Japan Open 2011

I am fine with Taka's scores, just like what periperi said he was slower than usual.
It's not normal for Taka to have UR and level 3 spin He did said he just switched to new boots and in the news couple days ago, he said he has boots issue and tried to resolve that.

but some judges (or may that is the same judge) were sleeping.
when I saw Arthur's 3A3T, what happened and someone gave him -2
and so is Taka's 3Lz2T, where is -1 come from?

and P. chan fall three times and one judge rewarded him 9.25 SS?
jumps are not part of SS?

Liza was pretty good but higher PCS than Alissa?

Someone in Taiwan disscussion board saw the JO live said that when P. Chan's scores came out, the audience can't accept that but I think the reaction will be cut off during broadcasting.

The only thing made me happy is I downloaded FrOI second half and Taka's soul man ex version was in it...

ETA: read someone's comments about PCS on FSU then one of the conclusion is Oda needs to have one fall to get best SS...that just made me laugh.

Thank you for the YT vids Lady_in_Black & Okami!

Man, I thought Adelina was going to be Mao's main rival for Sochi, but now I'm not so sure after watching Elizaveta's LP. She is so fun to watch & tiny! She probably won't grow that tall compared to Adelina. She's still rusty in some of the spins & positions, but she has beautiful fingertips. Add a little more polish and add in the triple axel- she is going to be fierce. It's going to be really interesting to watch her & Mao's development up until Sochi.

shikure wrote:

and P. chan fall three times and one judge rewarded him 9.25 SS?
jumps are not part of SS?

Liza was pretty good but higher PCS than Alissa?

Someone in Taiwan disscussion board saw the JO live said that when P. Chan's scores came out, the audience can't accept that but I think the reaction will be cut off during broadcasting.

The only thing made me happy is I downloaded FrOI second half and Taka's soul man ex version was in it...

ETA: read someone's comments about PCS on FSU then one of the conclusion is Oda needs to have one fall to get best SS...that just made me laugh.

Sad thing is that Chan's PCS is not surprising to me. He's always gifted & held up in competitions even when he falls.

I agree that Alissa's PCS should have been highter, esp. in the interpretation mark. Alissa's PCS was 57.76 and Elizaveta's was 57.21.

http://www.skatingjapan.jp/

shikure wrote:

Someone in Taiwan disscussion board saw the JO live said that when P. Chan's scores came out, the audience can't accept that but I think the reaction will be cut off during broadcasting.

...which isn't really surprising, seeing as how Patty managed to provoke a similar crowd reaction back at the first WTT (2nd in the FS with the highest PCS; jump content included two 2As and a fall on the only 3A he attempted). Choreographically speaking, I prefer this new program far more to the "Chantom" although I am shaking my head at Lori's decision to use Aranjuez. Geeze, Lori, you choreographed a program to this for Joannie just three seasons ago and the music is overused to begin with!

Now that I've seen the videos, well, the event wasn't that disastrous. It's always nice to see Jeff and Joannie skate, and both Dai and Kozu had promising programs. Leave it to the Japanese audience to clap along to the infamous Nausicaa Requiem though. That said, I think I enjoyed Alissa and Akiko the most. chiyori mentioned it already, but Akiko's carriage and positions have made significant progress and it shows, especially on her spins.

And speaking of spin positions, I have to agree with Okami regarding what feels like an avoidance of the classic layback by the elite Russian ladies. It doesn't help that the Russian ladies with the exception of Ksenia (and others that I surely failed to mention) opt to bend their free leg instead of keeping it lifted and stretched, thus making variations like the sideways layback visually unattractive as well. I'm starting to wonder if this is a conscious decision, seeing as how practically all the wunderbabies are adopting the rather jarring catchfoot/"half-Biellman with the torso facing the ice" position as a difficult variation on their camel spin too. The bent free leg on the layback does seem to make the spin less tiring and easier to rotate...in other words, efficiency over aesthetics. Any thoughts?

I uploaded Miki's LP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SKTuIah2i8

clovera wrote:

And speaking of spin positions, I have to agree with Okami regarding what feels like an avoidance of the classic layback by the elite Russian ladies. It doesn't help that the Russian ladies with the exception of Ksenia (and others that I surely failed to mention) opt to bend their free leg instead of keeping it lifted and stretched, thus making variations like the sideways layback visually unattractive as well. (...) The bent free leg on the layback does seem to make the spin less tiring and easier to rotate...in other words, efficiency over aesthetics. Any thoughts?

I think the ladies who do the bent leg variation try to emulate the classical position with turned out leg, but lack the strength to do so (similarly, a lot of the ladies can manage a perfectly stretched out Biellman position, but cannot manage a good arabesque without hand assist).
As for the avoidance of the classical position (which makes me sad ) I think that efficiency has indeed a lot to do with it. A lot of ladies prefer to get the levels doing 8 revolutions or (rarely) accelerating, because switching the positions takes some time and in figure skating every second counts. I think that ws also the reason why Mao changed her layback last season - she had some nice positions early in the season, but kept losing levels, so she switched to the sideways-catchfoot-Biellman held for 8 revolutions variation. Which got her lvl4, but IMHO didn't look as beautiful as the layback she did during the Olympic season.

Quote :

I'm starting to wonder if this is a conscious decision, seeing as how practically all the wunderbabies are adopting the rather jarring catchfoot/"half-Biellman with the torso facing the ice" position as a difficult variation on their camel spin too.

That's another position I dislike. Luckily, Liza already dropped it, so I hope it will go out of fashion eventually...

I do not like the music cut to Taka's Nausicaa LP! They should have kept the original version, which had such emotional power.

I have to go out now, but I uploaded Miki's "Black Swan" - it's still being converted, but should be available pretty soon here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foSJWxxBSjo
Lovely program

Thanks for sharing, Okami! That's indeed a lovely program from Miki. Glad to have finally seen it. :-)

Is Dai's new exhibition choreographed by Lambiel?

Yuzuru is just amazing. Not just the jumps, but his presence and elegance. He's quickly becoming one of my favorite skaters.

Thank you all for the uploads! I was waiting for the vids so long

I adore Mikis dress! Its so beautiful! But whats happened to her?

Watching her skate kinda reminded me of Mao last year

Akiko Suzuki - Hungarian Rhapsody - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zVbJapmAJA
Can't stop watching! This is a very addictive program.

Haidogirl wrote:

T
I adore Mikis dress! Its so beautiful! But whats happened to her?

Watching her skate kinda reminded me of Mao last year

I think Miki's situation is a bit different. We have to consider that:
1) Since the Olympics Miki has been expressing the wish to take a season off to rest because her injuries were bothering her too much,
2) Miki withdrew from GP events citing lack of preparation,
3) Her LP was very new, IIRC she went to Novogorsk to prepare her LP just a few weeks before JO.

If she was not prepared to participate in the GP series and planned to skip it anyway, she most likely wasn't even training at her full capacity. What's the point trying to get in a peak form and risking yet another injury when you plan to skip the season to rest anyway? I guess Miki just wanted to skate a "safe" program, but lost her timing because the LP was too new. She was totally fine in the Gala.
This is why I questioned inviting Miki here - it's customary to invite the highest placing Japanese skater from the latest Worlds, but it's a bit silly to invite a skater who plans to skip season to rest. She could've been invited as a guest skater instead (like Yuzuru).

Risa Shoji - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4KcwsSKbW4
She landed 3S-3T!

polosatik wrote:

What a lovely portrait of ET! Japanese fans are very sweet. I notice from ET's fb album that they also prepared a giant flower arrangement to welcome ET's participation in JO!

Liza has a FB page? Didn't know that.

Thanks for the black swan link Okami! I've been dying to see it! I was honestly a little disappointed. She skated it beautifully, and I LOVE the dress, but I wasn't crazy about the program. Not really enough going on it it for me. Maybe I would just really like to see it as a competitive program.

Now about Japan open: I'm a little confused. Jeff has been retired for a few years now. Is he coming back? And Joannie and Miki??... I was surprised to see them there too. Do you think it would be safe to assume we might be seeing them both at worlds?

Star85 wrote:

Now about Japan open: I'm a little confused. Jeff has been retired for a few years now. Is he coming back? And Joannie and Miki??... I was surprised to see them there too. Do you think it would be safe to assume we might be seeing them both at worlds?

Japan Open is a Pro-Am, which means that the teams can have both currently competing and retired skaters on the roster. Jeff and Joannie have already competed there after their retirement, so did Alexei Yagudin, Takeshi Honda and others.

After the competition, Miki announced that she will take the entire season off, so she will not appear at Worlds, either.

shikure wrote:

Okami wrote:

This is why I questioned inviting Miki here - it's customary to invite the highest placing Japanese skater from the latest Worlds, but it's a bit silly to invite a skater who plans to skip season to rest. She could've been invited as a guest skater instead (like Yuzuru).

[size=11]Okami, they can't invite Yuzuru to replace Miki or he may need to in drag (I am kidding)

I meant that Yuzuru was invited as a guest skater, so he skated both during Japan Open and Carnival on Ive, although he was not on the Japanese Team. If Miki was also invited as a guest skater, the audience would still get to see World Champion twice, but Miki wouldn't be forced to prepare for a competition when she was planning to skip the season anyway. Sorry for the confusion. It's mostly wishful thinking, of course...

Okami wrote:

shikure wrote:

Okami wrote:

This is why I questioned inviting Miki here - it's customary to invite the highest placing Japanese skater from the latest Worlds, but it's a bit silly to invite a skater who plans to skip season to rest. She could've been invited as a guest skater instead (like Yuzuru).

[size=11]Okami, they can't invite Yuzuru to replace Miki or he may need to in drag (I am kidding)

I meant that Yuzuru was invited as a guest skater, so he skated both during Japan Open and Carnival on Ive, although he was not on the Japanese Team. If Miki was also invited as a guest skater, the audience would still get to see World Champion twice, but Miki wouldn't be forced to prepare for a competition when she was planning to skip the season anyway. Sorry for the confusion. It's mostly wishful thinking, of course...

When I look again what you wrote now--->I totally got that in wrong way and that might be my imagination
It's great that we still manage to have fun for such, sort of disaster competition
I think JSF just can't find someone big enough for the event, even they can find someone who has turned pro like Takeshi Honda or Shizuka but they want to win~they still assign those first tier for JO.

Actually other skaters who have GP assignment can't participate.
Mao ~ unknown maybe want to keep away from any competition before NHK
Oda ~ recovery from injury

rest of them not big enough
Haruka ~recovery from injury and in states
Daisuke Murakami ~ schedule conflict and the one he participated with credit for ISU
Kanako ~schedule conflict and she changes her SP, she should be super busy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ_6yAzX8ns Can someone tell me what's the name of the song starting from 1:50, I can't find it no in original soundtrack and no in the symphony version.

For everyone in the US, I finally found a non-geo blocked version of Florent's FS from the Japan Open on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVbHq6e93nU.

Alokya wrote:

For everyone in the US, I finally found a non-geo blocked version of Florent's FS from the Japan Open on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVbHq6e93nU.

Humm... how can I say this... WTF is this shirt?! This looks like a male version of Miki's tiger dress! And that's not a compliment... Morozov is the king of recycling... Dai's poses, Miki's leftover fabric...

And while I like Florent well enough most of the time, can I reiterate how much I HATE Morozov? What's with all this posing? I did not like it last year and it seems like there's even more in this program. Yeah Flo's got attitude, it's different and he can dance, but I'd like to see some actual skating...

Gorgeous 4 sal though...

Okami wrote:

Star85 wrote:

Now about Japan open: I'm a little confused. Jeff has been retired for a few years now. Is he coming back? And Joannie and Miki??... I was surprised to see them there too. Do you think it would be safe to assume we might be seeing them both at worlds?

Japan Open is a Pro-Am, which means that the teams can have both currently competing and retired skaters on the roster. Jeff and Joannie have already competed there after their retirement, so did Alexei Yagudin, Takeshi Honda and others.

After the competition, Miki announced that she will take the entire season off, so she will not appear at Worlds, either.

Oh ok, thanks for clearing that up for me. I knew it wasn't one of the more prestigious competitions, but I didn't know it was actually pro-am. I didn't even know about this competition back when Alexei and Takeshi were in it. That was back before Mao, and when I was a figure skating fan, but not a hard core fan.

chiyori wrote:

Alokya wrote:

For everyone in the US, I finally found a non-geo blocked version of Florent's FS from the Japan Open on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVbHq6e93nU.

Humm... how can I say this... WTF is this shirt?! This looks like a male version of Miki's tiger dress! And that's not a compliment... Morozov is the king of recycling... Dai's poses, Miki's leftover fabric...

And while I like Florent well enough most of the time, can I reiterate how much I HATE Morozov? What's with all this posing? I did not like it last year and it seems like there's even more in this program. Yeah Flo's got attitude, it's different and he can dance, but I'd like to see some actual skating...

Gorgeous 4 sal though...

That was my initial reaction as well - what the HECK was Morozov thinking? At least with last year's program he skated well in addition to dancing. This one = almost no skating. I think that was really affecting his jumps... he couldn't get enough speed into a lot of them. Gah. I honestly hope that Morozov choreography doesn't ruin his chances at good placements because that would just be sad with a guy that has good technique and can be quite fast, but I could easily see it happening this year with this program.

polosatik wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ_6yAzX8ns Can someone tell me what's the name of the song starting from 1:50, I can't find it no in original soundtrack and no in the symphony version.

About 1:50 ~ 2:40 in Kozu's program, right? I hope I'm not wrong, but it still sounds like the midsection of the Nausicaa Requiem (more specifically, the part where the child vocal sings "Lan lalalalala la" repeatedly).
With vocals: www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9ka4J77RpU (1:12 onwards)
Without: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yODWB9k66_k

I wish I knew which album the one Kozu has in his program is from, though.