Grand Prix Final 2015- Men's Free

To see what happened in the men's short and some of what I thought, you can watch the video here.

The men's free saw two more world records broken by Yuzuru Hanyu. He beat his total score record by nearly 10 points. He had two fantastic skates, and he's finally having a great season. Until this season, I can't remember ever seeing Yuzuzru Hanyu do a clean free in competition, and now he seems to be able to do that pretty consistently. I really enjoy watching his free, especially when he skates it well, not even necessarily world-record breaking, but as long as he skates it fairly well, it is dynamic and exciting. I have to say though, that the fact that skating skills was his lowest PCS was more than a little surprising, that's not to say it wasn't an amazing score, but compared to some of the other PCS elements, I would've put the skating skills on par at least.

Javier Fernandez held his position in second place in the free, but he was close to 40 points behind Hanyu. His free was better than the short, but still not nearly as amazing as Hanyu. He didn't have the same performance impact as Hanyu and as even Fernandez has had in the past. Most of his elements were very good, with the exception of the opening quad toe and the triple flip sequence. He got an edge call(!) on the flip and negative GOEs on the toe. Many of his elements had close to 0 GOEs. He also did very well in the PCSs, all of them were over 9.

Shoma Uno finished in third, but got fourth in both programs. He had strong elements overall, with the exception of a triple lutz, which he got an edge call on (e). He really needs to work on the details of his programs. He needs to work on the landing position, and the details within the skating skills. He did well on the PCSs, but still fell behind Hanyu, Fernandez, and Chan in that department. With a little more work on the transitions, choreography, and skating skills to ensure he can start to beat out the others, even when they're skating well. He beat Chan overall, but he lost the free to him because Chan did actually skate well. With a little more refinement, he's going to be consistently fighting for the top spot.

Patrick Chan recovered well from the disaster that was his short program. In the free, all of his GOEs were positive and all of his PCSs were over nine, averaging over 9.5. He is able to use his PCSs to keep up his total score despite the fact that he doesn't necessarily have the technical content others do. He's really not skating well this season, he's nowhere near back to himself, and others have improved while he has been slipping in terms of technical skills. He is learning to perform, but he is sacrificing the technical content. I don't have a problem with learning to perform, but with Chan, he has certain standards to meet based on what he's done in the past, and he is falling far short of the expectations we have of him.

Boyang Jin wasn't able to hold onto his lead from the short. He fell from third to fifth in the free. He did attempt four quads in the free, and got positive GOEs on three of them. He had the third highest technical mark in the free, but he fell far short of the others in PCSs. He's become so proficient in the technical elements that he's missing some of the basic skating and performance skills. He clearly can perform, we see it in the step sequences, and a little more often in the short, but it all falls away so that he can do the difficult technical elements. As those become even easier for him, hopefully he will start to build the transitions into and out of those elements. With time and energy spent on transitions, choreography, skating skills, and performance, he may just be the one to beat out Hanyu, but I have a feeling it's going to be a while before he's at that point, if he gets there at all.

Daisuke Murakami fell one place in the free, leaving him in last place. His program wasn't great, but he didn't have a disastrous program. He had some negative GOEs, and repeated the quad salchow out of combination, and it was also downgraded. That left him with a base value of just over 3. He got an edge call (!) on a flip as well. He had better PCSs than Boyang Jin, but couldn't make up the technical difference. I generally like Murakami, but he couldn't manage to hold it together here.

Trophee Bompard- Men

Shoma Uno won the short program, and it's still not clear if this will be the final result, but I have a feeling it will, or you would hope they would have said something by now. I really like him, as most people reading this blog will know. I would like to fix his extension on his landing, but that might just be the only thing I would fix in his skating. I really like his programs, and I love the way he skates.

Maxim Kovtun benefited as well from just skating the short, because he tends to be more successful in the short than the free. I'm not such a fan of Kovtun, the Russian style is really not my thing, and his technical elements are not nearly good enough to make up for the lack of skating skills, transitions, and choreography.

Daisuke Murakami will probably be fighting Shoma Uno for the second spot at worlds (we all know the first will be going to Yuzuru Hanyu). He also skated well, and I like him a lot. He's not quite as consistent as Shoma Uno, but he's definitely one of the best Japanese men.

Denis Ten has been a hot mess. Not that that's anything new. He's usually a hot mess for most of the season. He's not nearly as bad in the short as the free, so like Uno and Kovtun, and Murakami to an extent, he did benefit a little from not skating the free.

Patrick Chan definitely did not benefit from just skating the short. He got nothing from the combo in the short, he did a double double combo. The triple axel also got a negative GOE, and so he was left in 5th and didn't have any chance to make a recovery.

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.