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My review - 2015 Ladies Figure skating World Championships


2015 Ladies figure skating world championships was on NBC on March 28!

As usual, it was fun to see my favorite team of commentators Terry Gannon, Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski!

I liked all three's fashion, Johnny's white jacket and hair style, Tara's white dress and make-up, and Terry's black suit.

Johnny and Tara's commentary is getting more and more professional and we really enjoyed it.


In this season 2014- 2015,  our favorite skater who inspired us alot was Elizaveta TUKTAMYSHEVA !

We always liked her from when we first saw her, and until last season, she was no one.

And even after she won a B level competition in early this season, people were not valuing her, and many were saying that she can only win a B level competition and she will never be able to be the top Russian lady.

However, they were wrong.

As a result, she challenged a total of 13 competitions and won 10 events ( including Grand Prix Finale, European Championship, and World championship) and the ones that she didn't win, she had to withdraw from one of them and the other two, she got 2 silver medals - at Skate America and Russian nationals.

This is incredible.

I'm so inspired with her amazing mental toughness, as well as her improvement of skating skills, and also artistry.

and in this world championships , she landed a Triple Axel jump  which is the most difficult Triple jump and became only the 4th woman in history to land a triple Axel at a World Championships.

In the past, there were only 5 other ladies skaters who landed a Triple Axel jump in international competitions, they were Midori Ito, Tonya Harding,  Ludmila Nelidina, Mao Asada and Yukari Nakano. 
Now she became the 6th lady who landed a triple axel jump.

She is definiely my greatest motivational and inspiring athlete of this season.



Overall Result


1    Elizaveta TUKTAMYSHEVA RUS    210.36       

2    Satoko MIYAHARA    JPN    193.60       

3    Elena RADIONOVA    RUS    191.47   

4    Gracie GOLD    USA    188.96   
   
5    Ashley WAGNER  USA 185.01
   
6    Rika HONGO    JPN 184.58   

7    Kanako MURAKAMI     JPN    179.66   

8    Polina EDMUNDS  USA 177.83
   
9    Zijun LI  CHN    165.22   

10    Mae Berenice MEITE    FRA  162.75


We were watching only NBC to watch this competition and only top 8 skaters were shown, so I only comment about the top 8 skaters. 



Elizaveta TUKTAMYSHEVA

Congratulations on winning your first worlds gold medal and a super successful season !!!

Her short program was awesome and I love it very much, both technically, artistically !

Elizaveta TUKTAMYSHEVA SP ISU 2015 World Championships

 


Actually the music Bolero has never been my favorite music because it's all kind of the same beat repeating all the time, and I usually love more dramatic music, or music which have ups and downs.

However this was quite enjoyable and we watched it over and over.

She is a wonderful jumper and she is the first woman to land four triple jumps in a short program, 3A, 3Lz, 3T-3T !

I really love her triple axel jump. 
It has magnificent spring, she covers a big distance while jumping, great air position which looked well balanced body position in the air and smooth beautiful landing with artistic graceful arm movements.

Wow !  

Her spins are beautiful as well. But the camera work was not good, so there were some parts where the camera was struggling to keep up with her movements.

Especially while she was spinning,  the camera showed from the top so we could not see her beautiful spins much.

Hope whoever did the camerawork won't do it anymore.

About her artistry,

I found her movements are interesting and some parts of the choreography has humor.

Her arm movements are graceful and natural, and her body movements have connection to the music with good rhythm, so my husband and I both enjoyed her performance.

Compared with her past season's performances, I felt her movements improved.

From when the first time I saw her performance, there was something impact which only she has and I remember that.

 I think she has great personality on ice , so I and my husband remember her skating.

Artistry is subjective, and it's always in the eyes of the beholder.

When I'm watching, first parts I look for are the basics of movement ( including line and posture and flexibility ) and connection to music , does the skater have rhythm or not , depending on the music the skaters choose. 
Because without these basic elements, you can not make good artistry.

Then I look at facial expression, emotion, body language using body/ arms/shoulders/hands movements.

I think Liza's movements are well balanced. Just if there were more interesting choreography which has big impact in the short program and also in the first half part of the free program, it would be even more fun to watch.

But overall, we both really enjoyed her performances, both SP and FP and her mind toughness for this whole season was hugely impressive. 

Just fantastic !!!  



Kanako Murakami

My other favorite performance and one that  made us watch more than 3 times already was Kanako Murakami's performance. 

Her Phantom of the Opera, even though she made some errors in her jumps, her musicality was wonderful.

For presentation scores,

I would give her the top score for it, because her connection to music was really on, wonderful expression and emotion, with good speed, power and passion.  I love the choreography as well.

We can see she really worked hard to make this artistry.

I think this performance is my favorite of her performances when it comes to artistry.  

I hope she will still continue to compete next season.


For artistry for the top 8 skaters I've watched at this World Championships,   I would rank

1. Kanako Murakami
2. Polina Edmunds
3. Elizaveta TUKTAMYSHEVA
4. Ashley Wagner
5. Satoko Miyahara
6. Elena Radionova
7. Rika Hongo
8. Gracie Gold


Polina Edmunds

Artistically, her movements /poses are always naturally artistic and beautiful like water flowing, so we always enjoy her skating.

I like her short program and really enjoyed it, but I prefer her 2013 - 2014 season's short program because the music, and choreography was more interesting and I loved her musicality .

For her free program Peter pan, I think the music was not so impressive and not much impact to impress judges, especially after the straight line step sequence.

I think more upbeat and dramatic sounds of music is needed in the last part of the program.

I love her unique twizzles where she holds her one leg in front.

I feel more power and speed will be required to get higher score for this system.

For presentation scores,
She was the third US skater in the World Championships, so if she was the US champion or silver medalist, the PCS might have been higher.

In order to get higher PCS in Worlds, she needs to win at US Nationals. 
I think the Presentation scores are nothing to do with real artistry.

Technically,

She has been receiving deduction for her Triple flip jumps as wrong edge.
and UR for two loop jumps ( single loop and triple loop ) and one Double Axel jump.

Hopefully her coach will help her to get consistent full rotation jumps and fix the wrong edge jump next year .

I think she is the best artistic skater  in all the ladies right now , so if she could get high technical score, the PCS will be up as well.

and more eye catching music and choreography will be needed.

I really want her to succeed because her movements are naturally artistic which not many skaters have.


Satoko Miyahara

Great thing about her skating is her beautiful jumps which have smooth landing and her spins.

Her movements still look like something juniorish and her arm movements are often not completed, but I feel she will improve year after year. 
Overall, I like her skating. 

Congratulations on winning a silver medal at only age of 17 !!!



Ashley Wagner

It was great to see her strength in the free skate, after disappointment of the  short program results, did  not give up until the end and made three spots for USA ladies for next season along with Gracie Gold.

After seeing Gracie's skating, I felt Ashley's movements ( arms, shoulder, hands, body ) are well-balanced artistically except for her spins.

I don't know why, only her spins have never looked artistic to me, but more of calculated movements for the points.

Especially her one arm up while spinning is always just straight, which is nothing artistic to watch.

But for other parts, whenever she was on, her movements are well-balanced.

She received high presentation scores for this program this season. It shows judges loved it but personally, I prefer her Saint Saen's Samson and Delilah program's choreography and the music, and her artistry was on for that program.

About her costume,

For this one, her red costume didn't fit with her body shape, IMO.
The part of design in the shoulder to breast area does not complement her looks. 
Sparkling jewelry and the red color are fine though.
and her blond hair looks great.  

For her jumps, she received UR for second jumps of two combination jumps. and wrong edge for her 3Lz jumps.    

Hopefully her coach will help her to fix all these issues by next season.



Elena Radionova

I've heard that she was ill and had high fever during this competition.
So she was unable to show her full potential , but still with that tough situation, she did great.

I can't imagine how can one can perform on ice in worlds with high fever ??

But I'm glad she got the podium by fighting through it.

We always enjoy watching her skating.  I feel she may more fit with dancing music program than music like Rach's concerto #3 which is very complicated.

As Tara said, she's adorable.  I also noticed that her height got taller compared to when she was in Skate America. 

So surprised to see how tall she looked in the podium.

Congratulations on winning a first worlds medal !!!



For Ice dancing

We both enjoyed with Madison Chock/Evan Bates's performance this time more than their US Nationals performance.

I really love Madison's costume ) white / black one ! 



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