Latest / The Rocker Skating Podcast / Milan Olympics Recap: The Experience (part 1)

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Milan Olympics Recap: The Experience (part 1) · The Rocker Skating Podcast

• 0:00
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  Welcome to the Rocker Skating Podcast sponsored by John Wilson
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  Blades and it is time for Michelle Ellis to be back.
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  If you all have listened to all of the recaps and the live
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  episodes that I did in Milan, you will have known all of the
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  recapping. So we're not going to do that
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  because that's going to take like 5 hours.
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  Or more. Or more lots of time, but what
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  we're going to do today is really talk about the Olympics
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  and talk about the experience of it all.
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  We're going to hit on some of our memorable moments of all of
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  the events and we'll, we'll, we'll sort of go one by one.
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  But what we won't do is go program by program because that
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  is a lot. That is a lot.
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  But Michelle, you, when did you get back yesterday?
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  Yesterday I left at 6:30 AM from my hotel.
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  My flight left at 11 AM and I got in at 8:30 PM into
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  Sacramento, so I had many, many hours of flying.
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  I also left at 6:30 AM. Well, NBC picked us all up a lot
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  earlier than I thought. Was oh, right, right, right,
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  right. Right.
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  You left the you left the hotel. You left the hotel at six. 30
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  Yeah, The plane left the ground at 11 AM Yeah.
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  And then I was. Like I left the hotel.
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  I left the hotel at like 4430 and I got to yeah, yeah.
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  I mean. Got that.
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  Was probably really miserable like thing to think about, but
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  in the end it came out brilliantly because of the
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  Blizzard and I think tons of people were stranded in Milan.
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  So totally, our friend Nick Mccarville is stranded in Milan.
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  I think he ended up taking a day trip to like Verona so that he
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  could go do something different than Milan.
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  I'm going to light a candle for him tonight.
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  I know, I know, it's at least the snow has stopped here.
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  Do you feel anywhere near recovered?
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  No, I do feel recovered from my descent into Atlanta though,
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  which was terrifying. Atlanta did not get any snow,
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  but they got crazy wind. And I, I, I did not hold on to
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  my stomach on that descent. I apologize to the very kind
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  Italian man sitting next to me who gave me a puke bag.
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  But yeah, I, And as as a result, I did not watch the closing
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  ceremony. I was too busy trying to, you
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  know, keep my stomach together. Oh, man.
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  All right. Well, glad you're back in.
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  Yeah, back. Glad you're back in one piece.
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  Yeah, my inner ear has settled down, but my, you know, my, my
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  body is still in Milan. Yeah, No, I, I hear you.
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  I mean, you and I were in Milan for three weeks.
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  You were there I think a a day or maybe a day and a half
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  earlier than I was. So you are even there longer.
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  But I think behind the scenes, what you don't see is all the
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  stuff that we all do. I mean, you, you obviously
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  listeners probably see all of my typing, but, but you know, like
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  Michelle and I and A lot of the NBC researchers, we the, the,
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  let's just say the volunteers knew us very well because we
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  were almost always the ones who were in the rink, the practice
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  rank, the main rank. You know, it became a bit of a,
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  a, a family of sorts, A dysfunctional family.
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  But you know, sometimes we'd be joined by other journalists,
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  sometimes we'd be joined by other photographers, but it's
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  always us. And I think half, half of them
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  were like, what are you actually doing here?
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  Yeah, yeah. And we were there constantly,
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  all day. I mean, I can't tell you how
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  many times I brought Jackie a fresante water and a pack of
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  wafers from our catering. Yeah.
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  Yeah, it was like hours, hours and hours of practice.
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  I, I mean, one of the things that I always take with me from
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  the Olympics is the, the like one or two skaters that I keep
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  seeing over and over and over again because they're in the
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  team event, they're in the individual event.
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  And for me this time around, it was Ru Yang Zhang and, and her
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  Madonna and her Madonna Frozen program and her triple sound,
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  triple toe. There were so many of them.
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  So many I. Mean to the point where you.
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  In the last 10 minutes. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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  She's still doing them. She she's probably still in the
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  practice rink doing them. Yeah, Yeah, it was.
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  Yeah, it. Was, I mean, yeah, I, I was so
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  delirious from seeing so many triple sow triple toes that I
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  started like really cheering for her in the empty practice rink.
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  Every time she did it. I was like, yes, woo.
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  It was. It was great.
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  Yeah. I love her.
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  She. Was, you know what she was.
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  So fun to watch here. She's just, she was so happy to
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  be there. She was always excited to be on
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  practice like and she was there from beginning to end.
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  And I remember in in Pyeongchang, it was Kaori
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  Sakamoto who took that honor. Like, I remember all of us
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  sitting there watching her do all of her, you know, skating
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  drills and watching her on the clean ice, just like doing all
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  these curves and beautiful edges and, and everything.
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  And who would have thought, eight years later we would see
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  Kaori Sakamoto win a fourth medal.
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  Mm hmm. At the Olympics, 3rd and 4th.
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  Yeah, third silver stabbing hard.
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  Third silver. Oh.
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  Yeah. Yeah, we'll talk about that.
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  But let's, let's, let's rewind back to the team event.
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  I thought that was a great start to the Olympics.
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  And I know there are a lot of people who are, who are like the
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  team event should go after the individual event.
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  And I, I have, I have thoughts on that one.
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  But let's let's actually start by talking about like what were
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  some of your highlights from the team event that were?
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  Just I mean, I made a list like I had a running list throughout
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  the Olympics of like what my favorite performances were and I
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  just went through right now and picked like what the top five
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  were and three of them were in the team event.
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  Wow, It was like a riff roaring start is it was great.
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  I mean, obviously Yuma Kagiyama short program in the team event.
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  How of this? That was like some of the best
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  skating I've seen this cycle. It was exquisite.
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  And I just thought like, Oh my God, it's, it's happening.
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  It's happening. It literally did not happen
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  again after that tour program, but the short program was
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  brilliant. He was so, he was so good, so
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  confident, like ready, ready to just rock it.
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  Yeah. That this surety in like every
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  movement and just the finesse was just off the Richter scale.
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  Guinard Fabri team free dance was beautiful.
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  I had that music, that last piece of their music with
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  Giorgia singing, I had that in my head for the next like 2
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  weeks. I would just be walking down the
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  street and I could hear it. It just like kind of like gets
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  into your bones. The way that they skated it so
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  well, the crowd was so behind them.
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  I was so happy for them and them, the two of them and their
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  coach, Barbara Fuzarpoli screaming in the kiss and cry
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  throughout the whole team event for everybody.
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  It was like they were like, you know, the the parents of the
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  team and that was fantastic. And then, of course, read so
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  free skate and his not just the celebration at the end, but like
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  every jump he was landing and the box screaming, the Italians
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  in the box screaming for him that I mean, that was like the
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  the the the of chills talking about it.
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  The energy in that moment was incredible.
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  Yeah, I think. I was more excited for.
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  Italy winning bronze than for anyone else in this Olympics.
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  Yeah, well, I mean that there. We've seen this.
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  A. Number of times, yeah, we've
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  seen this a number of times with the team event being where some
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  of the skaters just have these out of this world skates and
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  then they can't replicate it in the individual events.
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  And I don't really know if switching the team event to the
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  end would actually change that. Bear with me here, because the
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  team event has a certain kind of energy that the individual
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  events don't have because you've got your teammates there because
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  they're so frigging loud. Like like the energy in the
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  arena for every single team was so just so different than in the
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  individual events. And I wished the individual
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  events would have that. But because the team event is so
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  condensed and it's literally, you know, in the short program,
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  it's ten programs, ten programs, ten programs and you're done.
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  And a lot of them are like some of the best in the world, if not
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  the best in the world, right? In the in ice dance, in the
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  rhythm dance, you literally had 12345 skating in the rhythm
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  dance that would end up being in the individual event.
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  And, and it's like it's this whole thing where you just start
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  off with a very different kind of energy.
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  And even if you would have put the, the individual events at
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  the front, you may not replicate that.
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  Now I, I understand also the, the, the close back-to-back,
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  especially for the 1st 2 events with the women and the men and
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  then even with pairs and women. The, the, the difficulty with
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  the, the timing is that you are literally there all the time,
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  like Ru Yong Jong, right? Like there were so many of the
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  women who did either one program or both programs, but 4/4 of the
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  five final free skate countries right had a double women's free
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  skate or a program right that the if you're not skating in the
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  first week of the individual event, you're skating the second
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  week of the individual event. The issue is actually regulating
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  your energy and making sure that you properly come down from the
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  high of the team event, like reset yourself and then go into
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  the individual event with a with the same kind of like energy and
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  motivation. And sometimes it doesn't happen.
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  Like we've seen that, like we've seen that.
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  We saw that with, you know, Julia Lipnitskaya back in 2014
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  and we saw that with Mirai Nagasu in, in 2018.
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  And you know, like there, there, there are these, there were just
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  these, like Gabby Daleman. 2018. Yeah, like just like the
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  inability to really figure out how you temper and reset.
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  And I think those are all really good reasons why the team event
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  should be late because the, the individual event, you know,
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  should in a lot of ways take up the, the main energy for the,
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  for this very generally in individual sport.
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  But my my one logistical issue is that the team event is great
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  at the beginning because it's short.
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  Yeah, like. It literally starts the top like
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  the day of the the opening ceremony.
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  And so you can't do, even if you put the pairs short program
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  there, you are having to do what, 5 warm up groups of pairs
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  short programs and you have to have all of them there.
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  And then you have to have, you know, like all, all of that
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  stuff. And, and the, the very first day
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  of the team event you had, you had what you had three groups.
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  Well, yet you had three events and, and yeah.
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  And they were, they were also like, they were different,
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  right? Like the, the you, you didn't
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  have all of the athletes go anyway.
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  The, the, the logistical part of having the individual events
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  first actually makes it hard to, to sort of schedule all that
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  stuff around. Can it be done?
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  Probably. Could they move the individual
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  events to the day after the opening ceremony?
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  Probably, but there's also just the fact that the, you know,
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  even if it's the day after the opening ceremony, you can't like
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  if you're a pair, you, you can't go to the opening ceremony And,
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  and there are a lot of skaters who didn't go to the opening
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  ceremony because they were prepping for the next day.
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  I don't know. I it's, it's, it is a lot.
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  I think the skaters would prefer to be later in in the schedule.
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  I do wonder if they can like figure out how to schedule it
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  properly so that so that actually works.
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  Yeah, I mean, I'd be interested in hearing what the skaters feel
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  about it. I mean, I know some of them have
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  complained about the schedule, but I also think it's like for a
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  lot of them it's like exciting and it builds up the that
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  momentum and, you know, I think gives them like an opportunity
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  to get comfortable on Olympic ice.
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  I think for Alyssa, we really saw that work out for her
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  because she had some uncharacteristic issues in her
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  short program in the team event that I think I would probably
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  put down to nerves and then, you know, went out for her
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  individual event and was just absolutely foot perfect.
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  Yeah, I, I don't know, maybe they should survey them and see
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  what they see, what they feel, see what they think.
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  I do think it'd be fun to close with a team event, but, you
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  know, it's, yeah, it's tricky. It's tricky with the schedule.
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  And I, I some of these, some of these like I, I, I've, I've
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  mixed feelings about it, like whether I would want to have do
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  the team event and then have to skate later or go back-to-back
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  really quickly. Like it's, it's all really
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  challenging. I mean, and they train for it,
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  but it's, it's rough, yeah. I was, I was looking back at the
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  results from the first two team events and I remember there
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  being more switching in of I like, I saw more switching in of
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  skaters than I do now, partly because I think the, the, the
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  federation's have now better understood the strategy of the
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  whole thing. And they're like, oh, no, no,
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  no, no, we can't, we can't put someone who is not, who's going
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  to not get us the points right. And, and, and so like I remember
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  when in Pyeongchang when Canada decided to only sub one in,
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  right, it was they, they only subbed in Gabby Dalman slash
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  Kaitlyn Osman for the women. We were all like, wow, they're
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  really like, they're really taking everybody like the, the
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  very top in there. And now we're seeing that a lot
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  more. We saw that with Japan.
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  We saw that with the US. Like if Italy could have done
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  it, they would have, I mean, they, they, they, they only had
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  one dance and they only had one woman and they, they put in
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  their best pair and they put in their, their, their, their two
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  guys, right? Like they only, they only subbed
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  in 1-2. Like they there, there was a lot
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  fewer substitutions that were made and they end the teams
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  really were trying to put out the like their very best.
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  And I go back that there are a lot of people ask me about Japan
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  and whether it was the optimal decision for them to sub in Shun
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  for Yuma knowing that Yuma has a higher ceiling.
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  But Shun had better scores this year.
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  Exactly. The fact of the matter is, if
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  you looked numerically at what they've been doing this season,
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  Shun was the best choice given consistency.
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  And he nearly beat Ilya in that free skate.
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  And you know, if it weren't for those spin levels and the and
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  the step sequence that he was just like all kinds of rickety
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  on it, it would have been a heck of a lot more, a lot closer,
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  right, Given how he skated. Yeah, I think that that the
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  substitution in that we like heard the most negative feedback
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  for was was Canada and the fact that they did not put Piper and
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  Paul in for the free dance when they were in striking distance.
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  It's like they stuck by this decision they had made long
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  before the Olympics that they were going to put Lajwa Laga in.
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  And it felt kind of like, OK, so you guys are not prioritizing
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  trying to get a medal here. But that was an interesting
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  choice because Piper and Paul, having not competed a free
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  dance, then skated, I would say, the best free dance of the night
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  in the individual event. Absolutely.
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  And then they got a medal, which was not for sure at all.
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  I mean, that was, you know, it's just kind of an interesting
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  strategic choice, right? Right.
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  I mean, there there were also people who are like Gilles
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  Poirier should have been in the free dance so that they could
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  build more momentum going into the individual event.
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  And turned out they didn't need that.
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  You just never know with figure skating.
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  But but I also, I also, one of the things that came up a lot
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  was the individual country's strategy and when they pick all
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  these things, contrary to popular belief.
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  Right, which is that they don't pick anybody until the very end.
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  It's not that they don't pick anybody until the very end.
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  It's that their entries aren't due until the day before the
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  event starts. And so everybody will conceal
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  their actual entries because they don't want the other
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  countries to know about it. But like, as far as I know, US
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  Figure Skating, Skate Canada, JSF, like they all picked their
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  team like by like by the end of the, the, the, the Olympic
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  selection that they had, which was nationals, the US definitely
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  did it. Japan definitely did it.
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  Canada definitely did it right. And that's why you saw the like
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  the lack of a substitution for Gilles Poirier was that they
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  picked, you know, Laja Laga to be in the team final.
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  If they made it to the team final.
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  And they stuck by it because that was how they were training.
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  And there was no, there was no belief or, or there was no plan
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  to potentially sub them in based on what it was that they were
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  doing. Now.
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  It it didn't matter in the end, right?
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  Canada wouldn't have been in a metal position anyway, even if
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  Piper and Paul won the free dance, given how how it all
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  worked out. But still, like, they were, they
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  very much were. Exactly.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I wonder if going forward,
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  as I think as the team event has gotten more clout and more
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  importance, do you know, do countries actually do more of
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  that prioritization? And in some ways, like, I would
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  actually rather I'd, I'd actually rather the the
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  organizers put the team event a little bit earlier than that a
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  little bit later. I mean, like, you know, we've
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  seen this, we see this in the Summer Olympics with like soccer
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  starts like two or three days before the opening ceremony.
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  Like if, if the team event started a day before the opening
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  ceremony or two days before the opening ceremony and ended and
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  then gave whoever is the first individual event two days to
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  actually rest and and reset and restart.
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  That might actually be a more a more palpable solution to how it
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  works. Well, I mean, contrary to the
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  thought that some of these teams were decided before we they got
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  there, I mean, we heard from Ilia's team that it was very
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  much up in the air who was doing the free skate.
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  And I think I don't, I don't, I haven't heard from Ilia.
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  Maybe I just haven't read his comments, whether or not he
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  really wanted to do it or not. I mean, what we heard from his
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  team is that they didn't really want him to do it, but he did
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  it, you know, in the US one. But it's kind of interesting if
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  he felt like he kind of had to make a choice between doing the
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  utmost to prepare for the individual event and then coming
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  in for the team. I mean if I were.
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  Justin Dillon, I would have never even considered subbing
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  anybody in. Like, look at what happened,
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  right? Yeah, what happened was exactly
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  what we thought would happen. Yeah.
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  It was also very prescient, if you was figure skating, to put
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  Alyssa in the shore program. I was so worried they were going
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  to put Amber because her ceiling is higher with the axle.
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  But I think the stability of Alyssa's, you know, performance,
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  even an offshore program for her was still very competitive, was
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  smart. Yeah.
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  Yeah, absolutely. Team event.
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  I'm sure we're going to have more discussions about this in
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  four years when it happens, hopefully.
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  Yeah, if, if, if the ISU doesn't completely change figure skating
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  in the next 4 years. It was.
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  Kind of, I mean, I didn't have them on my list, but I have to
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  mention like Ellie and Danny's free skate, which like I, you
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  know, I could not believe that Ellie stood up on those throws.
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  I mean, we were at God knows how many practices of hers.
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  She could not stand up on those landings.
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  I mean, she was just wiping, wiping, wiping.
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  And then they go out to do their program and she hits them both.
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  That was very impressive. Yeah.
• 24:45
  I mean, they weren't the best. They were very slow and deep
• 24:47
  landings. But she was not on the ice.
• 24:49
  She was standing up. It was like, I mean.
• 24:52
  Crazy that that's that's as good as we as we generally can hope
• 24:56
  for with Ellie Camp's throws. It's like, you know, they're
• 25:00
  always a little bit like, is she going to get is she going to put
• 25:04
  it on her feet? And she did, yeah.
• 25:07
  No, I, they certainly, I, I talked about this in the recaps.
• 25:11
  I definitely would call them the MVPS of the whole thing for the,
• 25:14
  for Team USA. If they hadn't skated like that
• 25:19
  in, in those two programs, the US would have lost.
• 25:22
  Like, I know it's like a whole team thing, but like they skated
• 25:26
  beyond their expectations, right?
• 25:30
  Whereas everybody else sort of skated at, at expectations and
• 25:34
  they needed to step it up. Somebody needed to step it up
• 25:38
  because of all the things that happened.
• 25:41
  Yeah. I mean, especially like Amber
• 25:43
  being third in the free skate, I mean, I think she was someone
• 25:46
  who went a little below expectations.
• 25:48
  And it was like if they hadn't done what they done, that would
• 25:51
  have been it. That would have been it.
• 25:53
  Yeah, right. That's crazy.
• 25:55
  Well. And it what it also required.
• 25:58
  That's the thing, right? Like in most situations, Amber's
• 26:02
  137 or whatever would have been perfectly fine for second place,
• 26:07
  but Gubadava skated so well that she skated like a personal best.
• 26:13
  And like those are the those are the scenarios at an Olympics
• 26:16
  that you really have to, you have to to be prepared for and
• 26:24
  like little. Olympic moments in the team
• 26:26
  event that I feel like are just so a result of the team support
• 26:31
  and enthusiasm for each other. And that's kind of what makes
• 26:33
  it, like, exciting right at the beginning because it really gets
• 26:35
  us into the Olympics, yeah. Laranaki Goodman's short program
• 26:41
  was electric. Like finally, finally, she goes
• 26:46
  over 70 points and it was, it was so good.
• 26:50
  It really was. It really was Maddie.
• 26:52
  Skeezus should have been on my list to her team short program
• 26:55
  was incredible. First of all, the wrong music
• 26:57
  being played and her very, you know, immediately going and
• 27:00
  correcting them and then like her like kind of mean mugging
• 27:03
  the music table as she's setting up her first jump and then
• 27:07
  skating so well, so well, getting out the ice and scored.
• 27:11
  Team event. Yeah, and then her reaction
• 27:14
  score, low balled score. Oh my God, that whole thing, it
• 27:16
  was like, it was incredible television.
• 27:18
  It was great. It was great.
• 27:22
  Yeah, and our our little our little podcast fav Gia Shin just
• 27:26
  being amazing in that short program and creating some drama
• 27:30
  with her like 4th place finish. Yeah, yeah.
• 27:35
  I mean, I I enjoyed the team event being first very much, but
• 27:38
  I appreciate also the skaters perspective that it's like, oh,
• 27:41
  I wish we didn't have to do this right away.
• 27:45
  Yeah, agreed. I, I, I as a viewer, I loved
• 27:50
  that we start, we start up with a bang.
• 27:52
  Like it really was a a an electric start to what would be
• 28:01
  a whirlwind of an Olympics in figure skating, as it always is.
• 28:07
  And let's start with the dance. Oh.
• 28:10
  My God. You know what?
• 28:12
  I'm going to start with the rhythm.
• 28:13
  I'm going to start with the rhythm dance.
• 28:15
  Let's start with the rhythm dance because I feel this feels
• 28:20
  Deja vu from 8 years ago. Where I was so like, Oh my God,
• 28:27
  all these despacito's and all this like like it's, it's all
• 28:33
  the same Latin music that we're hearing over and over again 17.
• 28:37
  Ricky Martin programs this time. Yeah, I know.
• 28:40
  No, there were three, which was hilarious.
• 28:43
  That's it. I know that was it and and I got
• 28:48
  to these Olympics and I thoroughly enjoyed the music
• 28:53
  selections in the rhythm dance. Yeah, yeah.
• 28:56
  And I also appreciated the in house DJ playing all the music.
• 29:00
  We weren't getting in between. We heard a lot of Ace of Base.
• 29:03
  We heard a lot of Believe by Cher.
• 29:07
  Yeah, yeah. The one of my highlights from
• 29:12
  all of the entire thing was still the back-to-back to back
• 29:18
  of Zynchus Kolesnik doing their Bell Biv DeVoe and then Reed and
• 29:26
  Amber Levicheus doing I'm too sexy and then Piper and Paul
• 29:32
  doing supermodel like yeah, the the catwalk.
• 29:36
  Yeah, it like those 3 going back-to-back to back and I think
• 29:42
  they did definitely Zingis, Kolesnik and Reed ever Levicheus
• 29:46
  did go back and back back-to-back was so electric it
• 29:51
  they were they were all so good. And it was Piper and Paul did
• 29:56
  that supermodel program the best that I've I've seen them do it.
• 30:01
  And it was. So much better than the team
• 30:03
  event. It was so good.
• 30:04
  I mean, that was by far the best of the season.
• 30:06
  It was great. I honestly thought they were a
• 30:10
  little bit underscored. I didn't really understand why
• 30:13
  they were getting an 86. I thought it should be a little
• 30:15
  bit higher. A lot of the scoring at this
• 30:19
  Olympics was interesting, but yeah, that was the best for them
• 30:22
  from them by far. I mean that.
• 30:24
  That that program finally figured figured itself out and
• 30:29
  and it a lot of it was Piper. Piper really carried that
• 30:34
  program because she she she gave it face, she gave it the
• 30:40
  attitude and and it was it was it was fantastic, really
• 30:45
  fantastic to see. I.
• 30:47
  Love a lot. Of really good states response.
• 30:49
  Online to it as well, yeah yeah, like a blonde girl in a gay can
• 30:54
  accomplish anything together. And then of course, the number
• 31:01
  of people who still had to justify that Paul Poirier
• 31:06
  engaged to a man is not straight.
• 31:09
  Yes. Women were so thirsty for him.
• 31:11
  I loved it. Wait, didn't someone tweet like
• 31:14
  they they saw someone in front of them in the stands Googling
• 31:17
  Paul Poirier Girlfriend, no. I had coffee, We have a wife.
• 31:25
  I had coffee with Paul afterwards and he was a little
• 31:28
  flabbergasted about the whole thing too.
• 31:31
  But yeah, I, I thought that was great.
• 31:34
  And then there was, there was actually, besides the three
• 31:38
  Ricky Martins, there was a lot of variety going on in in that.
• 31:43
  I wish there were more variety, but you know, like that, that
• 31:50
  theme was made for people of our generation because we were 90s
• 31:56
  teenagers. And I appreciated it.
• 32:03
  But you know, we're going to go back to a waltz next year.
• 32:07
  Hopefully that's, that's what's going to happen.
• 32:09
  Thank God. That we're going to see some
• 32:12
  raggedy golden waltz as though these teams are out of practice.
• 32:16
  That dance is hard. You know, it's funny.
• 32:19
  I like grew up watching dance, watching the golden Waltz, like,
• 32:22
  and everybody's competed it over the years.
• 32:25
  But then you go and watch Klima von Panmarenko do it and you're
• 32:28
  like, none of these people know how to do this dance.
• 32:30
  You know, it's like, it's freaking hard.
• 32:33
  It's compulsory. Dances are so like those, those
• 32:37
  really difficult. Compulsory dances are so tricky.
• 32:40
  Yeah, so tricky to do. The Golden Walls has so much
• 32:44
  weird stuff in it too. There's like a shoot the duck in
• 32:46
  there and there's just like all kinds of stuff.
• 32:48
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, we'll see what
• 32:54
  happens next. Year, yeah.
• 32:57
  I think of all the performances that Fornia Beaudry and Cesarone
• 33:01
  had at the Olympics, their individual rhythm dance was
• 33:04
  probably the best one. They were.
• 33:07
  I had not seen them skate live before this Olympics, and it was
• 33:11
  really interesting watching them practice because they are so
• 33:15
  unbelievably aggressive in practice to the point where I
• 33:17
  felt like they were, Dion was almost being reckless.
• 33:20
  I mean, they were so throwing down every single practice.
• 33:25
  It was. It was unbelievable to watch
• 33:27
  them, how good they were, how aggressive they were.
• 33:29
  And then I felt each time they competed, they really held back
• 33:33
  from what we've seen in practice.
• 33:35
  Yeah. And I thought the individual
• 33:37
  rhythm dance was probably the closest we got to what we saw in
• 33:40
  practice. But still was not like at that
• 33:42
  level. It was still.
• 33:44
  Like 80% I thought like the the team event version of that
• 33:48
  rhythm dance was like 60%. Like they were so tight.
• 33:53
  Yom especially was very tight and and you saw it in the
• 33:58
  twizzles, you saw it in the lifts, you saw it in just like
• 34:02
  their, their power, like you said, they, they, they are so
• 34:05
  assertive in practice and you don't see that kind of
• 34:10
  assertiveness in the actual event and it really does.
• 34:16
  Yeah. We didn't see it in Milan.
• 34:18
  I haven't seen them in person elsewhere, but that was very
• 34:23
  like pronounced to me. Yeah.
• 34:27
  So yeah. Another wonderful result of the
• 34:34
  rhythm dance is our faves from Sweden with their Ricky Martin
• 34:38
  program made it into the free dance.
• 34:40
  I wasn't quite sure they were going to, but some other teams
• 34:43
  unfortunately helped them out and they got in and I loved how
• 34:47
  they, Mila Ruud Raytan and Nikolai Meyerhof, I'll say their
• 34:51
  names, they like kissed at the end of their program.
• 34:53
  And then it was like on the front page of a Swedish
• 34:55
  newspaper the next day. It was adorable.
• 34:59
  The the entire arena went out of their minds when they kissed at
• 35:04
  the end of the rhythm dance. I'm like.
• 35:07
  Yeah, like. This is the first time you've
• 35:09
  seen people kiss like, but I guess it's, it was early on,
• 35:13
  right? Yeah, and I feel like with like,
• 35:15
  I don't know, I want to say like normies, people that don't watch
• 35:18
  skating all the time, like the idea of like a couple that
• 35:21
  skates together actually being in a relationship, they find
• 35:23
  that like really sweet. I I don't like my friends.
• 35:27
  It's like when they when I make them watch dance, they're like,
• 35:29
  are they dating? Are they married?
• 35:30
  Like, it's like special to them. And I had the opportunity to
• 35:34
  finally meet Mila, and Nikolai had never interviewed them
• 35:38
  before as a dance team and talk about, like, their partnership
• 35:41
  and how they came together. And it's really, I mean, they're
• 35:44
  skating to Romeo and Juliet and it's like their tryout was even
• 35:48
  star crossed like just from their first steps on the ice
• 35:51
  together. They describe this like instant
• 35:53
  chemistry and connection They had like just just like their
• 35:57
  personalities and their skating skills.
• 35:59
  It was really, it was really cool.
• 36:00
  And I could understand after talking to them why they've made
• 36:03
  so much progress in such a short amount of time together.
• 36:07
  I I mean, I'm an even bigger fan.
• 36:09
  I was before weren't. She weren't she also saying
• 36:12
  Tracy Wilson was like a really big fan of theirs?
• 36:15
  Yes, it was delightful having Tracy at these Olympics.
• 36:20
  I hadn't worked with her on commentary since, like, Sochi.
• 36:24
  And to have her at practice and, like, watch all these teams
• 36:27
  practice with her and listen to her reaction to them was just
• 36:30
  like, I was so lucky. I was so happy.
• 36:33
  I was just. It was great.
• 36:35
  But yeah, she loved them and thought that they were just so
• 36:38
  talented. And yeah, I was cool getting to
• 36:42
  experience all of that with her and through her lens.
• 36:45
  Yeah. I was sitting next to Nathan
• 36:49
  Chen a few times during during the event and and yeah, we got.
• 36:54
  You on our show, you got. You got the side of my laptop on
• 36:59
  your on the show. Yeah, we got.
• 37:00
  Your elbow on your laptop. But I was like, he's next to
• 37:03
  Jackie, 00. You got my elbow.
• 37:04
  Oh my God, you got pretty sure we.
• 37:06
  Got your elbow. Yeah.
• 37:07
  Yeah, Famous album, but. No, but Nathan, Nathan was like,
• 37:14
  I, I don't think he's ever watched so much dance in his
• 37:16
  life. He he watched the entirety of
• 37:19
  the rhythm dance and the free dance.
• 37:22
  And when when Nikolai and Mila came out and skated, he was
• 37:28
  like, didn't I compete against him?
• 37:31
  Like, yes, you did. And, and he said, he said, wow,
• 37:38
  he is a really good dancer. Like I, you know, he's like, I
• 37:42
  don't, I don't know that much about ice dance, but like he, he
• 37:46
  obviously worked with Shaylin Bourne, who is an ice dancer and
• 37:50
  like understands all of like the like how she moves and stuff.
• 37:54
  And he looked at Nikolai and was like, this this kids.
• 37:58
  Good. Yeah.
• 38:00
  So. So that was that was something.
• 38:03
  And then I told him about Alexander Maiorov.
• 38:05
  He was like, yeah, oh, they're brothers.
• 38:09
  Well, it's funny because Adam was up.
• 38:11
  Adam Rapan was up in our booth watching, and he was like, he
• 38:14
  looks amazing. Like about Nikolai.
• 38:16
  He looks like he's 18 years old. He looks so young.
• 38:19
  And then we realized, like, later on, he was thinking of
• 38:22
  Alexander Maiorov. Like, he thought that I was
• 38:24
  like, no, no, there's another one.
• 38:25
  Yeah, yeah. Very different people, but very
• 38:28
  similar people. OK, we got to talk about the
• 38:32
  results of the the act, the free dance and I I'm curious to hear
• 38:39
  your thoughts on it. I my take on it was Chalk and
• 38:45
  Bates skated incredibly well, like almost as well as they
• 38:49
  could have skated, whereas Fournier Beaudry C Cerrone had
• 38:55
  three visible mistakes, two of which I saw.
• 38:58
  The third one I didn't see until I looked at the replay because I
• 39:01
  was like literally right on top of them as they were doing their
• 39:05
  twizzles and their Serpentine steps.
• 39:07
  So I couldn't see it. And also I thought Piper and
• 39:12
  Paul should have won the freelance.
• 39:15
  So, so those were my three thoughts from from the event.
• 39:21
  And I and, and I thought overall Chalk and Bates deserved the win
• 39:26
  over Forney Bodisi Cerrone, if only by the the point margin
• 39:32
  that they were beaten by because of the mistakes and because of
• 39:37
  the the the tentativeness of the whole thing.
• 39:41
  Yeah. But.
• 39:42
  I would love your thoughts on it.
• 39:44
  Yeah, I rewatched the top three free dances today on on YouTube
• 39:48
  on like the Olympic channel, because in the moment when I was
• 39:51
  working on it, I really watched Piper and Paul closely and I was
• 39:54
  so engaged in their program and then the entire like next two
• 39:57
  skates I was watching. But I was also like keeping
• 40:00
  track of scores, comparing scores, crunching numbers.
• 40:03
  So I wasn't like fully just immersed in watching.
• 40:05
  I agree. Piper and Paul were just they
• 40:07
  were so good. They had the most the freedom
• 40:10
  and the emotion in their skate and just.
• 40:13
  You know, like just living in that performance.
• 40:16
  I don't really understand why they scored so far behind chalk
• 40:21
  baits. I mean, I would have had them
• 40:23
  closer to where the French were. They were just they were they
• 40:28
  were great. It was the best they they skated
• 40:31
  in a long time and it was just beautiful.
• 40:36
  Hey, you know, I do. I do feel that, Oh my gosh, it's
• 40:41
  like hard to say this. I, I do think it was right that
• 40:43
  the French won overall. I will say I do think it was
• 40:47
  judged on practice a little bit. Like I mentioned, the practice
• 40:49
  was so out of this world. I really feel like the judges
• 40:52
  came to that free dance expecting to give them a 138, A
• 40:56
  139, then saw the mistakes and then brought their scores down
• 41:00
  on those elements that had the mistakes and everything else
• 41:03
  just flew. You know, I think that their ice
• 41:06
  coverage, their power, their skating, if you really look at
• 41:09
  the like 1 foot turns and the way they move through that, I
• 41:11
  can really understand why they were kind of just held and
• 41:14
  judged on a different echelon than the other two teams.
• 41:18
  And the, the scores did account for the mistakes.
• 41:20
  Like if you looked at those elements, they were accounted
• 41:22
  for. It's hard for me to decipher
• 41:25
  like what I think should happen versus like what I knew was
• 41:28
  going to happen and then saw happen.
• 41:30
  Like I, I was very like, I think clear with like NBC and like in
• 41:34
  our production meeting before the free dance and like the
• 41:36
  French need a major error, like a major error on an element.
• 41:40
  A bunch of little mistakes aren't going to be enough.
• 41:42
  And I feel like I came to that conclusion just by looking at
• 41:45
  season's best scores and the way teams were scoring.
• 41:48
  Like if you looked at Yeoman Lawrence's season best scores on
• 41:52
  their free dance elements, the first like 3 or 4 of them they
• 41:54
  got at the Grand Prix Final. And it's like they were on track
• 41:57
  to get that like 138 plus score at the final till they had the
• 42:01
  mistake. You know, it's so I just I and
• 42:04
  then when you looked at like the way the scores were coming in in
• 42:06
  the rhythm dance, Maddie and Evan got like season's best
• 42:09
  scorers on like their first three rhythm dance elements in
• 42:11
  the team event. And then in the individual
• 42:13
  event, they were like half a point off each one of those
• 42:15
  elements as they came in. And I feel like that just showed
• 42:18
  like what the judges mindset was.
• 42:19
  So it's like I could tell the panel was planning to put them
• 42:22
  second. Whether I thought they deserved
• 42:24
  to be second is like hard for me to hard.
• 42:26
  For me to. Say I, I, Yeah, but I just, I, I
• 42:33
  think the French needed to have, I saw the mistakes and I do
• 42:35
  think the mistakes were accounted for.
• 42:36
  I think they needed to make bigger mistakes to lose.
• 42:40
  It's hard too, 'cause I, I feel like Maddie and Evan were very
• 42:44
  clean. They really did everything they
• 42:45
  could do. I just feel like their ice
• 42:48
  coverage and their speed and just the power and that like the
• 42:51
  depth of their edges, it just wasn't the same.
• 42:55
  It's hard to, it's hard and it's, it was really hard seeing
• 42:58
  how upset they were afterward. That was like crushing.
• 43:01
  I felt like terrible for them. And I, you know, it, it kind of
• 43:05
  made me question my feeling going through watching the
• 43:10
  programs and like my takes on what was happening.
• 43:13
  And it was like, I don't know. It was emotionally very
• 43:19
  complicated. But yeah, I, I still don't know
• 43:24
  definitively what I, what I feel.
• 43:26
  Yeah. I, I think the, the, the thing
• 43:29
  that I, I have continue to talk about this season especially is
• 43:36
  one of the big reasons that ice dance has evolved.
• 43:41
  The way that has evolved over the past 20 years as the IJS has
• 43:47
  taken a foothold is because all of these things are judged
• 43:54
  element by element. And, and in order for you to get
• 43:59
  big scores, you have to do very well on the elements.
• 44:03
  And that's what teams like Chuck and Bates fear and Gibson, They,
• 44:10
  that's what they, they really thrive on, right, To compensate,
• 44:15
  if you will, for some of the things that they're not as good
• 44:19
  as not as good at, as some of the other teams.
• 44:24
  And, and so that's, that's the thing.
• 44:26
  The whole thing about like Maddie and Evan and Lila and
• 44:29
  Lewis are like very good at, at taking feedback and
• 44:32
  incorporating it into their, their, their, their, their
• 44:35
  programs. That is one of the reasons why
• 44:38
  both of those teams have gone, have had the success that
• 44:41
  they've had. And you know, the the fact is
• 44:47
  that there are things that Chalk and Bates do that are some of
• 44:53
  the best in the world, including the lifts.
• 44:56
  And I think as Lawrence and Guillaume are.
• 45:00
  Yeah, you. Say that, but that is not
• 45:03
  actually what's reflected in the season's best scores.
• 45:06
  That's what I that that's the thing that I that I that I had
• 45:10
  kind of issues with here. Is that the as much as Lawrence
• 45:16
  and Guillaume are superior in things like twizzles when they
• 45:21
  do them well and one foots when they do them well, right?
• 45:26
  Maddie and Evan are superior in the lifts when they do them well
• 45:32
  and the the creativity of those types of elements that I don't
• 45:37
  think that is properly reflected in the scores that we have been
• 45:43
  seeing for those individual elements relative to all of the
• 45:48
  other teams. That's one of the things that
• 45:50
  like, you know, even if you, you give them lower component scores
• 45:59
  on their skating skills, for example, and I and I agree with
• 46:05
  you that their skating skills are probably scored a bit too
• 46:08
  high relative to everybody else. They should be compensating for
• 46:13
  it by the, the creativity and the difficulty of these very big
• 46:19
  elements, right? The lifts, the, the, the, the
• 46:22
  choreo sequences and all of those things that they, they do
• 46:25
  work a lot on. And they, it shows when, when
• 46:30
  they do it in, in, in their programs that, that they don't
• 46:36
  maybe properly get credit for. So I, I don't know.
• 46:38
  It's, it's, it's a little bit of, of what do you do with that?
• 46:43
  Right? Because on one hand you're, you,
• 46:46
  we know that they're what some of their scores are over what
• 46:50
  they should be. And then some of their scores
• 46:52
  are lower than what they should be.
• 46:53
  And it's like, what do you do with that?
• 46:56
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, the thing the one thing
• 47:01
  that like really makes a big difference in the points is the
• 47:04
  combo curve lift. Both teams have a combo curve
• 47:07
  lift in their free dance curve lift, curve lift combo.
• 47:09
  So it's like an S shape and Guillaume and Lawrence's season
• 47:14
  best score on that is like almost a full point higher than
• 47:17
  Maddie and Evan. And that's like a question mark.
• 47:20
  You know, you look at them and it's like, do you, you know, do
• 47:22
  you agree with that? Look at it and like compare
• 47:24
  those and then when you look at what they actually scored in
• 47:28
  Milan, the French duplicated their season best score, 15.7.
• 47:31
  Maddie and Evan improved theirs, but they're still at a four to
• 47:34
  15.29. So it's like, that's a gap that
• 47:38
  is like a point gap. And it's like, you know, where's
• 47:42
  that coming from? Well, like you talk about ice
• 47:45
  coverage, right? That's where Chalk and Bates
• 47:48
  have a lot of ice coverage that curve to curve, combo lift in
• 47:52
  their rhythm, in their free dance goes all the way around
• 47:56
  the rink. Whereas Lawrence and Guillaume's
• 48:00
  is very in the center and it's very difficult because he is on
• 48:05
  hydro blade and he switches curves.
• 48:07
  But it is also a much smaller lift than chocolate Bates lift
• 48:13
  is. So again, like is everything
• 48:16
  relatively scored in the right way?
• 48:19
  I I just don't really know. And I think that's part of the
• 48:22
  the part of it been part of my frustration with the scoring is
• 48:25
  that it's like, OK, well, this team goes up and they get a 5,
• 48:30
  you know, or, or this team goes up and they get a 2 and, and
• 48:34
  it's sort of like. They get a A5 just for doing it
• 48:37
  right. Exactly like what do you, what
• 48:38
  do you do with that? But it's also the reason why
• 48:41
  like teams like Olivia and Tim and, and you know, now Singhis
• 48:46
  and Kolesnik, right? Like they're getting some of the
• 48:49
  bigger scores in the free dance because they do have, they are
• 48:54
  being rewarded for some of the like was Ingas and Kalesnik the
• 48:58
  assertiveness of their, of their movement and, and how they do
• 49:02
  their stuff with Olivia and Tim. Some of these things are just
• 49:05
  like, how are you actually even creating these elements?
• 49:09
  They're just so unique. Oh my God.
• 49:11
  Olivia and Tim's choreo lift at the end of their free dance is
• 49:14
  like, every time I see it, I'm like, how are you doing that?
• 49:17
  How does it work? Yeah, like a couple on Instagram
• 49:20
  trying to replicate it. And then a woman couldn't even
• 49:22
  get her head in the position, like she was going to break her
• 49:24
  neck. And Olivia commented on it and
• 49:26
  said please be careful. But even if I could get in that
• 49:30
  position, I would just be hanging there behind him, just
• 49:33
  hanging. I couldn't pull myself up.
• 49:35
  It's unbelievable. It's.
• 49:38
  It is the IT is what the free dance, especially at the Ijs is
• 49:45
  trying to reward. It's it's trying to not have
• 49:47
  these cookie cutter programs that all look more or less the
• 49:52
  same. And you know, you see, like the
• 49:57
  Tashlors doing a 1 foot that is very different and and unique in
• 50:03
  their movement and they don't get credit for it or you know,
• 50:07
  it, it just it, it makes me just kind of like, why are we doing
• 50:12
  this if we are not using some of these elements and the way that
• 50:17
  these are scored to what the how they're supposed to be used.
• 50:21
  Like, yeah, sure. Give Maddie and Evan a + 2 on
• 50:25
  their twizzles because that's what they probably deserve Twos
• 50:28
  and threes on on their twizzles. Give Laurence and Guillaume 4
• 50:32
  and fours and fives if they're doing their twizzles correctly
• 50:36
  like you should, but you should then also do the same thing for
• 50:40
  like some of these other elements that are that are very
• 50:43
  different. Yeah.
• 50:46
  So it's a it's a conversation I think we are going to continue
• 50:50
  to have. And I do wonder how how it's
• 50:55
  going to change over the next four years as they are re re
• 51:00
  again resetting what ice dance is going to look like.
• 51:06
  Shall we move on to the men? Oh, I don't have a bottle of
• 51:11
  wine today, so wait, let. Me see if there's anyone else I
• 51:14
  wanted to talk about and dance. Let me just check my list.
• 51:17
  I think we got everybody. I think we got everybody.
• 51:19
  Hearing La Bouche in the Olympic arena was incredible and I wore
• 51:24
  a La Bouche shirt. Yes, people may have seen on
• 51:26
  your Twitter and I talked about La Bouche so much.
• 51:30
  When Christina and Anthony took the ice, Tracy Wilson was like,
• 51:34
  and they're skating too, La Bouche.
• 51:36
  I was like, yes, yes, I did it. I still I this is a total aside,
• 51:43
  but I still can't get over the fact that there was one year
• 51:46
  when Amelie Lacoste. Is that her name?
• 51:50
  Yeah. No.
• 51:53
  Was it Amelie Lacoste? No.
• 51:55
  Somebody, somebody was getting to.
• 51:56
  Actually, it wasn't Amelie Lacoste because they was getting
• 51:58
  to Amelie. Somebody was getting to Amelie.
• 52:01
  No. Yeah, Somebody was getting to
• 52:02
  something. No, it wasn't Amelie Lacoste.
• 52:04
  She was skating to chocolate. And.
• 52:08
  And Tracy Wilson said, and here is skater's name skating to
• 52:14
  chocolate. And I I cannot, I cannot get
• 52:18
  that out of my head. Tracy Wilson, I love you.
• 52:20
  But. But also, she's not skating to
• 52:24
  chocolate. She's skating to chocolate.
• 52:25
  OK. Oh yeah, Yeah.
• 52:27
  Yeah, OK. Yeah.
• 52:32
  Oh, fear and Gibson and their mistake.
• 52:37
  Oh, that was, you know, what's crazy is that they were cooking
• 52:39
  that. Lila was cooking that for two
• 52:41
  weeks every day in practice, that Ford outside twizzle in the
• 52:44
  free dance. It was getting worse and worse
• 52:47
  and she just could not shake. It was in her head, demon.
• 52:50
  It was so in her head. It was so in her head, to the
• 52:53
  point. Where then she started getting
• 52:54
  tight on the twizzles in her rhythm dance, which originally
• 52:57
  weren't bothering her. And it was awful because that
• 53:00
  twizzle mistake in the freenance was the worst twizzle she'd done
• 53:04
  all week. She was working so hard on it.
• 53:05
  And it was like, and then, you know, we have cameras on all the
• 53:09
  practice rings and everything. And my friend was like, she's in
• 53:13
  the truck working for us during one of the shows, Cindy.
• 53:15
  And she told me that she could see on the practice rink camera
• 53:18
  that Lila and Lewis were in there after their event was
• 53:20
  over, working on twizzles. And Lila was drilling those
• 53:23
  twizzles and, like, Lewis was giving her feedback.
• 53:25
  It's like, you know, they work so hard.
• 53:27
  And it was like to watch that one element just completely
• 53:32
  unglue them like that was really tragic.
• 53:38
  Yeah, the yeah, I, I hope they can recover at Worlds.
• 53:46
  You know, they they were also the ones in the practice rank
• 53:49
  after the event was over too, like over and over again, just
• 53:53
  like working on their skating skills, working on everything.
• 53:55
  So yeah. I am pretty annoyed with the way
• 53:59
  that Lopravanbriso were scored at this event.
• 54:02
  I felt that they were hosed in both programs.
• 54:05
  I was very frustrated with the numbers they get.
• 54:07
  I feel like it's kind of political too, because they're
• 54:10
  the number 2 French team. But I would hope that in the
• 54:12
  next cycle they get more respect.
• 54:17
  And yeah, continue I did. Remember innovative.
• 54:21
  Material. Yeah, I did remember that their
• 54:23
  free dance was a little messier than I've seen them.
• 54:26
  Yeah, but there was some other messy free dances and, you know,
• 54:32
  I agreed. I agreed their rhythm.
• 54:34
  Dance was great. Yeah, anyway, OK, men, Men.
• 54:44
  Whose idea was it to have the men's free skate on Friday the
• 54:46
  13th? Like, clearly was someone like,
• 54:49
  was this a joke? Like, how many layers of
• 54:52
  approval did this go through? And no one was like, that's a
• 54:54
  bad idea. That's a really bad idea That
• 54:59
  never happened, you know? Yeah, it was a little, a little
• 55:05
  much. Yu Shang.
• 55:08
  Li of Taipei, iconic qualification for the free
• 55:13
  skate. Incredible videos with his
• 55:16
  grandmother. Love the pictures of him crying.
• 55:19
  He was so happy. I'm so happy for him.
• 55:24
  Props to Taiwan and to him for just making it here.
• 55:29
  And yeah, skating 2 awesome programs like hotel.
• 55:33
  He did in the free skate was his.
• 55:34
  Best. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:39
  Like you, you and I kept sitting there being like, Oh my God, he
• 55:42
  shouldn't he, he shouldn't even do that triple Axel 'cause it's
• 55:46
  not going to get called. And he, he got a cue on it and
• 55:49
  it was great and he made it into the free skate.
• 55:51
  He wouldn't have made it to the free skate without that Q triple
• 55:54
  Axel. If he had only done a double
• 55:56
  Axel, it would have been very different.
• 55:58
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 56:00
  He skated well, Donovan skated well, like the, the, the first
• 56:04
  two I remember were like, hey, we're off to a good start and
• 56:08
  then. Short program wise, Torgashev
• 56:14
  and Naumov were both amazing. Naumov was incredible, he was so
• 56:20
  low balled. And then Torgashev, like
• 56:23
  Torgashev did 2 very, very strong programs here, which
• 56:27
  like, I didn't know if that was going to happen, and it did.
• 56:31
  He he also, by the way, finished 8th in the short, 9th in the
• 56:35
  free and 12th overall. So Manning was index Manning.
• 56:41
  Oh God, I got to finish that Manning index.
• 56:44
  I've been tweaking it, but but there was just so much
• 56:48
  ridiculous movement. Stephen Gogalev got second in
• 56:54
  the free skates. If he had gotten a higher level
• 56:59
  on one of his spins, I think he would have been on the podium.
• 57:02
  I mean, it was so close with the with 3rd, 4th, 5th.
• 57:08
  It was a point. A point and a quarter, yeah.
• 57:13
  Between. 3rd and 5th, it's just I just I yeah.
• 57:20
  I don't want to rehash the whole thing because you, you and I are
• 57:22
  just going to get nightmares. Yeah, but I do remember the
• 57:27
  short program being so good for the men, Adam.
• 57:34
  Oh my gosh, I have Where? Did that come from and the?
• 57:38
  Thing was he was, he's been skating so well in practice this
• 57:43
  week or that that week, I think this week, that week and and he
• 57:48
  went out and was just so tight in in at that in the opening of
• 57:57
  that freeze gate. But his short program was
• 58:02
  phenomenal. I was.
• 58:04
  Like, I really got it. I could see it when he did it.
• 58:06
  I was like, oh, it's all coming together.
• 58:12
  You know who is low balled? Jun Wancha.
• 58:13
  He was. Oh my.
• 58:14
  God, I was ready to go down there after he got those scores.
• 58:18
  I was ready to go down to the ice level and have some
• 58:20
  conversations like that. Those components he got were
• 58:24
  criminal. Criminal.
• 58:27
  I am pressing charges. He was glorious in that short
• 58:32
  program. He.
• 58:32
  Was he really was? That was one of the best best
• 58:35
  programs in both. Segments, Even when he climbed
• 58:37
  the wall on his quad toe fall in the free skate.
• 58:40
  It was it was it was fashion, you know, it was great.
• 58:44
  He was fantastic. And then we find out.
• 58:47
  And then we find out after all of that was done, that his ankle
• 58:51
  was being drained. Yeah, he has.
• 58:53
  Like necrosis in his ankle or something.
• 58:55
  Oh. My God, he's a poor guy.
• 59:00
  Yeah, I mean, you would never know it from the beauty of his
• 59:03
  performances. I mean, look at what happened.
• 59:07
  He was fourth with a 27392. Had he been properly scored in
• 59:14
  the short program, Jun Wancha would have been an Olympic
• 59:17
  medalist. I am pressing charges.
• 59:23
  Grand Theft? Larceny.
• 59:25
  Yep. Totally was the grand the.
• 59:27
  Nation of Korea. South Korea has been robbed,
• 59:30
  yeah. Yeah, Stephen Gogalev, though.
• 59:35
  Yeah, if there's any, if there's anyone who has had a dream
• 59:40
  Olympics, it was Stephen Gogalev.
• 59:43
  Yeah, getting to do the both segments of the team event and
• 59:46
  then skating that well in the individual event and his short
• 59:49
  program going viral in Brazil. Oh, is that?
• 59:52
  Right. Yeah, so the because he was.
• 59:54
  Robbing a bank? Yeah, I.
• 59:55
  Saw this note. There's like a lot of aspects to
• 59:57
  it like the host broadcaster in Brazil uploaded it to their
• 1:00:01
  TikTok account and it got like mill like 3 + 1,000,000 views.
• 1:00:06
  They liked the the concept, the robbery thing, they liked his
• 1:00:09
  suit. They liked how handsome he is
• 1:00:12
  and they said he looks like this character named Sanji SANJI.
• 1:00:16
  If you look this character up, it is Google up in that program.
• 1:00:19
  He is like a very blonde, chiseled.
• 1:00:23
  Tall guy in a suit who's looking kind of sinister, like he's up
• 1:00:26
  to no good. I mean, it's like crazy.
• 1:00:30
  Yeah. Go to Love was fabulous.
• 1:00:34
  Fabulous. I I he's going to get a medal at
• 1:00:36
  Worlds. This is not our world's preview
• 1:00:39
  yet, but he's coming for it. 4. Clean programs.
• 1:00:43
  Most guys can't even do 2. And he's got more.
• 1:00:48
  He's got more in him because we know he can do a quad loop.
• 1:00:53
  Yeah. Because because he also took one
• 1:00:55
  of my quad loop pins. Yeah, and we know he can do a
• 1:00:59
  quad Lutz. And a triple.
• 1:01:01
  Half loop. Quad Sow.
• 1:01:03
  And a triple axle, half loop, quad sow.
• 1:01:05
  I mean, this, this kid, we knew when he was a junior skater that
• 1:01:12
  he was something special and that he had all these injuries
• 1:01:15
  and now he's finally not injured.
• 1:01:18
  Yeah, he had to spend like 5 years just getting taller and
• 1:01:22
  getting injured and then not not being able to compete.
• 1:01:26
  Yeah. I think these next these next
• 1:01:30
  four years, I'm hoping we're going to see Stephen Gogalev at
• 1:01:33
  his peak because he can really, really be good.
• 1:01:41
  Kirilo Marsoc had an incredible short program that was
• 1:01:47
  incredible. So good.
• 1:01:49
  So much potential. He's got a beautiful quad Lutz
• 1:01:53
  that that we didn't see in. We saw a.
• 1:01:56
  Lot of quad lutzes in practice that did not translate to
• 1:02:00
  Olympic. Yeah, yeah, He had a beautiful,
• 1:02:04
  a number of beautiful quadlitzes in practice.
• 1:02:06
  I I took a video of one of them and sent it to him and he was
• 1:02:09
  like, thank you. Like I'm like, yeah, it's, it's,
• 1:02:14
  it was, it was very, it was very good.
• 1:02:16
  Well, I. Was up in our booth was the NBC
• 1:02:19
  booth was like on the second level was pretty high.
• 1:02:22
  And I could see this guy in practice doing quadlitzes and
• 1:02:24
  they were gorgeous. And I was like, who is that?
• 1:02:27
  And I couldn't see from up above.
• 1:02:29
  I just saw he was like a dark haired guy and very thin.
• 1:02:32
  It's like half of the field. So I had to look in the practice
• 1:02:34
  groups and I realized it was Fadir Kulish who has his quad
• 1:02:40
  Lutz is gorgeous. And he did not unfortunately did
• 1:02:44
  not land it in the short program.
• 1:02:47
  And you know, I also want to say in memoriam, Vladimir lived in
• 1:02:51
  Seth's Joker program, did not see Olympic ice, and that was
• 1:02:55
  heartbreaking. I mean, maybe that's I still.
• 1:03:00
  Don't even know what happened. I.
• 1:03:02
  Know, I still don't even know what happened in that short
• 1:03:04
  program. Like he went and balked on his
• 1:03:08
  yeah, the the entrance to his quad toe and had to go all the
• 1:03:12
  way around and do that quad toe. And I'm surprised he even landed
• 1:03:16
  it. And then he went the the the,
• 1:03:18
  the what was supposed to have been triple flip, triple toe.
• 1:03:21
  It was like triple flip and waited for like 10 seconds and
• 1:03:27
  then did a single toe. I wish which was.
• 1:03:30
  A single toe to cowrie. To Cowrie.
• 1:03:31
  Sakamoto, Yes. Hold your landing and do a
• 1:03:35
  single toe like. Cowrie, did you or did you not
• 1:03:39
  watch Vladimir Ludvinsev in the short program I.
• 1:03:45
  Wonder if it's because he changed his program and it he
• 1:03:47
  went back to his old Game of Thrones program if it threw him
• 1:03:49
  off. I don't know.
• 1:03:53
  And Voltkova was there, she got her visa.
• 1:03:55
  It was like everything's everything should be going well.
• 1:03:58
  And it's not very sad. Yuma broke my.
• 1:04:05
  Heart twice, the way Yuma's short program was scoring, he
• 1:04:12
  was on track to beat Ilya because Ilya I think was really
• 1:04:14
  tight in his short and the way Uma was scoring higher in his
• 1:04:20
  first, like 3 elements that he even did in the team event and
• 1:04:23
  it's like they're going to let him win the short program, he's
• 1:04:25
  going to win the short program and then he steps out of the
• 1:04:27
  quad Sao yeah no. No, the triple Axel.
• 1:04:31
  Triple Axel. Oh, it was a.
• 1:04:32
  Triple Axel was a quad Sao in the Quad Sao.
• 1:04:34
  In the free skate, that was, that was the, that was the thing
• 1:04:37
  that just like unravelled the entire program, the triple Axel.
• 1:04:41
  Was like, yeah, yeah, he had. It he really did, yeah.
• 1:04:48
  Yeah, yeah. This.
• 1:04:51
  This was, I hate to say this, this was Yuma's Toulouse after
• 1:04:57
  all. That it was.
• 1:04:59
  His to lose. And, and he had the luxury of
• 1:05:04
  going before Ilya too. And, and just I'll tell you if
• 1:05:09
  like quad S step out aside, had he just stayed on his feet on
• 1:05:15
  that quad flip because he landed it and he slipped off the edge
• 1:05:21
  on the landing because he was too far back.
• 1:05:23
  Had he just kept that on his feet, I think it would have been
• 1:05:26
  a very different program for him.
• 1:05:29
  But once he fell, I think he just it it, it, it set off alarm
• 1:05:33
  bells in his head and he just, he just really couldn't get it
• 1:05:36
  back. And it was like there, there was
• 1:05:38
  1 little mistake after another and and you could just see he
• 1:05:44
  was he, he just, he just, it wasn't there for him.
• 1:05:50
  I know I was, Oh my God. And Ilya finally going last was
• 1:05:59
  like, I don't know how all that happens.
• 1:06:02
  So I was thinking about Torino and I was thinking about how
• 1:06:06
  everyone before Plushenko was like struggling.
• 1:06:09
  And then I thought about in the women's event, how Nikolai
• 1:06:13
  Morosa was watching these women practice and saw they're not
• 1:06:16
  doing triple triples. And he told Shizuka triple
• 1:06:18
  double in the short and then he sees in the free skate and he's
• 1:06:21
  like, they're not doing triple, just do triple double, just do
• 1:06:23
  triple double. And I'm like, are they telling
• 1:06:25
  Ilia to take some content out because he really didn't need
• 1:06:28
  it? Doesn't seem like they they did
• 1:06:30
  though, or he wasn't willing to. I don't know if they made the
• 1:06:33
  plan before and they weren't going to change it.
• 1:06:35
  But once he missed that quad axle, it was like I thought, oh,
• 1:06:39
  he's going to skate while he's mad, he's going to mad.
• 1:06:41
  He missed that. But.
• 1:06:42
  Well, and then he and then he landed the next one.
• 1:06:44
  Just find the quad. Let's was beautiful.
• 1:06:46
  Yeah, like that should have settled his nerves.
• 1:06:51
  But I I think to your point about the plan, the problem was
• 1:06:57
  they didn't have a because he has so many permutations that he
• 1:07:01
  can do. They didn't have, as far as I
• 1:07:06
  can tell, they didn't have a plan for him to say this is
• 1:07:10
  exactly what you're going to do. Because I think he came down for
• 1:07:14
  that, for that quad loop or triple loop.
• 1:07:17
  And he in his mind, he was like, should I do triple?
• 1:07:20
  Should I do a quad? Should I do a triple?
• 1:07:21
  Should I do a quad? And then he like couldn't make
• 1:07:23
  up his mind and then doubled it. I mean, I feel like you tell him
• 1:07:29
  before it takes the ICE triple axle triple loop and then just
• 1:07:33
  do everything else and just be clean.
• 1:07:36
  But I think they they want they wanted the quad axle on Olympic
• 1:07:39
  ice because he hadn't done it. He.
• 1:07:40
  Wanted the seven quads? Crazy or at?
• 1:07:45
  Least the quad axle. Yeah.
• 1:07:48
  And then Sarah told me she, she thought that Ilya seemed like he
• 1:07:52
  was thinking about where to put the quad axle back in and that
• 1:07:56
  was kind of pulling him off, you know.
• 1:07:58
  And then we saw him in practice doing quad sow half loop quad,
• 1:08:03
  no quad sow step quad axle. Was he thinking about that like
• 1:08:09
  crazy? But.
• 1:08:12
  I mean the the IT like it wasn't even just a mistakes, right?
• 1:08:16
  Like we've seen him, like we've seen him do this kind of melt
• 1:08:20
  melty downy kind of thing in at nationals.
• 1:08:23
  If you remember those two nationals that he won that like
• 1:08:27
  he didn't he didn't really escape that well, but at least
• 1:08:30
  he was rotating stuff. I think that like there was
• 1:08:34
  there was one nationals where he doubled a couple things, but he
• 1:08:36
  was still rotating stuff. But the the singled axle, the
• 1:08:42
  doubled loop, the doubled S, that was a fall without a
• 1:08:45
  combination. And then the Lutz that didn't
• 1:08:48
  have a combination, like all of that, like you Add all that up,
• 1:08:52
  that was 50 to 70 points. Crazy.
• 1:08:55
  Oh, I think I calculated it against his Grand Prix final
• 1:08:58
  scores. He gave up 76 points on the jump
• 1:09:02
  mistakes, which is like and he didn't get the short program.
• 1:09:08
  He didn't. Need 76 points.
• 1:09:09
  He needed thirty. He need, he needed 25 points.
• 1:09:13
  Yeah. Yeah, or. 27 points or whatever
• 1:09:17
  like that was that was the difference between him and and
• 1:09:21
  Misha Scheiderov. Like he didn't need to blow it
• 1:09:24
  out of the water. And I think that was the, that
• 1:09:27
  was the biggest thing was mm hmm, like, yeah, he got 3 quads
• 1:09:32
  done. That's, that's all he really
• 1:09:33
  needed. If he just did triples for the
• 1:09:36
  rest of those he would have been fine.
• 1:09:38
  Yeah, yeah, that's crazy now, Shy Dorov, like, holy cow.
• 1:09:45
  I mean, he looked like he was in shock. 1 skater after another,
• 1:09:51
  going after him, going behind him.
• 1:09:53
  I mean, he like couldn't believe it.
• 1:09:55
  I couldn't believe it. No, but.
• 1:09:57
  You can believe it, I know. I love the shot of when he was
• 1:10:02
  just sort of sitting there, just like not not emoting, like not
• 1:10:07
  making a facial expression. And Hermanov is whispering in
• 1:10:09
  his ear something and it's like he's like, what's he telling
• 1:10:13
  him? Like, you won the Olympics and
• 1:10:15
  shy. I was like, I who like what I
• 1:10:19
  will say, I was really, it warmed my heart to see the
• 1:10:22
  support for Kazakhstan in that arena, both in the short and the
• 1:10:25
  free. The number of people there that
• 1:10:27
  came to support him was awesome. And for him to deliver that way
• 1:10:32
  in front of them is like whether he meddled or not was just
• 1:10:35
  heroic. And yeah, this is an incredible
• 1:10:39
  victory for Kazakhstan and Kazakh skating.
• 1:10:41
  And it's like kind of unbelievable that like he he did
• 1:10:46
  this. It's like crazy.
• 1:10:49
  I was thinking like, what's going to happen?
• 1:10:50
  Is he going to get on the podium and get the bronze?
• 1:10:53
  Like Dennis tended his idol because like he replicated
• 1:10:56
  Dennis's world silver medal silver medal when he was like
• 1:10:59
  exactly the same age to the day or some kind of spooky stat, but
• 1:11:03
  like crazy crazy. Crazy.
• 1:11:09
  And also that it was so appropriate that Alexi Armanov
• 1:11:13
  is his coach. Yeah.
• 1:11:14
  Yeah, yeah, given. What happened in 94 when Alexi
• 1:11:17
  Armanov did a very similar thing where it was like, yeah, people
• 1:11:21
  weren't expecting Alexi Armanov to win the Olympics?
• 1:11:25
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:11:27
  And he went and won the Olympics.
• 1:11:29
  Yeah. You know, they were just all
• 1:11:31
  these other people who you know. This not Brian.
• 1:11:34
  Nope. None of those.
• 1:11:36
  Yeah. Not Victor, I heard.
• 1:11:38
  Armando was asking if he was the first Olympic champion to coach
• 1:11:41
  an Olympic champion, and I was like, Natalia Lunichuk would
• 1:11:44
  like a word. But I do think it's the first
• 1:11:47
  time in men's or maybe in singles, I'm not sure.
• 1:11:51
  Interesting. I'd have to do.
• 1:11:52
  Some historical research to confirm that definitely Brian
• 1:11:55
  Orser. Was close.
• 1:11:57
  Brian Orser was close, yeah. Well, yeah.
• 1:12:00
  Yeah, it's interesting stat. But yeah, Misha was he, he was
• 1:12:07
  the one who went out there, had like no pressure on him.
• 1:12:10
  Was like his fifth after the short.
• 1:12:13
  He's like, I'm going to do whatever I can.
• 1:12:15
  Maybe I'll get on the podium. He gets on the podium, maybe
• 1:12:18
  I'll get a silver, he gets silver.
• 1:12:19
  Maybe I'll maybe something will happen and something happened
• 1:12:23
  and he won the whole thing. Freaking thing.
• 1:12:25
  Like it. It was really a really was
• 1:12:29
  something so good, so good and he was so happy and he still
• 1:12:37
  owes me a pin. Oh, you know, I I'm think that
• 1:12:43
  Salma del Quino made-up for him because I.
• 1:12:45
  Mean you got the pin. Of pins, you got the final boss
• 1:12:49
  pin from her. Sofia Salma del Quinoa ran up to
• 1:12:53
  me on the ice. Like ran up to me.
• 1:12:56
  I was like, I have a pin for you and I'm like, OK, I just like, I
• 1:13:00
  just got into the and you need to go practice, girl.
• 1:13:02
  Like go practice. She pulls out this pin.
• 1:13:06
  It's the size of like the Olympic gold medal.
• 1:13:09
  I mean, this is like a baseball sized pin and it's engraved and
• 1:13:15
  it is beautiful. It's like so nice.
• 1:13:17
  They just gave those away. She's just like, here you go.
• 1:13:20
  No, she had, she had one of those and she gave it to me.
• 1:13:25
  Wow, I. Know, I know it's.
• 1:13:28
  Very nice. Very nice of her.
• 1:13:30
  That's that's that. Wow, I.
• 1:13:33
  Know. Mm hmm.
• 1:13:35
  Fancy. What did you say?
• 1:13:37
  This is a pin. It was, it was, it was a pin.
• 1:13:44
  Well, that was part one of our two-part Olympic recap.
• 1:13:48
  Thanks, as always, to John Wilson Blades for your
• 1:13:51
  sponsorship and to Tara Nichols for helping produce and edit
• 1:13:56
  this episode. This is Jackie Wong, Chief skate
• 1:13:59
  nerd of rockerskating.com, and we will have Part 2 of the recap
• 1:14:05
  soon. Bye.