Sombreuil

I would love Masquerade but I don’t expect it. Having seen the notions of the rest of the field when it comes to costumes I think we’re going to need CM - I understand that is probably the blingiest costume he has and this lot are likely to turn up in old band t shirts, probably black ones, and we’re going to need someone with a couple of kilos of Swarovski to brighten the gala up.

All of which will be meaningless because even if they attempt to define what they mean by those three components in order to reduce subjective scoring the judges will continue to do exactly as they like and there is no sanction for it unless it’s so crassly blatant that even ISU cannot ignore it. Problem lies in the personnel not the system.

Can’t help wondering whether the Russian fed has a job in PR in mind for EM - she did a great job for them in the lead up to PC Olympics and the recent appearance in a power suit......

Just caught up with this - I can’t wrap my head around the methodology because I have problems with maths but it’s very impressive. I suspect several of your critics are similarly challenged and lack the capacity for anything apart from the unhelpful knee jerk reaction we are all familiar with. It was the same with the analysis of H&L that brought me here - plenty of unsubstantiated somewhat hysterical criticism but no solid analysis of their own or of their favourite skaters performances to challenge what was being said. I hope you are able to keep enjoying FS while updating your figures as the season progresses. TBH catching up with the few good performances at SkAm will probably be better for your blood pressure than watching the whole thing, especially with US commentary

Big 👍to ISU for YouTube coverage. Sound wasn’t great and the intermittent disappearance of the tech box was annoying - and no excuses, they’ve been doing the juniorGP for a while now so that should be sorted, and we aren’t talking about a small European rink, this was Las Vegas which one assumes has state of the art electronic communications- but it was easy to access, didn’t freeze or stutter and best of all no commentary. I wouldn’t be averse to Belinda or Max or Ted, but when they began to interview Nathan at the end I realised what American viewers had probably been enduring from NBC and was sooooo thankful for a no commentary stream.

Barring disaster, Skate Canada and NHK trophy then hopefully the GPF. Then Japanese nationals. Simone Biles is lucky that she can speak her frustrations without fear - she’s American, she’s survived Nassar, her Fed is on the back foot after consecutive failures to deal with serious safeguarding issues going back years - they have to support her. Whether she, with their backing, can sway FIG is another matter.

Thank you for this - I will experiment next week

They pay for an actual costume if he actually skates in the ad - the Ghana red one was very nice and had quite a following here for those of us who like red, and some very good behind the scenes footage. I’m with those who think this one was photoshopped ( badly) - the proportions are weird, and the hands too chunky. 🙏🏻 Advice on VPN for Skate Canada would be very welcome - especially as it looks as though I am going to miss NHK due to commitments in a wi fi free zone that weekend. 😩

Hope this treatment/ surgery provides a permanent solution and that he will be back full force next year

Am I alone in finding it odd that if they are aiming for Beijing he is going to carry on with singles this season and switch next season with such a short time left? If they were really serious wouldn’t they start now?

Have some Max and Angelo to take the taste away

I remember thinking when I looked at the footage from Sochi and the group interviews that there was a decided lack of enthusiasm about the gold medal, and preference and air time given to the senior skaters over the medal winner. Only when he was interviewed on his own by Shizuka was there any animation about it. When I looked further back at 2012 I thought it might be a situation where Takahashi was the adored ‘ace’, Machida the expected heir and Hanyu was expected to wait his turn or even make up the numbers until a more usual candidate for the top spot came along but of course he was too much of a force of nature for that to be the outcome. This seems to be borne out by those photos and what @Umebachi and @Geo1 are saying here and on the general thread. Very disheartening .

Speaking as someone who has been to a couple of weddings this year flower petals are a lot more difficult to clear up than soft toys....

Doing a 3A from a standstill is a bit of fun, fooling around with friends. His pride is in beautiful skating with gorgeous jumps all of which are timed to the music . The problem is that ISU have shortened the FS to the extent that it’s difficult to achieve that perfect meld of tech and ‘artistry’ ( hard to think of the right word, that’s not perfect but it will do for now) , but he will do his utmost to show just that. Only hope his ankle will hold out ....

Hate ‘Fame’ but like their take on it. Not keen on the music/ voice over for the FD, but I really didn’t like Charlotte Church for Kaori this time last year and in the end I loved it so I’m not going to be critical until I’ve seen a few competitions. I’m not really au fait with ice dance but they move beautifully together.

She is extraordinary

ISU presumably have a PR team of some description because they do manage to publicise events. Admittedly it seems to be a totally clueless, myopic bunch of dinosaurs with no research skills who never look at social media (unlike the Olympic media people who recognise a gold mine when it opens up at their feet) but it is there. I suppose the powers that be select staff on the basis of their own preferences so the whole place is probably full of Luddites - like selecting like. Perhaps they feel that such a high level of popularity is tasteless or undignified.

No Han Yan and now no Sui/Han - Please let no one be injured 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

I don’t think it’s that - more desperately trying to put something new out there - let’s face it the internet resounds with complaints about warhorses, and I’m fairly loud about that myself - Moulin Rouge/ tango ( shudders) .

It always comes down to the same thing - fix the judges and the system will work. Start by appointing them independently of national federations.

There seems to be a lot of movement between countries and an increase in co coaching, across continents in some cases. I wonder how well these arrangements will work, or whether they are face savers for the original coaches.

I can well believe it - US often lead after the qualifying round and their media etc get very excited and think it means something (which was the case in London 2012) but qualifying is just that - as the late Mitch Fenner a commentator and a Dutch national coach said - the Japanese can be all over the place when qualifying but when they turn up for the actual competition they’re in a different league. They know how to do enough to get through qualifying with minimum effort, saving the maximum effort for the actual competition.

It’s 2012 Olympics team event. When I look at it again it took a while to sort out because it was the last competitor on the last piece of apparatus and they announced the winners before the appeal was sorted so a bit of a mess. In the middle of competition it sorts itself out quicker. As for actual cash changing hands, I remember some idiot on social media accusing the Japanese of bribing the judges and people having to explain the system - someone whose interest in MAG probably only existed for those few hours because GB were doing well. It’s around 2:30:15 https://youtu.be/6W0HCqIgm6Y sorry - too slow!

Gymnastics has an appeal system but you have to pay and you have to do it very quickly after the disputed call - see on YouTube Team Japan scrambling to get the cash sorted and the money and the appeal to the judges table in time after Kohei screwed up the dismount from the pommel horse. Not saying it’s ideal but it is a system, it’s fast, so it doesn’t unduly delay the competition. Of course you’d have to let the judges look at the footage.... therefore you would need to have adequate footage.

The new Origin costume made me think of something but I couldn’t put my finger on it and I was rather preoccupied with other aspects of Saturdays FP at the time, but this afternoon looking at the photos it came to me - it would make a fabulous costume for Count Lilac in an ice production of Matthew Bournes Sleeping Beauty- it’s got that goth vibe and with a spot of eye make up it would make an amazing show costume. I’m not as keen on Otonal - it’s a bit bulky in the torso to my eye. The collar is a bit bulky too, much prefer no 1.