Back to Cali (In Review): Paring Down the Pairs

When it came to the Pairs discipline at Worlds, here’s how my predictions fared:

I predicted Savchenko/Szolkowy for gold… they won gold!!!
I predicted Pang/Tong for silver… they finished 4th
I predicted Zhang/Zhang for bronze… they won silver

2 out of 3 for the podium; 1 correct placement.

So let’s not talk so much about the Germans; they were pretty solid winners. And let’s not talk at all about the Americans; despite an impressive debut from one and a disappointing turnout from the other, they are simply not contenders for much of anything at this point. Let’s talk instead about #2, #3, and #4.

(Admittedly I could also talk in here about #5 (Mukhortova/Trankov) and #6 (Volosohzar/Morozov), as less than 10 points separated all these different teams… but I’m trying to keep it a little simpler than that for now.)

I watched the LPs of #2, 3 and 4 again. Since none of them had the skate-of-their-lives, nor did any of them have a splatfest (the wicked fall on the Russians’ throw quad salchow notwithstanding), I was curious what made the difference…especially since second place was a virtual tie (with only .13 separating them!).

So, I went ahead and studied the protocols (“judges details”) for all three free skates. Here’s the breakdown as best I can determine:

Side-by-side jumps: Kawaguchi/Smirnov had the best score of the three; Zhang/Zhang were 1.5 points behind, and Pang/Tong were more than 3 additional points behind. Of all the scores, Pang/Tong’s SBS score is the biggest head-scratcher. They only earned .88 points for their SBS triple toes—yet the only thing I saw wrong with them was that they were a little out of sync. Did I miss something…?

Throw jumps: Pang/Tong did best here, with Zhang/Zhang a few tenths behind them and Kawa/Smir over a point behind both. Not that it’s that surprising, but both Chinese teams scored better with their throws than even Savchenko/Szolkowy.

Lifts: Kawa/Smir rose above both Chinese teams; but Zhang/Zhang was less than two-tenths behind. Pang/Tong lagged more than half a point behind their Chinese counterparts.

Spins: Kawa/Smir had the edge with these, but considering spins have long seemed to be the only notable technical weakness of either Chinese team, the scores were surprisingly close—Pang/Tong lagged only two-tenths behind, and Zhang/Zhang only three-tenths behind. (It’s probably worth noting too that all three teams had Level 3 spins, while the German team managed Level 4s.)

Footwork: Pang/Tong led another very tight race, with Kawa/Smir only one-tenth behind and Zhang/Zhang only three-tenths off. Gotta wonder if P/T benefited here from having their sequence relatively early in the routine. But did they break even by saving two of their three lifts for the end (where they came in third of the three as you recall)?

So, to summarize: of five different types of elements, Kawaguchi/Smirnov were tops in three of the categories… and took bronze. Pang/Tong topped two of them… and finished 4th. Zhang/Zhang won none of them… but won silver.

Um… what?

Maybe they did the best in the component scores…no, they actually scored lower in this than both the other two teams.

Maybe they had a higher SP score… well, yes for Pang/Tong, but no for Kawa/Smir—they were about 1.5 points behind them headed into the finals.

Well, well—wasn’t THIS helpful??

And won’t it be fun trying to explain a battle like this, should a similar situation crop up in Vancouver next year???

Maybe Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett can stay consistent through next year, gain some international experience, force some judicial love, and really throw a monkey wrench into things next year. Here’s their Worlds FS as the Clip of the Day … just forget about the scores and, especially if you're rooting for the Americans-- dream a little!