February 10, 2010 -- 10:53 a.m.LYSACEK WINS GOLD!!!!!!!!
Yes, I got all teary-eyed. I thought Johnny Weir did far better than his scores merited (I was hoping his performance would propel him up to fourth). Takahashi also did well, but not as well as I would have wished. I felt bad for Oda--only thirty seconds left and the lace breaks. His Charlie Chaplain routine wasn't as energetic as usual. Patrick Chan did better than I expected. Good for him. I have no clue how he managed to beat Weir, though. Cause Weir's skate was incredible, best of his whole career. And one fall-out on a spin wouldn't outweigh the other mistakes, you'd think. I liked his new fir-free costume too. Looking at the breakdown, he did eight triples, all of them clean, compared to six from Chan. His technical score was 6.19 points higher than Takahashi's (only .3 higher than Chan, who got a lot of grade of execution bonuses)...so Weir lost it all on the performance mark. He got a 77.1 while Chan got an 82. Which puts him .8 behind to the performance marks compared to Lysacek and Pluschenko. Takahasi got a 84.5 in performance (he did do well--although it was his short program that did it for him. He was 5th in the free skate).
Really? And Johnny got a 77.1. REALLY?
Turns out the mistake on the spin only cost him half a point, by the by. Well, it still would have taken Johnny an awful lot of ground to make up to get in medal position, I do think he should have gotten a better second mark. I just don't get it. I don't get how Patrick Chan's mark was so high, comparitively. Though I could really see the potential in him--I liked last night's skate better than anything I've seen from him in the last little while. But not that much.
Bottom line--there must be something about this system that I don't get. (I'm not the only one--ask Pluschenko and his coach...)
I was surprised Lysacek and Pluschenko got the same performance marks, because I thought Lysacek had far more involved choreography, and Pluschenko definitely had the better jumps. Lambiel did fabulously...only .5 away from the bronze, so that's really good for another returned retiree. Pluschenko and his coach are upset, throwing fits at the judges, and some people are saying that the new system turns figure skating into ballet.
Elvis Stojko, for example. Though you could call him biased, since he was definitely always better on the jumps than the artistry. (He thought Daisuke should have been second, Lysacek third, too. Which is right out.)
I think they do have a point. The quad is undervalued, so it discourages skaters from taking the risk. However, that's the way the system does it. Don't blame Lysacek, blame a scoring system that rewards people who act conservatively. Then again, if Pluschenko would have put even one more of those fabulous jumps at the end of the program, he probably could have clinched it. I was so sure Pluschenko was going to win. But his front-loaded program really does annoy me. I feel like it's almost flipping off the judges--("yeah, all I need is my jumps so I'll just give a token salute to the artistry in the second half, and it's going to be sloppy").
Ice dancing starts tonight, and if there's any justice, the gold will also go to an American team (hopefully it'll go 1-2). However, I've seen a couple of news posts saying that the new scoring sytstem hasn't reformed ice dancing because it's still so subjective. So it's quite possible it'll go to the Russian world champions. Or the Russians because they're good, no seniority/favoritism involved. I wasn't all that impressed with them at Europeans. There's something that strikes me as wrong when you can come in at the end of a season yet score better than Belbin/Augusto (though of course, B&A weren't there, so it may have just been a happy-go-lucky judging panel).
Anyway, if you look at scores alone, it'll be the Canadians who'll win. They posted an incredible 204.38 at their own national tournament. Which...I'll put down to it being the national tournament. My picks would be: #1 Davis/White, #2 Belbin/Augusto, #3 Moir/Virtue. Though of course, this won't actually happen because having no Russian pairs on the platform will make the whole skating world faint. So the Russians will probably end in second, and Belbin/Augusto probably fourth, just because giving two medals to the Americans in ice dancing isn't allowed.
Okay, so I'm cynical when it comes to judging. How can I not be after Weir last night? Sue me. That boy skated his heart out.
Yes, I got all teary-eyed. I thought Johnny Weir did far better than his scores merited (I was hoping his performance would propel him up to fourth). Takahashi also did well, but not as well as I would have wished. I felt bad for Oda--only thirty seconds left and the lace breaks. His Charlie Chaplain routine wasn't as energetic as usual. Patrick Chan did better than I expected. Good for him. I have no clue how he managed to beat Weir, though. Cause Weir's skate was incredible, best of his whole career. And one fall-out on a spin wouldn't outweigh the other mistakes, you'd think. I liked his new fir-free costume too. Looking at the breakdown, he did eight triples, all of them clean, compared to six from Chan. His technical score was 6.19 points higher than Takahashi's (only .3 higher than Chan, who got a lot of grade of execution bonuses)...so Weir lost it all on the performance mark. He got a 77.1 while Chan got an 82. Which puts him .8 behind to the performance marks compared to Lysacek and Pluschenko. Takahasi got a 84.5 in performance (he did do well--although it was his short program that did it for him. He was 5th in the free skate).
Really? And Johnny got a 77.1. REALLY?
Turns out the mistake on the spin only cost him half a point, by the by. Well, it still would have taken Johnny an awful lot of ground to make up to get in medal position, I do think he should have gotten a better second mark. I just don't get it. I don't get how Patrick Chan's mark was so high, comparitively. Though I could really see the potential in him--I liked last night's skate better than anything I've seen from him in the last little while. But not that much.
Bottom line--there must be something about this system that I don't get. (I'm not the only one--ask Pluschenko and his coach...)
I was surprised Lysacek and Pluschenko got the same performance marks, because I thought Lysacek had far more involved choreography, and Pluschenko definitely had the better jumps. Lambiel did fabulously...only .5 away from the bronze, so that's really good for another returned retiree. Pluschenko and his coach are upset, throwing fits at the judges, and some people are saying that the new system turns figure skating into ballet.
Elvis Stojko, for example. Though you could call him biased, since he was definitely always better on the jumps than the artistry. (He thought Daisuke should have been second, Lysacek third, too. Which is right out.)
I think they do have a point. The quad is undervalued, so it discourages skaters from taking the risk. However, that's the way the system does it. Don't blame Lysacek, blame a scoring system that rewards people who act conservatively. Then again, if Pluschenko would have put even one more of those fabulous jumps at the end of the program, he probably could have clinched it. I was so sure Pluschenko was going to win. But his front-loaded program really does annoy me. I feel like it's almost flipping off the judges--("yeah, all I need is my jumps so I'll just give a token salute to the artistry in the second half, and it's going to be sloppy").
Ice dancing starts tonight, and if there's any justice, the gold will also go to an American team (hopefully it'll go 1-2). However, I've seen a couple of news posts saying that the new scoring sytstem hasn't reformed ice dancing because it's still so subjective. So it's quite possible it'll go to the Russian world champions. Or the Russians because they're good, no seniority/favoritism involved. I wasn't all that impressed with them at Europeans. There's something that strikes me as wrong when you can come in at the end of a season yet score better than Belbin/Augusto (though of course, B&A weren't there, so it may have just been a happy-go-lucky judging panel).
Anyway, if you look at scores alone, it'll be the Canadians who'll win. They posted an incredible 204.38 at their own national tournament. Which...I'll put down to it being the national tournament. My picks would be: #1 Davis/White, #2 Belbin/Augusto, #3 Moir/Virtue. Though of course, this won't actually happen because having no Russian pairs on the platform will make the whole skating world faint. So the Russians will probably end in second, and Belbin/Augusto probably fourth, just because giving two medals to the Americans in ice dancing isn't allowed.
Okay, so I'm cynical when it comes to judging. How can I not be after Weir last night? Sue me. That boy skated his heart out.
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It awesome, yet puzzling, as you have outlined. So glad my little Daisuke took the bronze.