In my analysis of the short programs I have decided to proceed in reverse order of the final ranking. I watched the programs of four skaters: Nathan Chen, Yuma Kagiyama, Shoma Uno and Yuzuru Hanyu. If you need a bullet and deduction reminder, or want to know what I did, you can read this post:

The Beijing programs: the scores. Introduction

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As for the programs I have analyzed so far, you can read my considerations on each program in these posts:

The Beijing Programs: the scores. Nathan Chen’s SP

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The Beijing programs: the scores. Yuma Kagiyama’s SP

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The Beijing programs: the scores. Shoma Uno’s SP

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The Beijing programs: the scores. Yuzuru Hanyu’s SP

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The Beijing programs: the scores. Yuzuru Hanyu’s FS

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I watched Shoma Uno free skate in the official Olympics version:

4Lo

I’m not sure if there is bullet 1, if in doubt I’ll give it to him. At 1:04 Uno did a step, at 1:06 he starts preparing the jump, so bullet 4 is there. Also present the bullet 5 and the bullet 6. There is however a small problem: the jump is underrotated.

The take off is in screenshot 4, the landing in 16, as can be seen clearly from the change in angle of the blade. Missing beyond 90°, this jump should have received a reduced base value and a deduction of -2 for the error. Considering that with the bullets I started from +3, the final GOE is +1.

4S

I believe the judges should justify their marks. Assigning a random number, without any explanation, is too simple. No, I want to know from the judges which bullets they awarded, which deductions they calculated. Three judges have assigned a -2 to this jump, and they have already been generous (and their generosity adds to that of the technical panel), but I just don’t understand how Miroslav Misurec managed to assign a 0. Let’s go in order.

The step is not there, no bullet 4. I assign bullet 6, the others I see as I proceed in my analysis. The jump is this:

The jump is underrotated and landed on two feet. While watching the video I had the impression that the jump was small, this landing confirms it to me: with a small jump Uno was unable to complete the rotation and to release the free leg. Bullet 1 is missing, the width, but obviously with this error the bullets 2, 3 and 5 are also missing. This is an error of the technical panel which, by calling only a q, gave Uno 1.94 points in BV than Uno did not deserved (for an underrotated the deduction can go from -2 to -3, however, even with a q in the GOE, a deduction of -2 must be counted). Then there is a -3 (and could also be -4) for Landing on two feet in a jump. To top it all off, there is a -1 for Touch down with one hand or free foot. And no, I’m not counting the same mistake twice. The touch down with the free foot occurs at this time:

So, only bullet 6 and several deduction. +1-2-3-1 = -5. How is it that no judge has awarded this jump a -5 and only three have awarded a -4?

4F

Uno’s 4F is one of the ugliest jumps around. There is bullet 6, and then what? There are two chronic problems, prerotation and full blade. They are two mistakes, and I don’t care that they are on a single gesture. If a jump can have two deductions, for example, for lack of rotation and a two-foot landing, and we are talking about something happening at the same time, for the poor take off I consider all the characteristics. Two mistakes, deduction -2. And if you think I’m too strict with Uno, let’s try to compare his take off with that of someone who knows how to do a 4F:

Nathan Chen’s skating has many limitations, but Chen knows how to do the take off of the flip only with the toe pick and without prerotation. And the take off isn’t the only problem. The jump is underrotated.

How it is possible that the technical panel has not noticed all of Uno’s errors is something I cannot understand. Beware, it is not that Uno has suddenly forgotten how to jump. Uno has always been pardoned on the rotations of the jumps. If the tech panel had correctly called its 4Lo at PyeongChang in 2018 as underrotated, Fernandez would have won the Olympic silver, Uno only the bronze.

Unfortunately in the replay there’s a strange superimposition, we can’t see well the beginning of the jump. At the moment of the take off we only see the feet of Uno, not the rest of the body, but we can see the most important detail, the feet, and we can see well the landing, and the blade is parallel to the screen. There’s no possibility that at the take off the direction of the blade respect to the screen is vertical. This jump is missing much more than 90°.

The triple axel of the short program at the Internationaux de France 2019 should have been downgraded. Not even arrived the call of underrotated. On this occasion Uno did not win medals, in the French competition he skated so badly that he was only ninth, but the error of the technical panel remains.

This is the 3S in the 3S+3T combination in the free skate at the 2019 National Championship. Let’s say the take off is in the third screenshot of the first line. Before it can not be, the blade is firmly placed on the ice. The landing is in the second screenshot of the second line, as we clearly see the snow raised by the blade and the inclination of the blade itself which has changed compared to the first screenshot. We are sure that the jump is fully rotated?

This is the 4F executed by Uno in the FS of Skate America 2021. Between prerotation and underrotation, Uno remains in the air for only three turns, yet to him has been awarded the value of a quadruple.

For the landing I used only one screenshot, but you can see the snow raised by the blade, you can see that the blade is horizontal, and also that Uno is slightly unbalanced due to a landing that arrived too soon (then it will be able to save the jump without too many disasters. Uno is so used to not completing rotations in the air, to completing them on ice, that he often manages to perfectly mask the mistake. But the mistake is there, and the technical panel and the judges must take it into account).

The 4Lo in the free skate of the NHK Trophy 2021 is also underrotated, but at the moment I have scattered the screenshots somewhere on the computer, when I find them I will add them. And it’s not like I watch Uno’s jumps carefully. For a few seasons, up until PyeongChang, I cheered for Uno, and at the time I wasn’t watching rotations for any skater. Then his programs stopped giving me emotions and I stopped following Uno, but I started to watch rotations. So what I saw, I saw by chance. And in the few programs that I have looked at, the amount of underrotated not called by the technical panel that I have noticed is way too high. Evidently for some strange reason, when it comes to watching Uno, the tech panel fails to pay attention, gets distracted, and doesn’t make calls. I can understand them, with some skaters I get distracted too, but I don’t have to check the rotations.

Let’s do the math. +1 for bullet 6. -2 for poor take off (prerotation and full blade). -2 for lack of rotation (<). -5 for fall. Total: -8. Uno is lucky that we can’t go beyond -5. And… how much has Uno’s base value fallen so far? Okay, let’s go on.

3A

This jump is esecuted well. The triple axel deserves bullet 1, 2, 5 and 6, final GOE +3. Why didn’t I give to Uno the efforless? For this landing.

Uno is clearly leaning forward. He gets along well, he doesn’t deserve any deduction, but to complete the jump he had to pay attention to what he was doing, correct the movement, so I don’t give him the effort, just as I didn’t give it to Hanyu for his 3A in the short program. Final GOE: +3.

FCSp

Impossible to judge for the bad shot, I keep the official score.

ChSq

When I looked at Uno’s choreo sequence, I realized I was looking at nothing. As I wanted to understand, I looked at all the choreo sequences of all the skaters. You can find them at these seconds:

ChSq	GOE	rank ChSq	time
Britschgi	0,93	20	15:39
Mozalev	1,00	17	21:58
Shmuratko	0,29	23	29:43
Milyukov	0,21	24	39:47
Majorov	1,00	17	45:40
Carrillo	0,71	21	53:56
Litvintsev	0,71	21	01:09:05
Kerry	1,00	17	01:19:05
Vasiljevs	1,57	8	01:26:43
Kondratiuk	1,50	9	01:35:02
Siao Him Fa	1,36	10	01:42:45
Rizzo	1,07	16	01:49:12
Grassl	1,14	14	02:21:09
Jin	1,14	14	02:29:07
Aymoz	1,36	10	02:36:02
Messing	2,07	4	02:44:29
Hanyu	2,14	3	02:52:13
Semenenko	1,36	10	03:00:18
Brown	2,50	1	03:15:00
Kvitelashvili	1,29	13	03:24:20
Cha	2,29	2	03:31:49
Uno	1,79	7	03:38:59
Kagiyama	1,93	5	03:48:18
Chen	1,93	5	03:56:41

The skaters are listed in the order of their performance in the free skate. GOE, of course, is the GOE they received. Rank ChSq indicates the position in a ranking based only on choreo sequences. I got this number from SkatingSacores. Time indicates the moment when the choreo sequence begins in the official video.

I started taking screenshots, but it’s a long and tedious job. If you want, you can watch the choreo sequences yourself, with the indication of the minutes you can find all of them easily. In fact, choreo sequences are the realm of arbitrariness. Perhaps the only improvement arrived at the last ISU congress is the addition of precise requests for the choreo sequence, because what the skaters did in Beijing can be divided into two large groups: those who do nothing beyond a single movement and agitate a little the arms, and who interpret the music. As for the marks, it seems that the judges assign them to sympathy, regardless of what the skaters did. It is the rule itself that makes sympathy lawful. When a rule asks you, like bullet 4, good ice coverage or interesting pattern, what do you want to do? The good ice coverage is objective (more or less. Is good a third of the rink? Half? Two thirds? The whole rink?) But interesting… Anything can be interesting. It is not a choreo sequence, but at the start of Ballade No. 1 Hanyu remains motionless in the center of the rink for over ten seconds. Can I say it’s an interesting choice and give him a bullet? What I have indicated is a moment that is not part of a choreographic sequence, which is not even part of a free program, but in my opinion it is really an interesting choice to express music. But that choice, at least until Hanyu starts moving, requires skating skills that also I have. How can you assign a bullet on this basis? Interesting means nothing and should disappear from the rules.

There are skaters who have a choreo sequence, such as Hanyu, or Jason Brown, or Juhnwan Cha, or even Keegan Messing and Daniel Grassl. And there are skaters who don’t have a choreo sequence, like Konstantin Milyukov, or Ivan Shmoratko, or Lukas Britschgi… or even Shoma Uno. In fact, Britschgi does more than Uno. Uno does a rotation on two without gliding on the ice, a couple of little hops in which the high of his fly can maybe be of 5 centimeters, an outside spread eagle followed by a not so low besti squat that together last three seconds, a three and a lot of various pushes.

I got tired of doing screenshots already with Mozalev, the second skater I looked at, but I did Britchgi’s, and Britschgi does more than Uno.

There are some other movements that I have ignored, some simple connection and a three, but Britschgi’s choreo sequence is more interesting than Uno’s, and has a greater connection to the music.

I swear, the temptation not to assign to Uno any bullets, and assign a -1 for Lack of creativity/originality is strong. In the end, I opted for generosity. No bullet 1, creativity and/or originality. No bullet 2, Uno does nothing can not express the music. I read the bullets, and I said to myself “no, this is not there, I just can’t assign it”. In the end I opted to give him bullet 5, good clarity and precision (of course it’s precise, when you don’t do anything it’s hard to go wrong). Final GOE: +1.

4T

Present bullets 1 and 6, deduction -2 because the jump is underrotated, and also -1 for weak landing, the total is -1.

4T+2T

For me both the quadruple and the double are underrotated, but I have not been able to make satisfactory screenshots, so I go in favor of the skater and just give him two q. The quadruple:

Let’s say that the take off is in the second screenshot of the top row, so the blade is no longer parallel to the screen, it is slightly tilted. The landing is between the second and third of the second line, but the shot doesn’t help, and neither does the speed of reproduction of the video. By assigning a q, even though I think they are missing more than 90 °, I leave the skater his BV, touching only the GOE.

The 2T:

With bullets 1, 3, 5 and 6 and a -4 deduction, the final GOE is -1.

3A+1Eu+1F

There are bullets 1 and 6, the good air position not so much, and after the flip there is a touch down with the free foot. GOE +1.

FCCoSp

Again I keep the judges’ score.

CCoSp

With bullets 1, 3, 5 and 6 the GOE is +3.

StSq

There was no way to do a good screenshot, if you don’t believe my words watch the video. A turn is hopped. The judges didn’t see many rotations, so, thinking they were accurate on the step sequences was a bit too much.

Level 3. But for me there are six bullets, so GOE +5.

PCS

With a fall, Uno also has a cap in components, albeit less severe than Hanyu’s. There have actually been several bad landings, but forget it. For him the cap is 9.75 in SS, TR and CO, 9.50 in PE and IN. Looking at the free skate with the same attention that I dedicated to the short program would require too much time. I didnt’ noticed any big difference in the way Uno interpeted his FS comparing to the SP, so I slightly lowered the mark in TR and I remained on the same marks of the SP, keeping in mind the existence of the cap in the components.

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:

As I have already explained for the SP, this does not mean that Uno skated the 17° FS in Beijing. This morning I took a very quick look at Junhwan Cha’s FS, and I’m sure of two mistakes made by the technical panel. The initial 4T should have been downgraded, not underrotated, and the 3Lz of the 3Lz+3Lo combination has a flat edge and is underrotated, two uncalled errors. With just these differences, Cha’s free skate drops from 282.38 to 278.49 points. How many skaters have made a mistake on some element but the technical panel has not called the mistake? How many other points have been given away with GOE and PCS? I have no idea what the correct ranking position is for Uno. We should look at all elements and PCS for all skaters, Rizzo, Kerry, Aymoz, Kondratiuk, Siao Him Fa and so on, and I don’t have enough time. Of one thing, however, I am sure: Uno did not deserve the medal that was awarded to him.