Why Yuna Kim should have won the Sochi Olympics

In my ladies preview a couple of days ago I wrote that I expected the Russian ladies to be overscored in this event, as it had been a trend of these Olympics. I had also written that as much as Sotnikova or Lipnitskaya could skate well, if Yuna Kim brought her A game, no one would have been able to beat her. Well, judges never cease to amaze me. Yuna skated two perfect programs, with just a little, very little, bubble on a triple lutz, yet she was put in second place. Kim's silver medal has been considered a scandal by many people, including athletes, former athletes, coaches, fans, broadcasters from every country (except Russia). When I personally saw her scores coming out, I started yelling at the television as many of you. But then I cooled down and took a look at the protocols with a much more composed attitude. I haven't changed my opinion: Yuna deserved the gold.

WHERE THE 6 POINTS DIFFERENCE LIES

When the speaker announced Adelina's score I thought: "They scored her high enough to challenge Kim". And I was right. 149 is the best score of this quadriennal and Yuna had to do anything perfectly to replicate that and take the gold. That was absolutely in her possibilities, if she did something similar to her free skate performance at Worlds last year. As I said hundreds of times now, she was perfect, yet she received 4 points less than last year even if she skated an almost identical program. How this could be possible? How come in a system where scores inflate every year she could earn six points less than Sotnikova? The answer is very simple and very evident for everyone: GOEs and components.

THE COMPONENTS HISTERIA

There are so many things I could say about how hilariously components were given: Sotnikova tied with Kim and above Kostner, a clean Asada surpassed by a struggling Lipnitskaya is something beyond my worst nightmares. A lot of people have been said that, at the end of the day, the components scores are determined by the subjective opinion of the judges. There might be something true in that, but let's not forgive that the ISU gives a detailed explanation about what skaters are required to do to achieve that "artistic perfection".

Yuna and Carolina (and Mao for sure, but I guess that skating in the second group did affect her marks) should get higher components than Adelina not because of their reputation but because their choreography and interpretation has nothing to do with Sotnikova's. Adelina has great skating skills and maybe more transitions than the others (even though they are not original nor very high quality moves compared to Kim's), but in the voices Performance, Choreography and Interpretation her scores are just unjustifiable. If you watch these three programs back to back you will definetely see that especially Kim's free, but also Kostner's, has a more sophisticated concept, is better portrayed on the ice, phrases the music perfectly.

Yuna's Adios Nonino is an incredibly complex program that gives you femininity, sensuality, fierce, melancholy, sadness and lightness in four minutes. A landslide from Sotnikova.

BLOW ON GOE

Furthermore, Adelina has earned an enormous technical score. That has to be said that she skated incredibly well and that was not easy for her, considering the pressure she was facing. However, she received more than deserved compared to others. The GOE on any of her elements were super high as never before. Is not that her elements were not worthy of those points, but it is difficult to understand why Yuna consistently received lower GOEs for perfectly executed jumps and spins. As I wrote before, Yuna practically skated a replica of last year's free skate at worlds technique wise, but lost over four points in the GOEs of the elements with no reason at all.

Obviously, this result damages the image of the sport especially because the controversy happened during the Olympics. Honestly, I have no idea about what will happen in the future to the athletes. For sure Adelina won't ever be invited to a Korean show and The 2018 Olympics might be difficult for her. The competition and how it was judge will damage Adelina as well in the long term: on one side the shadows and the doubts about these Olympics will always be around her, and on the other side she won't probably get this kind of result in the future and her improvement on the quality of her skating and on her artistry, just because you can't get more than 10 in the pcs.

I want to conclude that I really admire Adelina Sotnikova because she skated with an incredible competitive strenght, believing in her skating and confident as a veteran. She is a pure talent, a complete skater who will become one of the best ever once she will get maturity. A lot of things have been said about her and I honestly despise everyone who has had an offensive attitude towards her. After all it has been an amazing competition with several great skates and this is how I will remember these Olympic games. 

Olympic preview: Ladies (and thoughts on ongoing components scores...)

In the ladies event in Sochi, the competition will be incredibly unpredictable.

Three former world champions will fight for a medal: Yuna Kim, Mao Asada and Carolina Kostner.

Before going into details about each of these skaters, I would like to spend some words on the Russian skaters and how the “home advantage” is working for them. There have been a lot of criticism about the scores given to the Russians which seem to have been “raising to the occasion” to assure as many medals as possible to the host country. I have to say that I have never been keen on thinking that figure skating was all about politics and corruption and I am sure that this is not what is happening in Sochi right now, but some of the scores given in this week show at least a tendency to be quite generous towards those Russian athletes who might approach to the podium. That is what happened to Stolbova/Klimov, who got a components score of 71 against a 62 given just a year ago to the same program, or to Ilinykh/Katsalapov who bettered their free dance score of over 7 points in a week, a unprecedented improvement in ice dance. That has to be said that both these teams probably skated the programs of their lives and haven’t earned a medal undeservingly, yet their scores were so high that it would have been impossible for anyone else to challenge them.

Considering all these aspects, it would be foolish not to expect the young Russian girls to receive incredible scores. Both Lipnitskaya and Sotnikova have great results in their records and both of them might represent a gold medal threat. The two are very different one from the other: Lipnitskaya is less experienced and mature, yet very consistent on any technical element, Sotnikova has a more refined skating, brilliant transitions and skating skills, but she is more emotional and less solid on jumps. In my opinion, which is not guided by personal taste but by what ISU has always researched and declared to want from a skater, these two skaters’ components shouldn’t be ANY close to Kim’s or Asada’s. As much as the Russians have improved during this year, there shouldn’t be any doubt that both Kim and Asada are incomparable in terms of skating skills, interpretation, phrasing of the music, projection of the program and complexity of the choreography.

However, Lipnitskaya, who usually has a lower pcs than Sotnikova, received in the team event a pcs very similar to Asada’s in the short (Asada fell in that program, though) and was scored a 69 in that department in the free skate, just a couple of points less than the Worlds 2013 free skate performance by Yuna Kim.

To sum up, considering that Lipnitskaya, Sotnikova, Kim and Asada have more or less the same potential on the technical score, medals will come down to who performs the best, regardless of the artistry of the skater. If they all perform at their best, which might be difficult for Asada due to her extremely risky technical content, Kim and Asada should be in the top two. It has been reported that Mao is consistently landing her triple axel in practice, but any little mistake will be very costly and therefore out of the four named before, she is the most likely to finish off the podium. The same could be said by Sotnikova, who is not known for being incredibly consistent. She has an enormous potential though, and if she nails the short program she will receive way more than 70 points.

There are so many others who could fight for a medal, but none of them is as competitive as these four. Carolina Kostner equals or tops the others for maturity and artistry, but she doesn’t have all the technical difficulties; others like Gracie Gold, Kanako Murakami, Akiko Suzuki miss something to be on the podium as well.

PODIUM PICKS

Gold: Yuna Kim

Silver: Julia Lipnitskaya

Bronze: Adelina Sotnikova

European Championships 2014: schedule and preview

SCHEDULE

Wednesday 15th:

10.30 Ladies short

17.30 Short Dance

Thursday 16th:

11.45 Men short

18.25 Free Dance

Friday 17th:

13.30 Pairs short                  

17.50 Ladies free skate

Saturday 18th:

12.05 Men free skate

Sunday 19th:
11.00 Pairs free skate                                           

The 2014 European Championships will take place this week (13-19 January) in Budapest (GMT +1).
It will be the last chance to test programs and technical status before the Olympics in Febraury for many skaters.

The probably strongest field will be the ladies', whose short will open the week of competition. As last year, it is expected to be a Kostner against the Russian girls fight. For Leonova, Lipnitskaya and Sotnikova Europeans won't be just a test before the home Olympics, but also a qualifying competition, since Russia earned two spots for Sochi. Considering the latest outcomes, Lipnitskaya and Sotnikova are very likely to qualify and make the podium. For Lipnitskaya it is going to be her debut at senior European Championships. Althought she is a very strong competitor, she doesn't quite have the experience or maturity of Sotnikova (who is more a rollercoaster instead) and if her compatriot pulls it off as she has done a couple of times this season, she probably wouldn't be able to beat her.

As far as Carolina Kostner is concerned, there is no doubt that she is the most mature artistic and sophisticated skater of the bunch, but her jumps haven't been her best lately and she is coming from a back injury, that caused her to withdraw from Universiade and Nationals, so that is possible that she won't compete at her best in Budapest. She has changed both of her programs which didn't impress as others and she will debut a new short pogram on Ave Maria; as for the free skate, she came back to the Bolero program of last year.

In the men competition, Javier Fernandez will try to defend his title after a disappointing fall season. The Spanish champion hasn't been impressive with his grand prix outings as he missed the podium twice and therefore didn't qualify for the final. His performances in Budapest will make his state of preparation clearer.

Maxim Kovtun is a serious medal contender since he is showing constant improvements; his quads are getting more consistent and he has had a good season, which might help him closing the "components" gap with Fernandez.

For the rest of the field the competition is as open as never before: Michal Brezina will try to defend his bronze medal, but his compatriot Tomas Verner, after few very negative seasons, looks incredibly strong (he hasn't competed in any A competition, though). Florent Amodio is in the mix too, even if his latest competitions haven't been brilliant, especially the Bompard Trophy, where he hardly landed any jumps at all.

The dance event is going to be the most peculiar of all as none of the present skaters have ever won the title before. Infact, both Bobrova/Soloviev and Pechalat/Bourzat decided to not compete in this pre-olympic appointment leaving the podium door wide open.

Ilinykh/Katsalapov and Cappellini/Lanotte are for sure the front-runners of the competition. Cappellini/Lanotte have had a consistent season so far, and if the previous results should be an indication of how Europeans will be, they should be going for gold. The Italian team has already competed against the Russians and beated them at the NHK Trophy and qualified for the grand prix final whereas Ilinykh/Katsalapov didn't. The couple trained by Morozov has alternated ups and downs during the fall season so that it is difficult to foresee what is going to happen, but if they skate somehow clean their higher components will bring them ahead of the Italians.

As for the bronze medal, Riazanova/Tkachenko will likely earn it.

Savchenko/Szolkowy and Volosozhar/Trankov will compete face to face another time before the Olympics. The European gold and silver will surely be theirs, but there is no certainty about who is going to be crown the champions. Volosozhar/Trankov looked unbeatable all season long untill the Grand Prix final where the German team overskated them for the first time since Worlds 2012. In many's opinion, Savchenko/Szolkowy finally won that competition because they decided to leave out the throw triple axel, a very worthy, yet extremely risky element that didn't seem to work so well in competition. Going clean is often a strategy that pays back, however the Fukuoka victory wasn't earned just by avoiding a difficult jump, but also because Volosozhar/Trankov made some mistakes there. The world champions proved that they are human, but that even with a struggling skate they can earn a pretty decent score. Considering that Volosozhar/Trankov would be at their best for when it counts, Savchenko/Szolkowy may very well need that triple axel.

The bronze medal chances are open to Stolbova/Klimov, Bazarova/Larionov and Berton/Hotarek, the defending champions, who have been the most consistent of the bunch, but are slightly inferior to their Russian competitors in terms of quality of some elements (the triple twist for one) and components. 

Rostelecom Cup ladies preview

In the ladies event, Carolina Kostner is the only one who has to fight her way in order to qualify for the final. Julia Lipnitskaia instead is pretty sure to go to Fukuoka as she won at Skate Canada with a brilliant score that should allow her to get a spot to the final even if she ranks fourth at Cup of Russia (goal more than achievable for her).

The former world champion got the bronze medal at Cup of China, where she was expected to win, and therefore she needs to win in Moscow or score something close to two hundreds points overall (she would need to score higher that Radionova did at NHK Trophy). Carolina had a tough competition in China and she didn’t look as consistent as she has been in the past years, struggling on several jumps maybe due to a back injury had in September that prevented her from having  a solid preparation. She has an edge over Lipnitskaia when it comes to the components score, but if she doesn’t compete somewhat clean, she won’t make up with the technical content of the young Russian skater.

Talking about Russian skaters, Elizaveta Tuktamisheva is listed to compete at Cup of Russia too, but her participation is still in doubt due to a back injury. She wouldn’t be in the final contention anyway, so withdrawing could be a wise decision, even though she may want to have the highest exposure to competitions as possible.

Kanako Murakami is looking for a better performance as well as at Cup of China she performed way below her standards. She can’t fight for the final as well but a good competition may help her in order to get an Olympic spot.