My Review of Skate America - Men & Women 2007

I could not see all the skaters because the broadcast showed only some of them.

I’m still having a trouble with setting up ice network.com’s video..

Here is my review of Skate America for men & women.

Men -
Daisuke Takahashi

His SP was awesome !

He was the most impressive skater in this men’s event. I was very happy he won it. The choreography was wonderful, the music “ swan lake “ put to a rhythm of hip hop was kind of unique.

I guess he is acting as a black devil swan in it. While watching it I had an idea what if Johnny’s beautiful elegant and delicate swan performed together with this wild black swan that dances hip hop in a show , like in an exhibition program, it would be interesting to watch.

I know it would never happen but the two swan characters are so opposite , and it would be fun and also funny.

Daisuke’s hip hop style dance was great , I didn’t know he can dance so well.
His movements are very speedy and dynamic, naturally doing them.

He received level 1 step sequences but received total of over 80 without doing quad is amazing.
Needless to say, this performance became one of my favorite Daisuke’s programs.

For his FP, I thought some of his movements were similar to last season’s the Phantom of Opera but, the performance was so good and impressive so it didn’t bother me much.

Technically, he fell from 3A and also 3Lz. But he did land his 4T cleanly.
I love to watch his jumps because his jumps looks light and effortless and graceful and looks like a tornado.

Only landing posture and position are not so beautiful. But it’s okay, he is not Johnny.

It was very impressive but he received

Spins - One Level 3, one level 2, two level 1
Circular steps - level 2
Straight line sequence - level 2

And in his SP. He received level 1 Straight line sequence. He is known as one of the few skaters who can do level 4 steps, but, why did they judge it so low this time ?

I’m so stupid at technical part. I will need learn the difference between level 4 and level 1.
For component scores, I think it’s just a judges taste and opinion, because art is not math.

Evan Lysacek

I haven’t seen his SP Zorro yet, so I will comment about it later after I watched it.

For his FP Tosca,
I loved Plushenko’s Tosca at COR in 2005. It was unique , great art and I was
impressed with it, and I also loved Navka/ Kostomorov 's Tosca because it was like watching beautiful painting. So it’s hard to stop thinking about these performance while watching Evan’s Tosca.

So I was not impressed anything from his art in it besides most of his choreography was still same as his Carmen. It was weird feeling to watch his Toska, because music is different but his Carmen was still there.

Also his costume.
I thought the costume doesn’t fit with the music Tosca and also the design and the shape of the white top doesn’t make him look good, doesn't look high quality whether it’s famous brand maker or not.

I think it’s better to use the costume that is match with the music and the theme of the program.

My image of the music Tosca is very dramatic , so the choreography and the movements need to show more up and down, strong part and soft part, strong expression, but his movements looked all the same high power and too stiff , his arms are always straight without using his fingertips and over flailing. I can see he is trying to feel with music, but it didn’t look feeling and connected to the music.

In art part, I think his 2006 Nationals Carmen was the best.
I think technically he is a great skater. He landed all his jumps, even though in his quad ( 4T ), it was not perfect clean and was deducted 1 point from it he did very good job.

Some of his jumps looked heavy and hard. But his quad is big, not so high jump but has a big distance.

I want to suggest him to change the choreographer if he and his present choreographer have no more idea to create new movements.

But he is always strong at FP. Even though he didn’t skate well in his SP, he always does good work in his FP. Very strong fighter.

Patrick Chan

He performed with Four Seasons. What I thought was “ Who can do better four seasons than Stephane Lambiel’s especially for the ending ? “

But for the junior level of skaters and in his age group, I thought he was skating very good.

I could see he was careful for his arm and hand movements, trying to look graceful but it’s just didn’t look so natural, maybe too stiff and putting too much power in his arms , and no soft movements.

But technically he was doing very well. Especially, his first jump 3A was huge, and landing position was good, too.

Also his skating is not boring, I enjoyed it a lot actually , it was like a comedy for me . hilarious skating. A sports person trying to be graceful.

After watching his “ Four seasons “ , I missed Stephane’s Four seasons at Worlds 2006, so I started watching it to fulfill my feeling.

For technical part,
His first jump, triple axel, was wonderful and beautiful, huge.
But overall his jumps don’t look so beautiful even though he landed cleanly from many of his jumps.

Ladies,

Miki Ando

I loved both of her programs SP & FP.
Before I watched it, I didn’t know her new FP is Carmen. In the beginning part her acting reminds me of Tatiana Navka ’s Carmen at last Olympics. I loved Navka/Kostomorov’s Carmen a lot.

It was funny, Miki is only 19 year old but she was trying to be like a cool million dollars sexy lady in it.

Her acting was not as good as Navka but I thought she was doing pretty good.

Miki’s each detail of pose was beautiful. She was struggling with her jumps and because of this was not completely focused on the music this time, so I could not see the emotional feeling that she is capable of, but it was beautiful to watch. If she can get more soft movements mixture with her great strong powerful parts, it will be more balancing.

Kimmie Missner

I watched only her FP and didn’t watch her SP.
She is a nice girl but I have never been impressed by her skating because of lack of beauty, grace and emotional feeling and smoothness.

Technically also, I’m not so attracted to see her jumps , spins, she is not so flexible compared with other ladies. I always wondered why her component scores are so high.

I suppose she has never learned ballet or any kind of dance from seeing her arms, hands and body movements. This time also I didn’t see any improvement from last
season.

However, when I saw her live skating at COI, she had more grace in her skating. I suppose it’s because of the judging system, many skaters can not just focus on their skating, they need to think and calculate the program while they are skating.

Caroline Zang

She is only 14 years old, so I can’t compare with other ladies seeing her present performance. In her age group, that was a great performance.

Her flexibility, and pearl spins, she can do 3-3 combo even though she got deduction from wrong edge when she took off.

Her body is still child, so everything she does is not polished yet . not so beautiful to watch, because she doesn’t care much for small detail of movement.

She may grow a lot, and will have chance to be a US Nationals Champion in the future.

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