NHK Trophy--ESPN Coverage

[Alexa]

I watched this last night, and have to say that I was very impressed with Weir....what a great performance and what a relief to see a clean program from someone! I thought that Tim Goebel did a good job as well. But Weir really sold his program in my opinion. His performance was a great example of how the COP can work well--he had a clean program and got rewarded for that, but he also was rewarded for doing many extras throughout the choreography of his program. It was nice to see such clean jumps with great exits out of the jumps as well.

I am also happy for Tim that he is doing much better this season.

The woman are still "meh" for me so far....I am just not seeing much drive from the competitors yet.

[doubletoe]

I completely agree. Johnny Weir's program was unbelievably beautiful, and between his win and Shizuka Arakawa's win, I think I am sold on the COP judging system. It truly rewards the skater who has the whole package: artistry, interesting choreography, and difficult, well-executed jumps and spins.

[doubletoe]

By the way, I am convinced that Miki Ando is a future world champion. She has some work to do before she will have Shizuka's artistry, but she's only 16 and she seems to be getting the hang of it already. But those 7 perfect triples, including a 3lutz-3loop-2toe and textbook triple lutz at the end of a 4-minute program just left me speechless!

[fadedstardust]

Yeah, now maybe Ando can learn to do a spiral, or at least...something, I don't know, a little hop? An arm movement? Something between those 7 triples. BLAH. She's the epidemy of what's wrong with skating. Jumps, nothing else. I don't get how people enjoy that, when there's other skaters that have the jumps and stuff in between. She has time to grow, sure, but until she does, people are giving her way too much credit for a couple of cheated quad salchows and overlooking the fact that she really doesn't offer anything at all. Thankfully the COP won't overlook it, which is why I like this system. She's the Japanese versions of Kimmie Meissner- overhyped because of the jumps and unqualified because of the fact that there's nothing else to them right now. /vent>

PS: While she's better than Ando in the department, am I the only one who doesn't think Arakawa HAS artistry? Everyone says artistry...are you kidding me? Now, Yukina Ota has the artistry (but no jumps), but Arakawa? She had it at last year's Worlds. Never before, never after. I think it only comes out once a year.

[pennybeagle]

By the way, I am convinced that Miki Ando is a future world champion. She has some work to do before she will have Shizuka's artistry, but she's only 16 and she seems to be getting the hang of it already. But those 7 perfect triples, including a 3lutz-3loop-2toe and textbook triple lutz at the end of a 4-minute program just left me speechless!

I also think Ando is one to watch, even though she is not really my favorite skater at the moment. I think her program this year is exceptionally bland (it doesn't build, doesn't offer highlights, etc)--she is not a skater who has the musicality to pull off "subtle" yet, and I don't think the music plays to her strengths. Maybe she would do well with a character piece to become more in touch with the performative aspect of skating (the way that Michelle broke out with Salome). Just as long as it isn't "Carmen" or doesn't involve swans or girls named "Kitri." ;)

I think she's made improvements since last year (her spins are more stretched, she's paying a little more attention to carriage), and I think that she has a lot of things going for her that she can work with. She has solid technique on her triples. She skates down in her knees and has good power and ice coverage. She doesn't have the atrocious posture problems of Yoshie Onda (although I think Weisiger has managed to fix a few things with her). She's quite consistent. AND, she's not a little prepubescent stick...she won't have to worry too much about her body changing on her in the next few years. Oh, and she's a full-time high school student in Japan, which makes for a long day at school and a longer school year than the US (don't know about other countries). What she doesn't have is a signature move or any kind of highlight in her program, and she seems to be an introverted skater (a la Angela Nikodinov in years other than 2001) on ice.

That said, the competition was all about Weir. His point total completely blew away anything anyone else has put up so far, and that's without a single quad... I LOVE this program. It is so fluid--I was awed by the quality of his stroking and the landing edges he gets (and very inspired to go skating and practice!). I think he's skating faster than he did last year, too.
Wow. Hats off. :bow:

[doubletoe]

If you'll all pull up a few tapes of Michelle Kwan back when she was first showing up in international competitions, you'll see why I'm saying Miki is the girl to watch. At 16, Michelle Kwan didn't have artistry yet, either, just consistent triple jumps and, admittedly, better control over her spiral, LOL!
(I don't know what it is with Miki and her lack of control over that spiral.)