Lira

That was a mood killer. But let's hope. 

11 hours ago, sallycinnamon said:

Congrats to Medvedev as well, and hope he'll be able to win many more GS titles in the future. I sort of undertsood his disappointment regarding how the audience behaved towards him in the final, it wasn't nice to watch.  A little more respect could have been enough even if the audience cheered for Rafa to get the 21st title.

 I agree, those boos is not something I like and it certainly doesn't look good for tennis as a sport. But I'm pretty sure that the fact it was Nadal that Medvedev played against was only a part of the reason. We know that Nadal is loved by most of tennis fans. And he would have support of most of the fans no matter who he would have played against (maybe except for Fedder or an Australian player). But I don't think any other opponent (or almost any) would get that kind of behaviour from fans that Medvedev got. Medvedev more than once said or did something that angered or at least annoyed the fans (not only during this year AO) and while booed he provoked them to boo even louder. I'm not saying that from now on he might be always booed at that's ok. No, it's not. But a little effort from him would be appreciated, not all his snarky comments were really needed.

Incredible Australian Open finals in singles. Ash coming back from 1-5 in the second set and becoming the first Aussie in 44 years to win in singles on home turf. And Rafa coming back from 0-2 in the match and breaking the record for most Grand Slams men's singles titles. It's so special - Rafa is one of the oldest men in the tour, coming back from a serious injury, still winning after second longest Australian Open final ever (the match duration: 5 h 24 min). Just WOW.

It was a nice (and clean!) skate from Rino. She was really happy about the result. It's always great to see that kind of joy mixed with bewilderment (I mean that kind of bewilderment that is actually a good thing and not a disappointment ). 

And the special award goes the guy that made an interview with the winners in the arena after the competition. They just won and were happy till they heard the question "What's your plan now? Are you going to the Olympics?".  

This all makes me really worried about the future of the sport. I remember I was really happy when they changed the system from 6.0.  I was probably just a naive kid back then (and already invested in this sport... no hope for me) to think it'll solve the sport's problems. And it was an improvement but we clearly see it's not enough. I really really hope they won't introduce two separate programs: an artistic one and a technical one. No, no, no, a big no to that. I believe they should invest in some kind of new technologies, AI, something that will make judging more neutral and fair. At this point even a slow-mo replay would make a lot of good :-P  If I, just a casual fan, can see a crazy pre-rotation how on earth an international judge cannot and gives an outrageous GOE? It's beyond me. So, new technologies and controlling the judges' work for sure are needed. But as you say they might want to introduce some changes in the point system as well. I am a bit hopeful and terrified of what they can do at the same time.

41 minutes ago, sallycinnamon said:

where is Samoilov who won Nationals this season iirc?

Yeah, Samoilov won Nationals and iirc he goes to Worlds while Kornel got Europeans.

I think this costume is very "Nathan-y". I don't like it, but it's his style. And at least he is consistent with those unappealing shirts.

I prefer not to mention scores. But the question is: who goes to Olys?

Vincent only 0.38 points ahead of Jason

How Malinin got level 4 on that travelling spin??

1 hour ago, YuzuBoy said:

Many American, Australian and European tennis players but also, WTA and ATP made statements about the situation you are referring to, and they suspended all the tennis events in China, even IOC apparently was involved.

That's definitely an Olympic program XD 

I'm quite bewildered with Slovakian judge Hedviga Fialkova's component scores for Ekaterina Kurakova in SP. Every score is lower from 0.75 to 2.25 (!) than Kurakova's scores that come from other judges. On average 1.5 points difference. That's a lot! There is no such a difference in this judge scores when it comes to other ladies (except for another Polish girl Karolina Bialas whose every score coming from Ms. Fialkova is around 1.25 lower). Maybe it's just a coincidence. But it looks weird.

4 hours ago, Pammi said:

ISU are doing a FAN SURVEY!!

Lots of questions about their website and social media, but there is a box at the end where you can tell them whatever you like in terms of suggestions of what they could do to improve....you have till 9th December to respond!

 

https://www.isu.org/isu-news/news/145-news/13815-isu-launches-fan-survey?templateParam=15

 

 

I filled it a few days ago. Shared my opinions and gave some advice   But tbh, I don't think it'll change anything. Are they really so dumb that they didn't realize that fans aren't exactly happy with them? If that's the case then maybe it will actually help :-P  I suppose they'll just ignore our answers. Unless they got so many it'll be difficult to ignore. (And who am I kidding... if there is something they are good at, it's ignorance). Anyway, at leas they won't be able to say we didn't offer our insight. 

2 hours ago, rockstaryuzu said:

So nice to see Brian and Stephane at the boards, always. 

 

But looks like someone got confused 
 

2 hours ago, Paskud said:

This is so funny.

Tbh, I'm not sure if it's more funny or more depressing. I laughed at it and was annoyed at the same time. 

Shoma was great today! A pleasure to watch! Good skate from Vincent. I also really liked Jun's performance. 

5 minutes ago, Faithyu said:

Not sure why this program doesn't do anything for me.......sorry Mateo

I don't really like the music cut. Like there are two completely different parts of the program and I don't see the connecting element. Maybe the next performance of this SP will be more convincing. 

Definitely not a splat fest we saw recently but 4T wasn't perfectly cooperative today in some cases. 

I didn't manage to see Riko and Mana but from the girls I saw, Kaori was definitely the best. There is power in her skating! So fluid! 

1 hour ago, Melodie said:

There are rules for those stuff. The problem is those rules are selectively applied. Yuma used to get some edge calls but no more, while Shun and Kao for instance are still getting calls, albeit not consistently so. 

 

I know there are rules. I just think the penalty should be even more serious, so they would think twice before introducing a jump that is not ready (of course, a not prefect jump can happen to anyone from time to time, but mostly it's a continuous thing that applies to the same skaters). But you're probably right, maybe if the rules that already exist were applied correctly, I wouldn't feel like they are not enough.

1 hour ago, Melodie said:

PS: He is going for the 4Lz too, so don't think this is the worst we have seen yet. 

Thanks for letting me know I should prepare myself for that.  Also we've already seen some great examples of Scherbakova's 4Lz with GOE like from here to the Moon, so whatever happens it shouldn't be shocking, but still it drives me crazy every time. 

32 minutes ago, Melodie said:

It gets worse. He went from flat to inside edge now. Of course, without any calls and of course this gets + 1.94 

 

It annoys me sooo badly. This should be easy to judge correctly. Slow-mo replay is not an advanced technology. There should be a rule that says that the wrong edge changes the value of a jump to 70% BV or doesn't allow to give a positive GOE or something like that. It's so unfair that some athletes don't care about the proper technique and still got great GOE. It's a bit sad that fs needs a rule for basically everything but better to have those rules than leave the grey area cause we see how it's utilized at any competition right now.

I remember the drama as well, I didn't like the outcome and hoped that despite his age Plush somehow will manage to show off in Sochi. And we all know who showed off back then. Can't say it was a disappointment though. 

Even if I'm not a fan of Grassl it was nice to see the crowd's joy.

So Yuma and Boyang switched their places.

Tbh, I didn't expect Grassl losing to Misha, but after Boyang's performance he probably will get on the podium anyway.

It's gonna be close. I hope he won't beat Yuma. 

Finally a clean skate in the first group (not all jumps were perfect, bu they were landed!). I like his costume.