The Olympic Games 2010 - Kutay Eryoldas reports about Men LP

By Kutay Eryoldas
Photos © Absolute Skating & Ageha

The Absolute Skating readers were recently introduced to Turkish skater Kutay Eryoldas through this interview with Nadin. Kutay now gives us all the opportunity to get to know him even better as he shares his thoughts on the men’s free skate. It was an event not entirely without controversy and Kutay’s view on the performances of the medalists is clear. Get ready for another part of skaters comment on Olympic events.

 

I watched the competition from beginning to end and it was a very exciting Men’s Free.

I must admit I was very surprised by Evgeni Plushenko. While I didn’t enjoy his short program that much, he really put on an Olympic performance with his free skate.

Of course Evan Lysacek showed an almost clean skate, and especially his triple Lutz-triple toeloop combination was amazing.

There were some small errors in both performances though, that were very different in nature. Evan’s landings weren’t always that safe, and he didn’t really hold his landings for long. But as opposed to Plushenko, he showed a three jump combination (triple Flip-double toe-double loop). Technically he was strong, but his skate didn’t feel free, as if he wasn’t there during his performance. I couldn’t see him become one with the music. And when that doesn’t happen, the excitement doesn’t really come across for the audience. Personally speaking, I found it very frustrating that a skater with a technically good performance but average program and most of all an inhibited skate could become Olympic Champion.

Plushenko meanwhile gave everything. I think that he showed amazing choreography and high technical content. Interestingly Evan’s and Plushenko’s PC scores were tied, and Plushenko was beaten on his technical score in such a big competition. Yes, there were small technical flaws in his program, but when it comes to the quad, I share Plushenko’s and many other skaters’ point of view; an Olympic Champion should at least have a quad in his program. Since the quad doesn’t get the points it deserves, more and more skaters choose to play it safe and go for triple-triple combinations instead. Of course the quad alone shouldn’t be a deciding factor to hand anyone an Olympic Gold, but at the same time, skating skills alone shouldn’t either. It should be a combination of both that makes an Olympic Champion and therefore in my opinion the skater that showed both and who should have won this competition, was Plushenko.
The mistakes he made on the triple Axel and the triple Lutz made him miss that first place.

Other than these two, I found Daisuke’s skate fascinating. And had he landed the quad cleanly, I think he would have overtaken Evan. I think he must have been crushed to be 10 points behind Evan with that skate. In terms of overall rankings, third place may be right, but he should definitely have had a higher score.

Stéphane Lambiel meanwhile had a magnificent skate that was so beautiful that it can’t even be measured against anything else; it was on a different level. His presentation was ranked only very slightly lower than Daisuke’s and second of the night. With his fourth place, Stéphane showed that he is a legend in this sport. I know that it may seem like a drop in his career to go from second place in the last Olympics to fourth place in these, but to me this was a major achievement and confirmed what a quality skater he is. In my view, these Olympics belong to the skaters in 2nd, 3rd and 4th place as what they did was spectacular; they returned to the sport after having retired for various reasons and achieved good results, to me that’s historic.

The biggest blow in this competition came for Joubert. I was convinced that he would be able to put the short program behind him and show us what he can do. Unfortunately it didn’t work out for him in the free skate either. Another disappointment was Jeremy Abbott.

 

One thing that I found really exciting about these Olympics was all the new talent that we witnessed. We saw so many young skaters who have the potential to become very successful, I’m especially thinking of Denis Ten, Florent Amodio and Xavier Fernandez. They showed fantastic performances and are names that will be talked about.

On a final note, it may be that these Olympics did not give us the results that we expected but they illustrated the greatness of some of the more experienced sportsmen as well as the excitement that comes with the younger generation. And for these reasons, I really enjoyed this competition.

Kutay EryoldaĹź

Medal ceremony men: Joke or Statement by Plushenko?Medal ceremony men: Joke or Statement by Plushenko?

Medal ceremony men: Joke or Statement by Plushenko?

Medal ceremony men: Joke or Statement by Plushenko?

 

 


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