#gpf15

[petitmimosa]

It will never not be funny that even with the +5 system, 2 quads in the short and 5 DIFFERENT quads and 6 in total in the free will only give you 3 points over *that* GPF15 overall score.

[intyalote]

an overly emotional reflection on yuzuru hanyu that I did not intend to write but is here nonetheless

all of yuzuru’s post-FS interviews are so depressing but I really think the one with shuzo is the worst because of how badly his voice is shaking and how defeated he sounds while the camera zooms in on his eyes even though he didn’t want anyone to see him crying. it must be awful to know that he did everything possible but things kept going wrong. and I genuinely think that if he hadn’t re-injured his ankle he would have been able to get a 4Aq landed. The rotation was already just barely short and there was nothing wrong with his air position so I think if his ankle had been stronger he could have hung onto the landing. now, with the way he talks we don’t know how severe his injury is and if he’ll even be able to attempt it again.

honestly, ever since GPF 2019 the only competition he’s really seemed to enjoy has been 4cc 2020. even before that, you can see hints of it when he skates masquerade, of the constant pressure and unrewarded efforts and needing to put on the mask of greatness. I still think back to how he said he hated when people talked about him like a ‘legacy’ and that he didn’t want to become a thing of the past just yet, and how the media was already branding him as ‘too old’ when he was 22 at worlds 2017. that he was in his best physical shape ever before beijing only to be injured the day before the free. the way he doesn’t even want to talk about being injured in case people think he’s making excuses for not winning. that people are saying he’s past his prime now when he just managed to do more rotations on a jump than anyone ever has before and then did a nearly clean program afterwards on an ankle he couldn’t feel at all.

I hope more than anything that he can achieve his dream of the 4A, but even if his injury allows him to try again he’s racing against time and fighting physics. life isn’t fair, and it hurts to see him destroy himself out of love for something that doesn’t love him back. it just shows the cruel reality behind the fairytale, that hard work doesn’t always pay off and dreams don’t always come true.

[weapoprotectionprogram]

These three on the podium always makes me happiest. 

[the-real-xmonster]

On Scoring Comparison

Over the last couple of days I’ve received two dozens or so asks about Nathan’s free skate score at Worlds. Which is fine, it was an eye-popping score and it was controversial, it deserves further examination. What is not very fine, IMO, is how the majority of you guys seemed to take issue with Nate’s score because it was too close to Yuzu’s Seimei at GPF15, or Hope and Legacy at WC17.

So I just want to clear this up: I also have a hard time accepting Nathan’s 219.46 in Milan, but not because that score was too close to Yuzu’s World Record, my issue is that I am unable to explain Nathan’s score, by itself, using my understanding of the ISU Technical Handbook and Program Components Chart. 

I don’t know about you guys, but I find it more comfortable to approach the evaluation of a performance that way, by looking at it, first, in isolation, and comparing it against another only when absolutely necessary. I think such an approach is useful in preventing bias and prejudice, if nothing else, because I have seen plenty of instances when the opposite approach failed to produce a fair judgment, when people overreacted to a score, simply because it “looks too high”. 9 out of 10 such cases, when someone intuits a score to be “too high”, it’s because they measure that score against a past benchmark, most of the time, that set by one of their favorite skaters.

If you have not guessed already, most of those overreactions I saw when I took part in discussion about the ladies’ field, most notably, in topics surrounding a certain Evgenia Medvedeva and how she measures against, say, Yuna Kim and Mao Asada. The thing is, once a hardcore Yuna/Mao fan gets it into their head that Janny’s score is too high compared to their favorite’s past records, it is, most of the time, downright impossible to make them even consider thinking of Janny’s score as anything but unfair, and, by relation, thinking of Janny herself as anything other than a cheater. That sort of mental roadblock immediately shuts down discussion, rendering it impossible to have a productive conversation about skating technique.

Now, I would hate to see Nathan getting the Evgenia treatment by Yuzu’s fans, so I just want to ask all of you who have been and are still upset about Nathan’s score: are you dissatisfied mainly because his score was too close to Yuzu’s WR, or do you find Nathan’s score by itself to be unrealistic? If it’s the former, then, please, stop, before you fully commit yourself to that road of no return. 

As you follow this sport, you should keep in mind that it is a sport, it comes with scoring and it has very specific values assigned for each technical element based on level of difficulty, so the performance you like most cannot always be the winning performance. In relation to the discussion at hand, you should keep in mind that Nathan’s free skate was the most technically challenging program ever performed in the history of figure skating, and that should be enough to command respect. You don’t have to enjoy his performance, neither do you have to agree with the score judges gave him. You are also, of course, free to hate him as intensely as you care to, only, in that case, the least you could do is to dislike him based on something he actually is, rather than putting him on an automatic hate list simply because he is not Yuzu.

Thanks for putting up with my rant, as usual.

[petitmimosa]

Chopin is just so fckng special...

The first gif? GPF14 after the collision, he fell on the combo yet still won both short and free.

In the second, he broke his previous WR in NHK15. First time he was skating Ballade clean. LOOK AT HIS FACE, he’s posessed. 

Who can forget GPF15 in the third gif and those 110.95 that remain hard to beat even TODAY. Don’t get me started on that competition, you’ll lose me on 84 pages.

We don’t talk about Boston, I know, but look at the fire in his eyes and how hungry he was for gold after the short... Yeah no, we really don’t talk about Boston.

Perhaps the most underrated Ballade performance? ACI18 when he broke 112+. Look at his smug face “yeah I just did that”. He then asked the audience to clap because “yeah, for real, this was that good”.

*keep your tongue in your mouth boy*

The smugness, the authority, the “I’m back bitches and you’re NOT giving that gold away. Step aside, it’s mine.” And to think this was his return to competition, still injured, after 4 months off the ice. GOAT things oly I swear.

The freaking grace, lightness and airiness to 4CC Ballade is just out of this freaking world. Still haven’t fully realised he came back to Chopin to take it beyond the perfection he’d left it at in PC. I just... nope, still not over this wonder of a short program.

Yuzuru Hanyu - The ending pose in Ballade No. 1

2014 GPF, 2015 NHK, 2015 GPF, 2016 WC, 2017 ACI, 2017 RC, 2018 OG, 2020 4CC

[vspirit8]

Call me an easy-to-please dumbass but...

All the decisions Hanyu’s made in his career thus far have turned out to be practical, and sound ones (even when they didn’t seem like it at first) while remaining exciting. This one is no less so, even if it might seem disappointing at first. Why is this, you ask? Let’s put a few things (28, to be exact) into perspective (I’m not blindly positive, y’all):

Hanyu’s winning pattern has always been one problematic skate, and one redeeming and/or explosive one.

Prior to 2012, his SPs were almost always uh-oh! while his FSes were what saved his ass (even if they weren’t super clean).

Post-2012, but pre-2015, when he skated clean, it’s almost always only in the SP.

When he finally skated *both* programs clean in a single competition, he did it with Ballade No. 1 in its second season and SEIMEI in its 3rd competition–more than a decade since he first started skating competitively.

SEIMEI is also the first FS he’s ever skated clean, like *truly* clean, and the first time he skated it clean was also following a clean SP performance. To date, it remains the *only* FS he’s skated clean more than once, and the only one he’s skated well *twice* despite following a clean SP.

Skating it clean following a clean SP means he wasn’t simply chasing, but he was utterly and purely dominating—that was his very first taste of it and methinks the boy man Likes the Feeling Very Much.

In the 2016 WC, after two clean sets of performances in prior competitions, he reverted to the clean-SP-problematic-FS pattern.

And in WC 2017, he flipped the switch and it’s now back to his whoops!SP and explosive!FS pattern.

If there’s anything he wants more than a second Ollie gold, it’s two clean skates on the Ollie stage (preferably preceded by clean skates in prior comps). Especially so since he’s pulling double duty in going for that 2nd gold *and* proving to the world that he rightfully deserves his first one.

So based on his pattern all these years, he’s only been able to pull off complete dominance for part of a single season, and that’s with a recycled SP and the only FS he’s skated clean twice.

Chances of him skating clean next season, the most crucial one, with two brand new progs: next to 0 (not with his anal retentive fusspot tendencies)

The feelings for SEIMEI he has are so strong, he’s apparently already decided it was gonna be his Ollie program after GPF15, a decision he’s stuck to despite his poor showing of it in WC 2016. I think his fanboyism of Mansai and all the lovely input he’s gotten from the man himself prolly also played a critical part in his choice.

So it’s a good program in his mind that’s left him with unfinished business with it, since he’s essentially never skated it clean in a major championship, national *and* international, a development that basically told him it’s still too early to pack the program in and consider it a perfectly done piece with no more room to grow. Sides, he’s put in so much effort in the making of the program, from the music to the choreography, it stands to reason he’d want to get some more mileage out of it, if he could.

So his choices, as of end 2015, were a brand new SP and SEIMEI or a repeat SP and SEIMEI. Depending on how he performed LGC in the 2016/17 season, it would either be his Ollie SP or it would be something else.

If it leaves him with good feelings, he’ll either use it again or chance a new SP.

Sadly, that didn’t happen and instead, he was left with negative feelings and mental impression for both the program itself and SPs in general, so no repeat of LGC and his mind is telling him his mental focus probably won’t be able to handle a brand new SP in the Ollie season. Not especially if he wants to up his tech further while increasing even more bells and whistles.

At this point, (end of the 2016/17 season), everything is telling him to reuse Chopin and SEIMEI.

But because he is Hanyu and he’s already upped his tech last season, he has to either maintain or up it further.

And because he’s reusing both programs, he’s left with no reason to not raise his tech content level and it’s gotta be way bigger than last season.

All in all, if we want him to skate clean on the Ollie stage while still doing what he always does, well, we’re getting it.

But if we want him to skate clean with one new program just to please us fans despite all the above, then I think we’re asking for the impossible, even from the guy who’s been giving us the impossible all these years.

We’ve got two new and beautiful programs last season. If this were another season, and not an Ollie one, I’m willing to bet we’d have at least one new program.

So let the guy do what he thinks will allow him to win in the way he wants to on a stage he’s been looking to deliver his best on since he was 7. I think he’s proven himself enough to deserve unconditional support in getting there.

Delivering his absolute best is one but, let it be said that we *still* don’t know what his absolute best can amount up to, only the promise of it and that’s already so far above and beyond what everyone else in the field is capable of delivering right now, it’s not even funny anymore.

If there’s anyone who can build something that’ll make the world’s collective jaws drop even further than they did before with the same programs but *better*, it’s Yuzuru Hanyu.

And remember, if he skates clean at the Ollies, for most of the world, it would be their first time going slack-jawed. Especially amidst all the warhorses. SEIMEI is definitely going to make them sit up and pay attention. Because not only is it different (being definitively non-Western), it is bold, it is powerful, and it is fierce. Plus, it oozes a sort of masculinity most have never seen before in men’s FS. And it appeals to a wider range of audience, no matter their culture, because it’s just such an obviously damn cool program. So people who’s always made fun of men figure skating will have to STFU.

If it’s any other skater, this might be seen as lazy and playing it safe, but then I ask myself this: has Yuzuru Hanyu *ever* been lazy? And since when did 5-quads start being considered as safe?  All he’s doing is entrusting his ultimate dream and desire to a *program* he trusts. Not a layout. A program. So that he’d be free to chance a high-flying layout packed to the high heavens with transitions and exquisitely performed elements–without having to kill or maim himself in the process. Which means, the only thing disappointing about it is that it isn’t a brand new program. That’s it. And if I have to sit through an entire season of watching a program I like again to see it taken to never-seen-before heights, as opposed to a brand new program I may not like as much and watching him struggle and make compromises in order to simply *deliver*, and during Ollie season at that, it’s a no-brainer which I’m going to go with.

What Hanyu wants to do isn’t just to win and to wow. He wants to completely dominate and he wants to go down in history doing it. He’s gotten a taste of it two seasons back and wants to make damn sure he gets to relive it again, preferably for a longer stretch this season and most definitely covering the Ollies and perhaps even the WC in Milan. And these two programs are his best chance at achieving just that next season. 

Really, there’s just way too much at stake for him to not do this. Our brains know this, but some of us still can’t help but feel just a wee bit disappointed in our hearts. Still, as long as we know where he’s coming from, those of us who are disappointed will likely come around sooner or later, because we know what truly matters this season and would conclude that we’d have made the same choices if we were in his shoes. If we’re even the teeniest bit invested in him, we won’t even have a choice about it, I guarantee it.

As for me personally, I’m just fawning over the fact that the whole world is finally going to get to know SEIMEI, not just the FS one. And it’ll stand out so beautifully among all the warhorses. SEIMEI is an Olympic-worthy program and in hindsight, no amount of new programs has a more rightful place, especially since it’s proven itself more than worthy once before, and even left its skater room to develop it further.

And get this, it’s not even my favorite program from him. LoL. It’s #3 on my list at best, so I was neither hoping for it nor against it. But now that we’ve got it, I can now see it so clearly for what it really is. Plus, there are bonuses that only SEIMEI can afford. If he skates it clean with higher tech content, he’d be able to corner the judges into giving him scores that at least match what the 2015 judges gave him for the same program. Because imagine the kind of questions they’ll have to answer if they don’t. And with this, he’ll be able to surpass his old scores with his BV. It is the one surefire megaweapon he has against his younger rivals that was cultivated long before they are the threat they are today as well as iffy judging (in a way, I feel that his hand was forced) and it’s time he reaped and harvested the fruits of his foresight, talent and hard work.

So there is everything to celebrate and absolutely nothing to feel disappointed over. Not for friggin’ SEIMEI as the Olympic program for the Yuzuru Hanyu.

(Admittedly, I was a tad disappointed back when he announced he’d be doing Chopin for the third time, but knowing the mess LGC left behind in his mind, I forced myself to accept it and after what he’s shown us of it in FaOI, I’ve come to wholeheartedly embrace it.)

I don’t know if all this will result in gold still, seeing as there are still very human factors involved in the judging, but if he delivers everything clean in PC, I’m going to consider it a win in my books.

And yes, I’d still like to see him make more history with new programs so hopefully he’ll stick around for at least one more season after this and we’ll get to see him doing that.

One thing though…the guy is now a confirmed LIAR. Cos he’s said right after WTT that he has no plans for the Ollie season and here he is claiming he’s already decided SEIMEI would be his Ollie program right after GPF15.

I get that he wanted to dodge those interview questions, and what he said was very obviously a lie (because only a bigger dumbass than me would believe anyone hoping to make it to the Ollies the next year who says they have no plans at least 2636351 years in advance, much less him) and I’m not sure if there’s anything else he could’ve done but flat out lie but it amuses me to no end to be able to loudly call him out as a big fat liar. xxxxD

[danielbigpuppy]

Yuzu teasing Shoma again: Do you want to take my arm?

[theweaverpojelove]

Happy WeaPo Wednesday!!!

[petitmimosa]

I had to. GPF15 Youtube!

[otg2012]

I’m back from Barcelona where I spent 5 amazing days enjoying the Grand Prix Final. Today has been quite a boring birthday although at least I finally bought an anniversary present for my parents and had a great dinner with my family. My birthday present has been all these awesome days when all you think about is figure skating and you only sleep 4 or 5 hours.. it’s just perfection and when it’s over it’s truly depressing.

I have met amazing people and made new friends, plus, I could speak English all the time with all the Japanese people. I need to order my pictures and I hope to share some of my favorite here. Meeting Alexander and Eric once again has been a dream come true.. they are just too amazing for words. I miss it so much now... thank god for the European Championships.

[weapoprotectionprogram]

Hugs before practice today ~ GPF 2015 

[petitmimosa]

Can you believe this was a year ago? Also can you believe how perfect Chopin has become as the years have gone by? I remember it being wild and passionate during NHK/GPF15, and then being strong and emotional, almost dominating at Olys. And last year it was airy and spellbinding. It’s humbling, how skating so many times to the same program can bring out so many different versions, while still growing to reach that level of perfection. 

Only Yuzuru is capable of such an accomplishment, only he delves that deep into things. Only he approaches recycling with the will to LEARN and convey something new and unknown. Only he treats the process of discovering what a program and music can teach you with the respect it deserves. I’m in awe of his approach to the sport, truly, what it means to him to put on his skates and touch the ice. He said he bets his life every time he skates, it’s impossible not to see it here. 

His soul, bare for the world to see, and for the ice and the music to shelter. Look at the grace, the way he surrenders to the music. It’s almost as if he’s not there anymore. Don’t get me started on the jumps, it’s like his body just knows he won’t fail because the music is guiding him, no strain, no effort. Seamless, every element melting into the next; each one so very demanding and yet so pure.

This was truly something else. I’m forever grateful we got the chance, the privilege really, to witness Chopin once again before we had to dig so deep to find beauty and happiness in this world as 2020 progressed. I know to me this was, beauty and happiness and light.

[the-real-xmonster]

With the news that yuzuru will not participating the team event i've seen some quite ridiculous statement of a few people and it just got me thinking how likely it'll go for team Japan even if yuzu participated? How does it stand for other countries to medal? Russia is the only one i think they are decent in every discipline. Which countries do you think will mostly advance to the free? Just curious how team events work and how we should look at it :)

The key to the Team Event is being strong uniformly across all 4 disciplines of figure skating so no, even if Yuzuru were going to compete and he’s in his absolute top form, like NHK-GPF15-shape, team Japan wouldn’t have much chance of getting on the podium, not to mention winning. They are not strong enough in neither Pairs nor Ice Dance to be a serious contender. 

I guess the Gold medal for the team event at PyeongChang will be settled between Russia and Canada. My bet is on Team Canada if you really want to know :) If they send in their best team, i.e. either Gabby or Kaetlyn for the Ladies, Patrick for the Men, Duhamel/Radford for Pairs and Virtue/Moir for Ice Dance, and if none of them bombs catastrophically, I can’t see any reason why they won’t win. It’s also worth pointing out that this ideal Canadian team will be consisted of all Olympic veterans. Some of them will be competing at their 3rd Olympics even. For such a big stage as the Olympics, experience is always priceless.

The third spot on the podium would probably be secured by Team USA. They have a fairly strong team whose only weakness is in the Pairs event :) 

[the-real-xmonster]

Hiya Alice ☺️ could you please help me distinguish the main differences between Seimei 1.0 and 2.0, particularly the step sequence? I definitely know he added a cheeky small spiral this time around 👀

Hiya! I can give you a general summary, but I won’t have a lot of gifs to back it up as usual because I’ve achieved a state of mind where I am virtually convinced that he did not do his free skate at SCAC. What I tell you will be based off of the perfected version of Seimei 1.0, which of course I know very well, and what I’ve seen of Seimei 2.0 from practice.

Jump Layout: Seimei 2.0 definitely has got an upgrade. At this point even Yuzu himself has stopped bothering to pretend that he will leave the quad Lutz out, so the layout we’ll see is 99.99% going to be 4Lz / 4Lo / 3F || 4S+3T / 4T / 4T+1Lo+3S / 3A+2T / 3A. In comparison, the 1.0 layout was 4S / 4T / 3F || 4T+3T / 3A+2T / 3A+1Lo+3S / 3Lo / 3Lz

Step Sequence: Seimei 1.0 got that unfortunate Level 3 at GPF15 (for reasons I’ve tried to surmise here and here), which decidedly Yuzu was not happy about, so this element also got an upgrade. In terms of technical content, here’s what I managed to jot down from his practice session at SCAC:

Hop / Toe steps / Rocker CCW - Counter CCW - Twizzle CCW (left foot) / Hop / Counter CW - Rocker CW - Bracket CW (right foot) / Mohawk / Lunge / Besti + curve / Loop CW / Mohawk / Three-turn / Pivot / Change of edge / Bracket CCW / Chasse / Mohawk / Loop CCW / Claw steps / Small jump / Chasse / Choctaw CCW / Chasse / Choctaw CW / Twizzle CW - Counter CCW - Rocker CCW (left foot) / Chasse / Ina Bauer / 2 x three-turn / Cross step / Counter CCW / Cross rolls /  Rocker CCW / Spread Eagle  

Compared to 1.0, the key changes are: 

His combination of difficult turns on the right foot changed from bracket - counter - rocker to counter - rocket - bracket (it’s a small thing, but I do find that it makes that part match even better with the tempo of the music, so I love it!)

He added this one curve movement on a Besti straight into a full clockwise loop, so this 2.0 StSq has got 2 loops (1 CW, 1 CCW) in total. In 1.0 he did that turn on his toe pick so it didn’t get counted. 

He switched this part from counter - choctaw to two choctaws connected by a chasse:

(and his choctaws now have very, very clear curves and edges)

Spins: no change here that I’ve noticed, he’s been doing the same spin layout (two combination spins with change of foot, one with a flying entrance, plus one flying sit spin) for quite a while now in his free skate so I’m not really surprised.

Choreographic Sequence: also not much change that I’ve seen, except this one extra lunge he did after he exited the hydroblade (which killed me very nicely the first time I saw it, like how dramatic, how extra…):

Base Value: With those elements, Seimei 2.0′s BV is 111.26 compared to 95.19 of Seimei 1.0 at GPF15. For reference, his BV from Hope and Legacy last season was 103.43 :) The 7.83 extra over H&L comes from (1) swapping solo 4S for solo 4Lz: +3.10 points (2) adding another 4T and swap out the 3Lz: +4.73 points.

One final thought: this is Yuzu we’re talking about, so likely as the season progresses we’ll see even more changes made to Seimei 2.0. This is not its final form yet, far from it, party people!

[the-real-xmonster]

Did my blog turn into a Janny-centric confession booth?

Anonymous said:

Dont want to come off as a hater but seriously, Yuna and Mao had MUCH more mesmerising programs than Medvedevas... the endings for example were so dramatic and Medvedevas is usually a sad piano or some weird unexpected ending. also can you please tell me why the American commentators said Medvedeva had ‘textbook’ jumps? One of the guys literally said she had after he watched her slow mo triple flutz.

I haven’t the faintest idea why you’d want to compare Janny against Yuna and Mao in the first place. Yuna’s career ended before Janny’s even began. Mao and Janny were in the same competition for, what, three times? GPF15, WC16, Trophée de France 2016 - unless my memory is wonky. All of those were when Mao was no longer at her best, far from it. They are skaters who belong to different generations, who competed at different points in the evolution of the sport. If you want someone to benchmark Janny against, why not pick from her contemporaries? We are at a blessed period in skating when the ladies’ field is particularly deep, chock-full of talented skaters in both the senior and junior ranks, why not take advantage of it?

As for the praises she received, commentators all over the world like to say the weirdest things about every skater. I hear blatantly wrong things all the time during TV broadcast. Who cares. I know that Janny flutzes, you know it, the entire skating community, except the technical panels, seems to be savvy to that fact. So there.

Anonymous said:

I just got into figure skating (I know I am probably still clueless) and at first, I was in love with evgenia medvedeva 's skating but after seeing more skaters I realized that the girl looks like she struggles when she skates. She looks so stiff and so not elegant. I 've come to the conclusion that her skating is ugly and the criticism she receives isn't irrational. Of course, the way people sometimes express their criticism is awful and I don't agree with that. 

Sure, whatever you say. I personally find it hard to believe that anyone’s sense of aesthetics could change so much so that they can find something pretty one day and conclude that it’s ugly the next. Maybe it’s just me, I have never had that happened to me before, not in figure skating, not in anything else. I can try to convince you that no, Janny’s skating is not ugly, her jumps are not the most effortless you’ll see, she’s not the fastest on the ice either, but she makes up for it with flow and control and sureness in her movements, over time I’ve also found her skating to improve much in maturity and elegance, driven by her confidence and consistency. But well, since you seem pretty set in your perception, let’s just agree to disagree.

Anonymous said:

Medvedeva’s skating is so gangly and awkward. Her jumps have height and speed but they’re so cheated it’s unbelievable. She’s being used as ISU’s covergirl so she can gain a fanbase and thus attract viewers, resulting in more money for the corporation. This is corrupt.

On Janny being gangly and awkward, see my response to the anon above. On cheated takeoff, sure, she does pre-rotate her toe jumps (yes, toe jumps only). But, and this is important, she doesn’t always pre-rotate so severely to the point her jumps need to be downgraded. Even more importantly, she’s improving - her flips in particular this season have all been PR-ed by just under 180 degrees. It’s still too much for my taste, but in terms of scoring: negative GOE, yes, downgrade, no. I don’t see how her PR is unbelievable either, if for nothing else other than the fact that more than half of the top ladies these days do the same thing if not even worse. Kaetlyn Osmond, Gabrielle Daleman, Satoko Miyahara, Marin Honda, to name just a few. Over at the men’s side there are of course the cases of Shoma Uno and Vincent Zhou. What I find unbelievable, and sad, is how flawed jumping technique is so prevalent these days and so frequently, systematically, overlooked by judges. 

Is Janny being used as the ISU’s cover girl? Well, if that’s the truth, thanks the lord for, finally, we have some sensible move from the ISU. All praises to their genius marketing strategy.  

[the-real-xmonster]

Do you think that if SEIMEI was done with level 4 stsq, the score would have been higher than H&L?

Ah, this is an easy one. The short answer to your question is no, a Level 4 StSq alone wouldn’t give Seimei a higher score than Hope and Legacy. For all the troubles skaters have to go through to attain it, a Level 4 StSq only adds 0.6 point in BV to a program compared to a Level 3, and a maximum potential of an extra 0.6 in GOE (GOE +3 translates to +1.5 in final score for a StSq Level 3 and +2.1 for a Level 4).

Since I’ve done the maths, I will tell you something fun: as it was, even if Yuzu had received perfect GOE for every single technical element he did in Seimei at GPF15, his score would still have been lower than H&L by 0.05.

Now if Seimei 1.0 at GPF15 had been done with a StSq Level 4, received maximum GOE for everything, and perfect 10s in all PCS, then that would give it an extra 6.31 points for a total of 225.79, higher than H&L at WC17 by 2.59 points.   

Basically what I’m trying to say is, Seimei 1.0 at GPF15 is as close to absolute perfection as you will ever see in this sport. The thing is, Hope and Legacy at WC17 is the same, only it didn’t fully receive the recognition it deserved on the score sheet.