Skate Canada 2007-08

Love the new steps and arabesque spiral.

If you open this link in WMP:
mms://a1068.l3501839971.c35018.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1068/35018/v0001/reflector:39971
you might have a chance to see the event live!

Nana should start her SP soon, Laura Lepisto is finishing hers now.

Sadly, the live feed has a nasty tendency to stop playing in the most inappropriate moments for me.

Poor Mao. After the unsuccessful 3-3 combo she looked shaken and the program just fell apart.

She's in 3rd now, behind Laura Lepisto and Emily Hughes.

I hope she'll get her confidence back and will have a great LP tomorrow. Good luck, Mao!

noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!

I thought I'll write a report for those who haven't seen it yet.

I missed the very beginning because the live feed was jumpy.
Dynamic intro.
3F - tentative landing - underrotated two-footed 3L, Mao had to support herself with two hands in order not to fall
Looks angry at herself and shaken
Tentative steps into 3Lz
2A very nice, but she still looks upset
Spirals slower that at CC and slightly shaky
Layback gorgeous, but I think not enough revolutions in Biellman position and it slowed down a little bit at the end
Flying sit spin
Tentative russian split jump to start the step sequence
And a stumble right at the beginning
Goes rather slowly after that
Final combo slower than at CC, and sad finishing pose
Such a gorgeous program, but it looked like the mistake caused Mao to be too angry at herself to skate with her usual flair.

Ironically, she landed such a beautiful 3F3L in the warm-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6AS0SjA674

The stumble on the combination in the competition looks more mental than a technical problem to me. There's so much pressure on Mao it's scary.

I think Mao should really believe in herself and her beautiful skating and just skate her best tomorrow. She definitely has the ability to come back and win by a huge margin.

z4mboni wrote:

The stumble on the combination in the competition looks more mental than a technical problem to me. There's so much pressure on Mao it's scary.

Absolutely. I think Mao started worrying about the combo because of what happened at Worlds. She couldn't shake it at the US-JPN event when she didn't even attempt the loop. At that event, she looked very upset when she finished, not even holding the final pose. I almost feel like studying sport psychology to help her. My consolation is that there are 2+ years until the Olympics and Mao still has time to learn how to overcome her mental struggles.

z4mboni wrote:

I think Mao should really believe in herself and her beautiful skating and just skate her best tomorrow. She definitely has the ability to come back and win by a huge margin.

Yes, she definitely is more than capable of coming back as she showed us at Worlds. If she could do it at Worlds, she can certainly do it here, too. In fact, the experience of having done it once will help her immensely. At Worlds, she was able to believe that she could come back after seeing Lambiel do it. Well, what is more powerful than having done it yourself! Go Mao!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO4GBCdSMvA
video is up...

Mao-chan.....
ganbatte tomorrow!!

I agree she has some kind of mental block now in the SP on her combo due to what happened at Worlds.

However I read she was downgraded on the loop and got her flutz marked down on GOE also which doesn't help so a 58 SP considering this is pretty good.

I'm worried for her though. As you say she is under so much pressure. Maybe it's yet another growth spurt, maybe as she's gettign older she's realising what's at stake. What is easy at 14 isn't so easy at 17 is it? I just hope she's ok and can skate as well as she can today.

Go Mao

floskate wrote:

I agree she has some kind of mental block now in the SP on her combo due to what happened at Worlds.

However I read she was downgraded on the loop and got her flutz marked down on GOE also which doesn't help so a 58 SP considering this is pretty good.

I'm worried for her though. As you say she is under so much pressure. Maybe it's yet another growth spurt, maybe as she's gettign older she's realising what's at stake. What is easy at 14 isn't so easy at 17 is it? I just hope she's ok and can skate as well as she can today.

Go Mao

ITA
Go Mao! And Enjoy your skating!!

Yay, a clean performance from Mao!

But I think the technical content needs to be reworked before the next competition. The current jump layout is not very efficient point-wise.

I suspect later she will go for 3F-3L and 3F-3T and 3A of course.

Too bad that 3F-3L was downgraded - it looked great to me. I saw way more underrotated jumps that were ratified...

Overall, it was rather a tentative performance, but not a bad one to start the season.

The spirals were beautiful (could use just a bit more speed perhaps, but positions are gorgeous) and she improved her spins. I wish the choreographer would give her more time for the layback - she has such a gorgeous Biellman, but doesn't get to showcase it properly in the competition.

The jumps were great and amazingly light.

And what a gorgeous costume!

Hopefully now she knows what to work on and will bring the house down at TEB.

Congrats, Mao, and good luck at TEB!

Mao-chan good job!!! I am glad that she handled her pressure and skated clean I like this FP better than last year's:hearts: It will get better though!
Anyway congrats on clean skating I enjoyed very much! I love ya Mao

And Mao is the Skate Canada 2007 champion!

Congratulations!

I think this LP has a great potential. Much better than Czardas, gorgeous choreo!

OMG, Arutunian is being adorable backstage.

Interview with Mao and Rafael!

You are the best. You are the queen. Forget about yestarday! -Arutunian is a great coach!

Mao also very cute in the interview. She said that even though she was no good in SP she wanted to forget about that and come back strongly.

Close-up on her dress - it's gorgeous!

Mao-chan omedeto winning Skate Canada yokattane

congrats to Yukari for landing 3axel and also for the silver medal

Yumei wrote:

congrats to Yukari for landing 3axel and also for the silver medal too

She was amazing as well - she really is getting that 3A consistent! I'm happy because she proves that not only young girls can be great jumpers and that it is possible to get a jump (3A in this case) back even after you lost it for some time.
I think she was undermarked in the components. She has gorgeous presentation.
She should change her dress, though. It looks nice on the close-up photos, but in the competition it is so bright that it blinds the camera - looks just like an orange spot with no details - and distracts from Yukari's beautiful face.

The protocols are up.

The spiral was graded lvl1, whyyyy? It was gorgeous!

I can't even rewatch the program right now to see if some of the requirements were not fulfilled.

Aside from that, the flutz deduction and 3-3 downgrading it looks good - a lot of positive GoEs on jumps, spiral and spins. It should get much better as the season goes on.

Still bugged about the spiral, though. I hope she'll not change it, at least not the arabesque! It was beautiful!

Protocols
http://www.isufs.org/results/gpcan07/sc07_Ladies_SP_Scores.pdf
http://www.isufs.org/results/gpcan07/sc07_Ladies_FS_Scores.pdf

z4mboni wrote:

The spiral was graded lvl1, whyyyy? It was gorgeous!

I can't believe.... Her spiral was beautiful...

Congratulations, Mao-chan, for the beautiful performance! Her upper body and arm movements are much improved and gorgeous! Yes, she got dinged for the flutz and the ur loop, but it's something that she can work on. (Not sure how easy it is to correct the flutz, though.) As long as you are mentally strong and focus only on skating for yourself, you're just fine! I think she's laid an important foundation for this season and future -- she showed to herself and the rest that she can win on the strength of her PCS even when she doesn't overwhelm others with her TES.
(Just remember, Mao-chan, it's a long way to Vancouver and you take one step at a time. )

z4mboni wrote:

Interview with Mao and Rafael!
You are the best. You are the queen. Forget about yestarday! -Arutunian is a great coach!

Is this what Arutunian said? I was watching NTV+ via Web TV and they didn't show any interviews. Which stream were you watching?

I finally calm down
Today's Mao's FS was a lot far from her best, but still it was beautiful I was really happy to see her smile Love that smile of her I believe her FS will get better over time! Judges seems really strict for her... Thank you Mao-chan for a nice performance

Caliblue wrote:

Her upper body and arm movements are much improved and gorgeous! As long as you are mentally strong and focus only on skating for yourself, you're just fine! (Just remember, Mao-chan, it's a long way to Vancouver and you take one step at a time. )

I feel same way!!

Caliblue wrote:

z4mboni wrote:

Interview with Mao and Rafael!
You are the best. You are the queen. Forget about yestarday! -Arutunian is a great coach!

Is this what Arutunian said? I was watching NTV+ via Web TV and they didn't show any interviews. Which stream were you watching?

Yes, he was repeating that to Mao before the LP!

I was watching the CBC (Canadian TV) stream. It was really funny. It went something like this:

CBC: We heard you saying "You are the best. You are the queen. Forget about yestarday!" to Mao Asada...
Rafael: ....How did you know that?!
CBC: Oh, there are mics everywhere in here!

And then Rafael said that he was just saying the truth and that he believed that Mao has the mental strenght to give her best. I don't remember clearly, because I was still laughing about the microphones and missed some parts.

Then there was an interview with Mao using the Japanese interpreter, but I think the interpreter killed the funny part of Mao's reply. I hope someone recored this, I don't remember it clearly enough to repeat word-by-word.

There was also a very cute scene when Mao and Raphael watched the screen and learned that Mao won. Raphael looked even more giddy than Mao and sort of stroked his chin as he was lauhing and made a funny face.

z4mboni wrote:

Then there was an interview with Mao using the Japanese interpreter, but I think the interpreter killed the funny part of Mao's reply.

Yes!, she was a terrible interpreter Maybe she was too excited for Mao-chan's win

z4mboni wrote:

Yes, he was repeating that to Mao before the LP! I was watching the CBC (Canadian TV) stream. It was really funny. It went something like this:

Hopefully, this will turn up in FSV in a day or so. If it was on CBC, there's a pretty good chance. Thanks for the info!
Thanks to all the online streaming, i no longer feel so bad about being exiled from Japan.