Old Cat Lady

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.

@sallycinnamon @LadyLou @Legacy and Hope @river @mercedes @airi @Paskud @Louitunes @TeaFrida Found my passport. Got the scoring done. I often catch myself making mistakes so if there's anything that looks weird, let me know. Keep in mind that I'm only scoring based on the top 3 predictions - the 4th was just in case of withdrawal so it didn't count toward scores. In order of placement: Men Ladies Pairs Dance Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Total Points sallycinnamon 6 5 4 9 2 2 2 0 2 32 LadyLou 6 6 2 9 2 0 2 2 2 31 Legacy and Hope 4 6 4 9 2 2 2 0 2 31 river 4 5 4 9 2 0 2 0 2 28 mercedes 4 5 6 6 2 0 0 2 0 25 airi 5 5 2 5 2 0 0 2 2 23 Paskud 6 5 2 2 2 2 0 2 2 23 Louitunes 6 2 6 2 2 2 0 2 0 22 Old Cat Lady 4 2 4 6 2 0 0 2 2 22 TeaFrida 4 5 3 2 2 0 0 2 0 18 Mercedes it looks like we still had a little bit of miscommunication and I didn't notice until I did the scoring so unfortunately I couldn't give you points for one of the . Sorry. Answer Key 1.List the top 3 of each discipline. (+ extra in case someone withdraws) Men's Podium 1. Nathan Chen 2. Jason Brown 3. Dmitri Aliev Ladies Podium 1. Scherbakova 2. Bradie Tennell 3. Elizaveta Tuktamysheva Pairs Podium 1. Peng/Jin 2. Pavliuchenko/Khodykin 3. Denney/Frazier Dance Podium 1. Hubbell/Donohue 2. Stepanova/Bukin 3. Beaudry/Sorensen Bonus Questions 2. In ladies, will there be more clean (positive GOE) 3 axels or quads? As expected, everyone got this one right - sorry about my airhead moments when making the questionnaire. 3 axels - all 3 of Liza's got positive GOE 3. Who will have the highest PCS before factoring? Chen - 47 - free skate 4. Who will receive the highest GOE on a single element (before factoring)? Chen - choreo sequence: +5 5. In ice dance, will anyone who was not top 3 after the rhythm dance end up with a medal? no 6. Which disciplines will have a new season’s best? men: total 299.09, sp 102.71, FS 196.38 dance: total 209.55 (H/D), free dance 124.66 (S/B), rhythm dance 81.91 (H/D) Thanks for playing everyone. Remember to make your predictions for Skate Canada - form is in above post.

I might be a little late with the Skate America results. I'm in panic mode right now because I can't find my passport and my flight for Canada is on Wednesday. For right now, here's the form for Skate Canada. Hopefully I'll be at the event so the results for this will also be late https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd-Ti5oGMD9WDqnRNUKDSS0Tdfi2jiom1VWk_nakXNs9vukvw/viewform?usp=pp_url&entry.1349141795=x Never used forms before so let me know if there's a problem. Also make sure you read the question after clicking on it before answering because it seems that sometimes the question gets cut off on the preview oops. forgot the entries. Here they are http://www.isuresults.com/events/fsevent03111922.htm eta 2: just did my predictions. the short answer is a little awkward to fill out - next time I'll split the questions between disciplines. Bear with me this round. I'll fix it for IdF. Open to suggestions if you're finding anything difficult

I don't mean to be one of THOSE fans but I feel like this is a clever way of using Yuzu to promote their products without actually being required to pay him anything But it's better to be positive about these things so I'll take comfort in the likelihood that Yuzu himself would be delighted

Did my projected scores for Finlandia. Tuktamysheva Actual total = 212.53 Projected Score = 79.37+149.2=228.57 BV=100.61 Oddly, she changed her FS layout quite a bit from Lombardia, which results in her losing 4.1 points in BV. Her total projected score is 3.1 points lower than what I projected for Lombardia, but that is mostly due to the change in BV. In an effort to be fair to all the skaters, I used WTT scores for PCS, but I don't know if that's a very good methodology since WTT tends to score high and the point of the projections is to try to guess what they'd score in a real competition if they are clean. Kostornaya Used the actual PCS scores because I believe this is a career best for her. Actual total is 234.67 Projected total is 77.08+161.97=239.05 BV=103.1 What's interesting is when I change Trusova's projected PCS to her actual PCS + projected TES at Ondrej Nepela, which is essentially what I had to do with Kostornaya, Trusova only scores 236.27. If you use Trusova's JPN Open projected FS tes + Ondrej Nepela SP TES with actual PCS, the score becomes 241.51 (only 1.56 points lower) even with 4 quads! The caveat here is that Trusova's landings were messy at JPN Open, causing low GOE's but I only change GOE's for elements that have negative GOE. If you replace Kostornaya's SP 2a to 3a with the GOE she got for her 3a combo in the FS (+actual PCS from Finlandia), we get a projected SP of 83.07, making the combined total 245.04.

Lol, I guess that video of Yuzu squeezing his pecs is popular. I forget who, but I saw these pics floating around twitter. Can you see the difference between last year and this year? Maybe up half a cup size? Origin looks slightly perkier in the middle but with his back arched the opposite way it's hard to tell. eta: oops. forgot the credits. The Origin says Rika H. on the pic so a fair guess it's hers. Otonal pic I believe was originally on an inside skating article? But was tweeted by Pamigena.

Hopefully the Finnish judge is the one from Helsinki last year to help balance out the US judge. I was just about to say that it's irrelevant that the JPN judge isn't on the panel since they normally just hurt their own skaters anyway, but it seems like at least a couple JPN judge have started playing the game this year so that could be really hurtful. Not that I condone blatant bias, but if ISU isn't going to do anything to correct it, I"d like the bias to at least be balanced. At least there's no Mexican judge - they might as well be called U.S. judge #2.

I meant before factoring. It's now clarified on original post

Yuzu was on some diet. There's an article floating around about how his pants started getting tight. I imagine it was tailored to fit like a glove like the white one... then he gained some more muscle and it turned into the PPOS

...and more importantly, can he even fit into those pants anymore after the weight he's gained? Let's be honest, those things were stretched to their limit in 2017.

Yes, but they don't do the galas Last year only Skate America had the gala. They didn't even show the worlds gala. Skate America and Nationals were also the only events with commentary, though that's mostly a good thing. Johnny and Tara were SOOO annoying.

Too bad they didn't announce this before I wasted money on that stupid NBC Gold, but I suppose that was the point. I don't blame the ISU in this case since I understand they need to prioritize the sport's financial interests, but I'm annoyed at myself because I don't even like NBC Gold but I decided that I'd rather pay the money that supports this shoddy product than learn something useful when I didn't even need it yet. Now I need to get off my lazy butt and finally figure out this VPN business.

These questions are supposed to be a specific skater/couple rather than a discipline. Still plenty of time to change your answers But this gives me ideas for new questions on the next events

I made this before I found out that Rika wasn't going to attempt the 4s and after Tuk got negative GOE on all her axels at her first event but before Finlandia. Thought about changing it but figured it's just one question, no big deal. eta 3 days later: It took me this long to realize Rika isn't in this event and if she were, it would make the question even dumber. I have no idea what I was thinking when I did that bonus question then. Probably mixed up events. Oh well.

That's pretty incredible. Is there no guideline for entries? There's such a big difference between challenger events. I find this to be one of the weakest, least interesting challengers even with so many entries.

If anyone still wants to participate, I changed the thread title for the prediction game to encompass the whole series. The deadline for predictions is when Skate America begins. The countdown is on their site https://www.2019skateamerica.com/page/show/1760277-home

Firstly, it is not true that a leg wrap (or tilt for that matter) requires a deduction. There is nothing in the guidelines that say so and I personally wouldn't reduce for either unless it was excessive. There is only a reference to having a good body position with no reference for what it should look like. Judges have shown over and over that they don't reduce for things that aren't obvious or aren't marked by the tech panel. Judges are not taking stills of jumps mid air and a tech panel doesn't flag body position. Alena's body position looks fine in real time. I doubt most judges would take off for it, nor is there a requirement to do so. Unfortunately I'm no good at tech stuff so I can't make any stills or GIFS, but even in the stills you posted, you can see that Rika has much more of a tilt than Alena. They're not supposed to, but judges clearly compare skaters when marking GOE and a tilt is much more obvious. Even if you don't want to give her body position, Alena still hits more bullets than Rika. 2nd, you have to go by this year rather than last year when talking about transitions. I never said that Rika had long prep, but that she has no difficult entries. And there is literally not a single one so far this year - I'll change my mind if the choreography changes. As far as technique, she was never a particularly big jumper so not sure what difference last year vs. this year is. 3rd, I already saw you comment about Rika's spins -repeating the same statements aren't going to make me change my mind. I see nothing wrong with Alena's Biellman and frankly I don't remember how the I-spin compares. And once again, even if you want to give Rika these 2 spins, they're only 2 of many. Overall, Alena's spins are faster, more centered, more musical, with nice positions.

Absolutely and by a significant margin. Judging by what we've seen so far this year, her jumps are bigger, have a much better running edge, have a better landing position, normally a more difficult entry, often a more difficult air position, and often have some sort of musical detail. Rika doesn't have a difficult entry on any of her jumps - there's only 2 that really have anything before the jump but there's such a large break between the steps and the jumps that it isn't really part of the entry. Rika's jumps are consistently very tilted in the air, which I personally don't consider a big deal but tilted jumps usually take a GOE hit. Alena hit the outside edge in the SP and flat in the FS so it's a matter of the execution on the day on whose lutz is better. It's irrelevant that it's a shallow edge if she hits it - there's no extra GOE for a deeper edge on a jump. Even if you want to argue that it's always on a flat, it only one aspect of only one jump. Whatever leg wrap you're seeing doesn't affect the aesthetics of the jump - I highly doubt most judges are going to deduct for something that has no impact on the overall appearance of the jump. I disagree that Rika's spin positions are better. Alena's are also faster and more centered.

I wonder how much weight he's gained in the last couple years though. He used to calculate his body fat because apparently there was a difference in the quality of his jumps when he veered from 4%. What is several pounds of muscle going to do? His jumps have looked heavier but I'm not sure how much is just injury vs. adjustment period while training new quads vs. adjusting to a new body composition

The return of Alena's 3axel is a complete game changer! She goes from being in the middle of a dog fight for Russia's 3rd world spot to a favorite. I haven't done the projections yet, but new rankings after this weekend 1. Trusova 2. Kostornaya - better quality on her elements than Kihira 3. Zagitova/Kihira - I think it'll just come down to how well each executes - not just being clean, but the quality of the elements on the day. This, of course, is assuming that Kihira heals and puts the lutzes back in her program. 5. Scherbakova 6. Medvedeva 7. Tuktamysheva 8. Sakamoto - perhaps a little wishful thinking here, but right now I'm just going to write off her first competition as early season rust 9. Miyahara 10. You - higher scoring potential than Lim. I dropped Tursynbaeva because if she's so injured that she can't even bend forward to receive her medals, I don't see how she's going to get that quad back this season. Mariah Bell is on the bubble for the top 10 I will emphasize again that this isn't a ranking of how I think they SHOULD score but how I think they WILL score. Last week I was sure that Zagitova was on the world team but now I think it'll be a fight. I still think she's the favorite for the team, but there's real pressure on her to perform consistently. She desperately needs to keep her reputation up.

I wonder what her motivation is. If it's just to enjoy skating and end her career when she's in a happy place, then good for her. But if it's to try to be a medal contender or national champion or even to be a figure skating star, then I really worry for her. I don't think she's going to achieve any of those things and I'm worried it'll crush her when she's already fragile.

Honestly, I don't think it'll be relevant to her results. It's all completely riding on whether she can land that quad and even then it's a long shot to podium at worlds so it's better to at least be healthy. Back injuries are so scary because they affect so much of your movement and are hard to treat. I don't know what it is, but I'm worried she's going to be in lifelong pain if she keeps pushing it.

ISU sure is waiting til the last minute to figure things out ... yes, I'm sure the way to make FS more popular is to prevent even the people already watching from doing so

lol, you notice that I didn't admit my budget either ... It's probably better that I don't think about it. I started mid-year so I also used up all my vacation days on Yuzu with the intention of even using unpaid days if necessary but luckily my boss is awesome and said I could use sick days in place of vacation. This reminds me of the Chinese money bouquets that some men use to propose. Maybe we need to learn how to make those - can you imagine if all those plushies were replaced with wads of cash ... giving me ideas for next year

I see it now. Thanks For those of you who still want to buy it, here's a link to make it easier https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07W95FCWT/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_api_i_26TtDbVEH10XP?fbclid=IwAR2VFThu8-LTFJ_6YTp7Ej9AfACeBlQMebWkyPB-PO_gd6fcJb4eyAfTTu0&language=en_US The language selector is right next to the search bar. btw, anyone want to admit what their Yuzu budget is? or maybe what percentage of their income it is?