Nathan Chen meltdown - Oly team event

[Bill_S]

I was disheartened to see Nathan Chen do so poorly in his short for the team event. It looked to be a classic case of nerves.

I wonder how much the hype before the games in ad spots, Olympic promotions, interviews, etc. can feed into that? Seems to me that if you see yourself held up as "the man to beat", these expectations can increase fear of failure. After all, the guy's only 18.

I know from my own skating tests that the jitters are something real to overcome, and they can affect performance mightily. For Nathan, the pressure is a magnitude greater than my moves tests done in a mostly empty rink. It really doesn't surprise me that his meltdown happened.

[FigureSpins]

There used to be a running joke that the Russian skaters were soooo good in the 1970's because their training ice was soooo bad.  When they hit well-groomed ice, they were monsters!  Can't wait to see what happens during the Mens Short next week.

I think the ice during the Team Mens event was soft and slow - it seemed to throw off all the Mens skaters.  Watching the warmups, I felt they were all skating sort of slow compared to what I've seen in person at US Nationals.  The diva squad felt it was the morning performance time making them seem sluggish, but it looked to me that the landings were all "sticky."  It was as if the toepick was going into the ice so deeply that they couldn't pull onto the BO landing edge.

In my mind, if the event I've spent half my life working towards is coming later in the Olympics, I'm not going all out for the Team event taking place before Opening Ceremonies.  Too much risk of getting hurt or burning out before the "real" event.  Just mho.

I think the Team event would be better if we were seeing different skaters than we're going to see later in the individual events but that would require a rule change because no country's going to send anyone but their best skaters to either event. 

[Bill_S]

And on the other hand, the team event is a place to get the bugs worked out, and to get used to performing in an Olympic public venue.

If I were competing, I'd prefer it as a kind of practice "warm-up" (with spectators) for the individual events.

I'm putting bets on Nathan getting it together for what counts. I wonder if I'll match my lottery picks here? 

[icedancer]

Hopefully you guys are both right! 

Shoma Uno skated so well though although I thought I noticed a few "stuck" landings!

Looking for cleaner skates by all in the Individual Events - I am not sure I really like this Team Event concept as I would guess that the average viewer is confused by it (even my husband didn't really understand how this event was not linked to the Individual events) and will be tired of figure skating by the time the "BIG EVENTS" are televised!

[lutefisk]

The team event helps shake the sillies out of the competitors.  Speaking of which, I enjoyed watching the first skater, a South Korean.  He had a clean skate in front of the home crowd which must put extra pressure on him.  I tend to root for the host country's skaters for that reason.  Actually, I wish the Olympics would do away with the flags and National anthems and concentrate on the athletes.  Isn't the idea of the Olympics to bring people together for the sake of sport rather than foster tribalism and an "us against them" mentality with national medal counts, "bragging rights" and so on? 

[Bill_S]

I enjoyed watching him too. The South Korean crowd was certainly behind him all the way.

I also wonder about a flag-free Olympics. The influences of money and politics find a way to insert themselves into the best of events and intentions.

[lutefisk]

Sometimes I think we all, myself included, get a little too emotionally invested in "our" teams rather than just enjoying the execution of sport well done.  Maybe in another thousand years or so we'll evolve to that point.