Skate America 2015- Men

The men's event was less dismal than the ladies event here, but it was still not great. Like with the dance event, I don't know that I agree with the judging.

It kind of still amazes me that Max Aaron won. He has clearly been working on improving his PCSs, but he still has a very long way to go. For a long time, I've had a lot of problems with Max Aaron and his choreography (or lack thereof). His programs have always looked like jump drills, and in the IJS that shouldn't cut it. And yet, it does. Max Aaron has always been rewarded for good jumps in the TES, which is fine, but that also bleeds over to the PCS, where the difficulty of the jumps should have zero impact. He finally has a little bit of choreography, but not a ton, and his skating skills are still nowhere near as good as they should be. The biggest problem for me is the setup of the judging system, because judges have so much to watch, they often neglect the PCS and focus entirely on the TES. This leaves the system rewarding skaters despite their poor skating skills, if only because they aren't paying close attention to it.

Shoma Uno won the freeskate, but finished in second overall here. He's still new to the senior ranks, but for me, he deserved to win here. He's got great skating skills and choreography, and he commits fully to his programs. His jumps could use a little more control but overall they were good here. He's one of my favourite skaters, and the showdown between him and Yuzuru will be interesting this year and in the next few years.

Jason Brown did not skate as well as he could have here, but lost out in the short mostly because he doesn't have the quality of quads some of the others have.

Han Yan and Konstantin Menshov have good jumps when they can manage to land them, however they are incredibly inconsistent and don't have a ton of other stuff to back them up when their jumps fail them.

4 Continents Championships- Men

Denis Ten is a fantastic skater on a good day, but unfortunately is notoriously inconsistent. At this year's Four Continents Championships, however, he came out in full force. He had two clean skates, receiving positive GOEs on every element except for the triple axel in the free.

If he can manage to skate like he did here at Worlds, he might just take the title this year. But that's all going to depend on the kind of day he's having.

Joshua Farris had a fantastic skate. His skating style is certainly my favourite. He has an ease to his skating, with beautiful transitions and footwork his connection to the music and the audience is extremely inviting. He is always entertaining to watch, and when he is as technically good as he was here, it only makes the programs even more entertaining to watch. In the freeskate, he had a few small mistakes. He was able to hold the jumps together, even though he tended to be back in the hips. He has fantastic positions in his spins, but they can get a little slow. His clean freeskate was only second to Denis Ten, moving him up from 5th to 2nd overall.

He is too cute. We've got to love reactions like that

Han Yan had a strong finish in third. His short program is an odd choice, the music doesn't seem like a natural choice, however, you can't say that he doesn't sell the program. The choice of skating to "If I Were a Rich Man" is surprising, but he manages to make it work. When the jumps work, he is very entertaining to watch, but when the jumps fall apart, he allows the program as a whole to fall apart.

His freeskate music makes more sense for him, "Fly Me to the Moon" works well for his style and the program is successful, again when he can manage the jumps, which he did in this case. There were some relatively small mistakes, but they did little to impact the overall program. However, the one thing he needs to work on is his spins, they have a tendency to be quite slow.

Shoma Uno is still a junior skater, but he doesn't look it. The depth of the men's field in Japan is doing wonders for their skaters. He finished in 5th, more than solid for a junior skater. He is sure of his skating and his jumps. Over time, his skating will mature, but for now he is a solid skater with great technical skills.

Jason Brown made some less than stellar choices at the Four Continents Championships. Rather than working a quad into the freeskate, where mistakes have less of an impact, he added a quad into the short, and was nowhere near a clean quad. The quad earned him only 2 points, a significant deficit of what he typically earns with the first jump in his short program. Not only did the quad receive a downgrade, the triple axel also received an underrotation call. These mistakes in the short were not small and made it impossible for him to make it onto the podium, though he is more than capable of such a result. It is clear he is not ready to add the quad into his short program (and probably the free as well) and we should hope he will not attempt it again at Worlds.

His freeskate was more successful, but not technically difficult enough to make up for the points he lost in the short. His freeskate was not perfect, but the mistakes from many others allowed him to make up a significant margin, leaning him in 6th place overall.

Nam Nguyen attended his first Four Continents Championships this year, and he took some risks that did not benefit him. Putting his quad in the short program was a significant risk and it did not pay off for him, however it was a smart choice. It is worthwhile for him to attempt the quad in the short program. He has been landing them consistently in the free, and he needed to take the risk at some point. It was better for him overall to try the quad in the short here, rather than for the first time at Worlds.

He did better overall in the freeskate, but he wasn't able to recover from the mistakes in the short. For his first year in the senior ranks, his finish in 11th place was solid, and if he can manage a slightly better skate, he will finish around 10th or 11th in the world, and will certainly be the top Canadian man.

US Nationals 2015- Senior Men

The US Nationals was far more dramatic than the Canadian Nationals. The US men's event was indicative of the questions following the event about scoring.

Jason Brown won his first US title, though some question the validity of the scoring. Jason Brown is a strong skater, but the consistency that everyone loved last season is not the same, and the charismatic programs of last year are gone. While still consistent and entertaining to watch, Brown's skating is not as technically difficult as many of the men he competed against, and will not stand up on the world stage as well as it did at nationals with the inflation of his score.

Adam Rippon, however is attempting the most difficult jump in figure skating, and though not fully rotating it, he is still significantly farther along in terms of technical difficulty than Brown. Like Brown, Adam Rippon has phenomenal skating skills and skillful interpretation. He doesn't have the same energetic performances that Brown does that draw the crowd in with their excitement, but rather has a quiet power and graceful expression, which, coupled with his skating skills and technical elements, should give him the advantage. In the freeskate, these things paid off with a monumental score well over Brown's.The problem arises in the scoring of the short program. With the randomized draw for skate order in the short program, Rippon, who skated 6^th was scored low when compared to the other men at nationals. His short program score of 84.71 is a very competitive score for international competitions, but the nationals inflation was not applied to him in the way it was for Brown, whose short program earned him 93.36. When analyzing the GOEs of the two programs, the judges were far more generous with Brown, who skated 13th out of 20, than with Rippon, who skated 6th. When we consider the traditional way skaters are drawn for international competitions, particularly on the Grand Prix circuit, skaters perform in a seated draw, with the top skaters skating last. This mentality plays into judging when skaters do not perform in a seated draw. Judges expect the skating to improve over time, so they leave room for the later skaters to improve on the scores of  those who skated earlier. In the end, Rippon lost the title because of bad luck in the draw. Had he skated later, he probably would have won the title, if the 6 point difference in the freeskate is any indication. Rippon lost by only 2.5 points, which would have been made up by receiving the same nationals inflation that Jason Brown did. 


Joshua Farris had a strong finish, finishing in third overall and second in the short program. He is slotted to attend both the Four Continents Championships and the World Championships. He is a consistent skater, with a style similar to that of Adam Rippon.

Max Aaron needed a new short program. It is clear his coaching staff knew that something was not quite right with the program, deciding to change the version of Footloose he skated to, but this really did not solve Max Aaron's short program problem. The freeskate he performed is much more in the realm of what Max Aaron does well. Unlike the top three men, he is not really a performer. This is a big factor in why he is not being sent to Four Continents or Worlds. He is not consistent enough, and unlike the others, he does not have the other skills necessary to make up for any technical mistakes. Next season, he needs to stick to what he does best, while also improving his skating skills and interpretation so that going forward he has the skills to make up for any technical mistakes he makes, This was probably the intention behind the Footloose short program, but it seems to be a failed experiment.

Jeremy Abbott, a former national champion did not live up to the expectations many had of him, and that he likely had of himself. He finished just outside of fourth place, but was a long way off the top of the podium. His total of 258.29 fell quite far short of Jason Brown's 274.98. He will not be attending the Four Continents  or World Championships, and people are questioning if he is returning and if it is worthwhile for him to return, It seems sometimes that Jeremy's best is not enough to compete against the top men, though he is a pleasure to watch. There is an ease to his skating between the elements that is quite beautiful, but when the jumps don't work, his programs tend to fall flat.