piece of Radford:

R303 do we assume she will reach Senior?

When is Radford's wedding scheduled? It is the gay skating wedding of the year.

Medvedeva withdraws from Worlds. She needs 4 to 8 weeks rest after the pain on her foot intensified after Olympics

Konstantinova will take her spot.

That's a late withdrawal.

I wonder why she waited until now to make the decision?

[Quote] No indication whatsoever that Hanyu has scoliosis or is a hunchback. Where do you get this inanity?

I get it from being subjected to his skating for almost a decade now. That guy's posture is atrocious when he skates. Maybe not on the same level as Radionova or Hongo or Kovtun (bless) but not that far either. People who pretend he has great lines when his default position is hunched with flexed feet are delusional. At least his lines in his FS this year don't matter much since it's a kinda warrior/samurai program but anytime he tries lyrical like his horrendous FS last year, it's just so blatant.

Maybe that's the kind of look that gets Orser going since Yuna had flexed feet her entire career (but at least wasn't hunched!) and it didn't prevent everyone from fawning about her being this fantastic artist, just like for Hanyu. It just proves that good packaging on very good technical skaters does the trick.

[Quote] He radiates sex and sensuality on the ice.

Interesting. That's what a lot of his fans say but i never felt that. When he tries to do sexy like with "let's go crazy" it's a cringefest and the rest of the time he projects very concentrated/willful/determined aura but never anything sensual or sexual.

[Quote] Medvedeva withdraws from Worlds.

Good. Hope that bitch is DONE.

[Quote] How long do you think the Russian quad girl will last in senior ladies?

She will last for as long as the Eteri liquid diet keeps her from reaching puberty. For Yulia it was at 15.

Interview with Sotnikova

Interviewer: Are you afraid of the crazy content that the ladies skating is aiming to now. Or in a way you are inspired by Carolina Kostner who is still competitive at the age of 30?

AS: It's a bit easier for Kostner - she doesn't have to work too hard to represent Italy. I, on the other, hand, to make it to the team and go to the major events would have to overcome a lot. AT the same time am not really stressing about the 13y.o girls landing the quads. Because 13y.o is not even 15.

I: Zagitova's victory in Korea gave a legitimization to a thought the most important in the ladies skating is the right birthdate.

AS: It's true under the current rules.

I: Would you want the rules changed? Not being allowed to put all the jumps in the 2nd part of the programme or some other limitations?

AS: The main thing I want to see in figure skating is juniors competing with the juniors and the seniors with the seniors. The juniors skating is a different sport, a different set of mind and different abilities. So all is set to what the kids can do, which is mainly the jumps. I don't think anyone wants to see the robots who can do a 4/3/3/3/3/3... don't know how many. The senior can show the elements and the programme the way the kid would not be able to.

I: I.e. you are not a big fan of Zagitova?

AS: I didn't say that. Alina showed a great and a memorable programme. She can be compared to Julia Lipnitskaya and the way she skated in Sochi. Just that no one can predict what will happen next. People want you not to disappear after you win the Olympics.

I: Do you believe Medvedeva and Zagitova will stick around till the next Olympics?

AS: Under the current rules it will be both mentally and physically hard. Alina and Zhenya are pushed now by the younger girls.

R309 it always surprises me how long Hanyu’s neck is in photos of him off ice because he skates like he doesn’t have one.

Look at those bitter queens. Not Yuzu's fault, Fernandez loves his milkshake. In the end he is a 2 times Olympic gold medalist and got to cry on Javier's shoulder and be comforted by him. I understand the envy.

I love how we can drag everyone like no tomorrow but as soon as someone points out Hanyu's obvious flaws it is bitterness and jealousy.

Hanyu would still have won the olympics even with the judges actually reflecting his posture and projection issues and inexistent edges into his marks. He would still have his amazing career and his fans and everything and he would still be a great skater. But that would be fairer and that would make him a lot less annoying without that all hysteria of how perfect he is and how he is some kind of unequal artistic genius in the history of the sport, both very inaccurate statements.

It's the same with Medvedeva. She would still have won her two world titles without the INSANE overscoring she got and without that "she is perfection, the best ever blablabla" concert from commentators and Russia apologists that was shoved down our throats for the last 3 years.

I genuinely don't see the issue with Yuzuru's posture and clearly neither do the judges just like they don't seem to care about Uno's URs and awful landings and 2 footed skating which are much bigger issues than some hunch back let's be real. Silver should have gone to Fernandez. Too bad the Japanese Fed has done its work and Uno keeps being overscored. I guess they prefer him to Hanyu as he is training locally so the success is probably perceived as more of a collective Japanese one than for Yuzuru who has been training in Canada for years now. Uno fans who think they can go off on Hanyu have no credibility. Hanyu is taller, better looking, a much much better skater and more successful than Uno. I know it's a hard pill to swallow.

[quote]Virtue/Moir will be on the Ellen Show on March 20th

"Tessa, we FOUND the scissors!"

I have a crush on Junhwan and hope he's a shade of queer (it's okay I'm his age)

this week we have Coupe du Printemps in Luxembourg.

Main entries

Men: Hayrapetyan, Aymoz, Ponsart (interesting to see who comes out at the top between the 2. They selected Ponsart for Worlds even if Aymoz has beaten him at GP and at Nationals), Sato (Figarò boy), Yamamoto, Tomono, Grassl (the 15 years old Italian with the 4Lz), Boe, Majorov

Strange that Rizzo didn't find a way to do also this one

Ladies: Lecavelier (let's see if Kori is with her), Weinzierl, Mihara, Sakamoto, Shiraiwa.

R315 Cmon now i know you love to regurgitate all those posts from fanyu tumblr that make you think you are in the know but Uno's BV at olympics in the FS was 11 points higher than Hanyu and Hanyu still beat him so the judges do mark down his landings. He was also 3 points in BV higher than Fernandez in the SP and Fernandez beat him also, so again his landings are taken into account in his marks.

As for UR or i guess prerotation is what you mean, he doesn't do it more than the others. They all prerotate their quads like crazy. Look Hanyu's loop and Uno's loop. They are the same ! And all the russian girls are doing toe axels for every single jumps they execute. That 1 foot skating obsession is also laughable with deluded fans dressed as Winnie the pooh timing the number of seconds spent on one foot. Skaters have to demonstrate proficiency in one foot skating. That's one of the MANY criteria in skating skills. That doesn't mean they have to skate on one foot the entire program and keep doing counters and rockers every second. Uno can actually hit an edge once in a while in his programs which is nice. Hanyu could take note.

All in all they are both good skaters with different strengths and weaknesses but it is just laughable how Hanyu is presented like this flawless god of skating. (also sorry but if you don't see Hanyu's posture problems you are just blind).

[quote]I'm too busy getting hot dicks to listen to you [R297]

You mean like Pence's?

You know you want it. That's why you said you wouldn't meet with him and now you're "thinking about," calling him up?

Everyone with a functioning pair of eyes can see that Uno's quads look more like triples with awful landings. Only an extremely deluded fan would argue that they are on the same level as Hanyu's or Fernandez'. Hanyu's quads are called textbook by the whole skating community and used as examples to young skaters. Even Shoma knows his jumps are no good and that he is overscored. It's pathetic that his fans can't see it. But why do I even argue with someone who has such terrible taste and clearly no clue about skating to begin with anyway.

R321 Idk man hate on Uno if you want to after all who cares it's just so funny you can't take any criticism of the hunchback of ND. But you and all your little fanyu friends who copy and paste the exact same regurgitated key points on every forum with no real basis or regard to actual skating are just tiring. You bring us back to the Yunabots who pasted the same messages in English patois on every single Asada video and then on every Sotnikova anything. You also make me think of those nice north korean cheerleaders that were at PC. Good for you.

Talking about Javier, it's kinda surprising the new GF after Ando is Spanish with how much he likes rice. Do we think he still eats rice on the side maybe?

Who is doing their farewell skate at Worlds next week?

Bychenko

Brezina

Misha Ge (or will he do like last year and go on?)

Denis Ten?

Kostner?

Cappellini/Lanotte

Agafonova/Ucar

Anybody else? Majorov? Marchei/Hotarek said they will decide after Milan. Savchenko wants to carry on. Grandpa Zhang is said wanting to go on until 2022 (or until he dies on ice).

You all seem very knowledgeable. As a novice, would you be so good as to explain:

(1) what does a “good line” mean ? How can you look for it in a skate?

(2) How does one tell Hanyu has posture problems? The only thing I see is a slight curve in his middle back when he leans over before a spin?

(3) how does his posture affect his “lines”

Thanks in advance. This will help me going forward as I continue to become more of a skating fan.

R311 Interesting. Sotnikova sounds very honest and realistic. She should post here.

R324 mmm

1) "good lines" mostly means having a nice posture so: a straight back from the tip of your head to your low back with your shoulders down, your neck up and straight and your chest open. It also means that when you extend your limbs your should extend them completely so the tension goes from your finger tips to your shoulders with a nice elbow shape for your arms and from your toes that should be pointed, your feet turned out and your knees fully extended to your hips for your legs. It is like in dance or any kind of performing art: you perform outwardly to the public so you need to make yourself bigger and longer to give maximum impact to your moves, you also need to do your moves with a 100% commitment from your entire body so that it reaches the audience better. Obviously all those things take up energy and some attention/concentration, it is a lot harder to perform each move fully extended and to the fullest. That's why lines, posture, projection are (supposedly) rewarded in the "performance" part of the PCS.

When people skate you can watch if they look down at the ice and have their neck forward and not in alignment with the rest of their body also if their shoulders are up especially when they jump. You should be able to cut a skater at the waist and have his back from behind his head to his lower back be a straight line regardless of what his legs are doing. The torso and back shouldn't move to help with the skating either that should come uniquely from the blade work. You can watch if they have "dead hands" instead of extension continuing from their arms, you can watch if when they extend their legs their knee is actually still bent and if their feet are turned out or if the boot does a 90° angle meaning there is no attempt at pointed toes.

2) Hanyu's neck is always forward and he looks down most of the time when he skates. His shoulders are round and exactly like that one poster said earlier it makes it look like he has a small neck when he really doesn't. His feet are always flexed (90° angle), his arms when he does arm choreography don't carry tension throughout. For example look at the step sequence in his FS at worlds 2017, his commitment to both arm and leg choreography is really half assed.

3) his posture affects his lines in that it makes him look smaller with his body inwards instead of elongating his body to project outwardly. It makes the impact of his choreographic moves less effective and his overall performance less eye pleasing because the overall looks less confident, less grand etc. I guess it's just about commitment to your moves and what you want to express.

Brezina said he has plans to continue for two more seasons and then he'll retire to help promote the sport in Czech Republic.

Brezina had so much potential at the 2010 Olympics.

But it all seemed to go downhill in the years after that.

The Hanyu bad posture troll sounds like a bad USFSA judge who learned everything from an Evy and Mary Scotvold seminar in 1995 starring Paul Wylie in between bouts of degrading rough sex in the men's room.

The guy can be loose at times, but he has great range and flow. You'd make him look like a stiff Novice ice dancer. Oh, wait, that's you.

[quote]Who is doing their farewell skate at Worlds next week?

Are Weaver/Poje planning to retire soon?

R327 I didn't know. I am a bit surprised tbh. I thought he was retiring more or less because of what R328 summed up and that he's 28. However, he actually set his overall score PB at Olympics! It speaks a lot of how much Men panorama changed in the last decade. At 2011 Worlds he was 4th with 233.61t points. Now he's 16th with 246.07 points.

R329 well here from 55:38 to 57 have Tracy Wilson (from Hanyu's coaching staff) talking about Hanyu's lack of lines "because it's hard with the quads" :)

Funny how said troll spends his or her time shitting on Yuzuru for the most ridiculous reason, calling him ferret face or hunchback but the moment you dare to bring up Uno much bigger issues you are the Yuzu equivalent of a Yunabot. Probably the same guy who kept whining about poor Shoma being hated a few threads ago. Are you that gay Japanese guy based in Europe who keeps sucking Daisuke's cock? You sure sound like him.

When you see Javier with his current girlfriend, it really makes you wonder if the whole thing with Miki Ando was purely business. He seems so in love with the current one. I admit I'm a bit jealous of her.

Wow, who are these Tumblr fangurls spaming DL (a gay forum) with their Yuzuru talk? Yuzuru is ugly and too much of a pillow princess to ever register with common DLers. Honestly, Americans don't care what Japanese teen girls consider hot. Blocking any noodle boy talk.

Ok, so what do we know about Logan Lewis, I remember him when he was a little hairball and I was shocked to see that he is already 20. Jesus, I feel old. I'm assuming he is a twinkish gayling right? From what I remember, he was always a bit of a queen. Well whatever the case he is growing up to be a beautiful young man.

R333 I'm not the one who called Hanyu ferret face lol. I don't think he is ugly actually. I also don't have problems with people bringing out Uno's weaknesses but i was pointing out that it's funny how as soon as you criticize Hanyu someone goes on a rent about Uno's skating which is totally unrelated (both have different flaws). I was also pointing out that this key point that his bad landings are not taken into account is just inaccurate. Uno's BV at the olympics in the FS was 11 points higher than Hanyu and 19 points higher than Fernandez (it was also higher than both in the SP) yet he lost to Hanyu by a big margin and beat Fernandez by 1 points. It proves Hanyu and Fernandez TRUMP Uno in grades of execution so his bad landings are in fact accounted for... I was not the person whining about Uno hate a few threads ago and I'm not Japanese or sucking Daisuke's cock (that last one unfortunately)

I didn't know DL was reserved for Americans. What about us Canadians and Europeans?

Javier, Orser, Kurt Browning, the ISU and IOC and even Shoma himself, they all know that Javier should have been silver. I wish Spain had a Didier.

The Didier power is mostly a myth. James/Ciprès have been lowballed for years and P/C lost to V/M with a fall lol.

[quote]I didn't know DL was reserved for Americans. What about us Canadians and Europeans?

there does seem to be a lack of understanding with 'certain nationalities' that www means world-wide-web .....

Phil Hersh's head is already exploding on twitter over the thought of Kostner medalling next week.

His first thought after Med withdraws: "Medvedeva absence from worlds will make it easier for judges to give Kostner a career achievement medal, no matter how she skates in her home country."

R326 thank for that lengthy and instructional response. I appreciate your time. I will rewatch the Hanyu performances to see what you are talking about. Who has the best “lines” of male skaters in last decade ? Patrick Chan ?

I love Phil <3 He cracks me up when he gets vicious and condescending. If I were a current skater, he would probably have me in tears like Button did to Angela Nikodinov. <3 <3

[quote]I'm not the one who called Hanyu ferret face lol.

that was me who called him Ferret boy, but given DL this is not a major insult at all, toughen up fangurls. You're on DL and the queens get vicious when they smell a hit of weakness.

R343 exactly what does a ferret face constitute ? Cause no one in their right minds would say Yuzu resembles a rodent. Not with that smile ?

So how does he resemble a ferret?

Why don't they rename it from "Men's Figure Skating" to "Men's Quad Skate Jumping" and from "Ladies' Figure Skating" to "Ladies' Quad Skate Jumping" and be done with it? They have Ski Jumping, so...

Since we established at R17 that Zagorski/Guerreiro should win Silver and at R38 that Min/Gamelin should win Gold. Who are our favorites for Ice Dance Bronze next week?

R346 actually Agafonova/Ucar deserve the gold but due to the ISU's eville bias against and persecution of the Turkish judge, they'll have to settle for bronze...

I think Chris Reed's Lithuanian sister is a lock for bronze personally.

R347 Isn't it part of the big Canadian plot to get Gold for Virtue/Moir? The evil Canadian referee came to you and obliged you to tear your papers apart and trash them in front of her!!! Such a vile and intimidating woman They were clearly afraid of Agafonava/Ucar stealing the win away from Vitue/Moir!

R348 Good call. She is a lock as long as her partner shows up in Milan dressed as sober as below

I was never a fan of Medvedeva but now I feel sorry for her. I hope she can bounce back.

[quote]I hope she can bounce back.

Here she is in 2 years.

R302- V/M aren't too smart, are they? They're stringing along fans with their "we're just business partners *wink* *wink*" and now will try and push that same swill with Ellen. They haven't realized that the more coy they are, the more people will want an answer and the more they'll resent it if they don't get an answer. Now other skaters who do interviews aren't just being asked about their own careers....they're being asked whether they know if V/M are "a couple".

Great way to alienate both your own fans AND other skaters that you have to work with.

Which of you nasty bitches are going to be in Milan?

Will Kevin Bottom by in Milan?

Kevin Bottom was last seen in Zurich on his social media. So yes, maybe, he will travel down to Milan for a trip!

At 2017 Worlds Larry Loupolover got the bottom place. His 32th place at 2018 Euros and 30th at Junior Worlds last week are a solid body of work to reconfirm his status.

Re Callaghan

Maurizi was on ABC's Good Morning America. ABC claim that USFSA tried to discourage him to do the interview

I love you cunts

Speaking of Guillaume Cizeron, will he officially come out at some point?

So Frank Carroll's last two students are both retiring, I assume, then, Frank is as well. That will be the end of an era.

Boy, the Eteri machine just wears its girls out. Medvedeva had a better run than most--she had the will, but her body couldn't take it. Meanwhile. Zags can keep on eye on Trusova and her quads and see if she wears out before she gets out of juniors.

Something weird is going on there.

Who's Kevin Bottom? It's about time anything happened to sleazy Richard Callahan. Is he still married to a woman? What must she think of all these allegations?

I don't get the rabid hate against the Shibs and Yuzuru. Shibs were the best American skaters at the Olympics. Yuzuru does have a little face and floppy posture, but is by all accounts very nice and humble, despite all the intrusive and crazy media and fans. I'm sure he's gay but there are still some people asking him if he's going to start a family or speculating how nice it'd be if he looked up with Satoko (bleah!).

Bottom Kevin is the guy who finished last at US Nationals.

[Quote] Speaking of Guillaume Cizeron, will he officially come out at some point?

Yeah what's up with Cizeron? Is he still dating that gymnast guy who was also a photographer? Anyone from Montreal on this board who has some gossips?

R362 I think at one point last year he delated from his IG some pics he has taken with that guy or that guy took about him. I seem to recall he had more pics by/with him than now. I recall more half naked pics of him.

Has Lambiel ever come out officially? I'm French, and although the culture of the coming out is more deeply implanted here with every passing year, our sexuality is still more private than in the US. Putting out a complete official statement stating you are gay is a little... extra. Not hiding it and being comfortable with everyone pretty much being aware is fine by many of us. Maybe Guillaume already feels out.

[quote]Maybe Guillaume already feels out.

Unless he says he is gay, he is not out the way Adam Rippon and Eric Radford are.

Guillaume has said nothing to the media, and so he will continue to be portrayed as straight to the public.

[quote]I don't get the rabid hate against the Shibs and Yuzuru.

The Shib troll/incest troll is just one obsessed person spamming DL. Blocked him and the thread gets cut in half. On the other hand, the Yuzuru hate is universally shared on DL. Nothing short of retirement or the zamboni pancaking him would satisfy DataLounge.

Guillaume is not portrayed as straight though and it is evident from his interviews in French he is gay. No one in France would have any doubt. I agree with 364 that doing a press conf to say that you're gay is not really something people do in Europe, especially when they are as irrelevant as Guillaume. (Sorry i love P/C but it's not like they are celebs or average French people know who they are)

Lambiel was outed by the Swiss press when he was still competing. He responded saying his sexuality was nobody's business. Lambiel's family seems quite conservative and he's from a village/small town, he's said many times that as a child his mother would not let him skate because it's a girl's sport and wanted him to play hockey.

We are irrelevant Euro skaters who came out

Eh. I think most here don't care for the Shibs although I doubt they really are fucking each other. They'd become a hundred times more interesting if that was the case. We just recognize that they're bland and phony.

I actually like Yuzuru, and think he's cute despite his lack of chin.

I don't dislike Yuzuru and I post a fair amount on this thread, so I don't think the dislike is universal. I'll take him over Shoma Uno any day. He may have rolled shoulders, but I love his flow on the ice--and while I was rooting for Nathan at the Olympics, I was impressed with the way Yuzuru laid it down in the short program. So much for injuries doing a number on him.

Virtue/Moir, on the other hand, just irritate me. I get why Cizeron doesn't open his glass closet--he's in Canada and the Canadians had no shame about insinuating that Guillaume's lack of straightness was a negative for the team. (Blech.)

V/M irritate the shit out of me too and it's because of all their stupid canned responses to everything. "Special relationship", "wonderful 20 year business partnership", "we hug each other to get our breathing in sync".

Gag me.

Can't they be honest for once and say, "Hell, no, we're not dating, we bug the hell out of each other but it's too late to change partners now."

[Quote] We are irrelevant Euro skaters who came out —Javier#2 and Jorik

Good for you queens. It's also good to inform other straight guys like me for the rooming on tours.

r371 I'm with you on Hanyu and V/M; he's perfectly fine to me and they are the personification of an eyeroll. Only place where we disagree is I actually like Shoma on occasion. I really liked him when he first came out of Juniors. His 2016 short and long programs were both fun and exciting. I just think he's gotten boring and mass-market (well... mass-market for Japanese skating fraus) as he's aged.

Who cares about Hanyu when you have the handsome, charming Han Cong (of Sui/Han fame) to lust over?

Sui and Han have a cute relationship (she does the eyeball at things he says in interviews). She says that when they first met, she thought he was handsome, but always angry looking.

R373 I think Yagudin's roommate should worry more than Yagudin. Didn't he get kicked off Champions on Ice because he drank too much and beat Nicole Bobek?

I think "beat Bobek" is an exaggeration and recall Nicole brushing it off later. Speaking of her, former 90s ice dancer Charles Sinek also got busted for dealing drugs and is in federal prison, right after impregnating his wife/skating partner. Shawn Sawyer was arrested for drug possession while working in a Cirque th Soleil show. Looks like skating doesn't turn out a lot of wholesome successful adults.

and Shoma looks and acts so weird. I don't see how anyone goes gaga over him with his awkward personality and baby troll looks, bad jump landings, horrid costumes.

Brezina wants to continue?! He looks to be in his 30s, hasn't improved over the last 5 years, and his wife even had to do a Go Fund Me campaign to get money for herself to attend the Olympics. How about get a real job guys? It is sad when older athletes don't seem to know what else to do, stay too late at the party hoping for a Rudy Galindo moment, and keep flopping on the public stage.

I always wonder about the skaters who come in last place. What else do they do with their lives? What do they tell their grandchildren about the experience?

I think Shoma will need to pretty up his landing with the new scoring system where there GOE goes from -5 to +5. That seems like it would help someone with beautiful jumps - like Hanyu's are (if he comes back) and Nathan Chen's (though they're shortening the time, decreasing the jumps by one pass?? and possibly removing the 2nd half bonus).

I think Boyang Jin is another one who might suffer from the quality of his jumps being dinged more than they were -- or more in comparison with the guys getting 5 points GOE. Who else has pretty jumps? Fernandez did, when he landed them, but alas, he's gone. Anyway, glad they're addressing the over-emphasis on the number of quads, regardless of how they look.

Oh and I LOVE the new deductions for "ugly" tono hands over head. Those Russian girls look ridiculous doing that, if you ask me. Their super-quick short little jumps are hard enough to really see, adding the arms up just makes it even odder.

R372 LOL, I feel the same way about V/M. I really don't remember much about them prior to Sochi and then immensely disliked them and their attitude when D/W won gold. Haven't seen them perform much at all until the Olympics.

But you are so right a about their fake, coached, stupid responses to every question - phony and annoying. I guess they have to do this to promote their "brand" after they stop competing. They remind me of those idiot Twilight actors - aren't both couples secretly married with three kids each?

He pings and she seems very asexual to me. Somebody must have some good gossip on them - come on, dish!

r379 Kevin Bottom is an MIT grad. I think he probably is doing ok outside of his last place Nationals finishes. And if engineering fails, he always has his thriving 3ish person fanclub on DL from which to build a social media career.

Here we go the Yuzuru frangurls doing a circle flicking their beans. Girls, take it to Tumlr.

I do have to say Shoma Uno, who I find detestable because he pre-rotates and underrotates his quads, surprised me with his cold indifference towards Hanyu. You could tell he was not impressed at all and couldn't wait to tell everyone. lol I miss the days when skaters actually had some personality and were not afraid to show it. Nancy and Tonya going at each other's throats was a welcomed rivalry, while Hanyu will be a small footnote in a couple of years because his skating was never better than passable.

Yuzuru is organizing an ice show in April in Tokyo and since he won't be able to skate due to rehabilitation, he will invite all skaters who have influenced him in his career to do so while he will do the talking. So I guess we can expect Plushenko, Weir, Lambiel, Jeffrey Buttle and maybe even Javier if he is available. No clue which Japanese skater he would invite apart from Oda and Arakawa. He doesn't seem close with any of them.

[quote] I always wonder about the skaters who come in last place. What else do they do with their lives? What do they tell their grandchildren about the experience?

Some European countries still have the old army enrollment system for athletes. So some Euro skaters (for ex Germany, Austria, Italy) are enrolled as soliders and get a salary while competing as long as their result don't drop too much and they can still win Nationals and go to Worlds and Euros.

In Italy Kostner, Cappellini, Lanotte, Marchei, Hotarek, Guignard, Fabbri, Rizzo and soon also Della Monica and Guarise are enrolled in one army corpe and receive a monthly basic salary. They can keep the job after they retire if they wish, they would likely to placed in some administrative office rather than on frontline. It's a state job, so it's basically for life.

In Germany, Schott, Fentz, Liebers, Blommaert, Polizoakis list "solider" as profession on ISU website. Same for the Austrian pair

[Quote] with the new scoring system where there GOE goes from -5 to +5. That seems like it would help someone with beautiful jumps - like Nathan Chen's

i'm sorry but that's fake news. Do we watch the same guy? Have you seen Nathan's quads or his 3A? His landings are not beautiful whatsoever. He always looks off balance, has no flow, often lands on the inside before rolling to the outside edge (ACL tear is coming) has very unaesthetic arms and free leg positions going in all directions.

Agreed about Nathan. He seems unable to bend his knees and that affects his landings. The skater with the best technique in the new generation is Boyang Jin. Kolyada's 4lz is good too but he is a headcase.

Yan Han has announced retirement on his weiboo. His message's trtranalation sounds as He will go back to school. He wasn't ready for this decision but he has to face reality. He is not able to fullfill expectations anymore.

ah that's sad i love Yan Han. I have no doubt he is gay too. But yeah he's been injured for years now. Better stop now than completely break his body

R388 R389 He has delated the message. The wording didn't get approval by some official somewhere in Chinese Federation?

And Denis Ten moved to Substitute entry on ISU entry list for Worlds. Abzal Rakimgaliev takes his place

Hanyu's show is called "continues with wings". Amazing. Johnny Weir's probably jizzing himself

I guess we can expect Hanyu's bff Misha Ge to be there and tell the audience all about their deep deep friendship and ask people to please stop using him to get to Mr Pooh.

Japan is as usually hosting lots of Galas in the forthcoming months

THE LEGENDS: MEDAL WINNERS GALA

Time and place: Mar. 30, Osaka, Japan

Cast: Evgeni Plushenko, Alina Zagitova, Shoma Uno, Evgenia Medvedeva, Patrick Chan, Javier Fernandez, Satoko Miyahara, Akiko Suzuki, Nathan Chen, Kaori Sakamoto, Takahito Mura, Nobunari Oda, Kana Muramoto/Chris Reed, Keiji Tanaka

STARS ON ICE: JAPAN IN OSAKA

Time and place: Mar. 31 - Apr. 1, Osaka, Japan

Cast: Shoma Uno, Nobunari Oda, Keiji Tanaka, Satoko Miyahara, Kaori Sakamoto, Mai Mihara, Wakaba Higuchi, Marin Honda, Rika Kihira, Kana Muramoto/Chris Reed, Evgeni Plushenko, Patrick Chan, Javier Fernandez, Nathan Chen, Evgenia Medvedeva, Kaetlyn Osmond, Alina Zagitova, Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir, Meagan Duhamel/Eric Radford

STARS ON ICE: JAPAN IN YOKOHAMA

Time and place: Apr. 6-8, Yokohama, Japan

Cast: Shoma Uno, Nobunari Oda, Keiji Tanaka, Satoko Miyahara, Kaori Sakamoto, Mai Mihara, Wakaba Higuchi, Marin Honda, Rika Kihira, Kana Muramoto/Chris Reed, Miu Suzaki/Ryuichi Kihara, Evgeni Plushenko, Patrick Chan, Javier Fernandez, Evgenia Medvedeva, Kaetlyn Osmond, Alina Zagitova, Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir, Meagan Duhamel/Eric Radford

PRINCE ICE WORLD: YOKOHAMA

Time and place: Apr. 28-30, May 3-5, Yokohama, Japan

Cast: (see website for exact dates) Takeshi Honda, Tatsuki Machida, Miki Ando, Kanako Murakami, Takahiko Kozuka, Nobunari Oda, Kazuki Tomono, Keiji Tanaka, Wakaba Higuchi, Mitsuki Sumoto, Daisuke Murakami

FANTASY ON ICE: MAKUHARI

Time and place: 5 dates May-June

Cast: Nobunari Oda, Akiko Suzuki, Stephane Lambiel, Jeffrey Buttle, Johnny Weir, Carolina Kostner, more TBA (I guess the international skaters won't do all 5 but only some of them).

I like V/M' s skating unlike most here although, yes, their interview responses can be grating

Also prefer Shoma to Hanyu

[quote]while Hanyu will be a small footnote in a couple of years because his skating was never better than passable.

I'm more of a Javier fan than Hanyu fan, but I really don't think this is true, R383. Out of curiosity, who do you think will be remembered as more than "a small footnote in a couple of years"?

"Footnote in the history of skating". I get personal taste but come on. He is already in the history books of figure skating with his 2nd Olympic win and 12 WRs and widely considered as the goat by most in the skating community. Whether you personally like his style or not, now that's another matter. Apart from Yuzuru, Javier and Patrick Chan, do you seriously believe any of the men of the past few years will be remembered? Most are already forgotten of those who retired and no one cares about the ones that didn't yet. It's like Candeloro believing people remember his badly interpreted D'Artagnan programs from 2 decades ago more than Yuzuru's SP at Sochi. When delusion gets that far it's a bit scary.

I mean people do remember the D'Artagnan program. Because the step sequence was cool and Candeloro was obviously a funny outsider that got lucky twice at the olympics! Hanyu's FS at Sochi no one remembers and the poor ones that actually do we actively try to forget. He certainly won't be a footnote in the history of skating though, the two olympics titles really is not small feat. Plus his annoying fans will forever remind everyone how every single skater that ever skates just sucks at everything compared to Hanyu. I think Chan's legacy is more in jeopardy because in spite of his fantastic skating skills, he didn't deserve 2 of his 3 titles and he could never connect with his audience because he didn't respect them.

I feel a bit sorry for Hanyu. He said he goes out to dinner 3-4 times a YEAR and doesn’t really care about food. He seems isolated — just living with his mother and practicing. That’s all he does (besides filming some endorsements). He has no personal life that we know of. Must be very lonely existence.

And seriously carrying a Pooh bear with you to sit on the ledge and watch you practice and perform is odd, to say the least, for a 23 year old man, no matter if he’s gay or straight. A 12 year old, maybe OK. But at 23 it smacks of arrested development. That said, I think the pressure and attention on him is enormous and can be too much for a lot of people. I hope he’s OK.

It is like the Linsanity period for Jeremy Lin. Unrelenting media attention. Except for Lin it really died down after about a year (although in Taiwan he still wildly famous). With Hanyu this attention has been going on for longer than five years and shows no signs of abating.

About the pooh thing I think it's because he is extremely superstitious and any change to his routine throws him off and leads to bad skates. I don't really see the problem with it. He is also not responsible for his fans going completely insane with the pooh storm at each competition. They took something that is personal and seems to help ground him when he is stressed and created a whole circus with it plus the media jumping on it as well. He actually seems bothered with the pooh questions he keeps getting from the press. I know I would too.

r397 I think your overall point is sound, but the Candeloro example is poorly chosen. Like J.Brown's Riverdance, that is one program that IS remembered well even among more casual fans and likely will be for some time. I'd say D'Artagnan is much more memorable than something like... any of V. Petrenko's programs from the Olympics.

I don't know about how people will remember Hanyu's programs in years to come. I think his best bet at creating a complete package knock-out moment was Boston world's after that amazing short program, but he fell apart in the long. People will remember Sochi as the time Hanyu won because everyone else fucked up and PyeongChang as that time Hanyu won because he was better than everyone else, but I don't think either sets of programs are particularly noteworthy on their own merit.

Interestingly, at least 15 people have done the Disturbed Sound of Silence in the past 3 years, but I think people already associate that song as being 'owned' by James+Cipres at the Olympics and they weren't even in contention for a medal and that was a recycled program.

Are you honestly saying his Chopin and Seimei programs are forgettable? Dislike the man all you want but you cannot claim that. And you cannot say he only won because he was better than everyone else. I mean of course he was but also nearly brok his own SP WR. That is no small feat.

I think people in Japan will remember Seimei. But in any case, I don't remember any skater's specific programs even when I remember them - whether it's Plushenko, Peggy Fleming, Dick Button, etc. I can see them skating in my mind's eye - their style - but not the particulars of the music they chose or how they skated a specific program.

I think Hanyu 'may' also be playing into a legacy, of which Poo is a big part. It makes him stand out, gives the fans something to latch on to, gives the world something to remember, assuming "being remembered" is at the top of his or any other skater's list of dreams. The Asian man-boy who rewrote the record books for Asian skaters - which Takahashi could also have done had he won two Olympic golds, but he didn't, and Hanyu did. He's up there with Yuna Kim or Mao Asada or even Plushenko, imo, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is all the world records he set (and now they're changing the scoring system so that means his records are more likely to stand, from a technical standpoint.)

One of the officials of the ISU said they were changing the rules to stop Hanyu from breaking world records. Could have been a jokes... but in any case, he's got a case from several standpoints, when it comes to being remembers, for good or ill, but what difference does it make? The people here who seethe with hatred for the skater - why? Is he overshadowing someone you love? The world always "hypes" the latest celebrity - hell, even idiots like Justin Bieber are "phenomenons" of adulation -- at least Hanyu can do something tangible, other than just look cute and kinda-sorta sing.

R405 I do remember the most memorable programs. I think part of it is nostalgia for when I first became a serious figure skating fan following the 94 Olympics. But Chen Lu's 96 Worlds LP and Rudy Galindo's 96 Nationals LP are imprinted on my brain. That moment after Rudy's first jumping pass where Dick Button can't even form words is just gold. I think many younger fans may have imprinted on programs like Hanyu's Sochi SP in a similar manner.

Saying only Japan will remember Seimei just shows everything that is wrong with the old guard of skating fans who can't handle that the good old times of all white podiums skating to warhorses is definitely over. I'm not Asian but watching Seimei skated to perfection at gpf 2015 is one of the most amazing experiences I had as a skating fan.

I don't hate Hanyu at all. I quite like him and have often defended his skating and his looks on DL. I just agree with the poster above who mentioned that while each move of his may be great, his never had a performance that really felt like it created a moment. His programs are good, and he skates them well, and he is rightfully Olympic champion, but... has he ever crafted a singular memorable individual moment? It's like the Onion article on Meryl Streep. She's a great actress, but she's never been in a single great movie.

Candeloro did have a moment with D'Artgangon, Jason had a moment with Riverdance, Yagudin's Winter SP in 2002. Outside of Men's you have Chen Lu's World's performance, Torvill and Dean Bolero, and plenty more across all disciplines.

You don't even have to be particularly great or even have a particularly great program to give a memorable performance. Salle/Pelletier's Love Story routine caused such a sensation that it was the reason the point fixing was finally unmasked.

If GPF 2015 Seimei and Chopin do not qualify as 'moments to remember' then clearly we don't have the same definition of memorable. I think besides the cultural gap the reason so many here claim he has no memorable program is because apart from his SP at Sochi and his Prince SP he doesn't really have programs where he engages the audience directly and his skating is mostly inwards and lyrical. Personally that's actually what I like about his skating.

A skater that will be remember is one that had s strong personality or whose talent allowed him/her to perform iconic performances. Kwan, Shen/Zhao, Boitano, Plushenko....etc etc. What Yuzuru program or performance will people remember? He skated clean only a handful of times in his entire career.

People will Remember Mao over Hanyu in the future.

I am European and I didn't remember Jason Brown's Riverdance until you mentioned it a couple of posts above

That's purely your opinion. If you follow Russian Junior skaters you know that Hanyu's programs like Seimei and the one from last season are the ones they are looking at and wishing to replicate. He is clearly inspiring the younger generation of skaters. Also when people talk about consistency and invoke older generations it clearly makes me laugh at how short memory can be for some. All skaters only skated a few times completely clean throughout their career especially in the men discipline since they started jumping quads. And mentioning Mao as the queen of consistency is really a joke.

My Titanic's program is iconic and will be still remembered in 2038

r409 It's fine if you think Hanyu's clean programs are memorable, but your argument that this is some sort of cultural gap or racism is stupid. Chen Lu's Rachmaninoff routine, and particularly the performance of it at Worlds, is adored and well-remembered. Kim Yuna has several routines that are remembered to various levels (from James Bond to Piano Concerto in F). While Shoma might now have a full program, skating fans will always connect him to the cantilever.

And it's no wonder that people are trying to replicate Hanyu and not Jason Brown - doing what Hanyu does wins medals doing what Jason Brown does gets you a handful of 16 year old girls on youtube calling you adorable. Sometimes, the best skater or the winning skater is just that - better than everyone else - and not much more. There's a reason people can remember Yulia Lipnitskaya's performances and her hyperextended Bielman spins and nobody remembers Adelina's performances (except maybe that crappy Butterfly Gala number) and yet Yulia truly is a footnote in the history of skating.

Normally the skating discussion on this site is fun and insightful, but you seem to just want to be obstinate. If people don't find Hanyu's programs memorable they are "Yuzuru Haters" or can't get over some non-existant cultural gap. It's perfectly possible that a majority of people just disagree with you.

All the examples you gave are Asian skaters skating to Western warhorses so clearly you are not disproving my point. There is a clear cultural bias, I didn't say racism, but if you refuse to see it that's your prerogative. Anyway I'm done now because we are going circles so it's pointless. I actually wasn't the one to start this discussion. I just found most of your arguments nonsense.

I think skating fans would remember ANYONE who got consecutive gold medals and that person would be "memorable" because it's a helluva thing to do.

I though I was Hanyu's BFF.

[Quote] My Titanic's program is iconic and will be still remembered in 2038 —Jorik

Mine was miles better.

So, can we say there's a split on Hanyu on DL (I'm with R416--anyone with consecutive gold medals is memorable--last man to do it was Dick Button.) and I do find Hanyu's skating enjoyable, but then I like Patrick Chan's actual skating--which may make me the only non-Canadian who does.)

On the other hand, most of us don't care for Virtue/Moir, though some V/M fans appeared during the Olympics. Yes, they can skate, but the mugging drives me nuts.

[quote] If you follow Russian Junior skaters you know that Hanyu's programs like Seimei and the one from last season are the ones they are looking at and wishing to replicate.

R412, your opinion does not equal the collective. They follow him because he is a current top skater. Those poor Russian skaters, they should be more worried about making it alive from all the drug cocktails Vlad is shoving them.

R419 Dick Button is an institution, a skater that revolutionized the men's skating. He is not remembered for his multiple gold medals alone, he changed skating altogether. Hanyu did no such thing, he was barely able to skate clean. Gurl please!

R420, Did I say Hanyu was Dick Button? No, I said the last skater to win back to back golds was Dick Button. And, yeah, two back-to-backs is rare. If it only happens every 60 years, it's an accomplishment that will be remembered in skating. And Hanyu didn't do it because he had no competition.

We'll see if he does the first quad axel or quint in competition.

It is Takahashi's birthday today in Japan. Such a nicer subject than unforgettable Hanyu and his "iconic" programs lol

Ah! So the Hanyu hater is a Takahashi fan. Now I understand.

When you say Hanyu hater? are you talking about the DL as a whole, cuz' girl, there is no such thing as a single Hanyu "hater."

DL has never been kind to Yuzuru, as you can clearly see.

Lol r422

Also r424, maybe we just need to leave the troll alone for a while. Even the Hanyu defenders aren't defending Hanyu's unique culturally momentous and memorable programs enough for her. Maybe she can calm herself by watching some of his boring-ass free skates? That should do the trick.

R408 Hanyu had a moment. His 2012 Worlds free skate, which I doubt many here watched. Like it or not, it was a moment, and it propelled him to world bronze and as a top skater at 17.

But then, you people say that his Sochi SP wasn't a moment so...

Speaking of videos... do straight men usually put their hand on another guy's stomach while hugging them on a couch? (1 minute video of a Yuzuru/Javi hug)

I forgot the link:

LOL 426 are you serious? I think most queens on this board have been watching skating from the times of Nikolaï Panin. My 2012 WC moment was when PChan waxeled and fell on his smug ass (but that massive bitch still won).

[quote]the last skater to win back to back golds was Dick Button

Last MALE skater.

R428 Yes this is perfectly normal behavior for us straight guys

[Quote] Last MALE skater. —K. Witt

Last MALE SINGLE skater.

The secret to a memorable program is to perform it so many times nobody could possibly forget it.

You know what they say, an Olympic Bronze and a World Silver to match a Gold Medal personality!

Takahito Mura has officially announced retirement today. No surprise, it was an expected move

Karen Chen withdraws from Worlds. First Alternate Ashley declined the spot. Mariah Bell will skate in Milan

Kayne/O'Shea also withdraw. Deanna Stellato and Nathan Bartholomay take their place.

Sorry call me a yahoo but I can't get excited over Hanyu-san....as a skater or sex symbol. He's like a Honda Fit.

Ladies SP at Coupe du Printemps

1. Sakamoto 73.27 2. Mihara 72.98 3. Shiraiwa 65.67 4. Lecavelier 61.89

Scores don't count as PBs.

This instagram is "exposing" Gabby Daleman for photoshopping half her body off her pics. Is it another Gracie Gold ready to happen?

As in many Senior Z, there is a shortage of judges in Luxembourg. Referee and Judge number 1 are the same Turkish man.

yeah, Daleman has been doing this for months. And her photoshopping skills are quite limited, so it looks evident that she manufactered these pics

It looks like she hired the same person who works on Beyonce's thigh gap. It's too bad she can't photoshop her Olympic LP. Now that was a memorable performance!

Zueva is probably thinking to withdraw from Worlds instead of showing up with these magic teams

If Shibs take hiatus next season, she definitely has room for a top team to switch to her

r442 I assumed Shibs were going on permanent hiatus... I don't think they have the clout to leave a year and come back to medal contention. Judges have already unjustly rewarded their competent gumption, they won't do it a second time.

So Karen Chen is out of Worlds--what's that about? Boot arguments? I'm about to give up on her--she's talented, but a serious flake. When you switch your programs multiple times instead of fixing your URs, you're missing the point. Though, yeah, Carmen and Tosca are not suitable for her. Sounds like a kooky skate mom situation as well, if it was Mama Chen who did a number on that boot.

Mariah Bell is capable of having a good skate--see what happens. Ashley is OVER it, clearly.

Congrats to Stellato/Barthelmy--I'm going to cheer for anyone who comes back in her 30s to skate.

This is going to be a strange Worlds. I'm looking forward to it. Hope H/D skate clean and nab silver. Chock & Bates having a comeback would also be nice. Hope H/B climb the ranks some more.

r444 I'm sure Zach D will find away to fuck up at the last minute again. I have a lot of faith in him.

yup, Zach D will be cast aside.

The Ice Dance podium will be 1) Min/Gamelin 2) Tiffany/Jonathan 3) Chris Read's Lithuanian sister 4) Agafonova/Ucar (who deserved Gold but a Canadian led ISU conspirancy will prevent them to get on the podium). Then the rest in whatever order

Zagitova will win gold with all jumps in the last minute. Carolina Kostner will get silver with a 2+1 combo as highlight of the FS. Hopefully she will wear the Green unitard. Some judges will score her 11 in PCS.

Shoma Uno will premiere a new version of the same costume just in a different colour. He will splat all over the ice but the panel will say all rotations were done and will get Gold. He will be moribund in K&C but Coach Higuchi will happily laugh anyway. Nathan Chen will land 8 Quads but will finish second after being 24th in SP skated on the layout suggested by his aunt.

It was very telling when Zack the flopper was left out in the team event at the Olympics. The USFSA is probably done with them and ready to start pushing H/Baker and the younger teams. I expect to see Chock and Bates in the podium but I am not sure about Hubell/Donohue.

So is Ashley not going to Worlds to replace Chen?

Ashley is taking an "intentional period of rest away from skating" for "heart healing." Not because she's a lazy slag or anything! She clearly dgaf about competing...she just wanted to go to the Olys and get that sponsor $$$.

Bye bitch!

r449 Compared to Rippon and Nagasu who were there to win?

[quote]Compared to Rippon and Nagasu who were there to win?

I would not put Mirai in the same famewhore category as the other two. I don't even think Adam is half as lazy as Ashley - Raf said he does work hard. Mirai shows up to competitions, she learned a 3A and at least landed it in the team competition. Ashley competed like 2 times all season and thought she was going to be given a ticket to the Olys for doing the absolute least. Now she's spewing this PR bullshit and acting like she did Mariah a great favor by allowing her to take the spot. It's nauseating.

Remember when Mirai competed at World's a few years ago as the alternate? She was able to do so because she kept on training despite thinking her season was over. She took the role as Alternate seriously.

Ashley? Not so much. You can bet she hasn't hit the ice since Nationals.

Ashley's basically retired, but hasn't admitted it--probably for sponsorship reasons. Her tweet was completely full of it--ugh.

I don't know that the USFSA has given up on H/D yet. Ice is slippery and C/B had an even bigger snafu than H/D in the free. That said, I don't think H/D can get away with screwing up at Worlds.

Basically, I see a podium of P/C on top then, in some order, C/L and an American team.

H/B has one truly great program, but I wonder if they'll need to go to Zueva or someone similar to really break into the top ranks.

Yeah, I see the Shibs taking at least a season off to famewhore around. HeShib was practically salivating on Twitter about all the Hollywood celebs he met last week. Poor thing doesn't realize they won't remember him or give a fuck once he hangs up his show and tell bronze medals.

H/B and Chock/Bates irritate me at this point. The judges leave the door wide open for them to finally leave the Shibutanis in the dust, yet they keep screwing up when it really counts.

I hope Nathan and Boyang can keep it together for a few years, and get that PCS up. I like Shoma fine, but if Hanyu retires it will be boring watching Shoma winning everything. Nathan makes me sad, an 18 year old dreaming of med school. Boyang at least has the dream of winning gold in his own country in 2022 to keep him hungry.

Good Lord Wagner's tweet makes her sound so insufferable

And what exactly is Rippon getting an award for? His newfound famewhoring is really becoming too much

Misha Ge had posted a photo about Han Yan retiring where he talked about how they competed as kids and Han Yan's coach would tell Han to watch Misha and study his artistry, lol. The post is gone now (he has another one about Mura retiring which doesn't have the same amount of humblebragging). Is that because Han might change his mind or did people give Misha shit for making it all about him? Hopefully both.

I love how daleman just keeps on shamelessly posting pics with blantatly horrible Photoshop lmao. Who cares if my arm looks freakishly deformed as long as my waist looks small!!

r457 Ugh. It would be funnier if it weren't pretty sad. Does she have nobody close to her that can stop this behaviour now before it leads to worse behaviour in the future?

There is something wrong with Delaman's perception of fitness. In person. she is as thin as a twig. Bet she is projecting her obvious eating disorder and shit.

Coupe du Printemps

Junior Men...there was a poor Russian kid with a blue shirt and purple ruffles all over the sleeves. It was really hideous. Maybe I can find a video

Anyway, Senior Men SP right now

Ponsart scored 73.something

Yamamoto 69.something

Majorov 81.something...anyway good for him to be able to fit these tight leather trousers and breath again

Not sure how large the rink is...an Italian guy just hit the tempered glass wall with his hand after a jump

Sondre Boe...LOL. He popped almost everything. He arrived in the K&C and exclaimed "fuck"...then he sat down....and the bench literally collapsed

Tomono...74.something

there's still a group to come...

Men SP at CdP/Luxembourg

1) Majorov 81.69

2) Hayrapetyan 74.24

3) Tomono 74.11

4) Ponsart 73.44

5) Sato 69.25

6) Yamamoto 69.04

Only Daleman isn't as thin as a twig. She's a mesomorph, so she has a muscular, compact build. She's never going to look like Bradie Tennell or one of the waifish Russians. It's a shame she doesn't appreciate what's wonderful about the body and look she has.

I thought Daleman had come to terms with the fact that she has an athletic body.

In previous interviews she claimed that she was no longer bothered by her athletic body and had come to accept it.

Will Majorov retire? The Swedish can be such dicks. Hope he can skate for Israel or some place.

Her love of Photoshop says different, R463

Costume of the year

Ladies at Coupe du Printemps

1) Mihara 215.49

2) Sakamoto 202.56

3) Shiraiwa 181.79

4) Lecavelier 163.66

5) Sauter 136.36

As the Luxembourg competition has finished (Mojorov won Men in front of Tomono and Ponsart: 229, 227 and 224 points for them), World Standings before Worlds are determined.

If I've not missed anyone, the last 2 groups in SP/SD will be composed by the following people (exact starting order will be then drawn)

LADIES

Group 7: Osmond-Miyahara-Sotskova-Zagitova-Kostner-Higuchi

Group 6:: Nagasu-Daleman-Tursynbaeva-Bell-Choi-Lecavelier

PAIRS

Group 7: Savchenko/Massot, Tarasova/Morozov, Zabjiako/Enbert, James/Cipres

Group 6:: Yu/Zhang, Marchei/Hotarek, Seguin/Bilodeau, Della Monica/Guarise

ICE DANCE

Group 7: Papadakis/Cizeron, Hubbell/Donohue, Cappellini/Lanotte, Chock/Bates, Weaver/Poje

Group 6: Guignard/Fabbri, Gilles/Poirier, Stepanova/Bukin, Hawayek/Baker, Muramoto/Reed

MEN

Group 7: Uno-Chen-Boyang-Kolyada-Bychenko-Aliev

Group 6: Aaron-Vasiljevs-Tanaka-Ge-Zhou-Samohin

Interesting, i'm surprised Higuchi is behind Daleman in worlds standings

*is NOT behind Daleman. Sorry

Man, one American Lady in Group 6. We are so damn far down the totem pole these days. The men and ice dancers better keep up their end of the bargain. Hope Madison is practicing holding up Zach. Chock & Bates really did have a fluke fall. This might be their opportunity to climb back up.

R470 Me too...but thinking about it, Higuchi did well during Gran Prix unlike Daleman.

And while we were watching the Olympics, Higuchi skated at a competition in the Netherlands to get 250 points for World Standings and overtake Daleman by 6 points and Nagasu by 1.

At Coupe du Printemps Gala...Sato was wearing Tomono's West Side Story costume and Yamamoto was wearing Sato's Figaro costume. I guess they didn't have costumes for an EX. Yamamoto's EX looked like it was put together 15 minutes before the Gala tbh.

How is the draw determined for the groups? Is it random?

R473

They divide the entries in "skate earlier" and "skate later" according to the World Standing.

Top 6 (top 4 in Pairs and top 5 in Dance) in World Standing skate in last group. Then they are randomly drawn within it.

7 to 12th place in WS skate in second to last group. Again they are randomly drawn within it.

The rest of "skate later" skaters will randomly fill the remaining second half slots.

All "skater early" skaters will be randomly drawn within the first half.

There could be a group with some "skate later" and some "skate earlier" skaters depending on the number of entries.

Oh, I guess I was just surprised that Mirai had the highest World Standing out of the US Ladies but then I remembered the other two were Bradie and Mariah.

By the way what is Ashley's current world standing?

Women World Standing (not updated with Coupe du Printemps: 250 points to Mihara, 225 replacing 219 for Sakamoto, 203 replacing a 160 for Shirawa, 182 to Lecavelier and 164 to Sauter) in the link

Ashley is behind Mirai and Karen and above Mariah and Bradie.

Regarding Higuchi that's true she had a far better season than Daleman both on the grand prix and B events. That's just that she bombed both worlds and 4CC last year where Daleman medaled so i thought she still would have some lead. But looking at the table actually it seems it only takes into account worlds/olympics, GP/GPF and two B events. No 4CC or euros?

Wow... Ashley really did a whole lot of nothing this year.

R478 Euros and 4CCs fall within first column (ISU Championships). They are worthy less points than Worlds though

Worlds

Winner: 1200 points Silver: 1080 Bronze 972 etc

Euros/4CCs

Winner 840 Silver 756 Bronze 680 etc

But you can use only one if you do well in both (which is probably unfair to those doing well in both of them).

Ok thanks. Yeah that's a bit of a weird system that really gives a disproportionate weight to B competitions. I guess that's to push skaters to attend those and also to reward consistency through the year but cmon winning Euros and winning golden spin of zagreb is quite different lol

World Standings are strange--Gracie Gold is ahead of Bradie. Bradie's only no. 30. Mirai and Karen are no. 10 and 12, while Ashley is no. 14 and Mariah Bell is no. 17. Poor Polina Edmonds is down at 140. Gracie's no. 126. It's because it's a cumulative score over 3 years.

Is Bradie even skating in the second half, or will she have to go ridiculously early again? She went first at the Olympics and something like ninth at Nationals. This is the problem when you burst on the scene. In a lot of ways, world standing doesn't matter, but it does determine when you skate.

I think she's second half this time. There are 37 entries. So top 19 are in the second half. With all these absent, Swedish girl should be the cut off between skate earlier and skate later groups.

Good. I'm rooting for Miss Gawky. I figure Mirai will retire soon now that she's had her triple axel. Am over Karen Chen and her boot drama--if she wants to grow up at some point and actually fix her issues, I'll rethink it. Definitely over the Ashley drama.

Mariah Bell could think about having a clean skate--just for the hell of it.

So someone want to explain to me how B/S are third in world standings? Over all the Americans and Cappellini/LaNotte? B-grade tournaments in Europe? When was the last time B/S medalled at Worlds?

yes, because Bobrova/Soliev have won the Golden Spin of Zagreb and the Ondrej Nepela Trophy. And the Warsaw Cup and Nepela last season. 300 points from each of them.

Shibs and C/B don't have any Senior B this seson. Shibs no Senior B either last season.

I am unsure if the Challenger with the usuallyt most WTF/rigged scores is Golden Spin or Tallin Trophy

Bwahahahaha! V/M confirmed on French TV that they're not a couple. That sound you hear is fans rushing to see if they can get a refund on their SOI tickets.

It amazes me how many people convinced themselves they were. Hello! They've been skating together since they were kids. I'm sure it's a brother/sister dynamic as much as anything.

I thought V/M have always made it clear they are not in a relationship and that the only time they were, were briefly as teenagers?

R488- No, they kind of strung fans along - probably to better sell the MR program. During a press conference in Korea, V/M were asked by reporters about 'relationship status', and Scott answered 'relationship status is none of your business'. Why not just say "we're only friends"? So then fans started looking at clips of their practices where Scott is groping Tessa and stuff where he's biting her neck and licking her and that's where the whole thing escalated.

Truthfully, they've always liked to string fans along - that's why they did the whole Bridal photo shoot and newlywed game. To get fans thinking they were a real couple. If you need to go that far to sell your program though, maybe it's not as good as you think.

During the lead up to the Olympics, V/M were cagey about the way they answered the question. They'd never come right out and say "oh, no, we're not interested in each other as anything more than friends". Instead, they'd go into their PR talking points- "it's such a compliment because it means we're doing our job right", "we have such a complicated relationship, it's hard to define" etc.

I guess now that they've got their gold medal, they figure they can finally be honest about it.

They're really more marketing geniuses than skating geniuses.

Uh, V/M might want to rethink that Ellen appearance- some fan just tweeted this----

"For the love of all that's Canadian, please let them get married live on the air (or at least confess their undying love for each other) @EllenShow we are counting on you!"

Ellen's producer replied, "I'll work on it and report back :)"

Ellen's gonna put them through the wringer LOL.

You can't blame them in a way. All season long, they were getting signals from the judges that P/C had the gold locked up. I doubt they came out of retirement for that to happen. What else could they do but play coy and get the fans on their side to try and sway the judges?

Cold and calculated, sure. But it worked.

V/M pulled a masterful PR campaign. No way were they losing the Olympic gold to a pair of brats.

I think this is all going to backfire on them. It's human nature to feel resentful when you've been emotionally manipulated, no matter how cleverly it's done. Fans are either going to stop following them or get angry and lash out at them.

Someone said they should skate an exhibition to "Take A Bow" by Madonna because that sums up what they've done. Ouch.

It all makes me miss Davis/White--who just did their Andy/Judy putting on a show thing.

has grandpa Brezina retired yet?

R496 He will be at Worlds this week. Some posters above reported he said he plans to continue for 2 more seasons.

Is Raya advertising Worlds or his butt?

Tech Panels for Worlds

MEN

Technical ControllertMs. Yukiko OKABEt(Japan) t t Technical SpecialisttMs. Olga MARKOVAt(Russia)

Assistant Technical SpecialisttMs. Myriam LORIOL-OBERWILER (Switzerland)

LADIES

Technical ControllertMr. Paolo PIZZOCARIt(Italy) t Technical SpecialisttMr. Sarkis TEWANIANt(Poland)

Assistant Technical SpecialisttMr. Shin AMANO (Japan)

PAIRS

Technical ControllertMs. Florence VUYLSTEKERt (France) t Technical SpecialisttMr. David KIRBYt(USA) t Assistant Technical SpecialisttMr. Alexander KUZNETSOV (Russia)

ICE DANCE

Technical ControllertMs. Christine HURTHt(France) t Technical SpecialisttMs. Marie BOWNESSt (Canada) t Assistant Technical SpecialisttMs. Judy BLUMBERG (USA)

LOL Shin Amano....no wonder that Karen Chen withdrew. But again he can be overruled by the other 2 if they are not so harsh as him

those bloody T appearing everytime you cut and paste from ISU formatting.

Thanks for the info R498... that means a guaranteed Bronze for Kostner!

If some skaters feel bad about Shin Amano calling all their jumps as UR (the blood bath of Cup of China 2016 is memorable...he called all Ashley's triple jumps as UR in the FS), they can re-watch his Olympic performance in 1998.

The lift and the death spiral at the end......you can guess they were there only because of the host spot.

Well he might not have been the best skater but boy is he a good technical specialist. More like him!

Okay, so Zagitova for Gold, Kostner for Bronze. Who's getting Silver? Russian or Japanese?

Men is harder to guess--depends on the implosion factor.

Pairs--Aliona and Bruno are having a very good year.

Ice Dance--Gabriella could lose her whole top and they'll still win.

I would like to see Shin Amano on a Men panel now that Chan and Liebers are retired. Or does he have a conflict of interest with someone else still active?

The French Tech Controller in Ice Dance was the one who allegedly burst in tears at Nagano Worlds some decades ago when Margarita Drobiazko/Povilas Vanagas lost/were robbed of the bronze in favour of Chait/Sakhnovsky. She signed the petition in favour of D/V and got reprimanded by ISU because of it.

Cheng Peng has a new hairstyle. Judging from practice reports, she still can't land a jump.

Skating Lesson have uploaded an interview with Marie France. She didn't want to talk about Golden Spin and said she almost quit her job because of it. Yes, as we should believe, she would have left 2 months before Olympics with the top 2 teams in the World because of Golden Spin.

[Quote] I would like to see Shin Amano on a Men panel now that Chan and Liebers are retired. Or does he have a conflict of interest with someone else still active?

What do you mean?

R506

Amano have choreographed Peter Liebers' programs. He was sitting next to him in the K&C at German Nationals last December. Obviously he couldn't be put on Tech Panels for events where Liebers could potentially skate. I mean, even for ISU standards, it would have been too nonchalant!

He briefly coached Patrick Chan a decade ago. I thought it could be a bit strange to have a judge judging his former pupil. However, I was wrong. In the last couple of years, Amano was on Tech Panel for events with Chan competing

Again, that's one of the problems. Skating is a little world, after all. They all know each other and are often connected with each other. And this opens the way to speculations on personal favoritisms.

Those are very very small connections compared to the conflicts of interest that ISU sees fit with absolutely no problem at pretty much every competition.

Why can't we have independent panel of judges that is paid by the ISU? Judges shouldn't be coaches or choreographers, or god forbid, skating association presidents.

Massot lashes out against Didier in an interview with French sport newspaper L'equipe.

He says while waiting for release he had to live with 200 monthly euros and eat bread and rice because they were cheap. But he also had to pay attention to the diet.

President of German Association bought him fornitures and German Fed paid for his appartment.

French Fed first asked 100,000 euros for the release. Then they went down to 30,000.

He says it is time to talk now. He is not afraid anymore because he is in Germany now. Everybody know what kind of person Didier is. "so why is he still there?"

Ladies SP starting order

GROUP 1

Grm

Kim

Li

McKay

Leccardi

GROUP 2

Lindford

Kuchvalska

Stomakhina

Austman

Williams

GROUP 3

Liinamae

Gjersem

Dubinina

Lin

Kropa

GROUP 4

Craine

Brezinova

Pagainini

Ostlund

Tennell

GROUP 5

Lecavelier

Schott

Hendrickx

Kostantinova

Toth

GROUP 7

Daleman

Rajcova

Choi

Tursynbaeva

Nagasu

Bell

GROUP 7

Higuchi

Kostner

Zagitova

Sotskova

Osmond

Miyhara

How did Mariah Bell get the highest start of all the U.S. ladies?

I think the skating order within the group is random R512. She might have gotten a slightly lower standing than Nagasu but definitely above Bradie.

BTW the V/M interview on Ellen is vomit-inducing, and it's clear that their personalities live up to the bland Canadians stereotype. It's so sad that their fat frau fans had to petition to get them on Ellen.

Lufthansa has lost some languages of Kim/Kam and Ruest/Wolfe. Wolfe and Kam 's skates haven't arrived yet and Pairs SP is tomorrow. They got newly made boots today.

Kim/Kam don't have their costumes yet either.

R512

Mirai is ranked #10, I believe Mariah is #17 so they are in the same group. Skate order within the group is random.

* luggages

Pogrebisnky/Benoit have split. He retires from Ice Dance.

Is Shpilband school completely collapsing?

Pairs starting order

GROUP 1

Kashitsyna/Magyar

Conners/Krasnopolski

Stellato/Bartholomay

Hocke/Blommaert

GROUP 2

Duskova/Bidar

Chtchetinina/Akulov

Ryom/Kim

Jones/Boyadji

ICE RESURFACING

GROUP 3

Esbrat/Novoselov

Ruest/Wolfe

Suzaki/Kihara

Petranovic/Souza-Kordeiru

GROUP 4

Barquero/Maestu

Kim/Kam

Astakhova/Rogonov

Peng/Jin (who switched back to the 2016/17 SP)

ICE RESURFACING

GROUP 5

Alexandrovskaya/Windsor

Knierim/Knierim

Moore-Towers/Marinaro

Ziegler/Kiefer

GROUP 6

Grp6 Marchei/Hotarek

Seguin/Bilodeau

Yu/Grandpa Zhang

Della Monica/Guarise

ICE RESURFACING

GROUP 7

Tarasova/Morozov

Savchenko/Massot

Zabiiako/Enbert

James/Cipres

A little off-topic but someone mentioned Michelle Kwan's Ice Skating Rink in one of the other threads and I had a look at the staff there.

Apparently they hired Chen Lu's former coach, Mingzhu Li (Is that Michelle being messy?!?!?). Anyway, her bio says:

[quote]She coached Chinese champion Lu Chen to a gold medal at the 1995 World Championships and to two Olympic bronze medals.

Um.....

Nagasu has taken her macho boyfriend with her in Milan

Not sure going last in a group is great for Bell, since she's a nervous skater, but who knows? It is ironic that the American skater most likely to end up in the lowest position is skating last. At least Tennell isn't going first this time.

Krylova is leaving Detroit to go back to Russia.

No mention of Camerlengo, so I assume he will stay in Detroit.

It seems Shoma is injured. He left the ice after 3 minutes practice to ice his foot/ankle and his manager gave him a piggyback back to the bus. People are saying right ankle injury. Pretty sure he is still gonna compete to try salvage the 3 or at least 2 spots. If he withdrew, Tanaka+Tomono would have to place 28 or less.

Pray for us!

So, how badly does Nathan Chen have to screw up, then, not to win? This is sounding like the Grand Prix all over again.

[quote]Nagasu has taken her macho boyfriend with her in Milan

Speaking of macho boyfriends, has anyone ever visited Vanessa's man's IG? She doesn't have any pics posted of him (I think she used to but they seem to be gone now...), but he has several with her. He also has pics like this...

He's hot but I find his tags annoying. In all of their pictures he tags #interracial, mixedcouple, etc.

Dude, we get it. Your girlfriend is black. Why do you keep talking about her race?

WTF? Ed Glavin- Ellen's producer- is swooning all over V/M and pushing the idea of getting them on DWTS. How the hell did they get all this PR so fast when they're not even American??

Yeah, I find the tags a bit much as well, R529. Makes it seem like a fetish or something. I noticed that Guillaume also follows him, but Morgan doesn't...not that that means anything.

[quote]WTF? Ed Glavin- Ellen's producer- is swooning all over V/M and pushing the idea of getting them on DWTS. How the hell did they get all this PR so fast when they're not even American??

They won the gold medal.

yes, these hashtags are a bit too much

Spaeaking of tags, there is a former second tier French ice dancer who used to dance for Czech Republic (making FDs at Euros a couple of times) and who now does some coaching in Lyon who always put the hashtags "gay" on almost all his IG pics (which usually consist in shirtless selfie in bed). I mean, we get it, you want to use IG to hook up

The cameramen have already found Didi from Iceland glamming up the stands. Can she please learn a triple or two so she can glam up the actual competition though? Or better yet, any tall boys want to teach her ice dance?

Hanul Kim looks like a dwarf lovechild of Yuna Kim and Michael Jackson

Last year 54.83t was the cut off score to make the FS. Kim got 60. So she should be safe.

60.18 for Viveca Lindford

New PB

She should make the FS

Let's hope for some bitchy words to Emmi Peltonen now

KUCHVALSKA with the worst TES of all. And mind you, she's in better shape than at the beginning of the season.

35.78 overall. 10 points lower than the second to last

Damn Kuchvalska bombing as usual, Latvia should've sent Nikitina who at least would've given us some more Lambiel eye candy.

R539 Nikitina didn't have the minimum TES for Worlds in the SP.

It's Tennell's turn to skate

Lindford is still leading with 60.18

Kim, Brezinova (PB), Paganini (PB), Craine and Grm are also sure to make the FS. Cut off score so far is 52.43. Probably the final one too as all these remaining should score over 52

Bradie clean

Fist pump at the end

Score should be around 68-69 as she got in the SP of Team Event

68.76

TES 37.53

PCS 31.23 (she grew from 30.0 and 29.51 in PyeongChang)

[quote]I think Radford is ugly - sort of Neanderthal looking.

[quote]Radford isn't conventionally handsome, but calling him ugly is going too far.

Seeing the above comments I feel like I'm living in some alternate universe where up is down, black is white and attractive is "ugly" and "unconventional".

Look at this SHIT free leg and arm position.

Figure skating is DEAD.

[quote]Seeing the above comments I feel like I'm living in some alternate universe where up is down, black is white and attractive is "ugly" and "unconventional".

Yeah, there are some people with very odd tastes on here. Someone said Shoma freaking Uno is"hot" - about as hot as a troll doll. Eric isn't my favorite, but to call him ugly is ridiculous.

The judges today are

Judge No.1tMr. Matjaz KRUSEC (Slovania, former figure skater, 22th at Worlds in 1979, top 15 at Euros) t Judge No.2tMs. Catherine L. TAYLOR (Australia) t Judge No.3tMs. Birgit FÖLL (Germany) t Judge No.4tMs. Ko-Man TING (Taiwan) t Judge No.5tMs. Anne G. SHEAN (USA) t Judge No.6tMs. Masako KUBOTA (Japan) t Judge No.7tMs. Marketa HORKLOVA (Czech Rep) t Judge No.8tMs. Jung-Sue LEE (South Korea) t Judge No.9tMr. Allan BOEHM (Slovakia)

64.07 for Jorik's sister. Currently into second place.

Nicole Schott is third with 61.84

Third Russian, Kostantinova, 59.something

Toth bombed hard. She is out of FS. Elisabetta Leccardi makes it as 24h with barely over 51 points

Now top 2 groups left

Daleman takes the lead. 71.61

Rajcova messy. Axel and 3+2 combo ok. Fell on the other solo triple (don't think fully rotated given the type of the fall)

She fell on the step sequence

She's borderline. 49. Out.

Toth advances to the FS

This panel didn't close their eyes like the one at Olympics and rightfully called everything UR to Dabin Choi

Tursy ok. I think she'll be around Loena's score

Mad MamA is not with her in K&C

62.38. In between Loena and Nicole Schott ("Queen Nicole" as Sondre Boe would say, or actually said, during Jr Worlds K&C last year)

Mirai...2A...on the box same TES as Bradie. Will they put her in between Daleman and Tennell? TES drops by 4 points. 3T called Under. 65, just ahead of Loena (thanks to PCS)

Mariah....59.15...11th so far with 6 to go

How do you get to be a judge?

Kostner over 80 with a new PB

Zagitova behind Carolina. 79.51

R552

they need to pass an exam done by ISU (as described in the link). IIRC there is also a requirement of having judged in at least X number of national competitions before being admitted to the exams to become an international judge.

For Worlds/Euros/4CCs there is a draw to select which countries will have judges on the panels. Then the federations selected nominate one judge who is in the ISU approved list for International judges (those who passed the Exam)

1) Kostner 80.27

2) Zagitova 79.51

3) Myahara 74.36

4) Osmond 72.73

5) Sotskova 71.80

6) Daleman 71.61

7) Tennell 68.76

8) Higuchi 65.89

9) Nagasu 65.21

10) Hendickx 64.07

17) Bell 59.15

Zagitova will win as Kostner's clean FS can't beat even a Zagitova with mistake.

R544, Radford is indeed not classically handsome. He’s not ugly & photographs ok from certain angles - but quite average from others.

It also didn’t help matters that his skating partner broke his nose / face with her elbow.

[quote] Judge No.1 Mr. Matjaz KRUSEC (Slovania)

You probably mean Slovenia, R547.

Kostner will skate last in the FS

Order is Osmond-Sotskova-Daleman-Myahara-Zagitova-Kostner

Men SP tomorrow

final 3 groups

Group 5

Brezina

Moris Whatever his surname is

Rizzo

Majorov

Nguyen

____

Group 6

Samohin

Zhou

Aaron

Deniss

Tanaka

Misha

____

Group 7

Kolyada's splats

Bychenko

Nathan Chen

Aliev

Boyang

Shoma

R558 yup, sorry

Judge number 2 gave Carolina 10s in all components today.

judge number 2 also gave Zagi 8.75 in skating skills (while 9.75 to Osmond and Miyahara, 9.25 to Higuchi and Sotskova, 8.75 Tennell). I am a fan.

Speaking of Zagitova a nice quote from her : "Puberty is an invention, you just have to close you mouth and not eat". Good to know she will end up like Yulia in no time. A great job from Tutberidze as always!

R561

As Daniil Gleikhengauz said in an interview last week

Q: And back to the girls. Do you think their jumps will survive puberty?

A: Much will depend on the athletes themselves. If they continue to monitor themselves, their nutrition, work as they should, they will not lose their shape.

Deanna STELLATO / Nathan BARTHOLOMAY had a very decent outing. 61.48. It may not be enough to qualify for FS though.

At Olympics 16th place (German #2) scored 62.something.

Today German#2 scored 63.26

After 2 groups North Koreans leading with Czech pair immediately behind. Both 66.something.

There are some absences (no third Chinese pair, third Canadian pair not guaranteed to score over 60). So 61 may be enough. It depends on what Aussies, Austrians, Peng/Jin will get. All potentially being in mid 60s

I am in favour to increase to 20 the number of pairs qualified for FS at Worlds. 16 made sense when there were very few pairs and the quality of some of the top 16 already left to be desired. But now there are enough decent pairs to deserve 20 FS.

Only 16 pairs make it to the FS--that's definitely a little too low. I hope Stellato's having a great time. I love her comeback.

So Bradie's up to 7th and Mirai in 9th. Could be worse, but they'd have to move up three combined spots--so Bradie 6th and Mirai 7th. I suppose it's possible, but it would take some luck. What happened with Wakaba? Right now, Russia and Canada have the lock on three spots. Though don't the top three get three spots?

Kostner in first--can we say skating-while-in-Italy? At this rate, Cappellini/LaNotte will be ahead of P/C.

It would be hilarious, though, if Zags didn't get the gold.

So sick of the prissy sissies determining what's hot or not.

I'm disapointed in Shin Amano. Every single one of Sotskova's jumps were UR and none was called. Was he overruled by the other two in the panel? or did he fall to Russian corruption to save them the 3 spots? Zagitova not getting called on the combo was very generous too but at least she is olympic champ and it was one jump, not every single jumping pass.

So did Mirai botch her 3A or did she just do a double?

Astakhova/Rogonov are now in the lead with a new PB (71.62)

Cheng Peng landed the SBS!

R566 yes, I can't understand how Sotskova got away with all the jumps!

Peng/Jin 71.98. Into the lead

I'm here in Milan... will be watching some live events tomorrow

Ooh, R570, rink report, tell us all about it.

Male Knierim somehow managed to stay vertical in the SBS

69.55 third place behind P/J and A/R.

R570 Sneak in and cut Papadaki's dress. Or cut Guillaume's pants. We want some drama

Ziegler/Kiefer 65.21

They qualify for FS. First time they did it and they have been around for a long time.

65.05 is the score of the last to qualify assuming no-one drop below it now.

Here's a link to some of the Ladies' short.

I thought someone above said Mirai only did a 2A. Looks like she actually did land the 3A.

Final Ladies SP Group.

R574 She did a 2A. Look at the protocols below

Ouch, Seguin/Bilodeau are out of the FS!

55.68

Hocke/Blommaert are in with 63.26

Canada's three spots are gone. Only Moore Tower/Marinaro makes the FS.

R574 Mirai did a nice double axel. According to the practice reports, she didn't land a single clean 3A in practice, so she was wise to take it out.

Yeah, just went back and watched it. It was a double. For some reason it looked like a triple the first time I saw it.

One of the skaters who I find cute is on Grindr (in Milan). I won't be messaging him though, since I don't want to come across stalkerish LOL.

Do it, R580. If he's on Grindr he wants it!

With only last 4 to go

Della Monica/Guarise 72.53

Peng/Jin 71.98

Asthakova/Rogonov 71.62

Marchei/Hotarek 71.37

Yu/Zhang 71.31

Marinaro/Moore Towers 70.49

Knierim/Knierim 69.55

Ryom/Kim 66.32

Duskova/Bidar 66.29

Ziegler/Kiefer 65.21

Alexandrowskaya/Windsor 65.02

Hocke/Blommaert 63.26

Stellato/Bartholomay are the first out.

The 2 Italians pairs have the highest PCS so far.

No point in doing the 3A in the short if you're going to blow it. Mirai's better off giving it a shot in the long.

The Italians are being completely shameless on the judging. Top PCS in pairs. Really?

R581, could be somewhat awkward if I'm not his type.. And maybe he doesn't want skating fans to oogle him on Grindr... but then, I mean, he does put himself out there., so....

Thank you R555.

R584 doesn't he list what his type is? And you won't know unless you try it... all that's going to happen if he's not interested is that he won't respond. And if he doesn't... just caress your ego by saying he probably had too many messages to even see yours.

And who said you had to tell him you were a skating fan? A hook up requires no more than a 5 word exchange.

Link to new thread for when this maxes out.

If things stand, Italy would get 3 spots...and they only have 3 pairs at Nationals. Actually if Marchei/Hotarek retire, they won't have a third pair...

Agreed with R586. Just do it! If you find him cute, you have nothing to lose.

Also, if it's Hotarek, feel free to share pics.

R586, I put it in my profile that I am in town for Worlds. I don't know if I should mention being a skating fan.

And no , it's not Hotarek...

R590 then just delete the part about being at Worlds.

Tarasova/Morozov 81.29

I guess R592. I'm definitely not the assertive type when it comes to hitting on people on grindr AT ALL.

R594 you don't need to do anything other than send a message that says, "Hey."

Message him "you were robbed by judge number 3"

Aljona saved the throw jump

SBS done by Bruno.

They will take the lead

82.98

R594, I just did.

Zabjako/Enbert are really zzzzzzz

let's move in the other thread to discover if the cute skater is a slutty or not

Thread Closed.

Link to new thread below.