[figure skating]: JUSTICE FOR KAORI

(I’m typing this on mobile so there might be typos.) Okay before the salt and sadness let’s talk about the good: the ladies did really really well. I’m impressed by everyone and overall it was a really good competition. Rika won! She came back from fifth to first with her free, which is incredible. It’s easy for her to gain points with the triple axel, but it’s hard to do one, and she usually always manages to nail at least one in the free. I admire her because there were several competitions this season where she had to come from behind to win or get on the podium and she’s really good at it. I also love her free program! The music is good the choreography is great the content is great Rika is pretty much always on her game with it. One day I hope she manages to skate both her short and free clean because she would probably break a world record with it. So far she hasn’t but there’s still worlds.

Mariah also has a free program I love. It’s so pretty! Mai Mihara did amazing in her free program as well and performed her heart out after a bad short. The last group in general was really good. And then...

There is Kaori. My biggest issue with the competition so far (and I hope the only one but I have a bad feeling about men’s.) I love Kaori. I love her free program. It’s beautiful and she skates it so well. It’s an emotional performance and the quality of her elements is amazing. She does not, however, get the performance scores she deserves. They are too low.

This happened in the short program where she was second to Bradie by not a lot, and in the free she was less than a point off silver and bronze. The silver medalist fell and was ahead of her. But that isn’t the problem. Kaori made one mistake (popping an axel) but the rest of her program was amazing. And she still got scored one point off the podium, despite the performance, with too low PCs and everyone agree she was lowballed.

When I say everyone I mean it. The expert twitter account that follows competition scoring in real time agreed. Most of twitter agreed. The CROWD agreed. You know a bad decision was made when the crowd has a bad reaction when the scores are read out, and the crowd’s reaction to Kaori’s score was really bad. It felt like all the cheer was sucked out of the arena even just watching from the live stream. And Kaori’s reaction was devastating — SHES really expressive and honest off ice and she started sobbing when she realized she wasn’t going to medal. BY LESS THAN ONE POINT! ITS FRUSTRATING! I feel horrible for her especially because the program was so beautiful.

There was also some shit in ice dance which is...unfortunate.

This makes me worry for the men, who already had their own shenanigans going on. Even without that I’m worried because I want Shoma to medal and it would be so sad if he didn’t. But even if he doesn’t, if someone is shafted because of bad scoring and it costs them a medal I will be very angry. I won’t be awake (just like I wasn’t awake for ladies and had to wake up to that news and then watch the replays) so I hope I wake up to good news. Prayer circle for Shoma and for anyone who isn’t in first right now. I FEAR