Old Cat Lady

I keep thinking about what he'll do after he's done with competitive skating. I'm worried that he'll stick to Japan and the rest of the world will never get to see him again except on TV. Wondering how inappropriate it is to send a letter begging him to consider doing a day of Ciontu in NA or even Europe after retirement and point out that it's nearly impossible for non-Japanese fans to see him. I'm sure he'll be able to sell out shows anywhere. Pretty sure even Japanese fans will fly out since it's so hard even for the Japanese to get tickets. As a loner myself, I get this. For a while, I did get depressed that I missed out on things, but then I started doing them and quickly found out that I got tired of them. People can't believe when I say that I only socialize every other weekend and often get tired of it by the end of the weekend. And this is actually an increase in social time because I decided last year that I need to do a better job of developing relationships. If nothing else, there's nothing we can do about it so it's better to just think the best and enjoy our time with him.

Answer Key List the top 3 in each discipline. Men: 1. Yuzu, 2. Kevin Aymoz, 3. Keegan Messing Ladies: 1. Rika, 2. Evgenia, 3. Eunsoo Lim Dance: 1. Piper/Paul, 2. Fear/Gibson, 3.Lauriault/Le Gac Bonus Questions 2. Will Yuzu skate a new program? No 3. Will Yuzu land either a 4 axel, 4 lutz, or 4 flip? (eta: this is a yes or no question. If he lands any of these but you guess the wrong jump, you still get the 2 points) No 4. Will a lady land a quad (as called by Tech panel - i.e. for purposes of the game, Liu’s lutz would be counted as a yes)? No 5. Who will get the highest raw pcs score across all disciplines? Yuzu - 46.35 - SP Results 1. LadyLou = 28 2. Henni = 27 3. SallyCinnamon = 25 4. River = 21, Old Cat Lady = 21 6. Airi = 20 7. Paskud = 15 8. Mercedes = 10

1. List the top 3 in each discipline. 2. Will Yuzu skate a new program? 3. Will Yuzu land either a 4 axel, 4 lutz, or 4 flip? 4. Will a lady land a quad (as called by Tech panel - i.e. for purposes of the game, Liu’s lutz would be counted as a yes)? 5. Who will get the highest raw pcs score across all disciplines?

Just made a game if anyone is interested.

Just occurred to me to play a game for AC. I’ll be at the event so I might be slow in getting results. Someone else can do results if people don’t want to wait for me. Rules If you make any changes to your predictions, please edit your original reply rather than posting an additional one. I suggest predicting a top 4. If someone withdraws, I’ll bump everyone you predicted below that person up a spot. Scoring 1 point if your skater ends up within 1 place of your prediction. 3 points for every correct placement 2 points for every correct answer to bonus questions These are the entrants http://www.isuresults.com/events/fsevent03111900.htm 1. List the top 3 in each discipline. Bonus Questions 2. Will Yuzu skate a new program? 3. Will Yuzu land either a 4 axel, 4 lutz, or 4 flip? (eta: this is a yes or no question. If he lands any of these but you guess the wrong jump, you still get the 2 points) 4. Will a lady land a quad (as called by Tech panel - i.e. for purposes of the game, Liu’s lutz would be counted as a yes)? 5. Who will get the highest raw pcs score across all disciplines?

@Joey Just wondering if you were planning to do a prediction game this year?

Interesting that they chose a portrait of Yuzu when there are so many famous names in her list of subjects and they don't mention him in the article. So great to see him celebrated around the world, although I personally don't like her art. In this case, I'm not sure if I would have known it was him if I didn't already know she liked to paint him and the inaccuracies in features doesn't seem to be purposeful to capture any type of abstract idea. But it does do a good job in portraying his determination.

I'm talking from a competitive perspective not fan preferences. Minimizing weaknesses until he can get them at a better skill level will do him a lot of favors competitively as it will help his scores which builds reputation and momentum which will help him skate with more confidence and more confidence will help him present his material better. That's why I mentioned the similar levels of skating skills and spins. Nates PCS skyrocketed and averaged the highest GOE's of the season for his SP step sequence in spite of having edges that are similar to Boyang's. Bourne's staccato, frantic choreography did well to hide his poor edge quality and the lack of depth in his interpretation while creating the illusion of greater skill and confidence. I'm assuming you're not arguing that Nate's programs had great expression of inherent qualities or that his programs are deep. I think Boyang's expressive abilities are better than Nate's and I'm not sure what Nate does better than Boyang artistically - maybe point his toes better? But what Nate DID have that Boyang didn't, was a confident air and that was created in part by the fact that his weaknesses were minimized. But yes, if Boyang doesn't gel well with Shae then of course, she won't be able to highlight his strengths and hide his weaknesses. But that's true of any partnership and you don't know until you try. But I'm also on the boat of not having Shae choreograph every other program in existence so I'm fine with "not Shae" choreographing for Boyang though I would be interested in seeing what "not Lori" would do now that he's further developed as a skater as I wasn't wild about his programs last year.

But I think Boyang has a lot of similar weaknesses as Nathan and Shae did a good job of hiding Nathan's weaknesses. When Boyang is on, I don't think Nathan's skating skills or spins are any better than Boyang's and Boyang has more natural personality and expression than Nathan does. Boyang just needs a bit more swagger and consistency along with the progress he's been making in the skills. Deniss is never going to be a world medal contender so I think it's smart of him to distinguish himself in other ways. He's more likely to be remembered for those show spots by making a statement than for some challenger event medal.

Huh. That never occurred to me but now that I think about it, I don’t think there’s any pictures of Nathan with curly hair as a junior The more I think about, the less I think that the ISU sways the assignments that much except in special circumstances like GP Finland. Firstly, they don’t seem to do a ton of research on anything so I doubt they have a great understanding of fan bases outside of putting hometown favorites at their event. secondly, it makes the most business sense to put yuzu at the potentially weakest event available and they haven’t seemed concerned about that in the past. I have doubts about yuzu being at COC because I got the impression from an article that the fans are extra crazy for him there and it made him uncomfortable. You guys seem to think rostelecom is unlikely because of it being clumped closely with other events. I got the impression that skaters in general don’t like idf because of the poor organization. Then the question is whether Nathan wants skate Canada. It does seem like skate Canada and idf offer the most strategic advantage if yuzu wants nhk. It’s in both jsf and isu’s interest to keep Shoma and yuzu separate as far as they can tell, though in practice, I have doubts

Lol, wow, you really did your research. I wonder if Nathan knows all this yet. Quick, we need to nudge Nathan toward Rostelecom so us N.A. have a better shot at Yuzu!

The point I was trying to make is I just don't see why the ISU would want to force Nathan to skate outside North America. There's no financial motivation to do it when every other event has a bigger local draw than Nathan and Yuzu can be placed anywhere to sell the event out. At least judging by the forums, he's the 2nd most popular active male skater - a lot of the Chan fans have switched to supporting him. From ISU perspective, it makes the most financial sense to keep Nathan in N.A., where it's easiest for American fans to travel to see him. Without ISU stepping in, it's a question of host pick + skater wishes. Then we go back to, is Skate Canada willing to fight for Yuzu? Most of the all event tickets have already sold for Skate Canada anyway.

From the ISU perspective: France has Papadakis/Cizeron and James/Cipres US has Nathan China has Sui/Han and Boyang but not sure how popular they are Japan has a lot of choices Russia has a lot of choices Canada has no strong local draws. Yuzu is easily the biggest draw internationally and is going to increase sales in every event except NHK, which will likely sell out anyway. I'm guessing even Skate America would benefit more from him than Nathan. eta: Skating is popular in Russia. Rostelecom could probably sell out without him as well. I don't know if Nathan is popular, per se, but he is a 2 time world champion now and the most hyped skater in North America. Skate America and Skate Canada are the only events that Nathan can be a somewhat decent substitute for Yuzu, especially if Shoma is sent as well. I don't think Nathan has enough drawing power to impact any other event.

But this year, Nathan's pick gets priority. Everyone seems to agree that Nathan will pick whatever works best with school. The first question is, what would Nathan consider best for his schedule? NHK is the only event other than SA that would allow him to miss fewer classes but it's also the one that will least likely want him. If Nathan does ask for NHK, how much is JSF willing to play ball? If NHK isn't an option, then you would think Nathan would pick whatever event would cause him to miss the fewest classes. That's Skate Canada. Then we have to ask, is Skate Canada willing to fight to get Yuzu? Isn't Nathan one of the most popular male skaters in Canada. If Shoma also picks Skate Canada, would they consider that enough of a draw for the event? If Yuzu really doesn't want to do back to back event, he can do any of the other events.

Did you find what you need yet? I only have NBC Gold so most of the events don't have any commentary. eta: Just realized that the videos are already in the archive. Thanks for doing this

My understanding of the GP entry protocol in order of priority are: 1. Seeds are taken from worlds results. 1st, 2nd, 3rd can't meet. 4th, 5th, 6th can't meet. But anyone from top 3 can meet anyone from 4-6. 2. Host nation preference 3. Skater wishes in order of worlds finish. For number 3, I'm not clear on whether the higher finisher gets priority on both his choices or if it's more like a taking turns on picks thing. But since host nation preference takes priority, I imagine it's rarely relevant. There's also the X-factor of how much does ISU try to orchestrate things? It makes sense for ISU to put Yuzu at the events where the host nation has the weakest local draws. We're 99.99% sure that Nathan is getting Skate America. Ironically, after that, the only event that I have doubts about wanting Yuzu the most is the one in Japan. It looks like they generally support the national champion and they seem to want to support Shoma. They also know that they don't need Yuzu to sell out. Will Nathan and Vincent not even bother requesting NHK since they'll assume Yuzu will be there? I think Vincent benefits most from picking Skate Canada and Cup of China. Canada because it's the 2nd shortest travel time for him. Cup of China because that's the country that he's most popular in outside the US. But any event with any sense of business would rather have Yuzu so not sure if Vincent's wishes are even relevant in this case. How much is the host nation going to try to protect their own? Japan doesn't seem to care. Russia also seems to have no qualms about putting Kolyada against strong competition. Boyang is more likely to beat Vincent than Yuzu or Nathan but I can't imagine that China would deny Yuzu considering how popular he is there. Would they reject Nathan to protect Boyang? Yuzu seems to love Russia and Canada is the easiest commute for him. The 2 events are also spread out, though I'm not sure why it's an advantage as opposed to back to back events if one event is in his home country. I would think that Cup of China/Rostelecom and NHK would be fairly convenient if Ghislain travels with him the whole way - he could just go straight to Japan after his first event. In conclusion: I have no idea where Yuzu will end up eta: If Nathan has to make arrangements with his professors no matter what his second event is, maybe he'd rather just choose the shortest commute which means Skate Canada for him. Last year, Shoma requested Skate Canada and NHK, though I don't know why he wanted Canada and we don't know if JSF will try to separate him from Yuzu. After all, they had Kaori and Satoko both do Skate America last year. Shoma might want to do Skate Canada if he's superstitious since he's won it 2 years in a row now. I think Kolyada just chose the 2 events that are closest to him, which this year would be Russia and IDF, assuming that China wants Boyang. Boyang's done Skate America 2 of the last 3 years. This is my best guess so far. Skate America: Nathan, Boyang Skate Canada: Shoma, Nathan IDF: Kolyada, Vincent Cup of China: Boyang, Vincent Rostelecom: Kolyada, Yuzu NHK: Shoma, Yuzu eta 2: Shoma can get into the final with 2 seconds. JSF has good reason to believe that he and Yuzu will do no worse than 2nd so there isn't actually much reason to protect them.

Did you guys already buy tickets for the event you think he'll be at? I wonder if it's worth spending the money on a ticket to Skate Canada - I imagine it'll take a lot of luck to get a ticket afterwards if it's announced that he's going to be there. Same with Autumn Classic. I think he'll do NHK and either Cup of China or Rostelecom.

Thanks. The 2 sections about short program jumps do directly contradict each other. Maybe it was just poorly written or whoever published it mis-edited? Seems weird that they could possibly have missed it when the paragraphs are back to back Unless it's just a directive to judges to assign a GOE even though there's no value to the element but that seems weird too. The euler is a bizarre change too. The downgrade part is the same as last year and makes sense since the same rules should be applied to all jumps but why eliminate under rotations on the euler? Were there actually people complaining about this? It makes no sense to create a different standard for one specific jump. eta: it seems that it just gives the power to the judges to overlook under rotated eulers. the judges almost never apply an under rotation reduction unless the tech panel assigns a < and I'm guessing the judges that actually do, get called out at the judges meeting.

Honestly, I just wanted some direction on what I should watch as it gets tedious trudging through one mediocre performance after another so I appreciate the lists. It looks like we're the only ones that took an interest though . When I'm in a better skating mood, I'll put together our lists and maybe combine them with the previous "greatest skates of all time" lists

Sorry to be a downer, but I've had a drastic drop in enthusiasm for the sport. Not sure how much of it is it being the off season vs rule changes/fan reactions/lack of rule enforcement vs. feeling a growing level of pessimism about the next few years. I don't even visit the Planet every day but figured I should catch up to make sure I don't miss out on any Yuzu showings. I planned to finally do some traveling and attend competitions starting in fall but I don't know if I want to invest money into something that only makes me depressed these days, especially when they're exploiting Yuzu and his fans by gouging them. If Yuzu is still feeling pain in the ankle, is he likely to still do Autumn Classic? I thought by this time last year Yuzu was saying that there wasn't anymore pain? To be honest, as much as I'm looking forward to the new exhibitions, I feel kind of sad that he's doing the whole tour again rather than letting himself heal completely, if that's even possible anymore. Anyway, I've finally caught up on the two main threads. I don't see anything about this -5 for pops in communication 2253 or in a search. Does anyone have a link to the communication that explains it so I can see the specific wording?

I'm confused as to what they mean by "delay" in rotation. I thought "delayed rotation" referred to jumps where the skater jumps into the air first then completes all the rotations in the air. If the rotation is starting on the ice, how can you argue that there's any delay? I think heavy pre-rotaters also essentially spin off the take off because they're relying on rotational momentum to complete the jump. I can't think of one that turns forward, then pauses to stop the rotation, takes off, then completes the rotation - and if they are doing that, isn't it essentially a different jump? Nevermind that at 180 degrees pre-rotation, the skater would be taking off forward so the jumps should technically be called "downgraded" and therefore how can you even call it a quad (unless they're going for a quint)?

I'm not sure what I hate more - Elvis medleys or Chaplin programs. I think it's time for me to give up on him. I've been holding out hope because I'm such a huge fan of his actual skating and I'm not so emotionally invested to feel crushed by the head case factor, but I don't think I can deal with terrible programs anymore. Why is it such a sin these days for beautifully classic skaters to skate to music that suits their natural style? I don't care that Carmen is a warhorse - it was the only program I've seen of his that suited him perfectly.

I should clarify that when I said that Michelle Kwan got discussed as GOAT, it was more a fan thing than a media thing and it was when her career was still active and the Olympics were still a possibility. I think in the US, most people consider the Olympic singles gold to be essential for GOAT candidate. Though I think sometimes people would intimate that she could become the GOAT - I remember when Peggy Fleming was doing one of those commentary intros, she talked about how Michelle Kwan was an important figure while Tara became a "blip on the radar". I think the dichotomy of the sport also affects how people rank the GOAT candidates. Sport is judged very differently than art and leaning more one way or the other (or in hoodie's case, neither), can produce 2 completely different, though valid in their own way, lists. For me, ISU competition is sport first. We all know that for those who are actually competitive for titles, artistic sacrifices are made to garner points, if the skater even has an artistic point of view in the first place. I think most skaters just do what is expected of them in order to place as high as they are able rather than trying to make any sort of artistic statement. As such, I hold skating to the same standards as other sports and in every sport, the competitive results are the primary, but not sole, determiner of GOAT status but everyone who is considered a GOAT candidate also has the biggest titles in the sport. I also agree with rockstaryuzuru in that, one of the biggest determiners of GOAT is how many people agree that you're the GOAT - after all, it is an artificial fan anointed title, no matter what sort of logic we try to bring to it. I agree that there should also be a differentiation between eras. I don't think it has to be as drastic as between generations, which for sports is not very long, but certainly between major changes to the sport. It's pretty much a different sport since figures was devalued and then eliminated.

Is a toe axel an actual different thing? I thought it was just short hand for "exceptionally crappy pre-rotated toe loop". Or are you just objecting to use of the slang? yes, it doesn't look like he's really picking and he's taking off forward, but we've seen elite skaters get credit for take offs just as bad. I'm more confused about why they're even working on this unless the kid already has all the quads. The cynical part of me thinks that the harness guy is doing the majority of the work and this was just staged for publicity. Of course, I would say the same about most of these attempts, excluding Dmitriev only because he's not on a harness. But, c'mon, does anyone actually believe for a second that he'll ever rotate and land it? also, I don't think quints are happening any time soon unless there's a major innovation in technology. Inspiration can go only so far. btw, I added Camden Pulkinen's attempt to the original 4axel post. Not sure how much of his jump problems are in his head vs in his technique, but it seems that a skater who is actually trying to make a career out of skating should be utilizing their precious ice time for stabilizing their regular jumps first. Dmitriev doesn't have much to lose since he's likely never going to medal in nationals or grand prix event anyway so this is his only chance at a claim to fame. But then again, I don't see Pulkinen ever being a contender on the world stage anyway.

Maxim Belyavsky Max Aaron Artur Dmitriev Jr There's 2 different attempts on this video