Sighs of Relief: Torino Worlds Men’s FS

Noooooo-bunari Oda!

I’m still in shock that Nobunari didn’t score high enough to even compete in the LP/FS (falling to 28th with his SP). What a tragedy, and what a bad taste that must leave in his mouth. At least this wasn’t Tokyo 2011! Redemption next year, on home ice? I hope.

Tara is really relaxing into this commentating. Nice to see.

A Stellar Senior Worlds Debut

Adam Rippon: He starts with a lot of freedom. Great 3/3. What a consistent skater…whoops, a step out of his nemesis, the 3A (he has something in common with Stéphane). Not as memorable a program as his SP, but it’s fresh. YES…he lands a perfect 3A in the bonus! Beautiful Tano and Rippon lutzes. Wow, he’s really killin’ this! In his footwork he looks a little bit tired, but starts to express a bit more with his face. Good enough for bronze? We’ll see. BUT, at least this bodes well for our 3rd berth. Now it’s all up to Jeremy.

Olympic Hangover Free Skates

Adrian Schultheiss: He reminds me of Van der Perren. Straight-jacket concept, eh? CRAZY! His jumps are looking good, including his quad. I appreciate him taking some musical risks here, including Pac-Man audio samples, but he’s skating VERY slow, and not really expressing much. The program just doesn’t hold together or have any continuity.

Van der Perren: 4/3/3 (19 pts)! That was thrilling. Clean 3A. (Those were for his ailing grandfather!) This is impressive. 2F. Argh. His footwork almost throw-away. Lots of hunched over jump landings, BUT clean! This was a damn good skate for him to end his competitive career! So sweet to see him so emotional at the end. His first combo was a great reminder of just how effective they can be for wowing the audience (a nod to Plushy).

Da Boys Duke it Out: Torino Worlds SPs

To Quad, or Not to Quad

Jeremy Abbott: Calm, cool, and collected! He was methodical, but clean, not attempting his quad, but getting through all of his elements. An enormous improvement over Vancouver. I’m proud of him for reigning it in, and seemingly successfully adjusting his mindset in such a short amount of time.

Takahiko Kozuka: He displays very fast, well centered spins. Although this program is not my style, he has evolved this to a level where it all came together…the rocker vibe imbued his appropriately edgy look, carriage, costume, dynamic edging, all in a very authentic manner. I can’t wait to see more from him, in 2010-11. As per Paul Wylie: “he will wrap this up.” And, he does!

Nobunari Oda: He really is all legs and ass. Wylie’s comment: “tremendous knees on this athlete” sounded like gay code for…well, I’ll leave it up to your imagination. 3 popped single jumps, REALLY? This Kostner-scaled meltdown may be the worst I’ve ever seen from a man on this level…yes, even worse than Verner. His program music doesn’t help…like bad Russian Liberace musak. I really feel for him, and wonder what happened. A little too much saké beforehand?

Patrick Chan (2nd): Amazing attack! I love his danceability, particularly in this Tango program. He exhibits such a strong physicality, and doesn’t waste a second of the program. He’s REALLY on…nailing his 3A, and effectively erasing the Vancouver stain on his record.

Daisuke Takahashi (1st): My friend John, who I enjoyed watching this event with, bills Dice-K as The Japanese Elvis. He repeats, but even improves on his greatness from Vancouver. I REALLY want Daisuke to take the gold here…Patrick has a lot more time. If you look under “flair” in the dictionary, you will find his name. He moves like a serpent, shifting his body every which way, and using every part of it to express.

The Weight of the Worlds

My Worlds’ Podium Prediction Contest is technically closed, but I’m allowing a 1-day grace period for dawdlers (til midnight tonight), and you can still post to it for fun after today. Thanks to those who took part in voting! The winners will be announced the week following Worlds, and the prizes given out shortly after. Skaters hit the Worlds’ ice this sunday for official practice sessions!

The contest outcome should be interesting. It’s amusing to see all the same skaters in the mix, shuffled around in a seemingly randomly manner. Although this of course makes sense, as unexpected results are exactly that, and impossible to foresee. For example, who’s going to bet on Tomas Verner as the champion? If the perfect storm strikes his more favored contenders and he has the skate of his life it could happen… but it’s a long shot.

Photo by Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press

The submissions clearly show that both Patrick Chan and Yu-Na Kim have the weight of the Worlds in expectations on their shoulders (pardon the pun). This is exactly why it can be so difficult for a skater to come into an event as the favorite, although neither have won Worlds before. This clearly has been Yu-Na’s season, so it really is hers to lose. Patrick’s near meltdown at the Grand Prix Final makes him ever less so the obvious choice.

The most interesting submission is Aaron’s for ice dance, in which he predicts Khoklova/Novitski winning it, and Virtue/Moir nowhere to be found in his top 4 standing. Her recent surgery must have at least this fan doubting a quick return to top form.

And, the submissions pretty evenly weigh out in the Abbott vs. Lysacek rivalry (with noone predicting either of them will walk away with the gold). That’s probably about right, as it seems that the side of the bed they get up on, or direction the wind blows will decide who trumps who, and whether Evan will land his quad or not. I remember years and years of watching Michael Weiss attempt the quad. I’m guessing his rate of success was about 5-10% (I can still hear Dick Button balking at his repeated and mostly failed attempts). Well, with Evan I imagine it’s more like 35-40%, but still feels a bit like a gamble each time.

I’m not in favor of our sport becoming ALL about the jumps, but I do think it would be interesting to have access to actual jump stats that gave you a true X for X ratio of attempts versus successful landings. This ISU page (I LOVE this page) comes close to that level of detail, but not quite. I’m thinking more on the level of those crazy baseball fans that sit with their pencil and tables during every game and track EVERYTHING! I guess I’m only a thread away from being like one of them, huh?

Just an amusing aside. Getting “jumping clapping man” up and running has been such an interesting journey for me so far, even though I’ve only been at it for a couple of months now. The stats you can access in your dashboard are amazing. It’s quite a powerful tool. Well, it appears someone (perhaps you) recently found my blog by using the follwing search engine key words: “japan zhang naked ice dancing”. I wish I actually had something to offer that would fulfill the “naked ice dancing” portion of this search. But, certainly not the “japan zhang naked” part.