Old Cat Lady

certainly not competitive programs. Nobody knows what's going on with his exhibition programs though the likelihood is that it's either Crystal Memories from this summer or one of his old programs

I wish they could move Thanksgiving. There are more important things going on! I'm committed to visiting relatives who don't have internet. I'll have to watch on my phone It's easy for me to say in hindsight since I wasn't following skating at the time, but looking back, Zhenya was injured and Alina was building momentum, winning everything she entered including beating Zhenya at Euros. I would have picked Alina as well. According to Plush, Yuzu can win 4 Olympics so I guess we have a lot more skating to watch, lol

So annoying to not be able to split paragraphs. Anyway... I think we're just going in circles since I simply don't agree with your logic circle. What makes a quad a more excessive health risk than, for example, a throw jump that goes half way across the rink or a lift where the lady is upside down while 8 feet in the air? I don't see why quads are crossing this line when there are much more dangerous elements that don't. In fact, the GOE system encourages factors that make elements more risky - bigger jumps create more force and are harder to land (causing more likelihood for injury), Lucinda Ruh had some sort of brain damage simply from the speed of her spins, the Biellmann has caused chronic back injuries to multiple skaters, sbs pairs spins are supposed to be done close together yet pair skaters have had brain damage due to skate blades cutting the partners head, etc., etc, etc. Should we limit jumping bigger or spinning faster - a quad is just another iteration of an elevated element. Yuzu, Shoma, Vincent, and Boyang also have spins and step sequences and triple jumps in common. I'm not saying quads don't contribute to injuries, but I don't agree that it should be singled out. As we've already discussed, in all these cases there were other contributing factors - both Boyang and Shoma have outright said that unhappiness contributed to their slumps - mental issues have hurt far more careers than quads. And in Shoma's case, there are no reported injuries this year - his decline this year doesn't indicate anything physical at all and he was still in the mix for the gold last year - he has one bad competition under immense home town pressure and a rough start while in a difficult personal situation and now we're writing him off? He could still medal at worlds and/or 4CC this year. In Boyang's case, we don't know anything other than what we can see - instability in jumps, improvement in other aspects of his skating, the combo having derailed multiple previous skaters. In Yuzu's case, he was sick at NHK and adjusting to ice conditions in Rostelecom - it isn't simply attempting a quad that caused the injury, if so, these injuries would also happen at home when he's jumping them far more often than a competition. In Vincent's case, we don't know if that knee injury had anything to do with a quad - was he even doing them while touring shows? Vincent is also reported to have a difficult home life and multiple huge life changes not to mention he also started out slowly last year. He's the reigning bronze medalists - why are we writing him off already? Sure, there were also injuries in the mix but the sad reality is that, unless an athlete is extremely lucky, injury is a natural part of a sporting career. Honestly, not seeing where we disagree I'm not saying that skaters have maxed out. Most skaters are simply not able to max out every aspect of their skating. That's why you have a variety of skills available - some are good at jumps, some are good at spins, etc. Though as I've said, I do agree that there should be more point value on other elements and more time to do them. But at the same time, the value still needs to reflect the difficulty of doing the element. It's unfairly tilted the other way if you diminish the value of difficult elements to the point that there's no reward at all for increasing difficulty. I think it's a bit unfair to use Trusova as an example of an incomplete skater due to lack of incentive to work on them- she is just coming out of juniors. I don't expect any 15 year old to be a complete skater. The Eteri girls in general do seem to work on all their elements (though not so much the basics) which is a large part of their advantage. As for Nate, it's true that he doesn't generally do transitions into his jumps, but you can see why when he does try - the jumps visibly suffer every time so he's taking more risk for less GOE. Once again, while I agree that the current system should be tweaked a bit, even just judging according to the principles behind it should shift some of the focus. The major problem, as usual, is the judging. If judges actually properly capped Nate for his small, simple jumps and deducted for his often weak landings, the GOE+PCS for an exceptionally executed 3 quad program should still beat Nate's normal 5 quad program. If there were visual examples of what should get a 9 vs. 8. vs 7 in PCS, judges could be held to a clearer standard and skaters would have a better idea of what to do and there wouldn't be the general trend of using PCS as an ordinal rather than reflecting what the skater is actually doing. That being said, I would certainly change things about the current system. Other than cutting a jump for a non-jump element, I would also change the GOE system. The increase in factored GOE for increase in difficulty - By making it a percentage, you are compounding the problem of rewarding BV for BV's sake. Maybe the only tweak needed is that you get a flat +1 per GOE level for each element no matter what (don't take that seriously, just spit balling ideas) - suddenly an exceptionally done spin can be worth as much as a poorly executed axel - the BV would reward the difference in risk/difficulty of elements while the GOE incentivizes quality. A high quality quad is still worth significantly more, but people can no longer get away with having only quads. Of course, the problem with this is that it puts even more of the outcome in the judges' hands and then we circle back to the issue above And I would agree that Yuzuru has adjusted Origin so he can better execute elements. Otoh, poor execution does detract from the overall impression of a program so it's a trade off. This is why I'm not on board with all the Aymoz love coming from this forum - his LP is Daniil-esque - a bunch of ugly transitions for the sake of having transitions that lead to poorly executed jumps, which diminishes the quality of the performance (I do like his SP and SP's more in general which is why I think cutting a jumping pass would help). Obviously the ideal is to have both complicated transitions and great execution, but as Nate and Kevin show, most skaters are not capable of doing both and I do believe that they both work on it. But once again, this is a judging issue - let Kevin have his sky high transition score, let Nate have his performance score, but then reflect the shortcomings in the other marks. Give Samarin and Trusova the 7's they deserve. However, even with a change in system, in a field that's close, skaters are going to keep maxing out their jumps unless you rescale the BV's to the point that it is ridiculously out of proportion to the difficulty, making it unfair in the other direction. Even in the current system, Nate has improved his spins and quality of his jumps and performance quality while Yuzuru is working on a greatly devalued 4 axel and also improved his performance. No, neither of them are maxed out on everything but that's almost impossible so they need to find that balance and they are working on improving. In a close race, changing the system isn't going to stop competitive skaters from pushing their limits because they need every edge, which means there will still be injuries. Plushenko and Chan could afford to stagnate because they had a cushion between them and the rest of the field - then it bit them in the ass on the big stage (and in Plushenko's case, he was practically bionic from injuires by the time he retired in spite of not pushing himself more). eta: whew, clearly I am either an obsessive compulsive nutter or I have too much time on my hands.

Looks like GS fan fest has a translation of an interview with Shoma. Some insights about his current state. Not sure if it's ok to put a link so if admins delete this, just go to page 750 of the Shoma fanfest https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/showthread.php?55427-Shoma-Uno/page750

I would agree that they should rehaul the points system to allow an extra skater but with very strict standards to get the 4th skater and the 4th skater would also have to be in the top 20 scores. I think instead of completely eliminating the possibility to go from 1 to 3, a fed could earn that 3rd spot if their entrant finishes in the top 3, but the 3rd entrant would have to be within the top 20 season's best before the next worlds The purpose of limiting the number of entrants is based on the idea that in order to grow the sport, more countries need a stake. But I don't see why we need to make it easier to get 2 entrants to fulfill this purpose. I think they should eliminate the points cap for a 2nd skater. If that country can't produce an additional skater good enough to make the FS, I don't see why they should get help getting 2 entrants. Of course, this would also require a change to 3 skater qualifications but I don't think it would be that hard to adjust. I've often thought this as well - not only for the ladies but some of the men. Even though the men can do the 3 axel, some of them have more stable quads than 3 axels and I think this may be because they're actually doing less rotation on the quads.

New Projections. Trusova - Skate Canada - still using 8.5 for PCS as she's yet to reach that but she's creeping closer Actual TES Actual PCS Actual Total SP 40.96 33.44 74.4 LP 100.2 67.42 167.62 Ded: -1 241.02 Proj TES Proj PCS Projected Total SP 42.69 34.00 76.69 LP 109.02 68.00 177.02 253.71 BV: 33.78 89.40 123.18 Kostornaya - IdF - used her LP PCS for both as her PCS rose drastically and I think it is more reflective of what her actual PCS will be than her previous PCS high. This is an example where Trusova's PCS rising with her TES could actually make a difference in an event where both go clean. I think most would agree that Kostornaya should have significantly higher PCS than Trusova - and I would say more than the 9 point gap. It also looks like a clean Kostornaya would beat a clean Scherbakova in spite of Sherbakova's 7 point BV advantage. Actual TES Actual PCS Actual Total SP 42.98 33.57 76.55 LP 88.38 71.07 159.45 deduction: 227.76 Proj TES Proj PCS Actual Total SP 48.66 35.54 84.20 LP 89.44 71.07 160.51 244.71 BV: 37.65 70.15 107.80 Kihira - Skate Canada Actual TES Actual PCS Actual Total SP 45.96 35.39 81.35 LP 77.5 71.48 148.98 230.33 Proj TES Proj PCS Proj Total SP 45.96 35.80 81.76 LP 84.38 71.49 155.87 237.63 BV 36.19 65.97 102.16 Zagitova - IdF. Here's another example of the PCS inflation possibly causing a flipping of results in a close contest. I replaced all of Zagitova's mistakes with a 3 GOE since there were multiple. This is higher than a lot of her other jumps at this competition but lower than what she's gotten in the past. I consider a 1 point difference in projections to essentially be a tie. This reaffirms my belief that the results between Zagitova and Kihira will just come down to who makes fewer mistakes. Actual TES Actual PCS Actual Total SP 38.32 36.92 75.24 LP 68.85 72.97 141.82 Deduction: -1 216.06 Projected TES Projected PCS Projected Total SP 43.80 36.91 80.71 LP 81.58 74.34 155.92 236.63 BV 33.63 64.94 98.57

After 3 events, here's the current overall standings. Ralucutzagy is short one event, Louitunes is missing the BQ for 1 event, and mercedes was short a couple BQ as well. Hopefully we'll get all the kinks worked out for the next game Legacy and Hope 85 sallycinnamon 82 LadyLou 81 airi 77 mercedes 76 Old Cat Lady 75 river 75 Paskud 69 TeaFrida 65 Louitunes 62 ralucutzagy 49

@sallycinnamon @LadyLou @Legacy and Hope @river @Paskud @mercedes @airi @Louitunes @TeaFrida Results of the IdF game. As usual, don't hesitate to speak up if you see anything weird - I wouldn't trust me too much. Unfortunately Louitunes, those were the wrong bonus questions so I couldn't give credit. I shockingly won this round after finishing near the bottom twice - scored myself twice thinking I must have made a mistake somewhere. Men Ladies Pairs Dance BQ1 BQ2 BQ3 BQ4 BQ5 Total Points Old Cat Lady 6 9 4 7 2 0 2 0 2 32 Legacy and Hope 3 7 6 9 2 2 2 0 0 31 airi 6 3 4 9 2 2 2 0 2 30 LadyLou 6 3 4 9 0 2 2 2 2 30 mercedes 4 9 2 9 0 2 0 2 2 30 sallycinnamon 6 3 4 9 2 2 0 0 2 28 river 6 7 2 9 0 2 2 0 0 28 ralucutzagy 6 3 3 9 0 2 2 2 0 27 Paskud 1 7 4 9 0 2 0 0 0 23 TeaFrida 4 1 4 9 0 2 0 0 2 22 Louitunes 6 3 3 5 17 Answer Key Men's Podium 1. Chen 2. Samarin 3. Aymoz Ladies Podium 1. Kostornaia 2. Zagitova 3. Bell Pairs Podium 1. Mishina/Galliamov 2. Pavliuchenko/Khodykin 3. Denney/Frazier Dance Podium 1. Papadakis/Cizeron 2. Chock/Bates 3. Guignard/Fabbri BQ1: Will anyone in singles or pairs have all positive GOE's and level 4 elements? No BQ2: Will any of the medalists get a v in their spins No BQ3: Will there be more quads+3axels with positive GOE by the Skate Canada men's and ladies medalists or by the entire IdF field? IdF - 28 clean quads and 3 axels (Skate Canada medalists had 22) BQ4: Who will get the highest GOE before factoring on a single element. 1st tie breaker is GOE with high and low added back in. 2nd tie breaker is GOE on the skater's 2nd highest element. Nathan Chen - Choreo sequence - +5 BQ5: which disciplines will have a new season's best? Dance only

I never said that quads don't contribute to a health risk - what I'm saying is that elite sports in itself is a health risk. Where and why do you draw the line? What is the solution? And why arbitrarily focus on the quads when other factors have caused even more health problems? If you go by risk, pairs skating should be banned. In the case of Shoma and Boyang, as we have both acknowledged, we don't know what's going on with them. Why automatically put the onus on the quads? From the outside, Boyang also often seems depressed and under a lot of national pressure. As for Shoma, people have been speculating future problems due to his technique for years and I haven't heard about any current injury yet his skating took a steep decline from last year to this year. I wouldn't say Nate is the only one. He's just the most successful one. I still don't see evidence that Vincent's and Kolyada's problems are primarily due to quads and there's lower ranked skaters that have been injury free or at least, no more injury prone than before quads became a thing. I didn't say that you were saying that quads should be banned - just pointing out that the issue of shortened careers goes far beyond the quad race and was using examples to show why it is unreasonable to make them the sole focus. I would agree that a re-balancing is in order. the one measure that the ISU implemented to limit quads actually seems to cause injury because now skaters aren't competitive at the top with "only" 1 or 2 kinds of quads and are forced to learn new jumps - pretty sure it's the development stage that is the most high risk of learning any new element. Heck, even just applying the current system according to the actual guidelines and better defining the scoring would make a huge difference in quality of the programs. Under this system, there's no reason that a skater shouldn't have a 20 point cushion in PCS or in other elements -once again, it's the application of the system that's the problem. However, unless the field is weak or you rebalance to the point that BV is extremely disproportionate to an element's difficulty (which causes other problems), I don't see a huge difference being made because in a strong field, the top skaters will still have to eke out every point where they can find it eta: My personal ideal would be to cut 1 or 2 jumping passes but allow greater freedom in the passes. No penalty for sequences and a bonus for combos. Add the 30 seconds back in and have another non-jump element of the skaters choice. Don't know if this would do anything for health, but I think there would be a big improvement in quality of programs while also allowing the jumpers to still excel at what they're good at

re: commonality of highly talented skaters crashing/career ending injuries keep in mind that I followed skating minimally between 2006-2018. Off the top of my head with an assist from wiki for verification... Tonya Harding - Silver medal at 1991 worlds and no medals on the world or Olympic stage in spite of being one of the most talented skaters Urmanov - 1994 Olympic champion - has never gotten a world medal past 1994, injured himself in 1997 and didn't heal in time for 1998 Olympics, retired Oksana Baiul - lost her jumps post 1994, multiple personal problems - and yes, I know she retired but even by pro standards, her tech was poor Jamie Silverstein - ice dancing - won junior worlds and together with Justin Pekarek - was touted as future world/Olympic medal contender. took a break to treat an eating disorder and never managed to reach previous levels Nicole Bobek - 1 world bronze medal and no other world/Olympic medals. Gracie Gold - 4th at worlds- eating disorder, currently can't make the TES minimum Gabrielle Daleman - 3rd at worlds - multiple problems - highest international finish since then was 6th at a challenger/Grand Prix event Julia Lipnitskaya - 2014 world silver medalist/4th at Olympics - never again made the world team - eating disorder/technique not designed for a growing body Adelina Sotnikova - Olympic champion to not making world team - injury?/technique not designed for growing body Anna Pogorilaya - from 3rd at worlds to 13th, never again made the world team - retired due to back injury Tatsuki Machida - world silver, no other world or Olympic medal - following season was 6th at GPF and then retired Kimmie Meissner - 2006 world champion, then 4th, then 7th, then didn't make the world team Angelika Krylova - ice dance - world champion to retirement due to back injury Philippe Candeloro - went from 3rd at worlds/Olympics to 9th to not making the French world team before his resurgence in 1998 There's a lot more examples, especially if you go across sports, but the point is, it's not that rare for highly talented skaters (athletes in general) to peak and not maintain those high levels for various reasons. That's why usually when people refer to all time greats, they normally choose someone who's managed to be at the top for many years - because it's so difficult and rare to maintain that excellence. re: relationship between quads and shortened career While I would agree that any time you increase the difficulty, you're increasing the risk of injury. But where are you drawing the line and what is the solution? From what I can tell, there are many more career crashes due to factors other than quads - do we also manage every one of those and, if so, where is the ISU finding all this money to monitor/enforce this? And if you want to focus on the quads - what is a fair solution? I would argue that Yuzu's 2 major injuries are due more to illness, poor ice conditions, and being injury prone in general. If it was purely due to the quad race, these injuries would be just as likely at home. And he was frequently injured before the men's event evolved to 4+ quads in the FS. Conversely, look at Nathan Chen. He's done more quads than anyone and has remained injury free in over 3 years as a senior. His only significant injury was due to growth spurts while he was still a junior. A for Vincent, Shoma, and Boyang, as you said, we're not really sure what's going on with them. Vincent's knee injury was sustained while he was doing shows, so it seems highly unlikely that he did it while pushing himself too far technically and I've never heard about the back - seems strange that he would hide that when he was so open about the knee but who knows. But a lot of things lead to back problems - are we supposed to stop all of them? Tara Lipinski's hip injury is likely due to drilling 3lo/3lo - should we stop loop combos? As for Misha, almost any time you have a condition, pushing yourself to extremes is going to exacerbate it - I admit I don't know much about sinusitis, but it seems that doing a full run through even with all triples would also exacerbate a health condition. Professional sports in general, is hard on the body. The human body was not designed to consistently be put under these extremes. That's why so few can do it for a long time. The only real solution to stop the deterioration of the body is to stop people from competing. Obviously questions should always be asked on how things can be improved, but it should be done with the understanding that elite sports by nature is kind of freakish and we shouldn't let personal preference bias the questions we ask I didn't make any attempt to justify Samarin's PCS nor was I trying to compare him to any other skater, only using him as an example of another extremely talented skater to illustrate why I think the current field is actually very deep. I did say specifically that he was rough around the edges in my post.

These comments are based on memory so I might change my mind when I have more time to look into it, but I tend to think of 2016/2017/2018 more as a golden age of men's skating rather than the current time as a decimation. I've been watching since the early 90's and iirc, skaters have always had a short shelf life. It's also common for the field to be weaker in the 2 post Olympic years as old champions retire and new ones are still developing. Currently, we have 2 heavy weights battling for gold and a whole bunch of very talented skaters battling for bronze. In the initial post Sochi competitions, we had Yuzu and Javi battling for gold and some less talented and/or less developed skaters going for bronze until the Shoma, Nathan, Boyang were developed enough to challenge by 2017 and 2018. Post vancouver, was Patrick and Dai with weaker skaters sneaking in for the bronze until the rise of Yuzu, Denis, and Javi to make it more of a competition. From 2003-2009 it was Plushenko and the rest. Post Nagano, we had Yagudin vs. Plushenko and a bunch of also rans. 1995-1998, we had Elvis winning more on mental strength in a field of inconsistent skaters until the Olympic year with Todd Eldredge, who peaked then went away sneaking in for a world title. The point of all this, is that it's hard to say how much of the current state of skating can be blamed on the rise of multi quad programs when there were always ebbs and flows in skating talent. In fact, I would argue that the current field is actually stronger than a lot of the previous ones at this stage of the Olympic cycle. Boyang is a chronic slow starter and it's pretty common for improvements in skating skills to wreck consistency on jumps. Kolyada's absence has nothing to do with skating (at least i don't see a connection between sinusitis and quads except maybe skating prevented him from getting proper treatment for it earlier). Many people have speculated that Uno's technique wouldn't hold up over the long run so it has more to do with coaching issues than quads themselves and even then, his issues this year seem more mental/life situational than physical. Zhou's problems also seems more mental/coaching technique/life issues - not sure, but I thought that injury he got over the summer was more of a freak accident. Aliev has always been a head case. Further down the list, we see another beautiful head case in Samohin - the raw material is there, he just need to put it together. We have Cha who is still maturing and needing consistency. I personally think Samarin has a lot of raw potential to work with - huge jumps, it looks like good speed (though never seen him irl), exuberance, good posture, and a decent natural body line - perfectly normal for skaters to still be rough around the edges at this stage in their career. I know most people see all the short comings, but I see the depth of talent. The second tier is so much deeper than the 90's and early 2000's. I see the gap in scoring to be more about greatness at the top

Sorry, looks like we had another miscommunication with the questions so I'll start doing notifications for the new form. @sallycinnamon @LadyLou @Legacy and Hope @river @Paskud @mercedes @airi @Louitunes @TeaFrida I won't get to the scoring until Monday night/Tuesday morning as usual but I wanted to give you guys more time since it looks like Louitunes was quite crunched for time this last time around. Here's the form for predictions: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdt9divVBrmZpGmhzhPSbwiWq5H-oNusscf1uVvBh9EDQ6b3A/viewform?usp=pp_url&entry.1349141795=x Here's the entries for Cup of China http://www.isuresults.com/events/fsevent03111930.htm

Don't have time to comment now but want to post this before I forget I wish I knew how to post it at the exact time stamp. I managed to pause it at the exact moment of pick and you can see that Nathan is on a complete flat if not a slight outside edge. Yuzu is on the shallowest of inside edges at pick Also, it was pointed out to me in another thread that I had the wrong layout for Nathan at SkAm so I redid his projections for Skate America Actual TES Actual PCS Deductions Actual Total SP 56.21 46.5 102.71 LP 102.38 94 196.38 299.09 Proj TES Proj PCS Deductions Proj Total SP 58.24 46.50 104.74 LP 119.36 94.78 214.14 318.87 BV: 141.02 Here's Nathan's projections for IdF Actual TES Actual PCS Deductions Actual Total SP 55.97 46.51 102.48 LP 102.1 92.58 194.68 297.16 Proj TES Proj PCS Deductions Proj Total SP 61.12 46.51 107.63 LP 117.31 94.78 212.09 319.72 BV: 140.75 I used a 3 GOE for Nathan's quads and his LP axel GOE for his SP axel. I swear, I have more to talk about than Nathan and Yuzu but I'll have to get to it later

ISU really needs to be better at defining all their terms. I can actually see an argument either way. I personally see this as "2 hands + free foot down + step out" since the mid section didn't touch the ice (and recall seeing it called that way for Shoma last year) but the GOE guidelines have reduction guidelines for "touch down with both hands" as well as "touch down with free foot or hand" but no guideline for all limbs. That can be interpreted either as simply adding the 2 reductions together or that anything more than that is a fall Either way, I think it should be a -5 GOE since if you interpret it one way, all the reductions added together is more than 5

Yes, I've noticed that too. That's what I meant when I wrote that skaters' marks are often affected by how they perform other elements. It doesn't always happen, but there is somewhat of a tendency to let an overall impression override intellectual analysis. While I agree the 4s wasn't perfect, I think the strength of the first element nudges the score upward or downward. I don't think the impression left by other aspects of the skate will tip it from a 3 to a 5, but I do think it can affect it 1 GOE point up or down. Though I also feel that none of the jumps were landed at his best quality so I don't have issue with any of his scores (unless you compare with what Nate got). I actually did the Skate Canada projections but haven't posted them yet. I used to do max projections, but I think most performances have at least some up and down and so I think "correcting" mistakes rather than doing a "best of" is slightly more accurate, though in the end, I think it'll just come down to who skates clean. In the case of Autumn Classic, I figured it was a little low because multiple elements were lower quality, if not outright mistakes. The Skate Canada projections are done with the PCS Yuzu actually received since they are new personal bests. Keep in mind that since I only correct level losses and GOE 0 or less, I kept the 4t/3t SP GOE. A cleaner landing on that would likely have gained him another 2 points. I changed his loop to 3.14, which is what his salchow got. I also think his PCS will still go up Actual TES Actual PCS Deductions Actual Total SP 61.13 48.47 109.6 LP 116.59 96.4 212.99 322.59 SP Proj TES Proj PCS Deductions Proj Total LP 61.77 48.47 110.24 120.04 96.40 216.44 326.67 BV: 139.35

When I was boarding the plane in Kelowna I overheard one of the flight attendants saying "There was a figure skating event this weekend, Skate Canada. This was the busiest day in airline history". The taxi driver said a couple days before the event, a hotel manager told him that they were fully booked. Then he went to another hotel and that one was full. Then he went to another, and that one was full as well. He didn't know anything about figure skating, but he told his boss that they needed extra cars on the weekend and they still had to turn down customers. I went to a restaurant at 3:00 pm thinking that's usually the slow time and the restaurant was completely packed. I remember there was that tweet after mentioning Yuzu where the Olympic Channel mentioned getting a lot more hits than usual and they surmised it was because they used an exclamation point in the tweet Makes me wonder if they read any of the replies to their tweets - most of the replies had a Yuzu avatar. It seemed like such a ridiculous conclusion that, to this day, I wonder if they were being serious or if someone was being a little tongue in cheek.

lol, I'm not doing any better. sitting 3rd from last at Sk Can and 2nd to last at Sk Am. Of those who have done both, I'm tied for last in the overall. @ralucutzagy You missed BQ4 for who gets highest GOE on a single element. You can just answer that one in thread if you still want to get it before the deadline.

It's probably for the best. Gabby just did not look ready for her last 2 competitions. It has to be a psychological beating to keep performing this poorly

until the warm up of the first event. 14.30 French time, Nov. 1st Here's the schedule https://ffsg.org/evenement/internationaux-de-france-de-patinage-artistique-danse-sur-glace-2019-grenoble/

@Legacy and Hope @sallycinnamon @LadyLou @airi @river @mercedes @Paskud @Louitunes @TeaFrida @ralucutzagy Got the scoring done. In order of highest score: Men Ladies Pairs Dance BQ1 BQ2 BQ3 BQ4 BQ5 Total Points TeaFrida 6 6 3 6 2 0 2 0 0 25 airi 6 6 3 3 2 2 2 0 0 24 Paskud 6 4 5 2 2 0 2 0 2 23 Legacy and Hope 6 6 2 3 2 2 2 0 0 23 Louitunes 6 6 2 3 2 2 2 0 0 23 ralucutzagy 6 6 2 2 2 0 2 2 0 22 sallycinnamon 6 6 3 3 2 0 2 0 0 22 mercedes 6 6 4 1 0 0 2 2 0 21 Old Cat Lady 4 6 2 3 0 2 2 0 2 21 LadyLou 4 4 3 3 2 0 2 0 2 20 river 4 6 2 3 0 0 2 0 2 19 Answer Key Men's Podium 1. Yuzuru Hanyu 2. Nam Nguyen 3. Keiji Tanaka Ladies Podium 1. Alexandra Trusova 2. Rika Kihira 3. Young You Pairs Podium 1. Boikova/Kozlovskii 2. Moore-Towers/Marinaro 3. Tarasova/Morozov Dance Podium 1. Gilles/Poirier 2. Hubbell/Donohue 3. Fear/Gibson BQ1: Will the ladies or men's podium have the higher FS TES? Men - 293.91 BQ2: Will any ice dancer move 2 or more spots between rhythm dance and free dance? Yes - Popova/Mozgov went from 6th in RD to 8th in FD/overall BQ3: Will there be more clean quads among the top 3 men or from 4th-12th? Top 3 - everyone got this one right. BQ4: Which discipline will have the most falls? Ladies - 10 falls BQ5: Which discipline's podium will have the highest PCS before factoring? Dance - 271.68 TeaFrida was the only one to correctly guess the upset in dance and Paskud was the only one to guess the victory by Boikova/Kozlovskii

Won't get to the scoring until later tonight but here's the form for IdF predictions. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf6gbtrO5DDF7OqXIv5AjKQjNxpw2tmrYhLsM-ygcRC0IxkaA/viewform?usp=pp_url&entry.1349141795=x Here's the entrants http://www.isuresults.com/events/fsevent03111926.htm As usual, let me know if you have any issues with the form. If you do, you can just post in the thread.

This is fine. If anyone else is having trouble, they can just post it in thread. I put a new link in so hopefully that solves the problem.

Thanks Sally I also did projections for Nathan and redid Yuzu's so that methodology matches. Same methodology as ladies 1. Scores are based on actual attempted layouts done cleanly. I had to guess a little because if a skater pops but it isn't obvious by body position, I used what I thought they were attempting based on their abilities and previous patterns. So I changed Nathan's single and double flip to a triple. 2. I calculated actual GOE received and changed the ones that were not positive (so 0's got changed as well). If the skater received a sign, I added the max value of reduction given in the guidelines to the GOE. If a skater landed a similar element cleanly in the same competition, I used the GOE for that element. 3. If a skater lost a level, I used the same GOE as the one received but changed the levels to 4. 4. Used highest PCS received for that portion since the beginning of last season. A couple caveats to this is that often times GOE's seem to be affected not only by location and the field, but by how well the skater skates the other elements. I also question only adding +2 back to GOE for ur because so far this year, it seems that the score ends up being lower than if the skater did the same element but with no sign from the tech panel. Hanyu at Autumn Classic (Rostelecom SP PCS and Worlds LP PCS). I used 4 for his salchows and loop because his 4 toe that was called clean got 4.2 and it's the closest reference to what this panel would have given him if they were clean. Actual TES Actual PCS Deductions Actual Total SP 53.03 46.35 -1 98.38 LP 90.97 89.7 180.67 279.05 Proj TES Proj PCS Deductions Proj Total SP 62.73 48.09 110.82 LP 115.26 95.84 211.10 321.92 BV: 138.25 Chen at Japan Open (Worlds PCS) Actual TES Actual PCS Deductions Actual Total LP 98.67 91.16 189.83 Proj TES Proj PCS Deductions Proj Total LP 114.29 94.78 209.07 Chen at Skate America (actual PCS received for SP and worlds PCS for LP) Actual TES Actual PCS Deductions Actual Total SP 56.21 46.5 102.71 LP 102.38 94 196.38 299.09 Proj TES Proj PCS Deductions Proj Total SP 58.24 46.50 104.74 LP 122.55 94.78 217.33 322.06 BV: 144.21

@sallycinnamon Can you move this thread to the general skating forum? Figured it makes more sense to discuss the discipline as a whole like with the ladies thread. I thought the start of the season has been ... uh... interesting so far. It seems that Yuzu and Nathan are pulling away from Shoma. Or rather, Shoma is falling away from them. To me, the men's field is actually very deep, but it's really bunched up in that 2nd/3rd tier rather than at the top, like with the ladies. Some might find the men anti-climactic because so often it's obvious who'll win, but if you look beyond the first place, it's quite unpredictable. Kolyada's out. Boyang has shown glimpses of his best self and then crashes. YOu never know when Jason will sneak through for a medal. Sota and Keiji have the best results of their careers. Aliev randomly has a good competition after looking terrible at test skates. Shoma's fallen from 1 of the big 3 to "the best of the rest". Vincent's momentum has come to a grinding halt though a couple good events can bring it back. I'm actually quite sad that he withdrew from the Grand Prix - I thought the Vincent vs. Shoma match up was the 2nd most intriguing of the series. Tbh, I was never as excited by Cha as most of you were, but I like his programs and he is upgrading his tech so maybe when it's stabilized he'll be more of a factor at Beijing than I thought. At Autumn Classic I was impressed by his improvements during practice but I was disappointed during actual competition. In the juniors, Gogolev is going through growing pains it seems and didn't make GPF. At the beginning of last year, I was betting on the Beijing podium to be a battle between Boyang, Yuzu, Nathan, and Shoma. Now, I have no idea who to bet on outside of Yuzu and Nathan (if Yuzu goes, of course).

I think I underestimated Anna quite a bit. Her lutz looks completely stable now. It's going to be tough for Zagitova. After seeing this, I feel like Tuk and Med are out of the race. Then I wonder what happens to a top skater that still loves to compete but can't make the world team. Some are saying they should retire - but what else are they supposed to do? They are still 2 of the best skaters in the world. I don't think they're big enough to do their own tour unless they want to do one together maybe. There's only so many shows and commentary positions out there. Honestly, not sure why I do these because they didn't seem to be indicative of anything last year but here's Skate America projections. Elizaveta Tuktamysheva Actual TES Actual PCS Actual Total SP 36.42 30.86 67.28 LP 74.39 64.3 138.69 205.97 Proj TES Proj PCS Proj Total SP 41.76 34.68 76.44 LP 77.51 71.74 149.25 225.69 BV: 35.99 67.62 103.61 Anna Scherbakova Actual TES Actual PCS Actual Total SP 36.91 31.69 68.6 LP 92.2 67.96 160.16 deduction: -1 227.76 Proj TES Proj PCS Proj Total SP 41.59 34.00 75.59 LP 98.09 67.95 166.04 241.63 BV: 33.78 80.38 114.16 One thing I've noticed this year is that it seems like judges are deducting more than the -1 to -2 on the GOE for under rotations. I add +2 to the GOE's whenever a < is called, but the score is generally lower than what they would have gotten without the sign. Tuk keeps changing her layout. I'm guessing they're just experimenting based on what GOE they think she'll get. I imagine the edge calls at the last event scared her off from the flips but she didn't get them at Lombardia. For a low GOE skater like her, she's better off going for the base value and hoping for the best from the tech panel unless she knows that a certain panel hates her.