Well, first season’s competition has gone. What can we say?
First of all, Kiira’s physical conditions look alright: she appeared in a good shape, it seems she’s got through her problems to foot and back, from this point of view first competition went quite good, we couldn’t reasonably hope more than this. Past year, at this moment Kiira already had two fixtures behind (Nebelhorn and Finlandia Trophy), so for now it just wasn’t fair expecting much more from her.
After that, I must admit Kiira’s performance it’s been a little bit disappointing: as easily predictable, Flip (Kiira loves this jump like a turkey loves Thanksgiving Day…) and even Lutz are vanished, but in my opinion that’s been a wise decision, ‘cause it’s unprofitable inserting in a program kind of jumps so stodgy to her. I think the real problem is that nothing else substituted these jumps: only two triple jumps in a senior program are too few, her final score wasn’t so bad, but the fact is that level of technical skills this year is really very high, because of enormous improvements of some athletes like Ashley Wagner, Alena Leonova, Akiko Suzuki, in addition to well known Carolina Kostner, Mao Asada, Alissa Czisny, without forgetting new promising russian girls like Sotnikova, Tuktamisheva, Biryukova… unfortunately, Technical Elements are too much important in modern skating, and for current judging system. We can debate if this kind of judgment could be right or wrong, but at the moment that’s the way.
Possible solutions? Maybe more combinations (3T+3T wasn’t so good in Sapporo, but she’s able to execute it for sure, or 3S+2T+2Lo, as suggested by Anna in a previous comment, or 3Lo+2T+2Lo, already performed by Kiira in the past season), or more triple jumps she rarely fails, like 3S and 3Lo. Nowadays, it’s impossible reaching higher scores without less than four-five triples in a FS: her summer work on choreography done in Toronto with Shae-Lynn is definitely amazing, Kiira is simply haunting on the ice, and her devastating beauty is always reflecting in Components score, but this is not enough to compete for the podium. I think she absolutely needs to improve her skating skills.
For example, this is FS program presented by Elena Glebova, performed in her last weekend’s victory at Merano Cup, here in Italy (congratulations, Elena):
2A
3Lo
3T+2T+2T
3S+2T
LSp3
SlSt2
ChSp1
3S+2T
2A
3T
FSSp2
CCoSp4
I think this could be a very fitting program for Kiira too, and it could easily assure her more than 100 points, as Elena did.
What’s your opinion about it, guys?
(P.S.: Personally, I did like so much the black dress of FS, whereas for the one dressed in SP I honestly save only the yellow colour…)
I think everybody was remarking when the new point scoring system went into effect that skaters would just become Mexican jumping beans. And so it has–now it’s all about the jumps to get points. Skating has changed. If Kiira doesn’t have a bunch of jumps in her program, she won’t break into the 180’s or 190’s. Alissa Czisny saw the handwriting on the wall (she graduated Summa Cum Laude) and she has seven triple jumps in her Freeskate this season. And Kim Yuna, Miki Ando and Mao Asada of course have jumps. It seems the new, young skaters are training up to the new points system, so we might see a whole new style of skating in a few years.
Trophee Eric Bompard is on! Just a few more hours. Saturday is sold out. At practise session Thursday Alissa Czisny was the only one roundly applauded and cheered. I predict Czisny Gold, Kostner Silver, Tuktamysheva Bronze, Murikami 4th.
Trophee Bompard sp went Tuktamysheva 62.04; Kostner 59.70; Czisny 57.25; Murikami 55.77.
Anuliisa Uotila, who is the commentator of YLE (main Finnish broadcast company) said during the NHK competition that Kiira has left flip and lutz away because of the metatarsus problems and because she didn’t have time to practise them when recovering. But she is planning to jump them later this season. And of course she didn’t plan to do only two triples, she just made too many jumps easier.
I suggest she would jump next jumps (I think I suggested this earlier?), not in certain order:
SP:
3T-3T
3Lo
2A
LP
3T-3T
3Lz-2T or 2A-3T (could it be possible?!)
3Lo-2T-2Lo or 3S-2T-2Lo
3Lz
3Lo
3S
2A
I would leave flip away unless it’s stronger than during past years. She just need certainty, faith and repeats after repeats. God, I wish she could make two clean programs in some competition!
TEB went Tuktamysheva 182.89; Kostner 179.32; Czisny 179.15; Murikami 161.31. Czisny had the highest Freeskate with 121.90.
With the impressions from the French GP TEB still fresh it appears that it will not suffice to present a wonderful program in order to win or make the podium. In my opinion Alissa presented by far the most wonderful program at TEB and yet it wasn’t enough for her to win even though she scored well in the FS (really a piece of art). Placing behind Carolina, who’s a superb skater, is no surprise (interesting though how close Alissa and Carolina fared at both TEB and Skate America), but Tuktamisheva? This young girl has enormous skating skills and as Northeagle pointed out the current scoring system favours skaters who run from one jump to the next one. Sorry to put it this plain…
Well, what does this imply for Kiira? It looks like she will have to integrate at least 5-6 triple jumps and/or combinations in her free skate if she is to win a medal.
For her FS at NHK she received roughly the same score as she did in Bern without showing as many triples. In her SP Kiira ceded 10 points, compared to her Bern performance, she lost 9 points in the TES section. If she doesn’t feel comfortable with the Flip, well, then just substitute it with other jumps that still bring lots of base value points (Carolina did this with the Lutz and it is working well).
Looking at the suggestion Anna makes above, it seems like doing all those jumps might possibly not be enough for Kiira to go for top spot (depending on how the other competitors do). If I’m not mistaken the jumps listed by Anna would earn Kiira roughly 16.60 TES base value points (add 2p. GOE + 14.71 for the other elements as shown in Sapporo, a total of 33.31 TES) in her SP + 29.39 PCS would have her scoring 62.70 in the SP. As to the FS the scoring for the listed jumps could be 42.62 base value p. TES (add 3p. GOE + 14.50 for other elements = 60.12 total TES) + PCS 57.60 as at NHK, would bring the total score in the LP to 117,72.
Kiira proved last season that she is able to compete for Gold at the Europeans (presuming that she is pain free of course), and there is still some time till late January, so it seems realistic that she would want to achieve that goal this year!
Let me end with a quote from Anna’s posting: “God, I wish she could make two clean programs [packed with the necessary elements] in the same competition!”
Word is that Kiira’s metatarsus injury in her foot prevented her from doing the moves she wanted to at NHK–but she came in with a high score, nonetheless. I think her dad being an ice hockey coach may have helped–hockey players have probably developed techniques for skating with injuries. Rostelecom Cup actually looks good for Kiira–Leonova and Mao are doing well and will probably get Gold and Silver. Rachael Flatt seems to be misfiring on a few cylinders. That means Kiira’s main competition for the Bronze will be Sotnikova and Zawadski, the way things are stacking up this season. Yeah, Kiira could podium! Yes, Alissa Czisny’s Freeskate at Paris TEB was the highpoint of the meet–it’s not often we see such a consumate, professiomal performance. She’ll win Gold at Grand Prix Final in Quebec I’m betting! I hope she takes a vacation between now and then and rests up.
I don’t like either of Kiira’s music choices this year, I think the sp music is a bit childish and the lp music too boring. It’s good that she wants to use music that isn’t overused but then she tents to pick ones that are too weird, like Caravan (in the yellow dress) and Kerkko Koskinen’s pieces. The best one I think was Triunfal. Last year’s lp could have been great but she couldn’t get enough depth in it. I don’t like Laura Lepistö’s music choises that much either..Alissa Czisny this year has great programmes.