Flutzes and Waxels Podcast
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We wrap up Junior Worlds with our favourite discipline and a really fun event - the junior dance! We discuss the many pattern dance interruptions that were assessed by this tech panel, how to balance skating with full speed and energy with not making major mistakes, and the nice balance we have of countries with lots of talent competing with each other, plus newer countries having teams that are competitive with the best junior teams. Plus, we take some time to discuss the newly released rules and requirements for dance next season, and announce an upcoming hiatus for the podcast.
We continue our discussion of Junior Worlds with the men's event and discuss how important international competitions are to skater development (and how many skaters seem to be currently feeling the lack of opportunities), the reasonable number of quads attempted in the free skate, and the countries with exciting competition brewing among their young men's skaters.
Next up we discuss the small pairs event, including the state of the pairs field for the upcoming season in general, what reforms could be made to encourage more pairs teams worldwide to develop and be able to compete somewhat regularly, and our hopes for a successful future career for all of the teams here, but particularly those already finding success in brand new partnerships.
This strange season wraps up with the Junior World Championships, and we begin our recaps with the women! We discuss how JGP spots for next season will be allocated (and whether there could be a better way to do it), whether tech minimums for the women need to be raised a bit next year, and when having one stand out quality can help you more in your scores than being consistently strong in all PCS categories.
We wrap up our discussion of Worlds with our favourite men's event of the season, and discuss the fantastic skating we saw here, some young teens with tons of untapped potential, the last-minute alternates who really capitalized on their sudden opportunity, and just how amazing our winner might be if he could get in three free skate combinations consistently.
This year's Worlds also had an exciting dance event, helped out by a very enthusiastic crowd. We discuss score ceilings in dance, wonder what next year's rhythm dance requirements will be (and whether there will actually be a pattern requirement), and hope for more weird and eccentric programs in a post-Olympic season.
After a tough women's event at the Olympics, we had a much more enjoyable time with the women's event at Worlds, and we discuss how thrilled we are to have a podium full of happy tears, the agony and the ecstasy of placements decided by just hundredths of points, and our hope that just about all the women who competed here will continue skating and competing for many years so we can continue to enjoy watching them develop.
This year's world championships were a strange one in many ways, but particularly in the pairs event. We discuss the opportunities and pressures faced by teams with a sudden chance to make it to the top of the podium, why referees should be empowered to do more in the case of a mid-program injury, and how much we hope that pairs skating worldwide will grow and thrive in the next quad after the inevitable splits and retirements that happen after an Olympics.
Figure skating at this Olympics concluded with the pairs, and it was just about everything we had hoped it would be! We discuss the many amazing skates from the top half of the field and the extremely close race for gold, the many promising young teams we hope to see competing in four years time, and how much we hope the legacy of amazing Chinese pair teams continues well into the future.
Olympic figure skating events wrap up with the pairs this time around, and we started off with a pretty fantastic short program. We discuss how much of a numbers game the free skate might be for the top teams, how much we've missed seeing the Chinese pairs this season, and how much we hope that this Olympics can end on a high note with a good free skate for the pairs.
The wrap up of the women's event at this Olympics was another tough one to experience, and we discuss some skaters who were able to overcome everything surrounding them and have a good skate, but how distressing it is that the entire event was so completely overshadowed by far too many failures from the powers that be.
We had a real bummer time talking about the women's event at the Olympics and everything surrounding it.
Somehow the Olympics are already more than halfway through, and while the skating continues, so does the doping scandal.Today, we break down the (somewhat disappointing) freedance, as well as the CAS ruling on the doping scandal. We discuss why panels should be harsher about stepsequence levels, the importance of a good stopwatch, and some lifts gone horribly awry, then wrap up with the breakdown of the CAS ruling and followup from other governing bodies.
The next event up at these Olympics is the ice dance, and we discuss a rhythm dance that was overshadowed for us by technical issues and doping drama. We discuss where the results were impacted by one major mistake versus overall lack of quality for some teams and whether nerves for both favourites and Olympic newcomers played into this event feeling bit messier than we had hoped, plus we discuss the newest updates on the doping controversy that seems to be completely taking over this Olympics.
After an incredible men's short program this week, we had high hopes and moderate expectations for the free. It didn't quite live up to our hopes, but we discuss highly engaging performers, costly popped jumps, and the risk versus reward of trying out your most difficult jumps on Olympic ice. The document we discuss can be found here: https://www.isu.org/inside-isu/legal/disciplinary-decisions/538-case-2016-03-ms-yelim-kim/file
The individual events at this Olympics began with the men's short program, and we discuss some really fantastic skates (with some pretty high scoring to go along with them), a pretty shocking moment that prevented us from having quite the head-to-head match-up for gold that everyone had been expecting for the past few years, and who was able to build off the momentum of the very recently completed team event, and who struggled perhaps as a result of its' proximity to the individual competition.
The final day of the Olympic team event had its share of ups and downs, and we discuss some scary moments in pairs and why having a level 4 death spiral with good GOE can be so important to your overall placement and score, whether we'll see teams struggle or rise to the occasion after some exciting and disappointing results in dance, and hope that the young women competing under so much pressure at this Olympics have a team surrounding them to put everything into perspective, especially if things go awry.
Day two of the Olympic team event saw the field narrowed down to just five countries who will try to win the first figure skating medal of the 2022 Games! We discuss the women's short programs with the most impact on their countries placements in the event, a heartbreaking tie-breaker scenario for the final team to make the free skate, and the really rough turn around time for the men competing this Olympics, and why the team event should really be last rather than first.
We can't believe it is already here, but we are already diving into the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, starting off with day one of the team event. We discuss COVID complicating qualification for the free, why getting a first outing before the individual event could be a good thing or a bad thing for these skaters, and the likelihood of an intense battle for the top spot in the team event.
Only one continent was represented in pairs at Four Continents this year, and we discuss the very interesting battle between six up and coming North American teams, and between former partners, and hope that we see all of these partnerships continue to grow and improve next season. Plus, we briefly discuss our podcasting plans for the rapidly approaching 2022 Olympic Games!
The dance field at Four Continents this year was small and rather messy, and we discuss an alarming number of falls for a smaller dance event, our hope for up and coming teams from outside North America to be better appreciated in the future, and wonder what next season might hold for the North American teams here who weren't quite strong enough to make it to the Olympics.
There were some really great skates from the women at Four Continents, and we discuss whether it was a good idea to have the Korean Olympic team compete here so close to the Olympics, some lenient tech calling (and whether that's an indication of the calling we might see at the Olympics), and some exciting head-to-heads we're excited to see in coming seasons among the young Korean and Japanese women.
This weekend's Four Continents Championships was a bit of a smaller one due to the upcoming Olympics, but we begin our recaps with an interesting men's event! We discuss the many skaters likely ending their seasons here with a strong set of skates to set them up for next year, successes and failures in jump math, and why it was really unnecessary for Australia to leave their Olympic team selections so very down to the wire this year.
We wrap up this year's European Championships with the women, and discuss some very last minute Olympic spots that are still in question, some really joyful skates that could have been better rewarded in the scores, and what some skates here might indicate about how the Olympic team event could go down.
The pairs event at Europeans this year saw some inconsistent skating, and we discuss Olympic season score inflation which we hope can be addressed at the next Congress, whether a double twist has an unwarranted effect on PCS, and some young teams who we will hope will continue to skate together for many years to ensure a real future for the discipline outside of Russia.
Despite a number of withdrawals from the dance event at Europeans it was an interesting event, and we discuss the conclusion of the battle for the lone Spanish ice dance spot at the Olympics, teams we hope will finally make it to the Olympics versus those who unfortunately won't be able to go, and teams we hope are really finding their identity in terms of program style versus those still seemingly struggling to do so.
This week's European Championships had a very exciting and pretty well skated men's event, and we discuss the tough choice to make for the third man on the Russian Olympic team, some real jump math problems in the free skate, and some exciting young skaters making their debut at Europeans (though some due to unfortunate withdrawals).
We wrap up this weekend of skating with the US men and discuss some surprise podium placements and how it should have impacted the Olympic team selection, chaotic jumps at this event and the potential for more of them in the future internationally, and the many signs and indications that our eventual Olympic men's team should just not have come to nationals in the first place.
Next, we discuss the US women, including the front runners unable to compete due to COVID (and whether this competition was really necessary to determine Olympic spots), our opinions on how we might have had these standings turn out at the end of the day, and how this nationals tech calling might compare to that of an international panel.
There was a deep field in dance at US nationals, and some very interesting head-to-head match-ups, and we discuss why this year's patterns might make it slightly easier to do a half-junior, half-senior season, twizzle mistakes really determining the placements on the lower half of the podium, and how hard it is to give out late season international assignments when you have so many strong teams and only so many places (even in this Olympic year).
