[figure skating]: four continents men's short

[catsbythegreat]

So I said I was going to be asleep for the men's short and I was, but I woke up at exactly the time Shoma was up to skate and ended up watching. No idea how that happened, I didn't set an alarm and didn't know what time he was skating...anyway, some salt under the cut along with some praise:

If there is one thing I have to say about the men's rankings as it is right now, it's that I'm annoyed. First place should not be so far ahead, third place should not be that far behind, and I really really really hope first place skater does not win for a lot of reasons, or even make the podium. His underrotated jumps were not called, which is annoying, and even more annoying is that he's kind of a shitty person.

That aside, Junhwan had an amazing skate and is in second, and if he wins the whole thing I would be really happy for him. Boyang Jin is in third, which...I would have had him scored closer to second (he's a bit far away from second and first) because his content was similar to first place, with the second jump of one combo having one less rotation. His score was closer to Shoma's, which is weird because...

Shoma is in fourth! It wasn't a great skate for him, he had two small mistakes on a program that was already watered down from its usual difficulty because of his injury. That being said, he didn't fall, and in general his program is really good and the second half is amazing when he's on (and he was on for the second half) especially the step sequence. Him and Junhwan win step sequence for me in the short -- tbh they're both really good at step sequences and being expressive.

But yeah, for some reason Boyang, who had a more difficult program with less bad mistakes (not that Shoma's were terrible but...yeah) was closer to Shoma in score than to Junhwan. I guess...it's hard to say because his technical difficulty was up there, but wasn't given as good a grade of execution as first place, despite first place having underrotations.

Boyang's performance components were also not scored as well as first place despite being at least equal -- I mean you can't go wrong with air guitar on ice! Junhwan has more musicality and I would say his quality is generally better on everything except jumps. Shoma's score is as high as it is because of performance components -- he actually got first place in most of them out of all of the men, while Jason Brown got 2nd, and Junhwan third, which is about right (Keegan Messing 4th, Boyang 5th, first place 6gh, which kind of proves my point.)

So basically...confused about the scoring of first, second, and third place. Everything else seems fair. Tomorrow is the free and I'm kdfsajlkdjsakldjfdsa. I really, really, really don't want Shoma to take a step backwards. Clearly he doesn't either, because he said that he is going to attack the free skate and not hold back, which is...not great because he's injured, but that tends to be how he approaches free skates when he's behind. I wonder if he'll actually manage to do it, and if he'll actually revert to his old program layout. Right now his planned content for the free is watered down because of injury, but with the way he's talking it sounds like he might add another quad back in.

Shoutout to Donovan Carrillo from Mexico, who had a really great and charming short program. Need me more Latino/a skaters on ice! This is important to me! There are very few minorities on ice who aren't from the big Asian countries (China and Japan, and now South Korea.) We need more of them! Sadly they don't get a lot of support. Donovan in particular doesn't really get the same support as people from other countries because figure skating isn't a huge thing in Mexico.

Men's free skates I'm looking forward to tomorrow night:

Shoma - this makes me incredibly anxious as it always does
Boyang - I hope he keeps the confidence he seems to have now
Junhwan - JUNLIET!! ALWAYS FUN TO WATCH!
Jason - he's such a beautiful skater
Tomoki - he's really done well this season and is so expressive
Kazuki - RIVERDANCE !!!!
Donovan - I've never seen his free before but based on the short I'm excited!
Nam - I hate the music choice (sorry I just hate La La Land) but I really like him skating to it

Tonight is ladies, though. Free skates I'm looking forward to from the ladies:

Kaori - I love her so much and her free is beautiful. I think she can win! She's the defending champion too so that would be nice.
Rika - she does the coming back from behind thing a lot and if she nails her two triple axels she'll probably win, something I wouldn't mind either because I love her too. I also love her free program so much!
Mariah - another beautiful free program, I want her to get the performance scores she deserves!
Ting - I saw her free done perfectly at Nationals and it was lovely, so it would be great to see it here like that too.
Eunsoo- she has a fun free program
Yelim - I'm really curious about her after seeing her in the Junior Grand Prix Final