Lyyli

I remember her performance but was wondering is there another piece or some other connections that I have not heard about.

I ´d like to know which pieces you mean that are somehow connected to Finland or Helsinki and in what way? Is he using something else too, not only music of Edvin Marton and Raul di Blasio? I have so far seen only their pieces mentioned as Yuzu´s choices.

Imo ID is a sport as well as other FS disciplines because ISU has developed a sport discipline form of it. I see it as a sport. Instead of jumps, lifts etc ID just has it´s own demanding elements, rules and requirements different from the other FS disciplines. The difficulties in judging concern all disciplines in FS more or less. This discussion brought to my mind a recent interview of Mikhail Kolyada whit a title: “Ideally, we all should strive to be like the ice dancers”. He thinks single skaters have a lot to learn from ice dancers. https://www.isu.org/figure-skating/figure-skating-news/interviews/11861-mikhail-kolyada?templateParam=15 . Single skaters are not automatically good ice dancers when they change to ID. I also remembered Tracy talking about this question in TSL interview a couple of years ago. She said it was finally Thorvill and Dean that made ID accepted as a sport. (In YT beginning around 12:35-) I have not heard that the ballet community has ever tried to develop ballet to be a sport discipline in the same way as ID community though there are some ballet competitions. I guess they could take it further towards sport, organize Worlds, Europeans etc but is there any will to do it, I don´t know. In Ballroom dancing there are Worlds, Europeans etc but I am not aware have they ever applied for the Olympics. They could for sure. Synchronized Skating has applied a couple of times but has not been accepted. They had high hopes for Peking but were turned down again. The IOC said that one reason for the denial is that there are not yet enough Syncro teams all over the world. And finally: Kolyada´s words about ID: "Figure skating is such a smooth sport, everything should look like a knife cutting through butter. You need to strive for being like the dancers. They are flying over the ice. Ideally we all should strive to be like they are. I watch the ice dancers, how they are doing all this, so softly how they stretch their legs and arms and it is all beautiful."

Extremely sad for Denis

Daisuke like any other once retired skater has the full right to try to make a comeback even to the highest international level. No matter his age or how he might change the men´s field in Japan. He will start from the beginning, competes first at regional competitions and tries to qualify for Japan Nats. For me it is far too early and unfair to talk about him getting scores by reputation at this point. I´ll see when he has competed and his scores are out. I think this is a brave decision from him. He knows it is not easy to reach the top and still he wants to get back competing at least for a year for personal reasons. What comes to this Anti-discussion, it is really confusing. Each skater has their own Antis, also Dai and Shoma.

In the press release Finnish Fed said also that during the years they have repeatedly expressed their will to host a GP event if some other Fed refused for some reason. I´ve heard about this before. I believe they would have accepted to host the event even without Yuzu but on the other hand they might have invited him if they were given a chance to do so within one week. And not only for the ticket sale, but because of him and his history in Finland. This will be his fourth competition here.

Finnish Fed said in their press release that ISU asked about their will to host the GP event only a week ago, after Korea refused. So I guess Helsinki got pretty much the skaters that were originally assigned to CoC. Boyang and Sui/Han are coming to Helsinki too. What come to Yuzu I wonder will he and his team try to search for a training base in Finland or Russia for the short time between the two competitions. Otherwise he would have to travel very much. The venue is unfortunately a lot smaller than at the Worlds2017. In Helsinki Ice Hall there are about 8200 seats. Hartwall Arena was not available for those days. As Helsinki is my hometown I am of course very happy about this decision!!!

UP6 was at least about restricting presidents of FSAs from working as judges, technical controllers etc so this means there will be no change on that.

The music for Shoma´s EX by Shae-Lynn is wild trance-music! No wonder he was out of breath after RT. New genre for him once again. Imo Mihoko has always made wise music choices for him. Shoma has had the chance to do many types of music in his career. He got lots of criticism because of last season´s music but considering his whole career for me they are understandable.

David Wilson working with Shoma, Yuna and Javi. What a group!

Jeff choreographed also the two latest free programs for Kaetlyn, Black Swan and La Boheme.

https://skatecanada.ca/2018/04/olympic-medallist-dylan-moscovitch-retiring-from-competitive-skating/

Altie, I remembered that Florant Amodio has also started coaching in France. I heard about it when a Finnish skater Sofia Sula started to work with him. I´ve seen him at some competitions too. Olivier Schoenfelder also coaches in France but Fabian Bourzat works with Igor Shpilband in US. Those names came to my mind now. I also read about Bruno´s struggles and his financial problems recently but already seeing his heartbreaking reaction after the final results came out in PC I realized that his journey to Olympic Gold has been extremely hard. Happy that he will be surely be better from now on. Don´t know how much is the reward for the Olys and Worlds champions and medalists in Germany but usually they are notable amounts of money and he will get them for sure. I heard recently also about some costs of FS for parents. Two synchronized skating coaches were here on TV lately. Both of them have daughters who skate in teams. The other one told that she pays for her own daughter´s skating in top level about 1000 euros a month. The other one said that she pays for her three little girls altogether about 800 a month.

Is there any thread where I could try to post a message to a lady whom I met at Helsinki Worlds twice and also noticed her yesterday in the audience of TE pairs at Olys. We talked a lot when we sat side by side at Yuzu´s first OP. She was a Yuzu fan so I believe she could be a member of this site. Many thanks all of you who work here and keep up this site!!!

Jun Hwan has gone back to last season´s FS? He´s skating there to Il Postino, not the Planets.

I looked at ISU site. There are international competitions both in Bucharest and in Abu Dhabi January 4th-7th senior men included but they are not suitable for some reason?

Javi commented the quad race in ISU interview: Q: What is your advice to the next generation of figure skaters? J: The problem with athletes is that they always want to be the best and when you want to be the best you will try whatever to be the best. So I don’t think it even takes in the skaters, I think it takes more in the rules. Skating has changed so much in a little time that, at some point, there are going to have to be new rules until you can see that there aren’t going to be triples anymore, I don’t know. I leave that to the smart people to decide how is the best way to change that. We hear every day, you see a competition and everybody is falling around because everyone is trying to push to the limits. Maybe I don’t do as many quads as Shoma (Uno) or as Yuzu (Hanyu) or as Boyang (Jin) or Nathan (Chen) but I am trying to push my skating to the limit then my quads are going to be harder to do. That’s the big question: is it going to be the skaters that realize it or does the ISU need to make a rule that says only three quads in the free program? Now that’s going to be the real fight where the best skater, the best jumper, the best spinner, the best everything is going to be, even if all programs are clean, one of them is going to be the champion because he is the best at everything. That will be one thing. I don’t know – it’s hard to know. I say it as a skater, but there are so many things involved that we probably don’t even know, but we will see.

Certainly there are more difficult and valuable steps than crossovers but JW was only pointing out that crossovers are not automatically invaluable. Don´t know what the rules say whether they fall to SS or TR. I believe they have effect on both the scores. I never count the amount of crossovers but just look at them in the whole picture of the performance. Agree with you about the transitions of the two ladies. Arguing about judging in FS seems to be a never ending story. I find it sometimes very confusing. How often the judges make mistakes and how much there is politicking I don´t know. In general they are after all educated people and ISU should control their work. As IJS handbooks are not easy to study at least for me and the rules can be complicated I don´t think that I always understand them properly.

About crossovers: I think it was a good thing that JW mentioned them as fans discuss about them very often. They are generally seen as invaluable steps which they are not necessarily in each case. Maybe because in earlier days there used to be very many crossovers in the programs. I think in addition to their quality the judges evaluate them also in the context of the entire program. If they stand out and disturb the program they have negative influence on the scores. But if they fit the music and the choreo, if there are turns, glides etc between them and some body movements included they are fine. I think crossovers in the right places make programs airy and breathing, not too fully packed. What comes to Carolina´s PCS. In my eyes she is an exceptionally polished skater. So is Kaetlyn and Satoko (anyone else, not sure now) At least these three ladies stand out from the rest for me. Their posture, body carriage, positions, lines and extensions are completed and done to the fullest. For example I always admire Kaetlyn´s arms, how she controls them through the performance. And also I see a slight difference in their edges compared to many other skaters. But that is only my personal opinion of course.

Thanks a lot for a long post. Mine was very short as usually, I should have explained more at first. I was thinking there only about FS issues and the effects of the quads on the men and the boys involved in FS or considering FS, not comparing FS to the other sports. They certainly have their issues and challenges as well. Not all are the same what comes to the safety of the athletes. Apparently the quad pressure is very strong at the moment in men´s discipline. Don´t know really what the skaters think about it. They just seem to try to keep up with the race. If they are ok with the multiple quads in LP, that is how it should be then. But if they are not? Maybe the upcoming rule change will make a difference for the best of them, one jump less in LP, -5+5 GOE or whatever the changes will be. I think limiting the number of quads in LP would at least ease the pressure at the competitions and the pressure of putting more of them to the program year by year. Don´t they already master the triples and triple-combos quite well in general. And with more triples they would be able to do more difficult transitions and add more artistry in their programs. I haven´t seen any statistics but I believe most of the injuries in senior singles are jump-related, in hips, knees, ankles and lisfrancs, in ligaments and joints after all. Injuries can of course appear in simple moves too but that is not the case there in men´s field. To learn the right jump technique skaters need to jump first and do lots of repeats, right? Didn´t Yuzu do at the most 60 4sals a day while learning it. Lots of falls and bad landings that can cause an injury before the jump is ready enough. So as top talented skaters with top tech jump coaching get often injured, what kind of prospects of future do FS boys have. What are their chances to avoid serious injuries and stay healthy enough in quad era. How are they able to handle the hard jump training mentally. I hope this is only a question of wise training and coaching. Maybe there will be at least some junior male skaters with ambitious mindset who really want the quads and are ready to deal with injuries and pain. And ISU as well as all the other sport federations taking safety issues seriously.

Don´t know if there is any slightest point in my thoughts but I wouldn´t mind if the number of quads was limited to 2-3 in LP at least for a couple of years. Not only for what happened to Yuzuru yesterday and to Javi and Patrick earlier. Maybe there is no need for that if skaters really enjoy doing 5 quads or more, want to challenge themselves, learn them all, but for me that is just inhuman and hard to believe. Are the quads also too crucial in scoring, do they cause too much pressure and injuries? Do they in general diminish the value of artistry? Could it also be that less and less boys choose FS because of the higher difficulty level and because chances to get on top are more and more only for those few who are able to get top coaching from their early childhood and who are ready and able to train hard and long hours from very young age?