Worlds 2013 Part 2

linglang wrote:

Gala practice video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYl4mX4NBNE
LOL Mao & Kana @6:35

Thank bibi. Anyone who wants bibi's montage, please PM me.

Thanks helen. That's the one. Actually, they were watching a warm-up and Mao just said "Hey!" only and they shut up. Oh my brain ... getting old.

ETA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKcIYamnXDU
Mao's gala practice

She looked at me @3:15

Thanks for the practice vids linglang! I love these bts vids!
Kana sure likes to give Mao hugs lol! That big one at the beginning was so cute!
They seemed to be in deep conversation with the choreographer later on, I wonder what they were talking about hehe

Does anyone have CBC's version of the SP? I can't find it anywhere, the one with Kurt and Tracy commentating, not PJ

linglang wrote:

Gala practice video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYl4mX4NBNE
LOL Mao & Kana @6:35

Thank bibi. Anyone who wants bibi's montage, please PM me.

Thanks helen. That's the one. Actually, they were watching a warm-up and Mao just said "Hey!" only and they shut up. Oh my brain ... getting old.

ETA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKcIYamnXDU
Mao's gala practice

She looked at me @3:15

Wow, I envy you!

polosatik wrote:

linglang wrote:

Gala practice video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYl4mX4NBNE
LOL Mao & Kana @6:35

Thank bibi. Anyone who wants bibi's montage, please PM me.

Thanks helen. That's the one. Actually, they were watching a warm-up and Mao just said "Hey!" only and they shut up. Oh my brain ... getting old.

ETA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKcIYamnXDU
Mao's gala practice

She looked at me @3:15

Who is the guy choreographer? He looks familiar to me.

It's Shawn Sawyer

sapphiresky wrote:

Does anyone have CBC's version of the SP? I can't find it anywhere, the one with Kurt and Tracy commentating, not PJ

http://www.mediafire.com/?a86wkfi7aaaj3mc
*Do not post link outside of forum please.

Thank you bibi! I'm wondering has he retired already?

You are so lucky, bibi!
It seemed Mao went straight to you with a smile.

Too bad, I know I won't be able to do the same way as you did
since so many fans will rush to her at WTT.

I also did a quick search but couldn't find the photos you were looking for.

WTT press interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIkTtoCEd2A

@2:00 They went LOL because Mao used the same phrase "Tanoshimi （楽しみ）" 3 times in one sentence. She said she's looking forward to it because it's exciting game so she's looking forward to it.

I just hope they will not overwork for WTT. I know they want to conclude the season with good performance. But I hope they take it easy.

Interview after her return to Japan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3VGDSH2S0g

Mao says
* She's 163 or 164 cm tall.
* She thinks this season turned out to be a very good season consequently.
* If one day off is given, she wants to go shopping and buffet-style restaurants.
She had buffet-style breakfast, ate both Japanese and western breakfast (on the day she did this interview)
* If she weren't a figure skater, she might have become a gymnast. She liked gymnastics, vaulting box and trampoline.
* She would sing songs of "Morning Musume" with Mai.
* She accidentally promised to sing a Karaoke song for the interviewer in the future.
* Her ideal man is someone who is caring, who can cook, who teaches her everything, who is older than her.
* Next season is very important towards Sochi. She wants to maintain the current level and wants to compete with the current level from the beginning of the season.

linglang wrote:

Interview after her return to Japan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3VGDSH2S0g

Mao says
* She's 163 or 164 cm tall.
* She thinks this season turned out to be a very good season consequently.
* If one day off is given, she wants to go shopping and buffet-style restaurants.
She had buffet-style breakfast, ate both Japanese and western breakfast (on the day she did this interview)
* If she weren't a figure skater, she might have become a gymnast. She liked gymnastics, vaulting box and trampoline.
* She would sing songs of "Morning Musume" with Mai.
* She accidentally promised to sing a Karaoke song for the interviewer in the future.
* Her ideal man is someone who is caring, who can cook, who teaches her everything, who is older than her.
* Next season is very important towards Sochi. She wants to maintain the current level and wants to compete with the current level from the beginning of the season.

Thanks, linglang!

Great to hear Mao talk a lot about FOOD again! And it's interesting that she liked gymnastics. If she'd been one I'd still support her as that's another sport I really like.

I hope we get to hear Mao sing a song again. I remembered she sang a little in an interview once when the interviewer asked her to.

Wow, Japan trio is gorgeous!!! But I'm not going to lie, mao is the most beautiful here! Love that dress and hairstyle is so good looking! It suits Mao a lot!
I have never heard Mao mention gymnastics, that's cool, we have a lot of gymnastics fans at Mao forum! I somehow missed Mao singing,does anyone have a link?

polosatik wrote:

Thank you bibi! I'm wondering has he retired already?

Yes! He was supposed to be at Worlds in 2011 but as he was suppose to be part of Stars on Ice and that meant a lot to him, he decided not to go to worlds but instead do shows. And he hasn't competed ever since!

silenceisgolden wrote:

You are so lucky, bibi!
It seemed Mao went straight to you with a smile.

Yes, she was so sweet and polite

klarification wrote:

Oh man now I feel bad for PChan. He looks terribly awkward. Even he should know who should be the real winner of the night, methinks.

I felt the same at first and even defended him from some people saying rude things about him in another site.

But after reading this article (if someone alreay posted it I'm sorry):
http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/03/16/patrick-chan-on-criticism-after-taking-gold-at-figure-skating-worlds-i-truly-believe-i-deserved-to-win/

I know now I was wrong about him.

For the past 2 seasons I was beginning to like him...but it's over and done with! I thought he had matured a bit, but I know now after reading all he said in this article that I was totally wrong. I feel so much like a fool! Chan, you've lost all my respect for you once again.

These are the parts I hated the most:

"I deserve it. I'd be more than happy to explain why. I think people ask because they don't understand figure skating. That it's not all about jumps"

YES WE DO UNDERSTAND IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT JUMPS!
How dare you insult figure skating fans in such a manner!

"It's easy to judge what we do as athletes when you're sitting in front of computer writing an article as opposed to being there. It's really humbling, standing out there by yourself in front of thousands of people, it's very vulnerable, and I don't think any journalist can experience that."

Ashley said the same kind of thing in FB after winning US Nats this season. She said people can be really mean; probably cause quite a few skating fans questioned her victory, and then went on and said something very similar. In her case she was saying it mainly to people who saw her performance in general, though. I remember commenting on that somewhere...I wrote something like...The audience possibly cannot and doesn't need to understand how skaters feels when they're out alone in the rink to have the right to say how they felt about a performance. Where there is a performance there needs to be an audience. Anyone who sees a skater perform has all the right to express how they felt about it. That's what the audience is there for...something like that if I remember correctly I've written in the past and I would like to say to Chan that even journalists have the same right. While they're watching a performance even journalists are part of the audience. Besides, it's their job to write what they felt should be said by someone. Some journalists suck of course, but they do have the right to do their job to say the least. Journalists are always being criticized about what they write by their readers, too. But do they ever say 'It's really humbling, sitting there by yourself in front of the computer , it's very vulnerable, and I don't think any reader can experience that.'? But I've never heard any journalist say something like that.

Chan, you've really pushed the wrong buttons this time! I HATE skaters or any kind of performer/creator in any genre telling people who watch their performances or have seen what they've made (for example movies, books, etc...) they have no right to criticize because they have no experience doing the same things they do. And frankly the BEST performers/creators NEVER say things like that.

My honeymoon period with you has ended Chan. I'm going back to the real world and call you one arrogant and ignorant son of a you know what! Grow up! Go study the basics of aestheics and art. I'm NOT raged because I felt Denis deserved to win. That's totally another matter. I am raged because you have insulted all the fans who have been supporting this sport. Including your OWN FANS! Even the famous Dragonlady (a poster in various skating forums who knows very much about the sport) had posted in ISU Discussion Board as follows:

'I was at a friend's house tonight and we both agreed that Dennis Ten should be World Champion. Amazing skate - light as air. Dennis made the difficult look effortless. He does take a long run into some of his jumps, but he looked so relaxed on the ice and made it all look so smooth and easy.'

She is Canadian and has been one of your long time supporters. She has defended you many times when other posters commented ill about you. You've insulted even HER! Sometimes her posts sound arrogant, but she is actually a very nice person who've even bothered to give some answers and explanations when a born yesterday poster like me asked questions on the sport in the past. I very much respect her. Think twice next time before you open your mouth Chan! Any kind of performer who makes comments treating his/her viewers like this do not even deserve to have an audience. Unless Chan apologizes about what he has said about his viewers and journalists, I will not applaud to him anymore for him however great he skates from now on. I will not boo at him or anything but will not show any respect to him.

I had decided not to post here for a while, but I could not help posting this.
I have even translated the whole article and have been posting it in Jpnse sights.
This time I'm not angry at him not as a skating fan, but as a human being.

Thank you to all the people who took their precious time to read this post.

PochinkoPotanko I completely agree with you.

I wish Chan would stop giving interviews like this, they're not doing him any favours.

Especially the last part when he said how he left the door open, and other skaters didn't "capitalize", and how D10 must be "kicking himself right now". Ugh, so much arrogance.

PP I agree too, he doen´t need to say something like "yes Denis is the real winner", but something like "the judges decide, it was not my best performance but I am glad it liked to the judges" at least, I dont know, he just looks so arrogant

PochinkoPotanko wrote:

klarification wrote:

Oh man now I feel bad for PChan. He looks terribly awkward. Even he should know who should be the real winner of the night, methinks.

I felt the same at first and even defended him from some people saying rude things about him in another site.

But after reading this article (if someone alreay posted it I'm sorry):
http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/03/16/patrick-chan-on-criticism-after-taking-gold-at-figure-skating-worlds-i-truly-believe-i-deserved-to-win/

I know now I was wrong about him.

Ha! And now I take back my words! He does not know how to endear himself to the public. I am not even sure how his fans can defend him this time. Please Patrick, if you have nothing good to say just don't say anything at all!

I agree with you too, Pochi. Those remarks about how people who disagree with his scores just don't understand skating...*sigh*. I'm disappointed to hear this from him.

"If I go back and study it, I think that the amount of time I've fallen, and combine both the short and long programs, and count the number of mistakes I made, I don't think I made more than Denis did or Javier (Fernandez, bronze medalist) did or anyone," he said.

Um... Maybe he hasn't seen Denis's programs?

I also didn't like the way the writer of the article compared this situation to Michelle Kwan's presentation scores. Like one of the people in the comments section said, I don't remember Michelle ever winning Worlds so controversially, with that number of mistakes against an almost clean competitor.

linglang wrote:

Interview after her return to Japan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3VGDSH2S0g

Mao says
* She's 163 or 164 cm tall.
* She thinks this season turned out to be a very good season consequently.
* If one day off is given, she wants to go shopping and buffet-style restaurants.
She had buffet-style breakfast, ate both Japanese and western breakfast (on the day she did this interview)
* If she weren't a figure skater, she might have become a gymnast. She liked gymnastics, vaulting box and trampoline.
* She would sing songs of "Morning Musume" with Mai.
* She accidentally promised to sing a Karaoke song for the interviewer in the future.
* Her ideal man is someone who is caring, who can cook, who teaches her everything, who is older than her.
* Next season is very important towards Sochi. She wants to maintain the current level and wants to compete with the current level from the beginning of the season.

Thank you Linglang for translating the interview. Oh Mao-chan, I hope to see you do a split jump in your programs. You'll pull it off.

PochinkoPotanko wrote:

klarification wrote:

Oh man now I feel bad for PChan. He looks terribly awkward. Even he should know who should be the real winner of the night, methinks.

I felt the same at first and even defended him from some people saying rude things about him in another site.

But after reading this article (if someone alreay posted it I'm sorry):
http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/03/16/patrick-chan-on-criticism-after-taking-gold-at-figure-skating-worlds-i-truly-believe-i-deserved-to-win/

I know now I was wrong about him.

Many people on Twitter said that it wasn't Chan's fault that he was overscored and I felt bad for him. Now I take back my words. These scoring controversies just serve to undermine his reputation. I know I'm being cruel, but it may bite back on him at Sochi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X7mJtoteF8

does anyone know what they are saying about mao?

illani wrote:

I agree with you too, Pochi. Those remarks about how people who disagree with his scores just don't understand skating...*sigh*. I'm disappointed to hear this from him.

"If I go back and study it, I think that the amount of time I've fallen, and combine both the short and long programs, and count the number of mistakes I made, I don't think I made more than Denis did or Javier (Fernandez, bronze medalist) did or anyone," he said.

Um... Maybe he hasn't seen Denis's programs?

I also didn't like the way the writer of the article compared this situation to Michelle Kwan's presentation scores. Like one of the people in the comments section said, I don't remember Michelle ever winning Worlds so controversially, with that number of mistakes against an almost clean competitor.

Since he said 'IF I go back and study it', I believe he had not seen the other skater's performances properly when he was interviewed in this article. I also believe than even when he does take a proper look at Denis's performances, he will still say that even though Denis did not make mistakes as much as him, his layout is much easier than his so he deserved to win anyway.

Which is wrong.

Yuna's layout is much easier than Mao's this season, but Mao made mistakes while Yuna performed close to perfect. Yuna deserved to win totally. As much I hate to say this, even if a skater is challenging a more difficult layout than others, if they make more mistakes, other skaters who skated clean should win IMO. I think most of the audience will be satisfied with the results that way and will be able to watch this sport without becoming frustrated. That's why I wasn't upset even when Evan won in Vancouver instead of Plush although I'm a die hard Plush fan.

The saddest thing about this sport is that while the audience can perfectly see how hard the skaters are trying to perform, appreciate their beautiful performances, and thus be deeply moved and touched, those wonderful feelings tend to disappear right after those scores come out in many cases. ISU and thier judges need to understand that in order to increase the poplularity of this sport, they have to avoid that happening more than anything.

According to Tony Wheeler, when the new system was first introduced, they had planned to divide the judges into 2 groups. One to score TES, the other to score PCS. They tried it out in one competition but decided not to go on with it since it cost too much and ISU came to the conclusion that they cannot afford it. I think this is where everything started to go wrong. ISU knew from the beginning that it's too much for one person to judge both TES and PCS at the same time properly. That's probably one of the reasons why the judges can't help handing PCS based on skater's reputations rather than how they actually performed. ISU must figure out a way to lower costs on other things and find enough money to divide the judges once again. The quickest way to do that is to make the sport more popular so they can achieve more sponsers. That's why they need to satisfy the majority of viewers if not all.

Although I disrespect Chan totally as a person now, he is also a victim of this bad system. Any other skater can easily turn out like him in the future; becoming labelled as a consistantly overscored skater, being bashed for something he/she is not in control of. I do not want that to ever happen to Mao nor any other skater.

pearlyriver wrote:

I have a question guys: Do you like the choreography of Mao's Swan Lake? Do you think if there's any room for improvement? I don't really like the first half of the program, where she primarily just does jumps and crossovers, and her slow speed shows. Actually her speed is not that slow, but when pitting it against Yuna and Caro's LP, it's slower. In the second half of the program, Mao has more room for expression but I still wish she could have emoted more joy and vivacity. I guess the pressure of doing such difficult jumps in the first part zaps out her energy and emotion.
Could it be that Mao' low PCS scores have anything to do with her low speed?

I agree with you, pearly. Especially in this Worlds 2013, Costume-change is not really successful. The costume itself was very elegant and beautiful, but it reminds me of Sacha Cohen in 2004 Worlds. Mao Should've stuck to the dress she wore in GP FINAL 2012, the grey-striped- white one. The white-swan costume made her complexion paler. She seemed to be so full of nervous breakdown. Probably the Short must have influenced her so much.

With regard to choreography, jumps and crossovers occupy most of the first half. Probably it may have choreographed better.

I heard the reason why she don't get more scores is her speed. Many American commentators keep talking about Mao's slow speed.

I hope she can pull it off in the world Team Trophy. She was really gorgeous in 2013 4cc.

Mao speed improved from Olympic season, since she reworked her entrances to her jumps, at practice she's doing them with more speed,though in competition she slow down a bit, so it's an old habit, which is slowly improving ,you can read inskate posts on it. One specialist told me that he found a huge improvement on Mao's salchow, good speed and power now. Mao was never a speedy skater with huge jumps. But she really improved in this area, please take this in account. Mao finished at high level this season. After two unsuccessful seasons, she finally on her way to her top condition. Let's support our girl together and let's leave all our doubts in this season.
I'm making two Mao montages now, I hope we will be able to do our birthday project for Mao and I can include them there , I want to show my support to Mao as much as I can. I feel Mao fans always in doubts and it reflects in Mao skating, let's believe in her and give her our confidence!

My impression on this Worlds:

So Sad to see Mao especially in the Short Program. I didn't watch it live, but it was rebroadcast in the next morning. She seemed to be so nervous and unstable. Probably she did too much care about Yuna or Media.

She was better in the free, but still looked insecure. Nevertheless, she landed other jumps except for 3-3 and two-footed triple axel. She was not that bad overalll, but surely under her expectation.

There exists big difference between watching it live in a big, flat TV screen and on Youtube. Big screen on live really captures and amplifies how much tension and stress athletes feel.

I think Yuna did well, especially in her free. She could skate well after seeing other competitors make serious mistakes. The free portrayed her softer sides which I had never paid attention to her. I always thought Her choreo had much agressive or dramatic exaggeration. This time was different, though.Her short didn't move me much choreographically, full of similar body movements like in 2011 programs. I couldn't get what she wants to express in the short.