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Opining on Cup of China (1 of 2)
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Cup of China winners Xue Shen and Hongbo
Zhao (CHN) saluting the audience after their
free skate.
Photo: AP/Elizabeth Dalziel
A few thoughts as we reach the halfway mark in the Grand Prix series.
Shen and Zhao are right on track for the Olympics.
There were doubts coming into Cup of China as to whether or not Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao would be technically ready to conquer the world again. It’s safe to say that their two programs in Beijing dispelled most, if not all, of those doubts. The great thing is that they were not at their best, with a number of minor adjustments that they can and will make before the Olympics in Vancouver. Their side-by-side jumps were strong, but can be improved. Their lifts were a tad shaky in parts, but it seems to be a matter of timing within the program. And they will most certainly figure out why their pair spin wasn’t counted in the free skate.
So how do they stack up against Savchenko and Szolkowy? Shen and Zhao are technically not as strong – the German pair has tougher side-by-side jumps that give them a base value advantage of 1.3 over the Chinese in the free skate. They also have a throw flip, which is more difficult than Shen and Zhao’s loop (both teams have a throw salchow), giving them an advantage of 0.5 in the short program. But the advantage is equalized because the Germans put their flip in the first half of the program and the Chinese put the loop in the second half of the program. Both throws are worth 5.5 after applying the 1.1 multiplier for highlight distribution.
Both teams execute their elements superbly, so it will be a matter of who has the better day in that respect. It may come down to the Program Components Score (PCS), where Shen and Zhao currently has a higher average PCS (8.10 at Cup of China) than Savchenko and Szolkowy (7.78 at Nebelhorn) this season. But those were taken from different competitions, and the Germans have yet to skate a clean free skate this season, which do have an effect on the PCS. I guess all this to say is that it will be close.
And I do want to call to attention the fact that some judge in the short program decided that Shen and Zhao deserved scores in the low 6s for their program components. I’d like to know who or what they were watching.
But if the Olympics were to happen right now, I would give Shen and Zhao the edge.
Lysacek possibly has some rethinking to do.
I won’t marvel at Oda’s Chaplin free skate again, but it does bring up some new questions that have surfaced with his emergence as a contender this season. Lysacek, the World champion, got some heat for his triple flip in Beijing, which really didn’t come up last season when he won Worlds. The negative Grades of Execution (GOE) on a wrong edge takeoff was the main reason that he was trailing after the short program after a clean skate. And then in the free skate, he was downgraded for an underrotation on the flip.
The wrong edge on his triple flip is actually pretty shallow, and he has avoided the wrong edge call before, so it may not even be an issue going forward. But think about it this way – had he done a loop instead of a flip in the short, he would have likely gotten a higher score even with a lower-valued jump. I don’t see him changing it though.
However, the judges are saying that Oda is executing his elements better than Lysacek is, which was the main reason for Oda’s win in Beijing. Lysacek’s jumps are not going to change, and they won’t have the deep edge and outflow that Oda’s jumps have, so if they both skate cleanly, Oda will like have the advantage on GOE. I’m sure Lysacek is planning for the return of his quad later this season, so that will certainly make things more interesting.
What’s up with the instrumental versions of pop songs?
We usually get our share of those every season, but Cup of China was just inundated with instrumental renditions of pop songs, mostly of them relegated to elevator music quality. From Yan Liu’s Impossible Dream to Duhamel and Buntin’s Hotel California to Shen and Zhao's Who Wants To Live Forever, I was just waiting for the operator standing by to get back on the phone. All of this reminds me of one of the snooziest ones that still stick out in my mind - Joannie Rochette's Like A Prayer during the 2005-2006 season. That's not to say that instrumentals aren't good, but there has to be better ones out there!
It’s good that ice dance allows vocal music and that ice dancers like to be over-emotive, so at least there won’t be any elevator music in at least one of the disciplines. And while we are at it, I guess Scheherzade, Firebird, and Sing Sing Sing have replaced Tosca, Turandot, and Carmen as the go-to music for the season.
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