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| Legend. |
Men
As expected, the gold medal at Cup of China went to our
reigning World Champion, Javier Fernandez. However, it maybe wasn’t the cakewalk
he expected considering the comparative weakness of this men’s field compared
to the last two Grand Prix events. It was nice to see one of the top men really
come out and nail a short program after Patrick Chan and Yuzuru Hanyu both had
issues last weekend. Javi embraced his Spanish roots and gave us a memorable
short to “Malaguena.” It was a bit predictable, but nevertheless well done. The
home crowd should eat it up at the Grand Prix Final in Barcelona. Javi can be
kind of schtick-y, but I enjoyed the maturity of his presentation here, matador
costume and all.
Let’s be real. Javier Fernandez is never going to give us a
perfect long program. Training alongside Yuzuru Hanyu has undoubtedly done
wonders for Javi’s discipline in the rink, but focus is an issue in
performances. He wasn’t even clean when he won Worlds – he was just lucky that
Yuzuru Hanyu and Denis Ten made bigger mistakes. I’m always white-knuckling
through these three-quad long programs. You know he’s going to pop something,
fall, or both. He fell on his solo quad salchow in what turned out to be a
fairly rough free skate. At the end of the day, I consider Javi to be the
weakest of the men who are realistically in contention for the World gold
medal. He doesn’t have the otherworldly skating skills of Patrick Chan, the
polish and refinement of Denis Ten, or the virtuosic technical ability of
Yuzuru Hanyu. What he does have is charisma and star quality, and that gets him
a long way in program components. The Guys
and Dolls long program plays to Javi’s strengths, and he sold it even when
the jumps were failing him. Program
components ultimately (and I think rightly) gave Javi the win over an
unexpectedly strong challenge from jumping prodigy Jin Boyang. I enjoyed his
very open shirt. It looks like Javi knows he is figure skating’s resident sex
symbol, and he is embracing it. I’m sure the thirstier judges on the panel gave
him some bonus tenths in interpretation and performance/execution.
Cup of China was a massive coming out party for 18-year-old
boy wonder Jin Boyang. In the short program, he became the first skater to land
a quad lutz + triple toe combination in international competition. And he did
it cleanly and with positive grade of execution marks to boot. I literally spit
my drink out. That one element earned him nearly 20 points, and he did
everything else in that program very well too. He suddenly found himself within
three points of a clean short program by the reigning World Champion. When the
pressure was on in the long program, he faltered a bit. He nailed the quad lutz
again, but the other three (!) quads gave him issues. Still, this kid clearly
has incredible jump technique, and the other top men should be sweating. I’m
even seeing drastic improvements in performance quality compared to his days a
junior jumping machine. There is still work to be done, particularly on step
sequences and expression. Still, I find it truly amazing that this scrawny boy is laying down
the hardest jump content we have ever seen in figure skating history. Look out
for him through the next Olympics.
Though Yan Han pulled out the bronze medal here, this has to
be considered a disappointment. China’s leading man and biggest men’s skating
star ever found himself completely upstaged by the young upstart in front of a
home crowd that was primarily there to see him. There is a night and day
difference here in maturity, which is especially evident in Yan’s long program.
I noticed improved attention to detail and connection to the music from what he
presented at Skate America. It really is a lovely program. However, you have to
land the jumps to get the points. Yan has some of the best jump technique in the
world, but he can never put it all together when it counts. A friend of mine
who sat in on Skate America practice sessions reported that Yan did not do any
run-throughs with jumps. Perhaps discipline is the issue here. Not sure, but
clearly something has to change.
This surprise fourth place finish was a nice personal
victory for Grant Hochstein, who skated at his first senior Grand Prix
competition in five years. Grant is an artist at heart, and he will give you
the performance no matter how the jumps are going. The quad toe is basically a
planned fall or pop for Grant in both programs. I don’t remember ever seeing it
landed cleanly. But he is lovely to watch. Les
Miz has been done to death, and Grant made us listen to Russell Crowe sing
for far longer than is ever appropriate. But he felt that music and was serving
us a lot of face. This is the same boy who gave us a Michelle Kwan tribute
program in 2014, but he fell so much at Nationals that a snarky Twitter user
wondered if it was actually a tribute to Sasha Cohen. I will always have a soft
spot for him, and I would love for him to skate well at Nationals.
Sergei Voronov…..I don’t have much to say. He’ll give you
the quads until he doesn’t. It’s always up-and-down for one of Russia’s many
chronically underachieving senior men who came up in the wake of Evgeny
Plushenko’s first retirement. Sergei can kind of sell a program, but the
skating quality is lacking for someone at this level, and there isn’t much
happening in the way of real choreography or transitions. When he isn’t landing
the jumps – and he certainly did not in the long program – he has nothing to
fall back on. The costume…..half tuxedo, half strait jacket? I give up.
Michael Christian Martinez is one of my secret faves, even
if I’m usually screaming at him through the screen. There are moments of
fabulosity happening here. That flexibility is enviable, and you can tell he is
really feeling his fantasy out there on the ice through his interpretation.
Everything could just be a little more finished off. Extend those limbs. Hold
those positions. Sell those landings. I wish he could get a real coach, but
it’s hard out here for a boy from the Philippines.
The struggle continues for Ricky Dornbush. Ricky really
should be one of the top men in the world. His skating skills are superb, and
his jumps are huge and impressive when things are going well. He came out so
strong when he was a young senior, but he’s struggled immensely with
consistency since then. His short program here was fairly abysmal, with a complete
waxel (an axel attempt that does not come close to leaving the ground) and a hard fall on a quad toe attempt. The long program was better, but still
full of mistakes. Ricky can do these jumps in his sleep, and he is a hard
worker. I question what happens in the rink. Tammy Gambill is a coach with tons
of talented skaters, and she teaches good jump technique. They almost uniformly
cannot deliver when it counts. Ricky needs an intervention, but it might be too
late.
This was also a rough competition for Misha Ge, another one
of my faves. Misha is really feeling the pressure of his out-of-nowhere 6th
place finish at Worlds last year. Misha is an artistic soul who until recently
was struggling to even land triple axels. He is a fantastic performer with
superb skating quality, but he’s not a technician. I used to think he didn’t
really care about how he scored, but he seems very concerned about moving up
the international standings these days. I was stunned to see him attempt a quad toe in the
long program, and it was not really close to rotation. I wonder if he has ever
landed it cleanly. Fans love the reckless abandon with which Misha skates, but
he seemed positively stilted here. I’m not a huge fan of subdued Misha, and I
don’t love the Chopin long program on him. I cherish my memories of him
flailing like a madman to “Tutti Frutti” at the Olympics, and I would like to
see some form of that Misha back.
I don’t have much to say about 12th place
finisher Moris Kvitelashvili except that he managed to skate to “I Believe I
Can Fly” AND “What Is Love?” in the same short program. Sometimes it’s the
little things that make skating a worthwhile sport to follow….
Ladies
After a year of learning to accept a ladies’ champion who
cannot perform an acceptable layback spin, skating fans have been salivating
over the triumphant return of 3X World Champion Mao Asada. Though she did not
skate perfectly, Mao-chan proved to be a lady among girls at this event. Her
effortless flow across the ice is completely unrivaled by anyone in the current
ladies’ field, and she has such a wonderful, natural ability to interpret
music. I appreciate that Mao took an artistic risk in her short program to “Bei
Mir Bistu Shein.” Flirty and fun is not really in her wheelhouse. She needs to
give more face to really make it work. We need to talk about this short program
jump layout. The triple axel is looking very secure these days, so it can stay.
The triple flip + triple loop combo…..gurlfriend, you are never going to get
full credit for that. International technical panels are very strict on triple
loops as the back half of combinations, and Mao has a history of underrotations.
And the decision to do a triple lutz as her solo jump is unwise. Mao has had a
pronounced flutz (a lutz that does not take off on the correct edge) since she
was a junior, and years of working to correct her technique have failed to
break her bad habits. She’s leaving points on the table, and a thirsty
technical panel could potentially penalize her on all three jumping passes. She
lost significant points on her lutz and the combo here even though she landed
them well to the untrained eye.
Mao’s long program to Madama
Butterfly is more what we expect from her, and it fits her like a glove. I
love her flowy purple kimono. This is just pure, majestic, mature, polished
skating. She gave us one of the best triple axels of her career at the top of
the program, but then the wheels kind of came off. Mao can be a little hot and
cold, especially at the beginning of the season. Still, the performance quality
did not drop even as the technical elements failed. Program components were
deservedly very high. Mao could afford mistakes in this field, but her effort
this weekend would have placed her behind what we’ve seen so far from Evgenia
Medvedeva, Gracie Gold, and even Ashley Wagner. Still, it’s great to have
Mao-chan back, and I still have high hopes for the rest of the season.
This was a strong outing for Rika Hongo. If I’m being very
honest, she is not my favorite. She’ll land the jumps, but there is not much
else going on here. Her shoulders are very rounded, giving her a bit of a
hunchback quality on the ice. She doesn’t really fill out the ice, and the
spins are nothing to write home about. I see improvement in her expression, no doubt
the product of working with my gurl Akiko Suzuki over the summer. I cast a
little side-eye to Rika once I learned she was skating to Riverdance, but it kind of works for her. She is definitely getting
her life when she does those toe pick steps a la Shae-Lynn Bourne in 1998. The
audience was feeling it, and I almost liked it too. Like I’ve said before, you
have to land the jumps to get the points. The more you do that, the more those
program components tend to creep up. Rika Hongo has forced herself into the
conversation as one of the top international ladies through consistent
performances despite lacking any memorable or exceptional qualities. I can’t
really fault her for that.
Our World Bronze Medalist Elena Radionova had a
disappointing outing here, but I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. Elena is
discovering that, much like Olympic star Yulia Lipnitskaya, her jump technique
doesn’t really work anymore now that she’s gone through puberty. Unlike Yulia,
Elena is a fighter, and she is going to battle gravity to land those jumps. She
has a way of landing jumps that look way-off axis in the air, even
if the end result is kind of terrifying. I was frankly shocked to see her
completely miss a triple lutz in the long program, and she looked shocked too.
Elena does not have much refinement, but she does have pizzazz. She may skate
completely hunched over with arms flailing everywhere, but by God she is going
to give you a PERFORMANCE. Elena is a divisive skater. Dick Button has been out
of the commentary game for over a decade, and he still let it be known in his
memoirs that he does not care for this girl. Against my better judgment, I embrace
the tackiness and appreciate her star quality. This Titanic long program is pure gold. Has she seen the movie? She
looks a little too exuberant while we are literally hearing “I’ll never let
go!” in the background. She doesn’t
care, she is going to give you FACE when the Celine Dion vocals kick in. Elena
skates like she believes she is the best in the world, and I’m always rooting
for her even though I know I shouldn’t be.
Anna Pogorilaya is one of those skaters who looks like she
hates her life when she’s on the ice. The talent is certainly there, but there
is zero performance quality. She is a gorgeous girl, and you want her to be a
gorgeous skater. She never extends all the way to her fingers, and her free leg
usually flops around like a dead fish during spins. The jumps are very big, but she is also
prone to big, hard falls, which were very much on display here. I do see some
improvements, particularly to her skating skills. I notice that she fills the
ice out more during step sequences, when I’m used to yelling “PUSH! FASTER!”
like a demented Russian coach when she is skating. I like the dress….you can’t
do tasteful and reserved when you’re skating to Scheherazade. Give me all the fake jewels you can throw at me. In a
crowded Russian ladies’ field, I don’t see her making it back to Worlds this
year….or ever again really.
Karen Chen wrapped up a solid debut Grand Prix season in Beijing,
though she did not exactly set the world on fire. When I compare her skating
quality to the Russian girls here who have been achieving high results on the
senior level from a very young age, the contrast is striking. Karen clearly had someone teaching her to
extend those limbs and present up to the audience from a young age. I believe
that Jesus Christ Himself taught her how to perform a layback spin before she
was born. So why isn’t she up there with them in the standings? It’s a question I often ask. She
has the jumps, but she can’t perform all of them under pressure. Karen is by
all accounts a very hard worker. Like Ricky Dornbush, Karen is a Tammy Gambill
skater with loads of talent and without the strong results to back it up. Hmm…
Courtney Hicks capitalized on mistakes from top contenders
in the short program to unexpectedly put herself in bronze medal position. I
have a lot of respect for Courtney. Her jumps are Tonya Harding-esque in their
height and power, and she has wonderful spins. Courtney will never be an
artist, but she has really improved her expression and skating quality. The
driving, pulsating music of “The Feeling Begins” is a great vehicle for her in
the short, and she looked like a million dollars. The long program was a
disaster. I think she collapsed under the pressure of finishing too high in the
short. Courtney is not a skater who typically falls, but she is very prone to
popping out of her jumps, which is even more costly. Her approach can often be too fast and wild,
especially when she is nervous. There is a lot of natural athletic talent and
not a lot of technique. She might need a new set of eyes on her. We also need
an intervention on that long program dress. Bright yellow does not read well on
television. The mind goes to urine or Big Bird, and you don’t want either of
those things associated with your skating. The cut is nice. Buy it in white.
Li Zijun is another heartbreaker who skating fans are always
praying will get it together. She is a naturally graceful skater with lovely
lines and flow across the ice. At her best, she reminds one of the great
Chinese star Chen Lu. She even skated to
“Clair de Lune,” a signature Lulu piece, in the short program to beautifully
drive the comparison home. Jump technique is an issue, and I’m not sure what
can be done at this point. You always know she’s going to fall apart in the
long program. Performance quality goes
out the window when the jumps fail. The frantic, bubbly score to The Artist made Li look especially lost
at sea. It was a difficult performance to watch. It’s a shame, because she has
the talent to be one of the top ladies in the world. I don’t think it’s ever
going to come together.
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