In the short program in Beijing, Yuma Kagiyama improved his personal best by over seven points, with a score that, in history, is only lower than that of 4 programs skated by Nathan Chen (one skated in Beijing), 8 skated by Yuzuru Hanyu and one skated by Javier Fernandez. Shoma Uno also scored higher, but a month later, at the World Championship. Is his program really that high-level? I’m watching some of the Beijing programs. For the rules, and for some explanations on the way I’m working, I refer you to this post:
I have already watched Nathan Chen’s short program, and I am convinced that the score obtained by that program has little bearing on how the program was skated.
Let’s see how it went with Kagiyama. I watched Kagiyama’s program in the official Olympics version:
4S
In general Kagiyama’s is a good salchow, and this one is no exception. Kagiyama meets bullets 1, 2, 5 and 6. Why are 3 and 4 missing? For the preparation. Between 0:36 and 0:44 Kagiyama does nothing, and only cares about picking up speed. At the National Championships at one point he had done a chochtaw, even though the edges weren’t very deep, here he simplified and made a mohawk (and if anyone tells me that no, it continues to be a chochtaw, and that only Kagiyama did it badly, then I don’t count it anyway, because the quality is so poor that Kagiyama isn’t doing anything). There is some small movement with the arms, nothing having any effect on Kagiyama’s balance or making skating more difficult.
I’ll keep this movement in mind for IN, because he is trying at least a little bit to interpret the music, but there is no step. Not only is the step missing (bullet 4), but the need to run so much tells us that the jump is not effortess (bullet 3 is missing) and the skater also deserves a deduction for long preparation. GOE: +2.
4T+3T
Bullets 1 and 6 are present. There is no 3 because Kagiyama does not control the axis of the body well, even if the error is not so serious as to deserve the deduction for Poor air position. As for the 2, this is a sore point, as Kagiyama regularly does the take off of the toe loops when he is already facing forward. Not only does he not deserve the good take-off, he deserves a -2 for poor take-off instead. Did I mention that I usually give the minimum deduction? For poor take off the deduction ranges from -1 to -3. For me it is -1 for the poor take off on 4T, -1 for the poor take off on 3T, total -2. Remember that the rules clearly states that in case of multiple errors the corresponding reductions are added, and that is exactly what I’m doing. Kagiyama make mistakes on two take off? I apply two deductions.
The 4T:
This is 3T. In screenshot 5 Kagiyama is still on the ice, I highlighted a clearly visible mark on the ice to show that the skate is always at the same height. It is only in 6 that Kagiyama is in the air. 180° of prerotation. Remember that if the ISU only deigned to use existing technologies, jumps with excessive prerotation would have to be degraded. And if now the rule says that the technical panel must watch the jump at regular speed to decide whether to degrade the jump (but very often – not only for Kagiyama – in the second jump of the combination the error is clearly visible at normal speed), it says nothing on the speed at which the judges have to watch the jump to determine the poor take off.
Final GOE: 0.
CSSp
Let’s start with what we all easily saw, the bad starting position.
This is not the correct basic position, because the knee should be at the same height as the hip and Kagiyama does not even come close by mistake. Not even in the following rotations. But his spin, unlike Chen’s, remains in the score, because after a few rotation Kagiyama changes position (always remaining on the same foot), makes a donut, and in that position the knee is in the correct position. This means that the spin is valid, but it deserves level 3 and not level 4. Of course the bullets 2 and 3 (good controlled, clear position(s) and effortless throughout) are not there, and in my opinion it also deserves a deduction of -1 (but it can go up to -3) for Poor/awkward, unaesthetic position(s). There are other positions, of other skaters, that I think would have deserved this deduction, but I didn’t assign it because I don’t want to be influenced by personal tastes.
And then there is another error that can be seen not in the bad shot of the live broadcast but in the replay (a problem that disturbs the spectators, not the judges, which is located at the level of the rink and not on the ceiling).
When he changes foot, Kagiyama loses his balance. Look at the inclination of the body, or how he desperately waves his arms to try not to fell. To understand which was the correct movement, I propose a comparison with the same spin made at the National Championship.
As you can see, there is a big difference. For this mistake Kagiyama deserves a -1 for Loss of balance, and, on a spin executed like this, I can’t give bullet 6, element matches the music. The spin is also traveled, not only bullet 4, maintaining a centered spin, is missing, but I also give it a -1 for traveling. Let’s say there are bullet 1, good speed and/or acceleration during spin, and 5, creativity and/or originality, we start from +2, we remove -3 and we arrive at a final GOE of -1.
3A
If we watch the replay it shows without a shadow of a doubt. In this case, Kagiyama’s skid is so pronounced that in his take off he is facing backwards.
Bullet 1 is missing (very good height and very good length), impossible to have with the skid. The television has provided us with the measures of this jump. I remember that the measurement system used in Beijing provides lower measurements than the other systems we have seen used. The average length of the triple axels measured in the men’s competition is 2.22 meters, the triple axel of Kagiyama is 2.09 meters. No bullet 1 (just for curiosity, the longest triple axel is Hanyu’s, 2.58 meters, and Hanyu’s is also the highest triple axel).
Also bullet 3 (effortless throughout), 4 (steps before the jump, unexpected or creative entry) and 5 (very good body position from take-off to landing) are missing.
In the screenshots above we see the position of the body, in the ones below how the axis of rotation varies. Let’s do the math. I assign only bullet 6, then I take off a -1 for poor take-off, and even if I could apply a -1 for poor air position I chose to not do it. I give him a 0.
FSSp
This time I give him all the bullets except 5, creativity and/or originality. For me the spin is +5.
StSq
Kagiyama is one of the few where the technical panel noticed a cluster hopped and assigned it level 3, which I confirm. The problem is another: Kagiyama stumbles.
With one stumbling, at least bullet 3, effortless throughout, and 5, excellent commitment and control of the whole body, are missing. For me there is not even 4, creativity and/or originality, because all Kagiyama does is a few jumps of various kinds. Lively, sure, appropriate to the music and his age, but… creative or original? However, whether I assign it or not, it changes little. I have already assigned three bullets, 1, 2 and 6, but without the 3 we can not go beyond a +3. I start from +3 and take away -1 for stumble, final GOE +2.
CCoSp
Bad shot, impossible to judge. I keep the marks assigned by the judges.
PCS
I did a lot of screenshots of Kagiyama’s program in this post:
I also watched closely some details in these posts:
Kagiyama barely appears in these posts. In the first two I mention him very quickly. In the third we see a nice spread eagle. In the fourth there are two lunges (one is a side lunge) and several non listed jumps. Kagiyama does several non listed jumps, but in no case does he really jump high, as Hanyu in his salute de basque or Vasiljevs in the jump with which he concludes his program, Kagiyama never extends his legs, as Brown does with his split jumps (and I remember that skates are heavy, lifting the legs like Brown, Hanyu and Vasiljevs is difficult and tiring), he doesn’t make jumps that test his sense of balance, like butterflies (nor he does something on the ice as a illusion turn). Kagiyama is lively, but he doesn’t do particularly difficult things. Beside the hops, his classic choreographic gesture, which we have already seen before 4S, is this:
He basically does nothing with his feet (this is the run-up of 3A, but I could take more moments and it wouldn’t change anything), wave his arms and wink at the judges. I’d say he learned Chen’s lesson well. But I don’t give him a very high marks in the PCS. Remember this chart?
Kagiyama deserves a higher score than Chen because he does a few more difficult steps, although not many, has a little deeper edges and in general moves better than him. Kagiyama is not clumsy, unlike Chen. Precisely for this reason it is not possible to take screenshots with him as I did with Chen, they do not render the same way. The only thing to do is watch the programs. And if you look at them, you find that Chen is not worth Jason Brown but neither is Juhnwan Cha, who do more difficult things. His skating is not Excellent. Maybe he will get there, if he works on skating, because the potential is there, but for the moment he is in the Very Good band. For a comparison on the way in which the programs of Brown, Hanyu and Cha were built I remind you this table:
I repeat the explanation I already made on how to read this data. If you don’t need it, please skip the part that I included as a quote. My table is based on Roseline Winter’s and Elisa’s analysis.
There are five columns for each skater. In the left column I have indicated what the skater did. Difficult stands for difficult step, element, with the light blue box, for the elements, whether it is a jump or a spin it doesn’t matter. The next three columns indicate what skaters do before (top row) or after (bottom row) of each difficult step or technical element. PS, with the box in green, indicates Power Skating, that is nothingness: crossover, crossunder, swizzle, movements that only serve to gain speed. Tr indicates transitions, but simple transitions. The next column, with the yellow boxes and the letter D, indicates what the ISU codes as difficult turn (bracket, rocker, counter, twizzle, loop, most of the chochtaws). The last one, in red, with the letter E, stands for element, because some skaters sometimes before or after something difficult do an element. The table is made up of what the skaters did at the National Championship, not the Olympic Games, but the differences are minimal.
Only on two occasions does Kagiyama do two more difficult things in a row, his program is built much simpler than those of Brown, Cha and Hanyu. As for the quality, Kagiyama not only is not comparable with Brown, Cha and Hanyu. He skates a little less well than Vasiljevs, and for better or worse he skates at Aymoz’s level, even if Aymoz’s program is much more varied. I looked a little at Vasiljevs’ program in this post:
As for Aymoz, this is a passage before a spin, just to see what flow is, doing something even before the technical elements:
And if Kagiyama does numerous little jumps, these are some of Aymoz’s jumps (the first is a butterfly):
Note that here the balance is slightly shifted behind the body.
In this case the choreographic jump is preceded by a lunge. Aymoz always connects the movements with each other.
As for control of the edges, I leave the spread eagle it for when we look at Uno, as I have mounted their spread eagle together, but these are two besti squat:
I reassigned the PCS scores to Kagiyama by comparing him to these skaters. If the box is colored green it means that that mark is lower than the mark I assigned to Kagiyama.
The last screenshot is dedicated to the protocol.
The left side is the simple transcript of the protocol, which you can find here. Beyond the green band there are the bullets assigned by me, and that I have listed above, then some important notes, the correct BV, the mark in the GOE taking into account bullet and deduction, the score of the GOE, and the total value of the element. Adding all the values of the technical elements with those of the PCS, found in the section below, this is the result:
We’re not at Chen’s scary levels, but Kagiyama has also been grossly overestimated.
