Team Japan

[SitTwizzle]

17 minutes ago, Paskud said:

Kaori will eat her alive at JNats.

And I had this bad hunch since last summer. Geez, I hate my hunches.

It is a fact that practice at Champéry, with its height, may give illusions to the skaters as to what they can do on a rink nearer sea level, that is, in a normal competition. But also, for a recovering Rika Kihira during pre-Olympic season, it may prove a safe choice, more forgiving to healing articulations. After all, the important season is next, not this.

And anyway, she couldn't go physically to TCC because of Canada's borders closure.

I am very glad for Shoma Uno who will have one more translator, as she seems to have a pretty good English.  And she may get that little bit of something lacking in her interpretation. I really think she has a strong artistic potential, otherwise how could she skate Breakfast in Baghdad as she already did last year for instance? But at the moment these are more promises, and Stéphane Lambiel may well be the one who can best help her reveal all what she can express with her body. I am sure she will become a dream of a skater, even if she falls a little more in competition this year.

And I am sure Koshiro Shimada, Deniss Vasiljevs and Alexia Paganini are very glad to have these Senpai (with Shoma Uno) to look up to and try to emulate.

I am very glad she's in Champéry this season.

[surimi]

^ But Shoma hasn't lost his jumps under Lambiel. And Vasiljevs has landed a quad in competition recetly. I think Rika will keep her jumps.

[sweetwater]

1 hour ago, Paskud said:

and how "no jumps only fluff" coach is supposed to help?

Now I think she really wanted to train with someone who lands quads constantly. I heard that Team Hamada is now training mostly at the Kinoshita Ice Arena in Kyoto, although they come back to Kansai Univ once a week. If Rika stayed with the team, she would be the strongest skater among them in terms of technique, since none of their boys has a quad yet (although they must be practicing it.) If she had stayed in Japan, she might have been able to train with some of the guys who had quad once a week at the new national training center, but she has already done it in the past. Champery may not have a skillful jump coach, but there she can train with Shoma, Koshiro, and Deniss. I wonder how she will prepare for Nationals though...

[Paskud]

I  really don't like Stephane's philosopy that he prioritises rising his skaters first "as humans" and then "as skaters". No wonder his all students are struggling at every competition, no matter how good or bad their basics are. And maybe it's not a bad idea and normal for low-mid level and all men are more or less a mess, for a high level lady this is unacceptable (I mean struggling that much).
A coach isn't second dad or uncle. It's a coach.

Stephane is completely unexperienced, had to ask for help with Deniss at WC19 and Koshiro is nowhere near the potential that he was showing in 2015.

Deniss quad at Nebelhorn was URed, he himself was surprised that he managed to land it so well for the first time and still had some very costly mistakes after it. He still won because it was a challenger and men event. At GP a lady wouldn't be even on podium.

And skating next to misogynist is for sure amazing.

 

between URed quad and URed combos there is indeed nothing to be worried about

but uwu, there will be so much fluff

[monchan]

So Satton is no more with Hamada??? Hm is ISU page reliable? I doubt she completely left Hamada.

Rika might've had a plan w TCC but COVID made it impossible. Lambiel isn't a great jump coach, I alr forgot why she moved to Team Champery instead of staying w Hamada.

 

I don't think she'll lose her consistency just becuz she's in a more lenient team. She might just practice as she usually does under Hamada.

[EisElle]

1 hour ago, Paskud said:

I  really don't like Stephane's philosopy that he prioritises rising his skaters first "as humans" and then "as skaters". No wonder his all students are struggling at every competition, no matter how good or bad their basics are. And maybe it's not a bad idea and normal for low-mid level and all men are more or less a mess, for a high level lady this is unacceptable (I mean struggling that much).
A coach isn't second dad or uncle. It's a coach.

Stephane is completely unexperienced, had to ask for help with Deniss at WC19 and Koshiro is nowhere near the potential that he was showing in 2015.

Deniss quad at Nebelhorn was URed, he himself was surprised that he managed to land it so well for the first time and still had some very costly mistakes after it. He still won because it was a challenger and men event. At GP a lady wouldn't be even on podium.

And skating next to misogynist is for sure amazing.

 

between URed quad and URed combos there is indeed nothing to be worried about

but uwu, there will be so much fluff

I wouldn't be so negative so early.

I would have been more than happy if Rika had been able to follow her initial plan and go at TCC, where she would have had Ghislain as specialist and better live examples of quads (it's not like Shoma's 4sal has been much more rotated than hers thus far, sorrynotsorry). But one can hardly fault Rika for for the turn of events.

We don't know the behind the scenes with Hamada, and while under her Rika could get all her triples, including a reliable 3A, Hamada has no no-URmagic anyway. With 4S Rika looks about where she was before going to Champery (and I hope she's not gonna chance any -3Lo combo).

She has on her side a very solid technique and focus and a systematical attitude to anything skating. I really can't fault her plans till now. Last season the injury that prevented her from doing 3Lz and slowed her down with the quad training too, but she's grown in other things. If she wanted to be in a more challenging environment than what she had, going abroad was a good plan, but she can't wait forever for Canada to open those borders, and god forbid she went to Raf. Russia probably wasn't an option anyway (and I wouldn't even want her there). Champery was the only viable option, other than stay where she was. She still has things she can improve on, working with Lambiel, though she might not improve on her jumps (I do think that without upgrading her jump layout her chances of beating russiaflation are slim, and improving one'sSS or expression is of little use when it comes to scoring). But there's no reason yet to believe she's lost what she brought there.

Among all jpn ladies, Rika is the one I'd trust the most when it comes to making sensible long-term plans. Let's wait at least till we see her in both practice and comp at IdF before spelling doom for her.

[Paskud]

It's not like she really needs to rise her PCS (talking here about number alone, not actual skills).

She gets usually around 70-72 PCS. It's her GOE that is relatively low and drowns her scores.

[Melodie]

29 minutes ago, LadyLou said:

I wouldn't be so negative so early.

I would have been more than happy if Rika had been able to follow her initial plan and go at TCC, where she would have had Ghislain as specialist and better live examples of quads (it's not like Shoma's 4sal has been much more rotated than hers thus far, sorrynotsorry). But one can hardly fault Rika for for the turn of events.

We don't know the behind the scenes with Hamada, and while under her Rika could get all her triples, including a reliable 3A, Hamada has no no-URmagic anyway. With 4S Rika looks about where she was before going to Champery (and I hope she's not gonna chance any -3Lo combo).

She has on her side a very solid technique and focus and a systematical attitude to anything skating. I really can't fault her plans till now. Last season the injury that prevented her from doing 3Lz and slowed her down with the quad training too, but she's grown in other things. If she wanted to be in a more challenging environment than what she had, going abroad was a good plan, but she can't wait forever for Canada to open those borders, and god forbid she went to Raf. Russia probably wasn't an option anyway (and I wouldn't even want her there). Champery was the only viable option, other than stay where she was. She still has things she can improve on, working with Lambiel, though she might not improve on her jumps (I do think that without upgrading her jump layout her chances of beating russiaflation are slim, and improving one'sSS or expression is of little use when it comes to scoring). But there's no reason yet to believe she's lost what she brought there.

Among all jpn ladies, Rika is the one I'd trust the most when it comes to making sensible long-term plans. Let's wait at least till we see her in both practice and comp at IdF before spelling doom for her.

I agree with you about her solid techniques. I won't say whether it is a good or bad thing that she has Stephane as her coach. Time will tell, so we will see. 

 

As for upgrading her jump layout, I think she can try to backload 3Lz combo (3Lz3T) in the SP and 3A combos in the FP. That, combined with her consistent PCS (if anything, I don't think she has ever been underscored in this department), should be a good strategy. 

[Melodie]

3 minutes ago, Paskud said:

It's not like she really needs to rise her PCS (talking here about number alone, not actual skills).

She gets usually around 70-72 PCS. It's her GOE that is relatively low and drowns her scores.

I agree with you about her PCS. As for her GOEs, I actually think those are fine most of the time. The problem is not that she is lowballed but some of her competitors are often overscored. 

[Paskud]

4 minutes ago, Melodie said:

I agree with you about her PCS. As for her GOEs, I actually think those are fine most of the time. The problem is not that she is lowballed but some of her competitors are often overscored. 

She is caped right now on +2/+3 on every element, including spins, steps and her bigger jumps.

[Melodie]

31 minutes ago, Paskud said:

She is caped right now on +2/+3 on every element, including spins, steps and her bigger jumps.

She does get +4 too. The only recent competition where I thought she should have gotten decisively higher GOEs was the challenger in the Netherlands. Save for the fall in the combo in the SP, the qualities in all her elements were quite good. The series of 0s for her Lz in the SP were in particular very weird. I wonder if they saw something we didn't see or if the judges there were really that determined to give her low scores.    

 

 

[Melodie]

1 hour ago, monchan said:

So Satton is no more with Hamada??? Hm is ISU page reliable? I doubt she completely left Hamada.

Rika might've had a plan w TCC but COVID made it impossible. Lambiel isn't a great jump coach, I alr forgot why she moved to Team Champery instead of staying w Hamada.

 

I don't think she'll lose her consistency just becuz she's in a more lenient team. She might just practice as she usually does under Hamada.

 Take ISU page with a grain of salt. They butchered names and messed up info before. 

[Paskud]

27 minutes ago, Melodie said:

She does get +4 too. More +4/+5 would be more appropriate, but, in general, nothing too tragic IMO. 

 

Edit: I should have said that "The problem is not that she is lowballed often." I do get where you are coming from tho. 

indeed

so many 4s

Spoiler

 

 

[sweetwater]

1 hour ago, monchan said:

So Satton is no more with Hamada??? Hm is ISU page reliable? I doubt she completely left Hamada.

Information on ISU bio is often outdated. For example, Sota Yamamoto has been training under Yoshinori Onishi since last month, but on bio, he is still coached by his former coach. Mitsuki Sumoto has left Yoshinori Onishi early this year and now is training under Takeshi Honda, but on bio, he is still training with Onishi. Yuka Nagai's bio hasn't been updated for 3years. So I wouldn't think ISU would update the bio for no reason, but I can't say their update is accurate either 

[Melodie]

37 minutes ago, Paskud said:

indeed

so many 4s

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

I mentioned the +4 because you said she is capped at +2/+3. The Challenger in the Netherlands was definitely wrong tho.

 

Anyway, I stand by my opinion that on their own, most of her scores (including GOEs, PCSs) are acceptable. (Most, not all, because some are downright not OK at all)