Overview

My overall impression of this competition :
First, i think it was a fun competition. As it was the very first one of this kind, the schedule was not really right; especially at the end when the men competition lasted a lot more than planned... maybe nobody had thought there would be many competitors doing the most difficutl jumps ? Was a bit upset to have to miss the last gala. grrr.
At least it's a new competition, a new format, something the audience and the skaters themselves are not used to. A bit of fresh air... Elena Sokolova for example said she liked the competition because the format was brand new (and maybe also because she won ;-)).

I had heard many critics about this competition before it had even started, such as 'this is not a true competition', 'this is silly to have a jump competition just before Worlds, skaters could get injured', ...
Well, i don't think skaters would get injured more easily during this competition than at their home rink. Maybe in the last rounds, if they pushed themselves to go farther... At worst they will try jumps they are working on during practice, like Brian Joubert who did his first quad-triple combo ever during this competition (!!). I don't think they would try jumps they never tried before.

It was also a true competition as skaters had to deal with concentration during a long time ! Two minutes to do a jump, than wait for all the other competitors to try their jumps, then some more minutes to wait for the intermediary results to be realeased... and if your jumps received good marks and you're in first, then wait a bit more as you'll skate last in the next round !
Each skaters had only two attemps for each jumps (except for the last rounds). Two consecutive falls on a jump and you're out ! No matters how great were your previous jumps, if you're usually very consistent on a jump,... if you fall twice it's over... Like Vanessa Gusmeroli who missed one of her best jump, the loop, and Galyna Maniachenko who missed the Lutz as a solo jump after doing two in combination. Terrible...but all the skaters are in the same situation.
I guess it can be quite attractive for the audience too, as even if they don't know much about skating, they can pick up a favourite and cheer for him/her ! Elimination at each round and fewer skaters left as time goes by builds up the suspense :-).


Something that may not be clear at first, is skaters are rewarded for the quality of their jumps... but not only : they have greater reward for difficulty. Check the 'best jumps' pages for example. With the coefficient system and the format of the competition, you don't really need to do perfect jumps to win, you 'just' need to know how to do them all... For example Brian Joubert only made once the top 3 on a round (except when there were 3 skaters left... obviously !), Ilia Klimkin was not always in the top three either... but both went 'till the quad-triple and did it, which, even without perfect marks (afterall it's difficult !), gives a lot of points since the difficulty coefficient is high. On the other hand, Emmanuel Sandhu did three different jumps that were considered perfect by all the judges (still wow !!), but as he failed on the 6th round he had no chance to be on the podium. Some could say it's quantity versus quality... it's also greater technical baggage (several jumps) versus pure technique (less jumps but better technique). I guess there is still a lot to talk about that issue !
Of course at the end for skaters who reach the same round, the difference is in the quality of their jumps... But maybe there could be a special price for the best marks ? Honestly, the jumps of Sandhu where he got the perfect scores were really really great... ;-)

Check the 'best jump' pages also to see which jumps are the favourite of the skaters... Of course you can't really say when there are only 2 or 3 jumps, but you can see some trends...


I've also heard the idea of a spin competition, or a pairs competition... I don't think it would be as successfull. I don't see people who don't know much about skating coming -and paying- to see skaters spinning, and only spinning... At least everybody can tell the difference between a jumps correctly landed and a fall... But maybe there could be a spin and a jump combination, with two podium plus another one for best skater overall ?