The Skating Lesson Transcript 2013 World Championships Men’s Recap Jenny Kirk: Hello, and welcome to The Skating Lesson Podcast. I'm Jennifer Kirk, a former US ladies competitor and a three-time world team member. Dave Lease: I'm David Lease. I'm the figure skating blogger and adult skater. And this week I brought Jennifer Kirk into the world of a diehard skating fan. Jenny: I am such a fan girl! I was such a fan girl. I was like, tweeting with everybody, I loved it. Okay we're going to jump right into it in this recap show. We have to discuss the men because that was really the event of the competition. So Dave everybody is talking about Patrick Chan's victory. I want to know from you: what do you think of the judging, what you think about how it portends where the sport is heading, what do you think needs to change, and just what do you take on the top two, Chan versus Ten? Dave: I'm sweating a little bit. Jenny: You're pitting out! Dave: I'm pitted out, in the words of Rudy Galindo. Oh man! The judging, the men’s event! You know, in my heart of hearts, I’m really honestly glad that it happened. And it’s not that I’m happy that I feel that Denis Ten didn’t win… Jenny: Wait, do you think like an addict, we have finally reached bottom? Do you think this is bottom? Dave: I think this is a coming to bottom because we’ve been discussing this throughout the season, and – first of all before we even get into this judging, we were watching figure skating, an event that is very popular in Canada on LATVIAN television. There was no Canadian feed online. We were watching – we became very Latvian. I feel like my passport got stamped this week! We visited Latvia, it was wonderful. So we talked about – there’s that situation, I think, that ties into the judging actually. In 2002, which all like to the new judging system, we thought we had hit bottom because – oh my goodness, the world was ending! If you watch the 2002 pairs broadcast on NBC or the other networks around the world, the Canadians obviously didn’t win that night, and the announcers were so upset and so erupting! And the world was ending, Sandra Bezic was embarrassed for the sport, yada yada, you know, the news programs – it was an international outrage. And if you look at it, there were a couple of bobbles that the Russians had in that performance. There were like a few minute bobbles you know, and Anton Sikharulidze on one of the jumping passes. And that was outrageous! And really a lot of people felt that Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze had superior skating skills that they just – they had it. And they were superior to Canadians. And it only took a couple little bobbles. Fast-forward 11 years to the world champions on Latvian television, and Patrick Chan just – two beautiful quads, one in combination, and then the rest of the program… wow. Jenny: Well, you see the rest of program and I think that’s really – for me, that summed it up. You didn’t see it in the rest of the jumps. The program did suffer with it. Watching that program back, it was the entire program that went downhill after that. And that wasn’t reflected. Dave: I think is wonderful skating skills, just to start. I think he is great skating skills. I do think he can get a bit out of control. Like we saw after the quad, he is going into that lutz, and he doesn’t have himself… Jenny: The cruise ship! It’s like… Dave: Well, yeah! Because he goes so – and he looks a little out of control on the landing, which is a problem with the construction of the program, to begin with. But, the fact that he is missing a triple Lutz after he did two beautiful quads, and he looked like he wasn’t physically, mentally, you know, ready. He’s flying into it. And to me that’s not great skating skills when you can’t control your power. To me, that’s part of skating skills. Jenny: Yeah, you have to control your edges. Control what’s going on the ice. Dave: Control your body weight, moving, your edges, everything. And that’s – you know, to me, to see him get a 9.11 for skating skills after that – I was shocked. Well, not shocked because we’ve seen this happen before. But, I mean, it was startling. Okay, his falls were bad falls. It wasn’t a hand down, it wasn’t wonderful. You know, a skating performance that’s wonderful can survive one fall the program, especially if it’s the ends, usually, it’s not a big deal. It’s still a great program. Oh, man, in the old system, you know you would knock them down from a 6.0 to a 5.9. The problem with Patrick’s marks that he received is that there was no little ding that happened. And it wasn’t just one jump. Then he goes into – there were four errors in his program that were visible. You watch, you know one of them was a double, but you watch, you know, he does a triple Axel fall. And these were bad falls. He went on his back, Jenny Kirk. Like, this was not – these were small deductions. So to see him get these marks, I’m just – I don’t understand. You know, maybe-something has to be done. It was wrong I think as a viewer, you know. The person who helps us in Final Cut Pro watched it, tuned in because he was so excited – he has been part of the show and, you know, tuned in and watched it. And he felt, he felt outraged by it. He felt… Jenny: Well he said, and I think this is so true – I don’t mean to cut you off – he said that Patrick Chan could have showed up, stood in the middle of the ice eating a Snickers, and he still would have won. Like, basically, that’s what it came down to. And I think my biggest gripe about this new system is – when we look at this event, Denis Ten did a magnificent short program. He was in second place, and I know a lot of the feedback that we got after the nationals recap show when we talked about feeling outraged that Gracie didn’t win the event was – it’s a two-part competition. If you’re off in the long, you should be able to win. Denis didn’t bomb. He skated a magnificent short and a magnificent long. If you’re in the top three after the short program and you in the long program, I think you should be able to win the entire event, that that qualifies you as somebody who’s been able to come to the event, show that you can skate these two different parts. I also think that there needs to be some sort of weight in terms of the long program. It still is four and a half minutes for the men. It’s a longer portion of the competition. That needs to be reflected in the marks. And we had so many people, people in skating message boards, also on Facebook, bloggers, saying, “well, we to tweak the math. Certain things need to be weighted more if you fall.” What is your take on the math, because the sport is so mathematical as it is. Tony Wheeler recently, I think it was this morning, he put it out an article, or yesterday, talking with the men’s event, saying we should add more math in. Do you think this is really the root we need to go? What would you do in terms of just scoring of events in skating? Dave: I think that it’s a huge problem. I look back at skating, and we made a mistake in the national program. We said that we didn’t understand what was going on. We understand what was going on, we just – it’s baffling that, to me it’s baffling that I can watch a skating event as a long time skating viewer, and I see what I see. And then you have to then watch and wait for the protocols to be posted. And then that’s like that version of the events. If you want to look on, you know, an Adobe PDF of what happened. And it’s really, it’s wrong. There’s something going on that’s missing the viewers, and it’s like almost like the only people who are really into skating are Rayman now, because it’s – I mean, it’s really outrageous. And I think people talk about the math. And I had a discussion with someone last night where – yes, we’ve been trained to now look for underrotations and edge calls like the Nazis. You know, that is Lutz – that is what is doing the sport, these – flutzing is ruining the sport and these under rotations. Well, what about leg wraps? There is no deduction for leg wraps, should there be a deduction for leg wraps? I mean, should there be a deduction for too much arms, how the tools in the air? What’s – when will it end and when will it just, you see what you see and you judgment you judge, and the replays and everything – I think it’s alienating the viewers, drowning of them out and bringing us to Latvian television.