Skate America 2009 *spoilers*

[MQSeries]

Link to some SA articles from iceNetwork:

Evan will not do a quad:
http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091112&content_id=7657508&vkey=ice_news

Yu-Na Kim still can improve:
http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091112&content_id=7660720&vkey=ice_news

B&A has new confidence this year:
http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091112&content_id=7659366&vkey=ice_news

[MQSeries]

Friday's evening results:

Pairs SP:

1. Shen/ Zhao
2. Volosozhar/ Morozov
3. Huhamel/ Buntin
4. McLaughlin/ Brubaker
5. Zhang/ Zhang
6. Evora/ Ladwig
7. Castile/ Okolski
8. Kemp/ King


Castile & Okolsi are cooked. Their one National win was a fluke.

-----------------------

Dance Compulsories:

1. Belbin/ Agosto
2. Khokhlova/ Novitski
3. Cappellini/ Lanotte

Dance is kind of boring right now with the favorites leading their respective competition as expected. It won't get exciting until the GPF when you have teams like B/A, V/M and D/W go head-to-head. Now that will be the first real battle until the big O.

[MQSeries]

Men SP
--------

1. Lysacek
2. Amodio, FRA
3. Mroz
4. Schultheiss, SWE
5. Sawyer
6. Lutai
7. Nanri
8. Bradley
9. Wu
10. Reynolds
11. Verner 8O
12. Macypura



Pictures from Friday's SP:

http://www.daylife.com/photo/00fF3cfckXfRq

Evan's black feather costume reminds me of a black crow or a creepy scarecrow from Halloween. Isn't Firebird about the Phoenix? I think Evan's outfit would look much better with at least a splash of red and orange on it.

I really hate the bent free leg or grab the free leg on the back outside death spiral that many pairs are doing this season. How many extra point does that garner? It's unsightly, I think.

[AgnesNitt]

Just tuned into the Skate America on youtube to watch Evan's SP.
He's the US Champion
He's the World Champion
It's Skate AMERICA!

2/3 of the seats were empty.
As much as I hate to say it figure skating is a dying sport, thank you very much ISU.

[herniated]

I noticed also that the seats are empty, wish I could have been there.:cry:

Anyway, I was watching the pairs last nite...lol....I'm terrible:twisted: but several of the teams that I watched especially the pair in the shiny blue unitards seemed so emotionally detached from one another! I mean, jeeezzzz don't you guys like each other a little bit?? Even after thier performance they barely looked at each other.

Don't get me wrong I don't think the pairs have to be like gaga over each other and 'in luuuuuvvvv' but....like at least - good friends. Just my observation that is intriguing me at the moment.:lol:

[Schmeck]

The competition is in Lake Placid, right? Beautiful place, but not a big city, and not even on a major highway. Great for the Olympics, not so great for a single competition.

[MQSeries]

WHEEE!!! Finaly some activities in this thread :lol:


2/3 of the seats were empty.
As much as I hate to say it figure skating is a dying sport, thank you very much ISU.

I don't think the GP events usually attract much of a crowd.

[AgnesNitt]

The competition is in Lake Placid, right? Beautiful place, but not a big city, and not even on a major highway. Great for the Olympics, not so great for a single competition.

I agree. I've skated at Lake Placid. It was an 10 hour train ride, then a bus ride, or a 12 hour drive, or you flew into Albany (?) and rented a car and drove, plus when you get there, there's virtually nothing to do (okay, they have a superb Catholic church, but not everyone wants to go to mass).

Why does USFSA set up the competitions in these out of the way locations? Why not some rink in a big city? Oh, sorry, I forgot, it's hockey season.

[mdvask8r]

OMG are you kidding??? There is SO much to do in LP. Hiking, biking, boating, skiing, swimming, X-country skiing, golf, great restaurants, shopping, not to mention SKATING and all kinds of off-ice training classes. Then there's the fabulous scenery and just relaxing with the wonderful people. How about the museum, movie theatre, spas, antique shopping . . .

[AgnesNitt]

OMG are you kidding??? There is SO much to do in LP. Hiking, biking, boating, skiing, swimming, X-country skiing, golf, great restaurants, shopping, not to mention SKATING and all kinds of off-ice training classes. Then there's the fabulous scenery and just relaxing with the wonderful people. How about the museum, movie theatre, spas, antique shopping . . .

Well there's restaurants, but you can only eat so much and so often. And the shopping is the kind of shopping you find in small tourist towns. High priced, nice quality, but ultimately it's just stuff.
The outdoors stuff is great if you're there to do the outdoors stuff.
As to all the skate training? Well, is that going on during Skate America?
Let me just phrase it this way: Where would the ordinary skate fan rather be for Skate America ? Lake Placid or Vegas?
I mean, if USFSA wants full seats it needs to make those kind of decisions.
The empty seats were just....sad. I've watched a lot of youtube videos over the last couple of years and usually the camera is positioned so that you can't see the empty seats except in quick glimpses. The seats next to the rinks are packed but not the seats higher. This time there were so few people the camera positions and trick seating couldn't hide it.

[Schmeck]

I've also been to Lake Placid - and it's not that lively this time of the year, unless they've been lucky to get some snow. It gets dark too early to be hiking, too cold for boating and swimming, not cold enough for skiing, etc. They have two rink surfaces, but they'd be used for the comp, so no skating, as I doubt they have the speedskating oval up yet? Maybe they do, but then you just get to do laps.

It's nice in the summer, fun in the winter, but middle of November?

[sk8ergalgal]

Loving how full the seats are for the ladies short program!! :) I think it may even be sold out :O

[Schmeck]

What is it about Rachel Flatt - her shoulders/neck/posture - that just seems not right to me? I want to push her shoulders down and tuck her chin in...

[Schmeck]

OK - I need to see the judges' scores - no way Kim was that much better - are they not taking off for her lutz entry? Or her layback? Must say that her 3toe in combination was fully rotated in the air - that was nice, compared to the really2toe ones others did. But her spirals are eh, and I'm thinking one position was not held for the full 3 seconds, and her footwork was floppy (my daughter the dancer really criticized her arms, something about no force in them, just movement).

If that's a world record, something is wrong with the scoring system.

[MQSeries]

1. Yu-Na 76.28
2. Flatt 58.80
3. Sebestyen 58.54
4. Suguri
6. Gedevanishvile
...
9. Poykio
10. Alexe Gilles
11. Emily Hughes Ouch.




The women competition is getting boring now. Yu-Na is pretty much going to win everything she's in and win with astronomical scores.

Poor Emily. I wanted her to prove her critics wrong.

[sk8ergalgal]

MQ I agree with you. I wanted Emily to do so well just to show everyone. I missed her solo why were the scores so low??

[MQSeries]

Emily popped the lutz into a single, and her 3flip was downgraded.

[sk8ergalgal]

Oh. So sorry to hear that. Well I am still hoping she will come back strong in the long tomorrow.

[sk8ergalgal]

Also wondering what everyone thinks of Evan's short and long program outfits?? I hate them. They are too similar to each other and dont do anything for him!!

[AgnesNitt]

Also wondering what everyone thinks of Evan's short and long program outfits?? I hate them. They are too similar to each other and dont do anything for him!!

I think the 'bird themes' belong to Johnny Weir.

[MQSeries]

Men final standing:

1. Lysacheck
2. Sawyer
3. Bradley
4. Amodio
5. Verner
...
8. Mroz


There were a lot of flip-flopping in the standings for the skaters below Evan after the freeskate. Mroz dropped from 3rd to 8th after an 11th place finish
in the LP. He must have had a brain fart and popped most everything. Sawyer placed only 5th and 4th in the SP and LP, respectively, and ended up 2nd overall. Verner got 3rd in the LP and pulled up from 11th to 5th. Crazy.

-----

I'm not crazy about Vera Wang's creation for Evan either. I don't think Very has very much experience designing for men in general. I said previously that the SP outfit would've been good if Evan was portraying a black crow, but he isn't. For the LP, the sheer shirt with the shoulder pad and feathers don't make much sense to me. I mean the shoulder pads could've be Middle Eastern-ish I guess, but I think Vera could've come up with a much better design.

[4rkidz]

Loving how full the seats are for the ladies short program!! :) I think it may even be sold out :O

that would be the buses of Yuna fans that came for the ladies event :lol:

[4rkidz]

Also wondering what everyone thinks of Evan's short and long program outfits?? I hate them. They are too similar to each other and dont do anything for him!!

I actually found it distracted from his program, he really has improved but its like they are styling him to be like Johnny Weir and I don't even think it suits his body type? The small balletic type skaters can put off the unitards, the feathers etc., but lanky looking guys like Evan should dress more traditional and with his legs and arms being so long - it just makes them look even longer when dressed like this..:roll: Great skate though..

[MQSeries]

Ladies Final Standings:
1. Yu-Na
2. Flatt
3. Sebestyen
4. Suguri
5. Glebova
6. Gevedanishville
7. Hughes


Yu-Na won SA as expected but, gulp, Flatt won the LP. 116.11 for Flatt vs. 117.70 for Yu-Na. Ok, so there's a slight ray of hope that maybe we'll see some real fight for the top spot after all; I'm keeping my finger crossed. Kim made two major mistakes including a fall on the 3flip. That's suprising since the flip is really one of her strongest jumps (shade of MK and her flip?).

Not bad for Hughes to end up in 7th after a year away from the competitive scene.

Also good for Sebestyen for getting a medal. She's the oldest competitor, I think, and also is making a come back this season.

Suguri ... well I hope she retires after this season.

[sk8ergalgal]

I heard some great news today!! Apparently Evan and Vera Wang are going back to the drawing board and coming up with a new short program outfit. Hopefully this one will have a hint of color maybe??

[Isk8NYC]

I caught the broadcast - Evan looked good, but I wouldn't call it electrifying. Definitely won the title, hands-down, but I wish they'd redo his arms in the footwork sequences. I hate all the flailing around.

Flatt did a great job and definitely earned her silver medal. She's going to need to bring her SP scores up a notch to really be competitive because that's what cost her first place. Kim had a really bad LP skate, so the door was open, but Flatt couldn't get through it because of the SP.

I don't understand why Flatt's last two spins (in opposite directions) didn't tally any points. Can someone clue me in, please?

[Skittl1321]

Flatt's SPIN didn't count because she was going for a change foot combo spin and using change direction as a feature. it was meant to be one spin, not two. However, when she changed direction she centered too far away from the original spin, so it counted as a seperate spin.

The first half of the spin didn't count, because she had already done that spin (whatever it's abbreviation is- single position?), and you can't repeat a spin. The second half didn't count, because it was a 4th spin, and you only get 3. (Or whatever the numbers are.) If she could taylor the spins so that the first half of the combo was at least a different spin than what she has already done (which I think the 2nd half of it IS, since it's a change position) then if this happened again she'd at least get SOME points.

Even with those points, and a better SP, she wouldn't have had the gold- but I think she's definetly got potential. I mean she's now the girl who "beat Yuna".

[Isk8NYC]

Ahhh, if the two spins had been closer together, it would have counted for a combination/change foot, but instead it was tallied as two spins, neither of which counted. I see now, thanks.

[Skittl1321]

Ahhh, if the two spins had been closer together, it would have counted for a combination/change foot, but instead it was tallied as two spins, neither of which counted. I see now, thanks.

Scoring sure is tricky now-a-days. But at least there are reasons for it :)

The change direction is a neat feature, but it sure does seem risky.

[Isk8NYC]

I'm always impressed by skaters who can spin in both directions. Rohene Ward used to do a layback in both directions - really unique for a guy.

[Artemis]

Has anyone heard an update on Megan Duhamel? She was downplaying the bump on the head but it looked pretty hard to me (tho of course we know women pairs skaters are made of pretty stern stuff). But the foot injury from the warmup is even more worrying ...

The men's event was one of the wackiest I've ever seen. All I can say is thank goodness for total scores -- under the old ordinal system it would have been wackier still.

And I'm sooo happy to see Shen & Zhao back! They are the class of the field by far -- not just sentimental favourites, but really deserving to be atop the podium. Their conditioning may not be 100% yet, but barring any injuries I think they'll be in Olympic condition by February. And all the subtleties in their choreography and presentation more than make up for any slight downgrade in their technical power since the last time we saw them compete.