Karenna
|
1#
|
Rank:none
Score:300
Posts:300
Registered:22/03/2006
Time spent: 644 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:13/01/2008 19:55:00)
Finally some skating to watch on tv!!! Thanks for the notice Lina! It just seems lately that Canadian broadcasting has forgotten about a sport so many of us care about. I hate to complain but we have completely missed coverage of the competitions abroad. I think I've said this before but I cannot believe how much they push poker tournaments and curling on our sports channels lately. I may be Canadian by birth but I'd sooner watch paint dry than sit through three hours of two women's curling teams screaming at each other to "sweep harder".....ewwww! Karenna
(Message edited by Karenna On 13/01/2008 19:55:50)
--------------------------------------------------------------
I follow your lead and teach the young to aspire.
|
| Support us |
Create free forum and click the links below and your donations will make a difference here. |
 |
www.dinodirect.com
Online Huge Store for Various Cool Gadgets, Nintendo Wii Controller, iPod Charger, iPhone Cases, BlackBerry Cases, Laptop Accessories, Rechargeable Battery, LED Tactical Flashlight, iPod Earphones, iPhone Charger, Wii Controller, iPod Cables, Video Players, Music Players, Car Accessories, Cell Phone Accessories, Video Games Accessories and Hobby Gadgets.
If you use the code "DDLIFE", all orders will get 10% discount plus worldwide free shipping!
|
|
Guest
|
|
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:15/01/2008 14:37:26)
LOL! Karenna..i think the same about curling. Back to figure skating: Hope Weir will win the US championship. Sorry..it seems is more easy to not login :P ~whisper~
|
|
Karenna
|
3#
|
Rank:none
Score:300
Posts:300
Registered:22/03/2006
Time spent: 644 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:15/01/2008 19:34:28)
I hope Johnny Weir wins as well Adelina  ....as long as they don't show a fluff piece with Johnny curling I'll be fine... . Karenna
(Message edited by Karenna On 16/01/2008 10:05:29)
--------------------------------------------------------------
I follow your lead and teach the young to aspire.
|
|
Dodhiyel
|
4#
|
Rank:none
Score:187
Posts:187
Registered:09/04/2007
Time spent: 0 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:15/01/2008 21:03:41)
I'm a Johnny Weir fan also :). Now I have this strange picture in my head of Johnny with a broom.....lol Lina :)
--------------------------------------------------------------
"A human can fight in any situation."
|
|
Karenna
|
5#
|
Rank:none
Score:300
Posts:300
Registered:22/03/2006
Time spent: 644 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:16/01/2008 22:01:18)
It worked for the boys in Stars On Ice! Johnny could really "clean up" in the medal department...
.....stop me before I make any more jokes!
Karenna
--------------------------------------------------------------
I follow your lead and teach the young to aspire.
|
|
Blue Bead
|
6#
|
Rank:none
Score:79
Posts:79
Registered:16/04/2007
Time spent: 0 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:26/01/2008 16:01:41)
The Pairs Free Skate just had a somewhat unusual ending, LOL. John Baldwin just proposed to Rena Inoe on the ice, on live TV, at the very end of their program, before they exited to the K & C. Rena said, "yes," but at the same time seemed somewhat shocked that he done that.  This was certainly different, LOL. Mary C.
|
|
Karenna
|
7#
|
Rank:none
Score:300
Posts:300
Registered:22/03/2006
Time spent: 644 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:26/01/2008 17:10:08)
Now that is something you don't get to see on televised figure skating events everyday. I hope that they show a clip of this again tonight. I missed this afternoon's coverage but I'm ready to settle in for an entire evening of US Nationals.....
Karenna
--------------------------------------------------------------
I follow your lead and teach the young to aspire.
|
|
Blue Bead
|
8#
|
Rank:none
Score:79
Posts:79
Registered:16/04/2007
Time spent: 0 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:26/01/2008 17:25:40)
I would imagine NBC will showa re-airing of the B/I proposal during this evening's broadcast; the event was too unusal for them not to, LOL.
It's been fun today getting the opportunity to see this much skating on a regular broadcast channel. I hope it bodes good for future figure skating this way as opposed to what is still available through cable and satellite.
Mary C.
|
|
Karenna
|
9#
|
Rank:none
Score:300
Posts:300
Registered:22/03/2006
Time spent: 644 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:27/01/2008 19:59:31)
Just taking a "vent" break from the competition - Johnny Weir and Lysacek virtually tied! Lysacek won the FP - so takes the Gold medal. I can see where Lyacek picked up points on the straight line footwork over Johnny but Lysacek's choreography was lacking in MHO in comparison with Weir's. But then again when I listen to Tosca I think of Alexei's performance and compare everyone else to this......
Karenna
--------------------------------------------------------------
I follow your lead and teach the young to aspire.
|
|
Dodhiyel
|
10#
|
Rank:none
Score:187
Posts:187
Registered:09/04/2007
Time spent: 0 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:27/01/2008 20:17:44)
I am so proud of Johnny I could bust!!! He was wonderful, and he attempted the quad in competition for the first time. I am utterly proud of him! Lina
--------------------------------------------------------------
"A human can fight in any situation."
|
|
Blue Bead
|
11#
|
Rank:none
Score:79
Posts:79
Registered:16/04/2007
Time spent: 0 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:27/01/2008 21:37:20)
WOW!! what a competition! Who would ever have guess it would end in a tie!!!! Talk about a plot twist, LOL. All that being said...I cannot see how Evan got the gold medal.  what with all those wobbles and bobbles on landing his jumps. Give me a break! While I'm no huge fan of Johnny's I'm not waving any flags for Evan either, lol. Johnny's jumps, for the most part, and execution were better than Evan's. Johnny's edges are better, he lands smooth, quiet jumps. It was very evident that Evan was attacking his jumps; they were very in-your-face but sloppy on the landings. He had to fight for every one of them and, in comparison to Johnny's secure landings, I cannot comprehend how Evan could get bonus points for what he put out there on the ice--that gave him enough points to win the FS. In contrast Johnny's jumps and landings were effortless; he took off, sailed through the air with the required revolutions, and landed into deep knees on secure edges. Evan's edges weren't secure. Every one of Johnny's elements were finished to the "nth' degree--right down to the finesse in his arms, fingertips, and pointed toes; his movements were flowing. Evan's arms reminded me of Plushenko's "windmill style", lol, which I couldn't stand then and I can stand even less with Evan doing it now. I found the expressions on each of their faces was interesting when the TV cameras did the tight, closeups the very second that each skater finished his program. Johnny burst into tears, relieved that the whole thing was over and satisfied with his performance. Evan, on the other hand, wore an expression of gritted teeth and intense eyes. For a few seconds I thought he looked as if he could have bitten through and ripped out the throat of a pitbull dog, LOL. That's taking method acting a bit to far, LOL, and especially on such an unusual stage, LOL. Looked like a scene straight out of "Blades of Glory." LOL I have to hand it to Johnny---I can only imagine what must have been going through his mind, sitting in the K & C, wondering what the hold up was with the posting of his score, and only to find out it was a dead tie with Evan! Then, that sinking feeling when he realized that Evan had actually won the National title (again) and not him. At that point I just wanted to hug him. Poor guy! What impressed me was how quickly he shifted mentally from wanting to cry in frustration and, instead, sucked up his bottomless disappointment, and faced the waiting media in a calm, collected manner. He ought to get a gold medal for that alone! On a different note, it's drama such as this that could draw those used-to-be fans back to figure skating. There was as much emotion and nail-biting today as in any good movie, LOL. Mary C.
|
|
Karenna
|
12#
|
Rank:none
Score:300
Posts:300
Registered:22/03/2006
Time spent: 644 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:27/01/2008 22:14:11)
Lina, I think I'm catching your excitement - I'm becoming a big fan of Johnny's!....watching Lysacek I was simply unimpressed - if he was trying to convey the romanticism of Tosca (as it should be) I didn't witness this. Mary - you're spot on - Johnny's edges are sound and the landing on his jumps textbook perfect in most instances. If he could build up the footwork in his FP it would be a World Champion medal program. Did I hear correctly? Johnny actually composed the music to his long program???
Karenna
--------------------------------------------------------------
I follow your lead and teach the young to aspire.
|
|
Blue Bead
|
13#
|
Rank:none
Score:79
Posts:79
Registered:16/04/2007
Time spent: 0 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:28/01/2008 12:12:16)
There's one thing that Johnny is not doing that he should be. He's not taking into account the points values of the jumps he's making. CoP is a whole different "animal" than the 6.0 system was, lol, and inserting elements with higher points doesn't seem to be something he's wont to do; he's still stuck using elements for beauty and grace as opposed to using elements, jumps in particular, for accruing quantities of points, especially after the half-way point in the program. This is where Evan excelled over Johnny in the FS. A poster at FSU did a complete breakdown of the base values of all the elements between the programs of the two skaters. See it here: http://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/showthread.php?t=56244&page=22 ,scroll down to "lanna"s post with the entire numeric documentation for skaters' programs. What Evan had going for him was the base value of the jumps after the halfway point in his program. They were harder jumps with more difficult entrances to them. Those entrances gained him GOE points. Clearly Johnny didn't use that same kind of advantage and went for artistry. Unfortunately, artistry doesn't accrue the kinds of points it takes to win out over a rival skater in this level of competition. When I was studying the data in lanna's post at FSU I noticed that just the first two jumping combinations of Evan had slightly more in combined points values than all of the jumps in Johnny's program after the halfway point! Evan had two combinations after the halfway point where Johnny only had the one combination. If Johnny is to seriously have a fighting chance to win at World's, he'll have to re-strategize on what jumps and/or combinations to position after that halfway point because it's clear that his jump elements after that point were not beefy enough to stand up to what Evan chose to do, even though Evan had less than secure landings for those jumps. Had Johnny positioned his combinations as Evan did, there's no doubt that Johnny would have regained his National's title, given that his clean edges and landings would have easily racked up GOE points. Johnny could also benefit with harder entrances to his jumps. The bottom line is that Johnny and, possibly his coach, isn't taking all the points values into consideration that they can accrue, and that cost Johnny dearly in this battle between he and Evan for the National's title. Mary C.
|
|
Dodhiyel
|
14#
|
Rank:none
Score:187
Posts:187
Registered:09/04/2007
Time spent: 0 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:28/01/2008 18:38:11)
"Did I hear correctly? Johnny actually composed the music to his long program???".
Sometimes the announcers get things mixed up, Karenna. The music for Johnny's long program was composed by Yoav Goren. I think it was either composed for Johnny or the composer made a special arrangement for him; I'm afraid I do not remember which, but Johnny did not compose that music himself.
Thanks for your posts, Mary. You said a lot of things that needed saying. What I dislike about CoP/IJS is what it does to Men's singles programs. The fact that a messy performance like Evan's gets the national championship, makes the title meaningless to me. If CoP supports the judges' opinion, then CoP needs more fine-tuning. I understand that Johnny's program can be tweaked to be more CoP-friendly, but, in my opinion, the ISU rules system simply should not be constructed in such a way as to allow a sloppy performance to be the triumphant one. I think that "Grade of Execution" should count in a more meaningful way.
Lina
--------------------------------------------------------------
"A human can fight in any situation."
|
|
Blue Bead
|
15#
|
Rank:none
Score:79
Posts:79
Registered:16/04/2007
Time spent: 0 hours
|
Reply To Dodhiyel
(Date Posted:28/01/2008 21:28:10)
"Did I hear correctly? Johnny actually composed the music to his long program???".
Sometimes the announcers get things mixed up, Karenna. The music for Johnny's long program was composed by Yoav Goren. I think it was either composed for Johnny or the composer made a special arrangement for him; I'm afraid I do not remember which, but Johnny did not compose that music himself.
Thanks for your posts, Mary. You said a lot of things that needed saying. What I dislike about CoP/IJS is what it does to Men's singles programs. The fact that a messy performance like Evan's gets the national championship, makes the title meaningless to me. If CoP supports the judges' opinion, then CoP needs more fine-tuning. I understand that Johnny's program can be tweaked to be more CoP-friendly, but, in my opinion, the ISU rules system simply should not be constructed in such a way as to allow a sloppy performance to be the triumphant one. I think that "Grade of Execution" should count in a more meaningful way.
Lina |
Lina....I could not agree more with your statement that the CoP should not allow sloppy performances like Evan's to be medal-worthy. He made too many shaky landings to have gotten the GOE's that he did, which makes me wonder what the dickens was going through those judges' minds, LOL. He should have been dinged a whole lot more for those less-than-secure landings. What irks me is that the judges put the screws to the skaters in the ladies' singles competition, yet they didn't apply that same level of criteria to the men's competition. What gives with that?! They picked the ladies apart but when the men's singles competition was underway, the judges seemed to have "forgotten" how to pick apart the elements of the mens' programs. If one is to have a fair competition the same criteria must be applied to both singles' divisions. If the judges had applied the criteria levels the same across the board, I doubt that Evan would have skated away with the men's National title. Mary C.
|
|
Karenna
|
16#
|
Rank:none
Score:300
Posts:300
Registered:22/03/2006
Time spent: 644 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:28/01/2008 21:46:05)
Thanks for clearing that up Lina - Dick Button et al. had me almost convinced that Johnny had indeed composed the music himself. I really did not think it was likely that two contestants could end up in a dead heat under the COPs system. The creators of the new judging system evidently put much thought into the award of points based on element, degree of difficulty, etc. but I still find it lacking in respect to the evaluation of artistry. To be honest I don't think that any judging system, the old or the new, adequately evaluates this component because it is highly subjective. I guess that is why I am so disappointed in the outcome. I believe that Johnny's presentation overall was superior to Lysacek's. I very much wanted to understand the motivation behind each movement within his LP. I can truly say that I did not experience the same level of involvement with Lysacek's Tosca.
Karenna
--------------------------------------------------------------
I follow your lead and teach the young to aspire.
|
| Support us |
Just click the links below and your donations will make a difference here. |
|
|
|
Karenna
|
17#
|
Rank:none
Score:300
Posts:300
Registered:22/03/2006
Time spent: 644 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:03/02/2008 11:36:20)
--------------------------------------------------------------
I follow your lead and teach the young to aspire.
|
|
Blue Bead
|
18#
|
Rank:none
Score:79
Posts:79
Registered:16/04/2007
Time spent: 0 hours
|
RE:U.S. NATIONALS 2008
(Date Posted:03/02/2008 13:14:47)
Thanks, Karenna, for posting the link to this latest Phil Hersh article. I read the earlier one last week in which he brought this rounding problem to light. Originally, he was notified of the existence of the issue by a poster at Skate Fans, and he thought the issue was screwy enough to investigate it further with the USFSA. The current article is apparently the result of that work.
If nothing else, that the skating fans have a media outlet (a.k.a. Phil Hersh) to entice to investigation of these concerns, should be a heads-up to the powers-that-be at USFSA. Essentially that the fans won't put up with the nonsense and collusion anymore which has permeated eligible figure skating for decades.
I completely agree with Mr. Hersh that CoP has ruined eligible competition by "slashing and burning" what was once a beautful, artistic, unique sport; these days it's as run-of-the-mill as gymnastics and downhill skiing. I suspect that the ISU's purpose in creating CoP was to re-fashion the judging of figure skating into something that is a sport in the traditional sense of the word, while hiding improprieties on the part of the judges. Well...they've accomplished that, and in addition they have royally p*ssed off the fans and some of the skaters and coaches as well.
Hersh brings up a good point regarding what all these jam-packed, rapid-fire elements in the programs are doing to the bodies of the young skaters. I suspect we'll start to see 12, 13, and 14 year olds having increased incidences of serious injury, and also older skaters with more career-ending injuries, ala Yagudin. Oh, yeah, CoP is sooo good for figure skating! (not)
Mary C.
|
|
|
