the real housewives of figure skating ⛸ (drama + grace)

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This is one of my big criticisms of the shift in the scoring to IJS scoring. While 6.0 system was a hot mess express, it put equal weight on presentation (music intepretation, costume, connecting steps). IJS made the programs far more technically difficult and pushed the sport in positive ways, but there were some side effects that suck.

The new scoring system means that you can get a very high Program Components Score (the equivalent of Presentation under 6.0) by essentially jamming lots of skills into your connecting steps. That’s why you see so many people doing twizzles (long spins across the ice), lots of rocker-chocktaws (a type of turn), etc - each one helps up their points. Whether or not it actually is a BETTER performance is less important than how many times your step changes direction. There’s a lot of points-jamming in choreography these days (you pretty much need to do lots of math all day to choreograph a program now) and a lot of the muscality is lost.

The drama of the 2018 Winter Ladies was that Evgenia Medvedeva (called Zhenya) lost gold by 1.31 points, which were only awarded because the winning lady Alina Zagitova put ALL her jumps in the second half of her program which gave her a slight bonus point edge. It makes programs awfully weird to watch. Zhenya’s interpretation was worlds ahead of Evgenia and under 6.0 system, she would’ve actually won because the presentation score was meant to be used as a tiebreaker. After that olympics, they actually changed the IJS rules and made a rule called the “Alina rule” where you can’t just NOT jump in the first half of the program. She wouldn’t have won now that the rule change is in place because she would’ve gotten a penalty for cramming them all in.

The one that probably should’ve won, which was a spectacular musical performance

The gold medal winning skate with 8 jumps crammed into the last 2 minutes of the program

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I thought all the jumps at the end worked with the music! And I liked her music a lot better, but Evgenia was definitely more expressive with her face and upper body angles. Although I think her musicality on some parts was a bit rushed, especially when the tempo changed. Alina’s pacing felt more consistent to me, like she was more naturally musical in that way, but her upper body was less dynamic and her face was glazed donut off and on. I loved both when I saw them the first time and still do! I can’t help but love the Russians, lol.

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I love the Olympics! I kind of miss ABC’s Wide World of Sport because they covered a lot of different sports and you would see some coverage leading up to Olympics. Now it is just basketball, football (American), some X Games stuff, golf, baseball (aka BORING).

I have watched so much great ice skating over the decades (Torvill & Dean’s ice dance to Bolero still gives me chills even though the technical difficulty is probably low by today’s standard)

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So excited that you started this thread @anomalily !

We can’t not talk about Kamila Valieva. Here she is at the Russian test skates at the beginning of the season (around 2:05 mark), her big jumps looking shaky:

And then at the Russian nationals at the end of December 2021:

Looking so solid and effortless, plus such presentation. I can watch that performance over & over; she’s demonically good. I love it when technical content and artistry come together like that. At 15, she’s noticeably bulked up a bit this season & she’s now capable of pulling off what her younger, lighter, but less strong body couldn’t.

She’s beating even the other Russian ladies by ~40 points. If she skates like that at the Olympics, she’s totally untouchable. As long as she doesn’t have to withdraw due to covid.

I love all the Russian ladies, too. Their style is so big and dramatic, and they really go for it, all of them. I also really love Trusova’s Cruella routine; hope she can stay relatively uninjured for the Olympics.

I think that 15-year-old ladies winning at the Olympics isn’t anything new: Tara Lipinski, Sarah Hughes, Oksana Baiul. With the technical content needed these days to win, it makes sense that people can’t continue to skate at that level for very long. Alysa Liu won the US nationals twice at the ages of 13 (2019) and 14 (2020) but lost a lot of her skating skills when she underwent a growth spurt. She’s since regained her triple axel, but she used to be able to land quads & compete with the Russian ladies in juniors, and I don’t see her trying to do that now. At the US nationals this year, the only skater in the top group with great triple-triples in both programs was 14-year-old Isbeau Levito (after Alysa Liu withdraw due to covid of course).

I also loved Yuzuru Hanyu’s performances at Japanese Nationals this year. And I love Nathan Chen’s Peter Pan performance as a 10-year-old:

My 6yo kid is only a couple inches smaller than he was in that video.

The skater I think of when it comes to great quads but lacking in presentation and artistry is the American Skater Timothy Goebel in the early 2000s. His arms were so wooden!

Also, Jason Brown finally landing a fully rotated quad in competition this year at the age of 26?

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I have trained the shadowy one well - they overheard Plushenko’s name while I was watching the video and said something to the effect of, ‘wasn’t he the mop head, and the other one was better?’ (Team Yagudin)

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I absolutely agree with this, the criticisms of Tutbedridze’s coaching is that her skaters end up broken at 17, not just not competitive. The injuries (and making skaters do things like train on broken legs) is what’s an issue.

Agreeeeeddd.

DUDE IS 28 YEARS OLD AND ATTEMPTED A QUAD AXEL (and landed it, although under-rotated). A QUAD AXEL. HOW?!! Also his step sequences are DREAMY

I hope the Japanese Federation throws support behind him now, it seems like they were already moving towards the younger skaters.

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OMG when we were in Japan, we ended up watching Plushenko with his son on Japanese TV doing some sort of wild reality supermarket-sweep style game show? It was great because we had no idea what was going on, not speaking japanese.

Plushenko’s show routines though are fantastic in my opinion. I love that Russia does way more shows and TV competitions than the US - they have more fun stuff.

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And, Tutbedridze is unable to train young boys because she “breaks them”? Is that true? As if young girls are more able to tolerate training on broken legs than boys?

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oh! I dunno! Did she say that (there’s been so much drama I couldn’t remember).

I’m wondering if it has to do with the younger puberty for the women vs the men’s? :thinking:

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Yeah, that was towards the beginning of the video you posted (thanks!) & really stood out to me.

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we are currently going back to old original Japanese Ninja Warrior episodes. I was very surprised when the Hamm brothers showed up (gymnastics), and that I remembered their names.

I feel like the shows and TV specials were more common in North America in the 90s. But maybe that is just when I was following most closely.

I am happy Mariah Bell did so well at the nationals. I guess I like when the ones who persist end up having it come out well for them. I am sad it didn’t work out for Tuktamysheva.

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Wow I teared up watching Mariah’s performance…she is so…fluid? Is that the right word? I don’t know but it was just gorgeous, she’s definitely talented and the choreography went with the music perfectly. Also I loved her costume, so simple and elegant

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Sammmme.

Gracie Gold coming back in the short, after everything she’s been through <3 <3

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When Tara Lipinski called Mariah Bell a carebear :joy:. The American announcers are so extra; I love them.

Hey, the US mens’ short is on right now.

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Hey look here is footage of me at Junior nationals in the year 2000 filmed on a potato. This is prior to me shaving my head and my pairs partner growing like 18 inches

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no i will not be sharing the unlisted video. And you won’t find it by searching because I changed my name since then :joy:

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OMG, the US men are sooo good! Question: how is a skater like Jason Brown competitive without a quad, when the other top US men have TWO quads in their short programs, and several others are also delivering great quads & overall programs? Is Jason Brown just changing direction very fast to rack up the points? I’m sort of a casual skating fan & can’t actually tell the difference between, say, a Salchow and a loop. I mean, I can look up the differences in edge jumps etc, but without any experience in the sport myself, I feel like I’m never really going to “get it.” I do like his Nina Simone routine much better than Riverdance.

Tara Lipinski called Ilia Malinin Robin to Nathan Chen’s Batman :joy:

You both look so cute @anomalily !

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I’ll have to look up his IJS scores, but generally Jason is extremely athletic, has fantastic presentation scores and has great technical skills. His form for his jumps is better than Nathan’s, or Vincent’s. So - you do a fantastic quad but get a low Grade of Execution because it’s underrotated or poor form (essentially how well you DO the jump) vs Jason doing a triple axel-triple loop (the highest base value of the triple triples) with a higher GOE, one outscores the other.

Also… it’s a judged sport and Jason has been put in SO MANY promotional videos. But I think there’s a possibility they send a bunch of the quad boys to Beijing.

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OMG this is the thread I didn’t know I needed!

If anybody wants to go retro and watch the Tonya Harding movie together on line, I’m in (though I do not have the tech skills to set it up). I really wanted to chat about that after I saw it in the theater…

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And the spins! He is the king of spins. That shot from above was so cool…

Thank you for posting the no commentary version. I’m glad that was the way I first saw this. [runs off to Youtube to find all the other no commentary skating videos…]

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I couldn’t stand Zagitova – felt to me like she was just flailing around for the first minute. She doesn’t hold her arms or legs in any position for more than a second. Felt sloppy to me.

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