General Skating Chat

[Sukigirl]

Has this been posted? Thoughts from Nathan, RAF and ISU officials on tech changes, as reported by Hersh.
 

 

https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2020/05/20/figure-skating-judging-changes-nathan-chen/

 

 

“These changes being ‘new’ to 2020-21 have to be interpreted as a reaction to the Russian ladies’ dominance and that of Nathan Chen, too,” said Tom Zakrajsek, a top U.S. coach, in an email.

Chen said this week by telephone that he finds the new values fair but wishes there would be a bonus for skaters like him, Yuzuru Hanyu and Shoma Uno of Japan, Vincent Zhouof the U.S., Daniel Grassl of Italy and Alexander Samarin of Russia if they land more than one of the three hardest quads in a program.

 

According to skatingscores.com, Chen and Grassl are the only ones who have landed all three at least once in their career. Among men in major international competitions beginning in 2010-11, including Junior Grand Prix and Challenger Series events, 13 different skaters have landed a clean quad Lutz, six a clean quad flip, five a clean quad loop. By comparison, 93 have landed a clean quad toe loop and 42 a clean quad Salchow.

 

“It makes sense they are similarly valued, but there should be some extra incentive to do all the three hardest ones because it is difficult for some skaters to do some,” Chen said. “The loop is a very difficult jump for me; for others, it is quite easy.

“There are pros and cons to these changes for each athlete. I have a Lutz, and because they are reducing its value, that does negatively impact me. At the same time, I can work to get my loop consistent (he has tried just one, in 2017) and to improve the grade of execution on my jumps.”

[sweetwater]

I wonder if Nathan has forgotten that there is a rule that skaters can repeat only one type of quad in the free skating or he wants another rule that would benefit him.

[mokjakarma]

He wants even more bonuses for landing difficult jumps? Why? Incentives should not be offered for mediocre elements. Just landing a quad shouldn't call for an incentive (although in most cases it does). I don't understand his reasoning. 

[Katt]

Love how everyone all forget about 4A existence when they talk about big jumps. Since Nathan openly want more bonus,  the judges might take note and shower him with more generous scoring. As if the high BV and high GOE factor for those jumps aren't enough. How privileged. 

 

[SitTwizzle]

To be honest, it is not Nathan Chen who asks it, it is Rafael Arutyunyan, and I wonder if, like Alexey Mishin's, his message is not to be taken as a sarcasm.

[Paskud]

  Tbh, what hit me the most was something from another one of his recent interviews.

Quote

What is the worst advice you’ve ever received?

“Hard work gets you results. Yes, you need to push through whenever things are getting tough, but you can’t do that all the time. Your body, your mind, your everything is going to break down at some point and you’re just going to exhaust yourself. I think strategizing your time and your efforts is really important. The best advice that I’ve received was to give yourself time to be a person, and to not be so working goal-oriented all the time. Enjoy yourself! My trainer always makes sure to partition a specific time throughout the year where skating is not at all in the docket. Having times of ‘not being a skater’ is really helpful.”

(...)

Majority of skaters are pulled into homeschooling very, very young. That’s the time when kids learn to socialize and learn things that are taught in school that are just not taught at the rink. I think it’d be really helpful to be able to have better implementations of skating programs within our national school systems so that skaters don’t necessarily have to feel the need to be pulled out of school to focus on skating.

https://medium.com/@whartoninnovators/skating-on-ice-interview-with-nathan-chen-771438beab10

[SitTwizzle]

10 minutes ago, Paskud said:

  Tbh, what hit me the most was something from another one of his recent interviews.

https://medium.com/@whartoninnovators/skating-on-ice-interview-with-nathan-chen-771438beab10

If they can socialise at the rink, it's OK. If they cannot...

Yuzuru Hanyu missed a lot of kindergarten, but then, he went to conventional elementary and junior high school, and a bit of high school. He certainly didn't have cramming school like most of his schoolmates of course.

And he is speaking for the general skater. A skater like Yuzuru Hanyu, who lives for skating, doesn't work the same. I suppose there is nobody like him in the world of figure skating. AND of course, he is not working like a beast, he is focused but with a vision, of what he wants to get and how to achieve it the most efficient (including, energy-sparing) way. (And he has also earphones and video games.)

[sallycinnamon]

I'm sort of  at some of the things Nathan has said recently.

Of course he works hard, and I doubt it is *really* the worst advice he has ever received. 

 

And skaters who have multiple quads already have a significant advantage that shows in both TES especially if they also get high GOEs, but also in PCS because it is how things work. It is especially Nathan who has a big advantage here, and he wants more which I don't understand. It would also make the gap between the top skaters and those who don't have that quads even bigger.

[Lunna]

1 час назад, Paskud сказал:

  Tbh, what hit me the most was something from another one of his recent interviews.

https://medium.com/@whartoninnovators/skating-on-ice-interview-with-nathan-chen-771438beab10

I'd say to each their own, smb may need more focus, some need more distraction and rest. Though to say it's the worst advice it's..

About school also hard to say how things work in different countries (Yuzu still went to school). And I would say how to socialize you can learn at the rink too (and can't at school if you don't want to) and some other things learned at the rink, you can't teach at school.

But I long ago have the impression that Nathan's heart isn't 100% in FS, so I'm like whatever at his interviews.

[yumeaki]

8 hours ago, Paskud said:

  Tbh, what hit me the most was something from another one of his recent interviews.

https://medium.com/@whartoninnovators/skating-on-ice-interview-with-nathan-chen-771438beab10

Either he has some major trauma from not seeing results of his “hard work” (however he defined it) or not many people has given him advices... “worst” advice?

 

 

6 hours ago, Lunna said:

 

But I long ago have the impression that Nathan's heart isn't 100% in FS, so I'm like whatever at his interviews.

I always think the availability of a different career path is what lifted FS pressure away from him and so he is able to jump more consistently. He doesn’t have to put his whole life in a competition so yes, I don’t see his heart 100% in FS too. 

Well some people works like this (I also do better with less pressure) but some legend just like to add pressure to oneself to excel. 

[Lunna]

4 часа назад, yumeaki сказал:

I always think the availability of a different career path is what lifted FS pressure away from him and so he is able to jump more consistently. He doesn’t have to put his whole life in a competition so yes, I don’t see his heart 100% in FS too. 

For me the most consistent skater I remember is Plushenko (I only remember a fall in the SP at first Olys), even towards the end of his career when his jumps didn't looked pleasant still it was impressive and I would say his heart was in FS 100%.

I think there's a lot of facts for Nathan: less pressure from having future career after skating, effective technique (not the most pleasant but works for him), high scores no matter of the quality.

[Purple]

5 hours ago, yumeaki said:

Either he has some major trauma from not seeing results of his “hard work” (however he defined it) or not many people has given him advices... “worst” advice?

 

 

I always think the availability of a different career path is what lifted FS pressure away from him and so he is able to jump more consistently. He doesn’t have to put his whole life in a competition so yes, I don’t see his heart 100% in FS too. 

Well some people works like this (I also do better with less pressure) but some legend just like to add pressure to oneself to excel. 

I think for Nathan it's due to the fact he had a hip surgery when he was 16 or 17. I remember Rafael saying in an interview before that Nathan was all for quads & more quads. 

 

But yeah of course, Nathan doesnt "live & breath skating" like Yuzu does. Yuzu has a relatively normal school life compared to US skaters. In US, some were homeschooled so to make time for skating.

 

 

[SitTwizzle]

1 hour ago, Lunna said:

For me the most consistent skater I remember is Plushenko (I only remember a fall in the SP at first Olys), even towards the end of his career when his jumps didn't looked pleasant still it was impressive and I would say his heart was in FS 100%.

I think there's a lot of facts for Nathan: less pressure from having future career after skating, effective technique (not the most pleasant but works for him), high scores no matter of the quality.

One think I am not sure of : "high scores no matter of the quality" may make him rather uncomfortable. And my impression is now, Yuzuru Hanyu may feel this worry. He has such empathy and ability to guess.

[Sombreuil]

High scores no matter the quality may make him uncomfortable- probably do if he has any integrity or awareness of what quality is- but he’s going to forge ahead for that Olympic gold anyway because he doesn’t care enough about skating to try and retool his technique into something better.  He doesn’t love skating- he likes it well enough, it rewards him on the international stage, in my view disproportionately, and he envisions his life without skating after 2022.  Why mess with a winning formula ?    Frankly I don’t think he would be feeling any problem with it at all if he weren’t up against Yuzuru, whose quality he acknowledges even if US media would like him to foster some sort of poisonous rivalry.
 

(And Nathan fans need not have a go at me over this- I’m not suggesting that he’s not a nice kid or that he ought to be trying to give back points;  I am saying that he should shut up and take the candy or do something to improve his skating.)

[Lunna]

58 минут назад, Sombreuil сказал:

he doesn’t care enough about skating to try and retool his technique into something better

I am not sure there's a way to retool technique much at the adult age and it's not like Nathan's technique is that bad (there's much worse), the problem is that it's rewarded like it's perfect, so yes, he shouldn't ask for more candies, quadsters with right passport have them already.