#world figure skating championships

[edgecallskating]

Have I giffed this before? Yes. Should you see it again? Also yes.

[cheryls-blossomed]

I’m not even going to lie, that was the most insane men’s free skate I have ever witnessed. Adam jumps to the podium after being in the first warm-up group, Yuma wins his third Worlds silver, and Ilia with a flawless free skate after all the question marks this week. The emotions. The whiplash. The drama.

[habsforever]

oh yeah i went to worlds the other day

it was awesome

[figureskatingfanblog]

Good. He shouldn't have been sent to Europeans so it's about time.

[pierremcguire]

just checked the results for the men at worlds WHAT THE HELL DID I MISS what do you mean adam went from 19th in the short to THE BRONZE?

[wingedlama]

[countrynerddancer]

Does anyone know, isn't 19th to 3rd the largest jump to a podium ever? I thank Yuzuru did 12th to 3rd

[lalunameli]

Way to go Canada!!!

It's The World Championships of Figure Skating, and we (Canada) just made history by having the oldest female figure skater become a world champion. Deanna Stellato-Dudek at 40! It's a Gold for Canada in Pairs! GOOOOO CANADA!!!!! 🇨🇦

[music-art-sport-and-more]

Ilia vs the puberty monster

Lost the battle but won the war

[thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai]

As people insisted that Mai got robbed in her free skating and take it out on Loena, I consulted the rulebook to check whether their claims withstand scrutiny.

Please note that this analysis is based on the protocols and the live commentary and thus might be incomplete.

Mai had planned seven triples in the free skating, Loena had planned six. However, Mai only jumped six. As the top group of women is a very tight field in quality and programme base score (they rarely jump ultra-C elements), the scoring strongly depends on the mistakes made. It's also the reason, judging might seem harsh at times as this situation forces the judges to nitpick.*

Mai left quite some points on the table when she missed a jump combo. The first jump of that element (3Lz) was underrotated and as she had jumped it already, she got only 70% of its base value. Note that it’s not the BV of a fully rotated 3Lz but of a 3Lz that has between 90° and 180° less of three full rotations. When this happens, the skater gets -5 GOE. She added the missed two jumps of that combo to her final jumping pass (3Lo), but doubled the triple, dropping even more points. She also landed two other jumps on the quarter, which doesn’t affect the base value of that jump but is reflected in a negative GOE.

Note the -4 GOE judge #5 gave for the fourth element. The highest and lowest value are omitted in the calculation of the combined GOE for each element to avoid unjustified scoring by single judges. However, this judge wasn’t even consistent in giving bad GOEs, so it could be a mistake.

These are the base values of those last two jumping passes (jumped in the second half) if she had nailed them:

3Lz+2T+2Lo = (5.9+1.3+1.7)*1.1 = 9.79

3Lo = 4.9 * 1.1 =5.39

which is 15.18 in total.

Instead, Mai jumped:

3Lz< = 4.72*0.7*1.1 = 3.63 (4.72 is the BV of the underrotated 3Lz)

2Lo+2T+2Lo = (1.7+1.3+1.7)*1.1 =5.17

Which is 8.8 in total.

Hence, Mai lost 6.38 points of her planned base score, which would have been enough to outscore Loena. And this doesn’t even include the GOE.

Mai was sublime all season long. She won all three Grand Prix events with ease. Normally, she's a much more consistent jumper than Loena. She was a contender for the world title and if she had kept it up it would have been a fierce battle for the top podium spot between her and Kaori, but her skating felt flat compared to previous performances in this season. Of course, this is reflected in the PCS.

After the competition, I learned that Mai was injured, and I believe this contributed a lot to her performance in Saitama.

Now on to Loena:

Loena had one fall on the 3Lz, resulting in a -5 GOE for this element and a -1 deduction. She also landed this jump on the quarter, but as she already got maximum negative GOE for this element her score couldn’t get any lower for this one. (She was lucky it was this jump she quartered). All in all, the fall on the 3Lz might have cost her something between 3-4 points compared to if she had nailed it.

Overall, Loena skated cleaner, sharper, and with more conviction than I’ve seen her since she won the Grand Prix de France. She lost her composure not even once, whereas she didn’t deliver in the GPF and at Europeans. And once again, this is reflected in the PCS. Haein and Kaori got even higher PCS, and rightfully so as their performances were sublime.

If Mai had delivered, she would have comfortably outscored Loena. She even outscored Loena by a wide margin in the GPF where both women had six triples in the free programme (you can check the protocols here). She is just that good.

In the current rule system, mistakes require the judges to lower the PCS. The more mistakes and less well-executed elements are, the lower the PCS become as mistakes affect the composition of the programme and are also reflected in the skating skills.

This is what the ISU guidelines say about PCS and how mistakes should be treated in this regard. As Loena and Mai both have one serious error in their free skating, this looks fine to me:

The situation is somewhat similar to the Grand Prix Final, only that it was Kaori who bombed the free skating in Torino. Strangely, I heard no complaints back then, even though Kaori is even more popular than Mai.

In the end, it all boils down to the actual performance and maths.

I would have loved to see Mai and Loena sharing the podium. I would have loved to see either of them win gold, but at the same time, I’m happy Kaori defended her title and Haein won silver (I just like too many skaters). I also feel sorry for Mai because her free skating took such an unfortunate turn. And I feel sorry for Loena because she gets all the hate for scoring higher.

It's hard to believe that a skater from a small federation of little influence should be overscored when the skaters from the big federations are favoured by the judges by getting ridiculous GOEs and PCS (and even that isn't consistent as it's usually limited to certain skaters from these feds). It also should be noted that this is about politics with the skaters being the pawns in this game, which puts heavy pressure on their shoulders.

However, Belgium is by no means a big federation and it’s mostly known for Loena and her brother. The judging system has many problems, but in this case, I don’t see why the scores for both women should be questionable. If someone more well-versed in the technical aspects of this sport than me reads this and can explain it, please do enlighten me.

*this has been explained over and over throughout the season by different commentators, most prominently by Mark Hanretty in the ISU live stream of Worlds

[edgecallskating]

Every time another competitor ventures onto the ice in a costume sourced from Banana Republic separates, Donovan Carrillo adds another sequin to his costumes to maintain the cosmic balance.

[arom-antix]

Thank you, @gealach-edits, this is now my favourite gif ever and my lock screen

[habsforever]

ILIA MALININ WITH THE NEW WORLD RECORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[figureskatingfanblog]

2024 Worlds Entries

Entries updated 3/11/2024.

Camille Kovalev / Pavel Kovalev (FRA) OUT (injury) - Piegard/Strekalin (FRA) unable to replace (also injured)

Xizi Chen / Jianing Xing (CHN) replace Shiyue Wang / Xinyu Liu (CHN).

Mark Gordonitsky (ISR) replaces Lev Vinokur (ISR).

[pierremcguire]

KAORI SAKOMOTO I HAVE CHILLS I AM CRYING

[wingedlama]

gotta complete the podium of course~~